Tuesday, 14 February 2012

Examining If Co-Location Servers Are More Secure

By Gerald Wiley


Server co-location is one way that smaller companies are able to have all of the functions of an IT department without having to hire one. Even though there are many reasons a company would turn to this technology there are some people who believe it is less secure. However, most companies will find that their data is much safer using colo hosting as opposed to doing it internally.

Before a company decides to use this technology it is important to know what it is and how it works. Colocation hosting allows a company to run their servers on a rack that is in an off-site location. This can be very advantageous to small businesses in many ways.

Colo hosting allows companies to share bandwidth which can be a major money saver. By consolidating bandwidth colo hosting facilities are able to offer it at a reduced price. Not only that, but many colo facilities will also manager the servers, which means that the company is saving by not needing to hire a lot of additional IT staff.

The main concern to using this type of hosting is that it might not be secure. There are many dissenting opinions about this, but ultimately it should be much safer to use this type of hosting than doing it in house. Since companies are leery about just handing over their information to an outside company it is important that they know the ways that it can actually be safer.

The concern that companies have is that since the servers will not be at their location they will not be safe. Although this could be a problem it is actually an advantage. By keeping the servers off site companies are not at risk of losing information to things like a fire or cyber terrorism. This is especially true of small companies that may be working with sensitive information that people might want to hack.

Most small companies are not capable of staying up and running very long if the power goes out. This can present a real danger to data, as power outages are one of the biggest ways that companies and individuals lose their information. A colo facility will be prepared for this by having a multitude of generators that will allow them to stay up even if the power is out for a long time. This is especially important in places where outages are frequent.

Another advantage to colo hosting is that data is constantly being backed up and saved. It is also be stored in an undisclosed location so there is less threat of theft or acts of sabotage. Some companies are dealing with data that is extremely valuable, so colo hosting can reduce the chance of theft because only the company will know where their servers actually are.

Server colocation is one of the best ways to host servers because of the increased bandwidth and the reduced need for an IT staff. Not only that, it can be much safer, especially if a company is storing sensitive or valuable information. For these reasons colo hosting is definitely something that small businesses should consider.




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