Colocation centre

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For collocation methods for the solution of differential equations, see collocation method. For the corpus linguistics notion see collocation.

A room in the Telecity colocation centre in Aubervilliers, a suburb of Paris

A colocation centre ("colo") or carrier hotel is a type of data center where multiple customers locate network, server and storage gear and interconnect to a variety of telecommunications and other network service provider(s) with a minimum of cost and complexity.

Increasingly organizations are recognizing the benefits of colocating their mission-critical equipment within a data centre. Colocation is becoming popular because of the time and cost savings a company can realize as result of using shared data centre infrastructure. Significant benefits of scale (large power and mechanical systems) result in large colocation facilities, typically 50,000 to 100,000 square feet. With IT and communications facilities in safe, secure hands, telecommunications, internet, ASP and content providers, as well as enterprises, enjoy less latency and the freedom to focus on their core business.

Additionally, customers reduce their traffic back-haul costs and free up their internal networks for other uses. Moreover, by outsourcing network traffic to a colocation service provider with greater bandwidth capacity, web site access speeds should improve considerably.

Major types of colocation customers are:

Web commerce companies, who use the facilities for a safe environment and cost-effective, redundant connections to the Internet
Major enterprises, who use the facility for disaster avoidance, offsite data backup and business continuity
Telecommunication companies, who use the facilities to interexchange traffic with other telecommunications companies and access to potential clients

Most network access point facilities provide colocation.

1 Services offered
2 Trivia
3 See Also
4 External links

[edit] Services offered

Most colocation centres offer different types of services to customers ranging from dedicated suites/rooms or cages to smaller racks or partial racks. Some colocation centres also offer some degree of service level agreements to support a wide range of computer and network related services, for example, server reboots, hardware replacements and software updates.

There are a few key differences between a dedicated server and colocation servers. Dedicated servers tend to be owned and rented out, while a colocation server is one that the client owns.

[edit] Trivia

Some colocation centres feature a "meet-me-room" where the different carriers housed in the centre can efficiently exchange data.

Most peering points sit in colocation centres.

These sites are often used for web hosting.

Most colocation centres have high levels of physical security and multiple redundant power and humidity / air-conditioning systems.

A typical colocation centre setup would consist of the following hardware and services:

Building:

Usually built near a GlassFibre ring.
Fibre has multiple access points into building to prevent Backhoe cuts.
Guarded 24/7 and secured with closed circuit cameras.
"Clean" rooms to ensure optimal running conditions for computer and network hardware.
Empty pipe fire suppression of some sort, and/or VESDA (Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus)
Relay racks, cabinets or cages to mount servers into.

Power:

Connected to two or more different power stations/grids.
Inline power backup using a system of UPS batteries (often with a diesel standby generator).
Possibility to connect two different grids of power distribution to one server.

Connections:

Because of the high concentration of servers inside a colocation centre most carriers will be interested in bringing direct connections to such buildings.
In most cases there will be a larger Internet Exchange hosted inside a colocation centre, on which customers can connect for peering.

Confusingly, one company can operate a colocation centre, another can provide the bandwidth, whereas a third company would rent a cage inside the centre, renting out racks to hosting providers which would rent the servers themselves to actual clients. Any and all of those companies will claim ownership of the facility and will feature photos and descriptions of it on their web sites. At the actual physical location various ID cards with various logos will be present, including those of the company that built/rents/owns the actual building.