Web Development & Hosting

The difference between cloud computing and datacenter colocation

Written by Rack Alley

At a basic level cloud computing and colocation are the same thing. They both involve running applications on servers that reside in data centers connected to the internet. These facilities are built with a focus to redundancy, security, cooling and power at a cost that is economical to the client. There are some factors that differentiate the two.

The first is in the provisioning of resources. Datacenter colocation looks at the leasing of resources to physical servers. While some colocation providers also supply servers, most expect the customer to bring their equipment to the datacenter. Cloud computing providers on the hand provide access to virtual resources. These can be processor power, disk space and even applications like LA web hosting. These are paid by the hour of usage of each resource.

The other is that of transition costs. While cloud computing allows you to provision the services immediately, colocation allows the use of existing servers. Since most organizations won’t be setting up fresh, this is a legitimate concern. A lot of money has gone into existing servers and colocation will be cheaper for the same services.

In addition, not everyone will need the massive levels scalability and redundancy provided by cloud computing. For most organizations, server hosting Los Angeles will be a more cost effective option compared to moving everything to cloud computing providers.

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Rack Alley is a provider of colocation services at their Los Angeles data center.