Choosing the right colocation provider can be incredibly challenging—but it’s also one of the most important decisions your business will ever make. A good colocation provider will enable your business with high uptime, excellent value-added services, technical support, and high-quality partnerships. A bad host, on the other hand, could easily cripple you.
By considering all of the following, you can make sure you avoid the bad ones.
A colocation provider is a company that operates a data center where businesses can house their servers and IT equipment while using the provider’s power, cooling, connectivity, physical security, and supporting infrastructure.
For businesses evaluating colocation, Liberty Center One recommends considering infrastructure, connectivity, security, resiliency, support, and provider experience.
Key Takeaways
- Choose a colocation provider based on your infrastructure, connectivity, security, compliance, resiliency, and support requirements.
- Evaluate the provider’s security controls, third-party audits, and relevant compliance capabilities.
- Look for reliable connectivity, infrastructure redundancy, and clearly defined uptime commitments.
- Review the provider’s service-level agreement and determine whether its support capabilities match your business needs.
- Consider the provider’s history, customer references, case studies, and reputation before making a final decision.
What Services and Resources Do You Need From a Colocation Provider?
First and foremost, what do you need from your colocation plan? Are there any tools or services that will make life easier for your business? Are there certain resources you absolutely require?
Location
A facility that seems otherwise perfect on paper might be a bad fit for your business solely because of where it’s situated. In some cases, this may not be a concern. However, if your organization has stringent latency requirements and operates exclusively in certain regions, you’ll likely want to find a host that’s a bit closer to home.
What Security and Compliance Should a Colocation Provider Offer?
Security requires a great deal more than an antivirus solution and a firewall. Especially if your business has compliance requirements, it’s far broader. Factors to consider include:
- Physical access control
- Threat intelligence
- Intrusion detection and prevention
- Risk management
- Crisis management
- Processes and policies
Certifications
Has your colocation provider submitted to a third-party security audit? If not, we suggest walking away. Otherwise, you might end up dealing with a data breach through no fault of your own.
Ensure a prospective colocation provider has undergone a SOC 2 Type II audit and that they’re willing to provide you with the results.
Additional certifications to look for include:
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Compliance
- Payment Card Industry (PCI) Compliance
- NIST SP 800-53 Compliance
Connectivity
A good colocation facility is carrier-neutral, with access to multiple tier-1 providers. It should also maintain a comprehensive ecosystem of interconnected partners and clients. Generally speaking, more interconnectivity means better WAN pricing and increased redundancy.
Resilient Infrastructure
Especially if your colocation provider offers disaster recovery or business continuity services, highly-redundant infrastructure is a must. Ideally, this means seeking out a facility that operates on a 2N+1 redundancy model. Where N is the minimum capacity needed for a data center to remain operational, 2N+1 means there are at least three layers of redundancy for each critical component, ensuring the lights stay in all but the most catastrophic scenarios.
You’ll also want to look for a host with offsite backups and remote support, management, and failover capabilities. Finally, check to see if your prospective vendor is willing to work with your business to define your crisis management and response processes.
Service-Level Agreement and Support
A colocation service-level agreement (SLA) defines the provider’s commitments for services such as uptime and explains what happens if the provider fails to meet those commitments.
It’s all well and good for a host to claim resiliency on paper—but are they also willing to put their money where their mouth is? Look at the SLA offered by a prospective provider. What promises does it make regarding uptime, and what will it do should it fail to fulfill that promise?
You’ll also want to consider how much support your business needs, as different providers offer different guidance levels.
History
Last but not least, look at what other people have to say about your colocation provider. Look for customer references, case studies, and reviews. A provider that lacks a clear history or has a large volume of negative reviews may be one you want to avoid.
Choosing the Right Colocation Provider
The right colocation provider should offer more than space for your equipment. Evaluate security, compliance, connectivity, resilient infrastructure, service-level commitments, support, and provider experience to determine whether the environment meets your business requirements.
If you’re evaluating colocation options for your business, contact Liberty Center One to discuss your infrastructure requirements.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What is a colocation provider?
A. A colocation provider operates a data center where businesses can house their servers and IT equipment while using the provider’s power, cooling, connectivity, physical security, and supporting infrastructure.
Q. What should businesses look for in a colocation provider?
A. Businesses should evaluate services and resources, location, security and compliance, third-party audits, connectivity, infrastructure resiliency, service-level agreements, support, and provider history.
Q. Why is location important when choosing a colocation provider?
A. Location can be important for organizations with stringent latency requirements or infrastructure that serves users in particular regions. Businesses should evaluate whether a facility’s location supports their performance and operational requirements.
Q. What security features should a colocation provider have?
A. Important security considerations include physical access control, threat intelligence, intrusion detection and prevention, risk management, crisis management, and documented security processes and policies.
Q. What certifications and audits should a colocation provider have?
A. Businesses should determine whether a prospective provider has undergone relevant third-party security audits, including a SOC 2 Type II audit, and whether it can support applicable requirements such as HIPAA, PCI, or NIST SP 800-53.
Q. Why is connectivity important in a colocation facility?
A. Access to multiple network providers and a strong ecosystem of interconnected partners can provide businesses with greater connectivity options, competitive WAN pricing, and increased redundancy.
Q. What should a colocation SLA include?
A. A colocation service-level agreement should clearly define the provider’s service commitments, including uptime expectations and what happens if the provider fails to meet those commitments.
About the Author
Jason Huebner is the Managing Director at Liberty Center One.
Liberty Center One brings decades of experience providing secure cloud hosting and datacenter services for businesses. As an IT infrastructure solutions provider, Liberty Center One specializes in data protection, colocation, white-glove cloud migration, and backup and disaster recovery solutions backed by highly skilled professionals ready to support critical business needs. Learn more at https://www.libertycenterone.com/.