Does data centre co-location still make sense for a SMB, or is it time to just go directly for the cloud?
In many ways, both are providing the same service. We have co-located our data centre for quite a while, and in general found it to be effective way of controlling cost, both in personnel and equipment. I can't shake the feeling though that we are simply making an interim stop on the way to the Cloud, which would also enable us to gain flexibility, which is a growing concern as we, er, grow. For the end user, is there a significant difference in the experience between cloud services and co-location?
Answers
Both are going to offer some of the same advantages. There is usually going to be a cost savings compared to building your own data room or data center either with co-location or a cloud provider.
Off the top of my head, one of the advantages that come to mind for co-location is (generally) more available tech support, which can be particularly helpful for smaller businesses. The main thing that it offers over a cloud provider is that you are still on your own dedicated servers, since you typically lease cabinets, rack units, etc from the data center. With the cloud, this is not necessarily so, you are sharing resources in a different way. Even so, most cloud providers make a serious effort to maintain security, and you data is probably as safe or safer than it would be in-house. An additional advantage of the cloud is that it is readily scalable in a way that data centers are not. Data centers are kind of a pre-cloud thing to me, I would rather use a cloud provider, but be very picky in choosing the right one.
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Co location: Typically a data center where you have your own servers using their bandwidth and you lease space.
Cloud: you can scale up or down as needed and is setup in a cluster of servers so this can happen and so that if your site goes down your still up because it moved to a different server.
Cloud can be set up in a colocation data center though.
Sandeep Seeram
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So in other words cloud is better for the most part.. Well as you stated above it can be used at a co-location center. So Just having co-location hosting with cloud is a better idea.
I think my new host has cloud, but I find it slow still.
Sandeep Seeram
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I doubt end users really care either way.
It really depends on the needs of the company though as to which way makes the most sense. It's probably a good idea for a company to sit down and come up with a report or plan that analyzes the financial costs of each option. Once that's done, it will probably be much easier to decide on a long term course, and then begin working on implementing that.
As always, it takes time and careful planning before being able to achieve the right decision.
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I doubt end users really care either way.
It really depends on the needs of the company though as to which way makes the most sense. It's probably a good idea for a company to sit down and come up with a report or plan that analyzes the financial costs of each option. Once that's done, it will probably be much easier to decide on a long term course, and then begin working on implementing that.
As always, it takes time and careful planning before being able to achieve the right decision.