Is Colocation cheaper than renting a server? This is a question we get a lot. We get this question a lot because from the outside perspective, a shared hosting account, a Cloud hosting server and a VPS account all look cheaper and more affordable than investing in colocation solutions.
While the sticker price of renting a Cloud hosting, shared hosting or virtual private server is more affordable than investing in colocation, in the long term, renting web hosting solutions just based on price will come back and bite you. Here is why renting a Cloud hosting server, a virtual private server or a shared hosting server is more expensive than investing in long term colocation services.
Long Term Scalability
Without question, certainly within the Cloud hosting world, one of the most talked about aspects of web hosting is scalability. Scalability, or the ability of your paid for solution to grow and shrink with your needs, is, in fact, one of the major benefits of Cloud hosting servers. With the ability to near instantly allocate additional compute resources, Cloud hosting servers offers clients the ability to instantly provision new servers when scaling is needed.
However, what happens when your need for scale grows from a website which receives more than 5,000 hits per day? What happens when your organization grows enough to support a complex Hybrid Cloud deployment, a website which receives more than 50,000 hits per day and a multi-faceted BYOD/CYOD internal employee approach full with hardware and software firewalls? For this, scaling your Cloud hosting servers won’t work. For this, you need to invest in a solution with dedicated resources and redundant power/cooling. Cloud hosting scalability works for smaller companies. It doesn’t work for companies who are really looking to grow.
Long Term Scalability Pricing Models
Pricing is always an issue when it comes to web hosting. Investing in colocation solutions means investing your money in a long term service providing security, resources, flexibility, redundant power/cooling and high tiered data center structure. When it comes to growth, colocation means working out a contract with your colocation provider to supply you with a certain amount of room to grow within their data center. It means knowing the price of scalability even before your first server is deployed.
On the other hand, renting a server is an open book which includes endless scaling without an end. When you rent a Cloud server, your need for growth is an afterthought due to the “scale when you need to” promise of the Cloud. While this remains true, Cloud scalability also means being able to afford constant scaling. Without knowing how much room for growth you are going to need going in, Cloud hosting scalability can quickly become far more expensive than colocation scalability.
Putting a Price on Security
When it comes to colocation or web hosting solutions of any kind, the largest concern of companies is security and rightfully so. For a company, providing third party web hosting firms with their critical business data is a scary step. This is the main difference both in price and mind set between investing in colocation and renting servers.
When your company chooses to rent a server, your company doesn’t have full control over the security protocols of that server. On the other hand, colocation offers clients the ability to install and run any security measures they want within their own servers. This allows company employees to control security protocols, control deployed firewalls, control spam traps, control VPN access rights, etc.
While it might seem security is cheaper when renting a server, that isn’t always a good thing. Sure, it’s cheaper and more affordable to rent a server however when it comes to security, companies need to know their solutions are secure and only in their hands. Only colocation offers this.