Data Center Colocation

What Does Data Center Colocation Mean?

Data center collocation is a process through which an organization can rent physical office space, network or Internet bandwidth and other resources within an existing data center to deploy its own data center.

It enables sharing the existing pool of data center resources to be used for deploying and hosting data center services for external or retail customers/organizations.

Such data centers are also known as carrier hotels or colos.

Techopedia Explains Data Center Colocation

Data center collocation is primarily provided by data center or IT service providers.

Typically, data center collocation is deployed within a data center collocation facility. Such a facility is similar to a data center having ample, unused floor space available for rental. The owner of the data center collocation facility provides the floor space, cooling, power and physical security whereas the customer brings in its own servers, storage and/or applications. Data center collocation primarily enables organizations to deploy a data center facility without the need to buy or manage it.