FINAL WORD
Colocation data centres
A colocation data centre is a facility where organisations can rent space to house their IT equipment . The colocation provider supplies the building infrastructure , cooling , power , bandwidth , physical security and managed services .
Top three advantages of colocation data centres
• World-class facilities . Organisations without facilities expertise can still rent state-of-the-art facilities with advanced cooling systems , redundant power and robust security measures .
• Flexibility . Resources can easily be expanded or reduced according to changing needs .
• Low upfront costs . Other than an initial investment in IT equipment , the rest of the cost of colocation is in the form of predictable monthly payments .
Top three disadvantages of colocation data centres
• Lack of visibility . Tenants have little control over their physical infrastructure and must rely on their provider to accurately execute work orders .
• Migration challenges . Moving equipment to a colocation data centre requires meticulous planning , an accurate inventory and the ability to track every change .
• Ongoing costs . Additional costs for power consumption , network bandwidth , remote hands services and cross-connects can quickly add up .
A colocation data centre may be the right choice for :
• Small- to medium-sized businesses that require reliable infrastructure to store and manage large amounts of data .
• Fast-growing enterprises that need to quickly scale their data centre infrastructure to meet customer demands .
• Organisations with compliance requirements that can be met by a reputable colocation provider .
• Online services such as e-commerce and digital media companies that want to reduce latency and improve customer experience by locating equipment near the areas they serve .
Cloud data centres
A cloud data centre is a facility owned by a cloud service provider such as Amazon Web Services , Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud . These providers offer virtualised environments that enable organisations to store , process and analyse data and run applications over the Internet .
Top three advantages of cloud data centres
• World-class facilities and IT . Organisations without facilities or IT expertise can leverage stateof-the-art infrastructure , hardware and software from a cloud provider .
• Extreme agility . Customers can easily scale up or down very incrementally based on demand , enabling rapid provisioning and time-to-market .
• No upfront costs . Usage-based pricing models enable organisations to quickly deploy services and applications without any initial investment in physical IT or facilities .
Top three disadvantages of cloud data centres
• Security concerns . Entrusting sensitive data to a third-party provider may raise concerns about data privacy , potential breaches or regulatory compliance .
• Data sovereignty issues . Data may be stored in different jurisdictions , potentially leading to compliance complexities , regulatory conflicts or access limitations .
• No control . Cloud providers own and operate their data centres , leaving customers no input into infrastructure or security measures .
A cloud data centre may be the right choice for :
• Start-ups or small businesses with limited IT budgets and rapidly changing needs .
• Large enterprises that want to take advantage of cloud services such as Big Data analytics , Artificial Intelligence , Machine Learning and Blockchain , have distributed workforces that need to collaborate and share data in real-time or need to leverage cloud solutions for Disaster Recovery .
• Seasonal businesses that need to quickly scale to meet spikes in traffic or other organisations with unpredictable or fluctuating workloads .
• Development and test environments to allow developers to quickly build and tear down environments and focus on innovation .
Hybrid data centres
A hybrid data centre is any integrated combination of on-premise , colocation and cloud infrastructure .
Top three advantages of hybrid data centres
• Flexibility : Organisations can distribute their workloads to the most appropriate
Herman Chan , President , Sunbird Software
www . intelligentcio . com INTELLIGENTCIO EUROPE 77