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A colocation centre ("colo") or carrier hotel is a type of data center where a multiple telecommunications or network service providers locate their connections adjacent at the physical layer to each other's networks (points of presence) and b users of these services locate network, server and storage gear and interconnect to network service provider(s) with a minimum of cost and complexity. Increasingly organizations are recognizing the benefits of colocating their mission-critical equipment within a data centre. Colocation is becoming popular because of the time and cost savings a company can realize as result of using shared data centre infrastructure. Significant benefits of scale (large power and mechanical systems) result in large colocation facilities, typically 50,000 to 100,000 feet. With IT and communications facilities in safe, secure hands, telecommunications, internet, ASP and content providers, as well as enterprises, enjoy less latency and the freedom to focus on their core business. Additionally, customers reduce their traffic back-haul costs and free up their internal networks for other uses. Moreover, by outsourcing network traffic to a colocation service provider with greater bandwidth capacity, web site access speeds should improve considerably. Major types of colocation customers are: Most network access point facilities provide colocation.
Services offered Most colocation centres offer different types of services to customers ranging from dedicated suites/rooms or cages to smaller racks or partial racks. Some colocation centres also offer some degree of service level agreements to support a wide range of computer and network related services, for example, server reboots, hardware replacements and software updates. There are a few key differences between a dedicated server and colocation servers. For a further description on the differences, read: Dedicated Servers vs. Colocation. Dedicated servers tend to be owned and rented out, while a colocation server is one that the client owns. Trivia Some colocation centres feature a "meet-me-room" where the different carriers housed in the centre can efficiently exchange data. Most peering points sit in colocation centres. These sites are often used for web hosting. Most colocation centres have high levels of physical security and multiple redundant power and humidity / air-conditioning systems. A typical colocation centre setup would consist of the following hardware and services: Building: Power: Connections: Confusingly, one company can operate a colocation centre, another can provide the bandwidth, whereas a third company would rent a cage inside the centre, renting out racks to hosting providers which would rent the servers themselves to actual clients. Any and all of those companies will claim ownership of the facility and will feature photos and descriptions of it on their web sites. At the actual physical location various ID cards with various logos will be present, including those of the company that built/rents/owns the actual building. | ||||||||
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