Business enterprises need to leverage IT applications for enhancing overall profitability as well as productivity. However, these applications are extremely complex in terms of their deployment, operations, and maintenance.

Need for a right model of hosting service

Unless a business organization leverages advanced IT infrastructure, it may not be easy to implement these applications to support business operations. Moreover installation of sophisticated IT infrastructures requires significantly large capital investments.

This calls for an affordable hosting option in order to gain an edge over competition and to achieve simultaneous mitigation of capital expenditure involved in establishing advance IT capabilities at onsite locations.

Reliable vendors are capable of supporting enterprise IT with an integrated set of hosting services backed by remarkable uptime, flexibility, and a sound backing of the state of the art off-site infrastructure of a top-tiered data center.

Managed hosting services

Managed web hosting services have been extremely popular among small as well as large enterprises that operate ecommerce businesses or need to run corporate intranet applications. These hosting plans are ideal for hosting enterprise applications so that users are free to concentrate on their core business competencies.

Web hosting service provider offers managed hosting services to facilitate leasing of one or more dedicated servers and associated hardware components to individual clients. Service provider also allows use of data center facility and performs all tasks that are related with installation, operation, and maintenance of the leased dedicated servers on behalf of clients.

Managed hosting services also cover other tasks such as hardware configuration and setup apart from monitoring and maintenance of the system. Users of managed hosting services need not be concerned with installation and configuration of software applications as the providers look after all software related issues.

Moreover, these service providers also cover security related operations such as patch management along with regular updates and backups. Customers are free to select pre-configured plans as standard offerings or custom built hosting plans to match their web hosting requirements.

Colocation hosting services

Colocation and managed hosting services differ from each other because clients of colocation services continue to own servers and storage equipment unlike managed hosting services that offer to lease these.

Except servers and storage components, customers are provided with all other facilities and infrastructure of web hosting in colocation hosting plans. Customers of colocation hosting are allowed to leverage a highly secured environment of host data center to maintain seamless availability of their websites and web applications.

Colocation customers are offered seamless power and cooling support for ensuring smooth operations of their servers. Security is an important aspect of any web hosting and colocation hosts offer access prevention and intrusion detection with help of physical security measures such as scanners, CCTV surveillance, and round the clock vigilance by armed security guards.

Hosting service providers make sure that server equipment of colocation customers is backed by persistent network support that includes a large number of direct and on-net connections. Same holds true for uninterrupted server operations in spite of power outages since customers are offered facilities of UPS and power generators for keeping their web operations up and running.

Choosing the right option

With the only exception of ownership of server and networking equipment, both colocation and managed hosting services share amazing similarities. This also explains why customers are usually faced with a dilemma of choosing a right alternative.

It would be interesting as well as informative to appreciate multiple aspects of these hosting services in order to make an informed decision. One of the most vital arguments in favor of colocation hosting is regarding freedom to choose software, hardware and networking equipment. In managed hosting, providers are offering servers on lease and the choice of specific hardware is obviously not within the scope of clients.

Colocation hosting entitles customers with seamless access to top-notch internet connectivity, guaranteed power supply backed by backup arrangement, highly dependable cooling and robust security measures to maintain flawless web presence of their applications and websites.

In spite of these advantages, customers of colocation hosting need to deal with higher initial capital expenditure for purchase of hardware. Colocation hosting may not be suitable for customers who cannot invest in capital equipment in the initial phase of their business operations.

Hosting expenses can continue to mount as the business grows and requires additional bandwidth support to support more servers. Colocation hosting cannot obviate need for system or network admins either.

Finding a right colocation host

Since every entrepreneur needs to pay undivided attention to growth of the business, there is a need for a colocation model that offers freedom from complex administrative tasks of managing websites. Recent developments in web hosting industry have facilitated many vendors to design a highly customer-oriented colocation hosting solution.

These new breed of colocation customers can leverage managed colocation hosting services that include support of a dedicated technical experts to look after configuration, maintenance, and monitoring of equipment. Customers can also enjoy freedom from compliance and security related concerns since a managed colocation host provides seamless support to take care of these issues. 

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