As more companies migrate their client support services to the Internet, IT departments are constantly pressured to deliver better and faster performance and results in less time. That means investigating alternatives such as cloud services and colocation providers for many.
The challenge they then face is deciding which option meets their needs. While cloud services and colocation providers offer comparable benefits, each is designed to meet a particular set of business and technology requirements.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology once defined the cloud as an online environment that enables on-demand access to a shared assembly of computing resources such as programs, applications, networks, servers, and storage. These assets can be made available with little management effort or interaction with the service provider.
The same description applies to managed clouds, but client workloads, along with the interface to their current IT processes, are also managed in this instance. It combines the benefits of the cloud with the total management of hosted workloads.
Benefits of cloud-based services include:
A common assumption is that a colocation provider is simply a data center where you rent server storage, power, and a connection to the Internet. The reality is that many providers today offer a wide range of services, from managed IT environments to public and private clouds. Some even provide clients with a direct connection to Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services.
There are two primary types of colocation providers:
Benefits include:
So, which is the better option? Cloud services or colocation? Each presents its own features, benefits, and advantages, but the recommended solution depends on the client's needs. A company’s infrastructure, data management, and application hosting requirements determine which service is better for a business.
Does your company use cloud services or a colocation service provider to deliver some or all of its IT-based services? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments box below.