Colocation Unmetered – Useful Facts & Information On Corporate Colocation

Colocation is the provision of data center infrastructure that businesses can use to host their own IT equipment. It can be used by businesses of all sizes. SMB colocation is as popular as corporate colocation. For many businesses, especially corporates, colocation unmetered is the best option. Here are some key facts you need to know about it.

The basic facts about colocation unmetered

Colocation unmetered is a form of colocation where businesses pay a fixed fee for a specified level of bandwidth. The opposite of colocation unmetered is colocation metered. This is where businesses are charged according to the amount of data they use.

Key benefits of colocation unmetered

Although colocation unmetered is often associated with corporate colocation, it actually has benefits for businesses of all sizes. Here are five of the key benefits of colocation unmetered and how they relate to different types of clients.

Predictable costs

With colocation unmetered, businesses stabilize their network costs. This makes financial forecasting much easier. It therefore means that businesses are better able to create realistic budgets. This benefit of colocation unmetered is probably most relevant to the SMB sector, especially startups. It is, however, relevant to businesses of all sizes including corporations.

Overall value

The more data businesses store and/or process, the more value they get from colocation unmetered. Businesses that operate across national borders get even more value from colocation unmetered. This is because the flat-rate pricing eliminates concerns about data transfer costs across different geographic locations.

While this has obvious relevance for corporate colocation, it can also be very relevant for smaller companies, especially in sectors that generate high volumes of data. This includes many remote-only or remote-first companies that rely heavily on real-time communication tools.

Scalability

With colocation unmetered, businesses have the freedom to add whatever resources they want, whenever and however they want without any concerns about bandwidth. This is highly relevant to businesses of all sizes, although probably in different ways.

For example, SMBs will typically want to scale up as they grow. Larger businesses, on the other hand, might be more concerned about dealing with fluctuating workloads. The very largest businesses might simply want to ensure that they have the necessary bandwidth to support 100% remote working in a disaster-recovery situation.

Flexibility

On a similar note, using colocation unmetered provides businesses with maximum flexibility in how they deploy their resources. It therefore supports business agility. This is obviously highly relevant to SMBs, particularly startups. It is, however, also a goal of many modern corporations.

Simplified network management

Anyone who remembers the early days of the internet will remember the effort required to monitor usage to ensure that you did not go over your allowance. The effort required to monitor business connections is even greater. So are the potential consequences of exceeding your allowance.

Using colocation unmetered simplifies network management by eliminating the need for constant monitoring and adjustments based on data usage. It therefore enables IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives that relate to core business objectives.

Factors to consider when choosing a corporate colocation provider

Here are five key factors to consider when choosing a corporate colocation provider. When evaluating them, remember to think about the future as well as the present. Choosing a corporate colocation provider that can adapt with you as your business changes will ensure that you do not end up being forced into an inconvenient migration.

Security and compliance measures: Security and compliance are facts of life for businesses of all sizes. Checking a provider’s support for them early will enable you to rule out providers who do not support any measures you need.

Infrastructure options: Bandwidth is likely to be your top consideration but remember to look at power and cooling systems too. Their efficiency (or otherwise) can make a huge difference to both your operational costs and your carbon footprint. You may also want to look at infrastructure more broadly. For example, if you’ll be traveling frequently to the site, then you’ll want to evaluate its accessibility.

Scalability and customization support: One of the major selling points of colocation is that it offers both scalability and scope for customization. It is, however, important to check the details of what this means in practice with each provider. In particular, look at the lead time(s) for making changes as well as the costs.

SLAs and customer support: SLAs are always stated in quantifiable terms. The quality of customer support is more subjective. With that said, most colocation providers will have online reviews. They may also provide reference customers. Checking either or both of these will generally provide a reliable indicator of how seriously they take customer support.

Cost: Evaluate the total cost of ownership as well as the implementation and operational costs.