Colocation cost depends on a number of factors. There are several packages available to address the needs of your business. Read on to learn more! If you are looking for a data center that will provide optimum protection for your data and work with you to provide the best colocation pricing package possible, contact Digital Service Consultants.

 

 

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How Much Does Colocation Cost?

Rather than housing and maintaining your own servers and equipment, choose colocation hosting. This involves renting space for your own servers in a data center that is specifically designed to keep your computer equipment operating in an optimal environment.

How much does colocation cost, though? As mentioned above, there are several factors to take into consideration based on the needs of your business.

Rack Space

Data centers are equipped with racks that are designed to hold servers and other IT equipment. Rack space refers to the physical amount of space that your server(s) will take up on an individual rack. The more space you need, the more you will pay. These are the terms used when figuring out the cost:

• 1U: The unit of measurement used when talking about rack space is “U”, which is equal to 1.75 inches in height. A piece of equipment that is 3.5 inches high would take up 2U of rack space.
• Full Rack: A typical full-sized rack cage found in data centers is 42U high and either 19 or 23 inches wide. The individual pieces of equipment held on these racks are usually anywhere from 1U to 4U high. Most rack-mount servers take up 1-2 Us of space.
• Half Rack: Used to refer to:
  • A piece of equipment that only takes up half the width of a rack frame – two such pieces of equipment can be placed side by side on a rack.
  • A piece of equipment that only takes up half the depth of a rack frame – two such pieces of equipment can be placed on the same rack, one in the front and one at the back.
  • A rack enclosure that is half the height of a full rack (22U tall).
• Quarter Rack: Usually refers to 10U of space on a full sized rack or about one-quarter of the space on the rack.

 

Colocation cost largely depends on rack space.

Setup

You will need to pay an initial set up fee when you begin colocation hosting. Then, your equipment will need to be physically moved to the data center and then installed. This setup requires time to perform and may be done by the internal team at the data center or someone in your IT department. This will come at an initial cost, but the long-term savings will be beneficial.

 

Don’t forget to factor setup into colocation cost.

 

Internet connection

You will require an Internet-based VPN connection, which will allow you to access your equipment at the data center from your office.

Often you will need an above-average bandwidth to compensate for the distance between the two locations so that your software can operate at high enough speeds.

You may also need to purchase dedicated IP addresses as your current Internet Service Provider may not service the data center that you are going to use.

 

 

Support

Colocation is not a managed service, but some data centers may provide this service to you for an additional fee. Otherwise, you will need to determine who will be responsible for monitoring and maintaining your equipment at the data center. If you are going to be doing that yourself, you will need to make sure that you send someone to the data center on a regular basis.

Another option is to pay for an outsourced provider who will be responsible for monitoring your equipment on a regular basis.

 

Some colocation centers will provide support for an extra fee.