As your business grows there comes a time when the basic infrastructure you started with needs to be upgraded. This is specially true of businesses that manage big amounts of web traffic, either in the form of e-mails, messenger services, printing and file-sharing servers or websites whose number of visitors are above the 5-digit mark.
Of course you could also set up your own server if you had the physical space, the resources (including redundancy systems), the time to maintain it, and more importantly, the know-how to keep it running seamlessly.
Or you could just host it all on The Cloud, an attractive option if you don’t care that much about privacy issues like having your data legally owned by a third party, neither lose any sleep over not having a real Service Level Agreement due to its “cloudy” nature. And although Cloud Hosting has zero cost regarding deployment, it can get prohibitively expensive on a pay-as-you-go model, so you’d really need to commit to a pre-paid package of some sort.
Enter Co-location. Co-location is becoming an increasingly popular option because of the savings in time and money derived from using data center infrastructure. Significant scalability benefits combined with knowledgeable IT skills usually results in less latency and less traffic-generated costs. Other advantages are that internal networks are freed up for other uses, and web site access speeds on the whole improve considerably when taken over by a co-location service provider with greater bandwidth capacity.
On a typical co-location scenario several customers share network, server, and storage infrastructure and equipment, thus reducing costs and technical hindrances. A co-location service provider usually supplies the physical space (floor space-cabinets or cages), the electrical power to the cabinet/cages (conditioned power, battery backup, and backup power generators), adequate cooling and redundancy, a security (video surveillance, guard-monitored floor, and locked space), fire suppression and network connections.
With co-location you are in complete control of your own rack hardware and software. This control implies that the customer will be providing the IT infrastructure and network connectivity and comes together with a set of responsibilities, such as monitoring of all applications, operating systems and devices, maintenance of all internet devices (firewalls and load balancers), etc.
However because we acknowledge that many businesses prefer to maintain a substantial level of control regarding their mission-critical apps, but don’t want to be bothered by the complexity of managing a traditional colocation scenario, starting from mid-July, RackNine will be offering Managed Co-location. Managed Co-location offers the best of both worlds: the desired level of control with the added benefit of a support team to proactively manage your assets.
Managed Co-location from RackNine supplies the following features:
- Physical space
- On-site staff
- Unescorted facility access
- Power to the cabinet/cages (conditioned power, battery backup, and backup power generators)
- Redundant connections to the power grid
- A diesel backup generator and batteries with guaranteed 48 hours of power supply in the event of an outage
- Network connection backed by a Service Level Agreement (SLA)
- Multiple fibre connections to the internet
- Multi-level entry authentication, and a loading dock for receiving large packages
- 24/7/365 managed network
- Controlled environment (redundant cooling, fire suppression)
- Security (physical security, video surveillance, guard-monitored floor)
- Dedicated Support Team
- Remote Management accessible even from international datacenters
Optional services include Managed Backup, Managed Private Cloud, Dedicated Microsoft® Sharepoint and Microsoft Exchange Server – Dedicated solutions. RackNine also offers on-demand Managed and Professional Services for customers with unique requirements.
Contact Us for more details
