What is colocation?
Colocation is when organizations place their own servers and other essential computing hardware for data storage in space rented in a physical data center owned and/or operated by a third party.
Improve connectivity, security – and lower costs – with Data Center Colocation
Colocation (also known as 'colo') offers your business access to a more robust infrastructure than a typical on-premises solution and will normally offer near 100% uptime through the SLA.
Because data center colocation tenants share operational costs for areas such as power, cooling, bandwidth, communications, and security with other tenants, you can avoid having to plan for capital expenditures such as UPS multiple backup generators, power grids and HVAC units.
Ongoing maintenance costs associated with maintaining and managing an in-house server(s) are also taken out of the equation
This all makes colo cheaper and easier than building and managing a dedicated data center for a sole user.
Protection and control with Equinix Colocation Services
Equinix offers a range of colocation services to help you safeguard mission-critical data with the highest levels of security and operational reliability. For example, Equinix International Business ExchangeTM (IBX®) data centers boast an industry-leading uptime track record of >99.9999%.
Key features:
Multi-layer network, cooling, and power redundancy
including advanced UPS (uninterrupted power source) power protection – to keep business-critical processes running round the clock.
A 'remote hands' service
from professional, certified technicians on-site is there to get things back up and running quickly should help be needed. Leverage round-the-clock support with Smart Hands® from Equinix.
Intelligent monitoring
ensures colocation tenants have round the clock visibility and control of their physical assets – just as they would in their own data center. DCIM Services like Equinix Smart View give you on-demand access to environmental and operating information relevant to your footprint too.
Easy scalability
as tenants can more quickly respond to capacity need changes whether these shift up or down.
Digital leaders around the world harness our trusted platform to interconnect the foundational structure to power their success. We have the technology and the power to enable you to access all the right places, partners, and possibilities you need to accelerate advantage.
How does Equinix compare to other colocation and interconnection services?
How secure is colocation?
Colocation in a data center offers security at both a physical and network level that typically also goes beyond what a data owner can cost-effectively achieve 'on-prem'.
Colocation tenants are also shielded from cyberthreats through a range of network solutions offered by data center operators, often in cooperation with third parties.
- 24/7/365 supervision from on-site guards, including close circuit video monitoring.
- Secure, controlled access via segregated areas – see how Equinix cages and cabinets enable you to custom configure equipment for the highest levels of security.
- Advanced flood and fire protection protocols to protect colocation tenant hardware from any physical threat.
- Antivirus and antispam solutions through to firewalls, anti-DDoS solutions, VPN connections and more.
Colocation vs. the cloud
IT hardware is hosted within a data center for both colocation and cloud services. However, a colocation tenant retains ownership and ultimate control over their servers and knows where they're located.
A cloud provider, on the other hand, is responsible for all the hardware effectively leased from them, with the data storage customer not necessarily aware of specific data center location beyond country in many cases.
What does colocation offer beyond space, infrastructure, security, and support?
A fast-evolving additional benefit of colocation is access to enhanced services and ecosystems. It means enterprises can switch between or swap service contracts quickly and easily, leveraging carrier neutrality, cloud-enabled services, access to multiple cloud services via secure networks, cross-connects to partners on the same premises, or interconnect fabrics to other sites or services.
Critically, a good colocation provider will also offer tenants an easy way to meet compliance requirements – an area that gets more complex by the year as governments sharpen their focus on consumer protection. Explore IBX® certifications, standards, and compliance to see the possibilities.
The data center is evolving
By 2025, 85% of infrastructure strategies will integrate on-premises, colocation, cloud and edge delivery options, compared with 20% in 2020.
