Cloud computing, colocation, and dedicated hosting are three of the most leveraged resources by IT executives in modern enterprises. Since these are utilized in permutations and combinations for implementation of different operations in an enterprise IT, the differentiating factors among these appear to be blurring a little. In fact, many CIOs find it difficult to come to a decision while deploying the right model for fulfillment of business needs and catering to diverse organizational interests.

Cloud Hosting

Cloud computing has transformed the way hosting services are delivered with availability of services including Infrastructure as a Service, Software as a Service, and Platform as a Service among others.

The most relevant application of cloud hosting services can be found in applications that are accessed by end users spread across remote locations due to outstanding scalability and seamless accessibility. Cloud hosting services are also highly appreciated for pay-as-you-go billing system that ensures excellent cost efficiency.

However, the concerns about compliance and security continue to haunt these services, thus limiting their potential to cater to mission critical workloads.

Server Colocation

As the name itself suggests, colocation is locating one’s IT capabilities in a different location which is away from the enterprise’s premises for greater performance, security, and uptime. Hosting service providers offer server colocation facility by allowing clients to position their servers and provide all basic facilities including cooling, power, network connectivity, and so forth. Clients can also be offered additional services to cover routine maintenance, monitoring and trouble shooting of servers.

It should be noted that all important components including software, networking equipment, and servers are owned by client organizations and positioned at the third party hosting facilities in a colocation hosting arrangement. The space or racks or locating server equipment is provided on a rental basis to organizations that may have to additionally pay for bandwidth as well as power.  Users are able to exercise total control on configuration and operations of servers in colocation hosting with guarantee of round the clock technical support, DR facility, and seamless uptime.

Dedicated Server Hosting

A dedicated server is designed for singularity of purpose as well as user. There are myriad of advantages offered by dedicated server for catering to mission critical websites. Unlike shared hosting, a dedicated server hosting is exclusively designed for fulfilling hosting needs of a single client. Dedicated server can part of an organization’s internal IT infrastructure or can be provided by a hosting service on subscription basis.

The most interesting and useful advantage of a dedicated server is its ability to customize the server for catering to individual requirements of the client. In addition to this, users can enjoy exceptional control over the server resources and functionalities. Users are allowed to access for the most useful features for their requirements by availing dedicated hosting services.

Organizations can avail the dedicated hosting model of IT infrastructure to leverage superior capabilities of software, server, and data storage and gain remarkable strength of a high compute power upgrading website performance.

Although, dedicated servers provide unique advantages to enterprises there are certain limitations including lack of scalability and space thus limiting their use in enterprise IT environment. If the dedicated server is internally hosted at organization’s IT facility, then one may face uptime issues due to several limitations of an internal facility.

Hybrid IT as a Practical Solution

IT services can be amalgamated to serve varied interests of organizations and requirements of diverse applications. Hybrid IT has been found to be the most practical approach to a heterogeneous and customized blend of colocation, cloud, and dedicated server hosting that may be procured from a third party vendor or from on-premise IT facility. No wonder, Gartner projects that almost half of global organizations would be utilizing hybrid IT for meeting huge demands of globally dispersed consumers. It should be also noted that hybrid IT is a fully customizable resource that offers outstanding control and scalability.

Takeaway

Hybrid IT helps C-level executives transform organization’s capital expenditure into operational expenditure. It is possible to elevate organizational efficacy and performance by selecting the right technology and proper way of delivering IT resources. Hybrid IT is able to exploit the most compelling attributes of colocation, cloud hosting, and dedicated hosting by overcoming shortcomings.

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