Why Outsource Your Server

Why Outsource Your Server?

By: Richard

Today’s Web sites demand high bandwidth and scalable, robust technical infrastructures. E-commerce sites require 99.999 percent availability, 24/7 monitoring and the ability to scale at the click of a mouse. Whether customers are experiencing overnight success - or simply the annual holiday rush - Internet sites and servers need to be built to cope. Companies need to be able to focus on their core competencies instead of worrying about technical issues, particularly at times when capacity is stretched to the limit. The question is, how can these requirements best be met? How do companies create a real Web site – one that can be a sustainable, valuable business asset, and not merely a glossy brochure? There are four basic options to choose from when making a Web presence felt: DIY (Do It Yourself), colocation, virtual hosting and managed hosting.

DO-IT-YOURSELF

Setting up a data center may be one of the novice’s first ideas, but what does it involve? A secure environment with redundant, specialized power, cooling and fire prevention systems is a must. Servers, routers and firewalls are the main equipment requirement, followed by Internet connectivity and bandwidth. The next requirement is a team of technical staff to monitor, maintain and troubleshoot the equipment 24/7, all year long. This setup gives companies complete freedom to install and run anything they like, and the ability to scale up or down is limited only by their own resources.

This freedom comes at a price, however. The up-front capital costs and complexity involved in the setup make DIY hosting an unfeasible option for most businesses, especially start-ups. Unless an enterprise adopts technology early or has closely integrated external and internal IT systems, DIY is unlikely to be a business advantage because of the considerable financial outlay involved.

If not DIY, then what?

COLOCATION

The second model, colocation, is the closest option to creating a data center from scratch. As with the DIY option, colocation gives customers complete freedom to install anything they want. The main difference between colocation and the DIY option is that the data center environment is provided by the colocation facility. Customers rent space for their servers by the rack, square foot or cage, while the colocation company maintains the security, power and cooling systems, and Internet connectivity. While some colocation facilities provide limited technical support, customers are generally responsible for building and installing their own servers, as well as making their own arrangements for technical support and server maintenance.

As with DIY, scalability is limited only by the resources at a customer’s disposal, and the customer owns the hardware and can add or remove equipment as required. Bandwidth is determined by the pipe size (ISDN, T1, T3) provisioned by the customer. Customers may be able to add bandwidth after the fact, depending on the provisions made by the colocation facility. They may have made arrangements with certain bandwidth providers, or there may be restrictions on the cable running to the building.

Theoretically, colocation offers unlimited possibilities for the customer in setting up equipment, choosing a location, hiring technical staff, and so on. In reality, the customer’s budget and technical staff’s knowledge set limitations to these possibilities. The more servers that require maintenance, or the number of different operating systems a customer has, the more technical staff will be needed. In most cases, personnel will need to be added as a customer adds hardware or software.

Colocation is ideal for companies who do not have the space or resources to create their own data center, already have their own equipment or run applications where absolute control or confidentiality is of paramount importance.

If all this seems like much more commitment than you need, there is a third option - virtual hosting.

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