Companies looking for internet hosting have an important decision to make. Dedicated servers, or colocation? The decision is not an easy one most often, and the reasons for choosing one over the other depends on each companies unique circumstances.
Before making a decision one way or the other, make sure you discuss each option with a sales representative. Make sure you have your requirements drawn out, including the number of servers you’ll need, any advanced storage requirements, bandwidth needs, and support.
Below is a checklist for each option I would want to use if I were in the market for hosting:
Dedicated Server:
- How many servers do I need?
- How much power, per server do I need? Are my applications CPU, memory, or bandwidth intensive?
- Where do I want my servers located? Do I want them in more then one location for redundancy?
- Do I need RAID?
- What operating system do I need? If my applications run native to *nix, and if so, do I have the necessary skills in order to manage the server?
Colocation:
- How much physical space and power do I need?
- Where are my servers going to be located? Am I in close proximity to go to the datacenter and work on my equipment if needed?
- What is the reputation like of host XYZ?
- What kind of bandwidth is available in the datacenter? How much do I need?
- Is the datacenter able to handle expansion if I need to grow?
- Will I stock spare parts, or does the facility have spare parts available?
The list of questions for colocation can go on, and on, and the considerations are quite a bit more extensive then lighting up a dedicated server.
When it comes time to make that decision, be confident in choosing a quality host who will treat you with respect and work to earn your business.
– Alex Vial
