Many businesses are juggling the idea of choosing colocation solutions or building their own data center; due to many reasons like want to become their own boss or you are outgrowing your space. That’s when is time to answer the big question: Should we invest in running our own data center or hire colocation solutions. Before answering this question there are many factor to consider; it may make sense for some businesses to run their own data center, especially those IT professionals looking to start their own service provider business but plenty of other times colocation is the best solution.

The cost of a data center depends, of course, on how big you want it to be; the costs will vary depending on the level of resilience built into it, as more resilient data centers have more equipment to reduce the chance of failure. You need to upgrade your hardware every let’s say three years before it becomes obsolete, you need to hire an experience team for maintenance among other things; as you can see is not easy or cheap to run your own center. Most of the time this solution is more suitable for companies that need to keep a tight control over their data.

If what you are looking for is to reduce costs colocation solutions are for you. Businesses are able to rent space in an environment that has been customized to accommodate vast amounts of IT equipment, helping it to run more efficiently and therefore at a lower cost. Most of these specially designed facilities have built in resilience in the form of additional power supplies, network feeds and cooling units so that they can guaranty customers’ 100% uptime. Many data centers also have backup sites in case of an unforeseen event like a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. Running your own data center or hiring colocation solutions will depend on the type of business you are running, the capital you have to start it and ultimately your business needs.