Colocation involves the hosting of a company's servers and computer equipment including the software at a data center away from the business' location. These centers offer a number of services which the companies, especially the small and medium-sized companies can benefit from. Though this is so, colocation is not well understood and there are some myths that have made many companies miss out on these advantages.
One of the myths associated with this service is that it is just another name for managed Web Hosting. This is not true since in a web hosting agreement, the HTML code of the company's website reside in a different business server, while colocation the equipment and the software is located on another location usually in a data center but they are owned by the company and therefore the site does not compete with other business from the resources of the server and the company will not be affected by other companies website glitches.
Many companies also believe that colocation is expensive. In relation to web hosting, it is expensive but in relation to in-house placing of the servers and other equipment, it is way cheaper. The cost of employing new staff and purchasing of storage materials for the servers is done away with when the company decides to look for a data center to host their servers. The cost of bandwidth is also reduced and in case of upgrading, the cost is distributed across all the users meaning that they are cost effective.
The other myth is that the hosting of the servers at a data center is inconvenient. This is false as the data center will not only offer the company increased space and better equipment organization, they can also carry out various maintenance and upgrading for the company at no extra charge and the IT staff do not need to travel to the center as most of the processes can be done remotely.
Many people also believe that in-house hosting is more secure as compared to Michigan colocation. This is untrue since the firewalls, Intrusion Detection System as well as physical security at these facilities are more efficient and robust. The security at these facilities keep up-to-date security patches a task that is usually neglected when in house. The servers are kept at a more secure location and some facilities offer armed guards to ensure that there are no unauthorized personnel who will access them.
The other myth associated with colocation is that the data centers do not come with support. In real terms, Michigan colocation centers offer a great deal of support to its tenants. The support is in terms of physical security, network security as well as recovery of data after a disaster. Cooling and power is also another form of support from these facilities. The company can get into contracts to ensure that the systems are fine-tuned and the software and hardwares upgraded at regular intervals.
