Data Center Services

What is it?
Housing your data on-premises (or on-prem) happens when a business decides to store all company data on-site and manage it in-house.
What are the pros?
The company can easily access and control IT infrastructure. Data owners maintain high computing power or speed of access so they can view and work with data faster. Storing and managing your data on-prem is usually cheaper than other asset storage options.
What are the cons?
Keeping data on-site provides a single point of failure. Limited redundancy risks data corruption or loss. Storing and protecting your data is dependent on your facility. Data owners will have to ensure the security and durability of their site. 24/7 security, fire suppression systems, disaster remediation tools, and more are a necessary part of data management and achieving business continuity.
IT infrastructure and management requires specific expertise to succeed. Businesses that choose to house their data on-prem usually suffer from limited on-site knowledge.
Data owners are reliant on a single source of connectivity. If your internet provider experiences an outage, your data is inaccessible until power is reinstated.
As time progresses, IT infrastructure will become obsolete. Those who store data on-prem will have to prepare for the time and cost of replacing server equipment.

What is it?
Colocation (or colo) happens when a business decides to house its server equipment in a data center specifically built for IT infrastructure. The cost associated with colocation is determined by the amount of rack space needed by the company. Data centers that offer this service are called Colocation Data Centers, Multi-Tenant Data Centers (MTDCs), or Colocation Centers.
What are the pros?
Companies that choose to colocate their IT infrastructure in a best-practice data center are better protected. Colo data centers boast extremely resilient environments. Factors like humidity, fire protection, cooling, redundant power, and more are considered at these facilities.
Colocated servers usually run more efficiently and live longer in these optimal environments. Downtime is also minimized. 24/7 physical security is provided to ensure only those you designate gain access to your equipment. Facility maintenance falls on the data center instead of the data owner. Businesses with colocated servers are better connected.
Colocation data centers usually have multiple internet providers running through their facility. Because of this, colo customers enjoy multiple internet paths which boosts their connectivity. If their preferred provider is down, the equipment switches over to another until the preferred is back up.
Because of the high availability of internet at these facilities, the data makes fewer hops, which results in lower latency and faster reception.
What are the cons?
Colocation customers are still limited by what their equipment can do and must update infrastructure as it becomes obsolete. Customers are restricted to their company expertise. Although Multi-Tenant Data Centers are filled with IT experts, their job is to keep the facility running for your equipment. Your equipment maintenance is up to you and your staff.
Your data is farther away from your employees. (This could also be a pro depending on what you are doing with your data).

What is it?
Processing data in the cloud means the data is located on a distributed network by a cloud computing provider. The cloud is in fact a series of remote servers hosted on the internet to hold, maintain, and process data, rather than a local server or a computer.
What are the pros?
Cloud storage leverages operational cost. This means you don’t have to worry about replacing obsolete or faulty server equipment. The facility the cloud server is housed in is also taken care of for you, reducing capital costs further. Cloud storage is flexible and easily scalable. In a pinch and need more storage/cores/memory? With this option, you don’t have to go purchase another expensive server. Contact the cloud provider and within minutes more capacity is added to your cloud environment.
Cloud by design is distributive.
What are the cons? Housing your data in the cloud means you’re outsourcing your infrastructure. You’re getting data as it’s needed. You’re subject to large-scale attacks (but larger entities are usually more secure).
It requires more internet bandwidth.

What is it?
Hybrid is when a customer selects two or more of the following: on-prem, colo, private cloud, public cloud (AWS, Azure, Simple Helix).
Our recommendations:
If you need employee-facing data or R&D Development/Beta Sandbox, we recommend the data be kept closer through the use of on-premises, colocation, or private cloud.
If you have a need for customer-facing, we recommend a mix of private and public cloud.