I’d found this question quite silly the first time I saw someone to ask it in any web hosting forums. Then I realized that I have spent too much time in the hosting industry and that my perception about what’s important and what’s not does not work when it comes to to certain issues. I have also remembered that it was very hard for me back in 2002 to choose whether to stay on a dedicated server or to buy my own machine.
Many people who have a lot of web sites and need resources ask themselves “Should I get a dedicated server or to colocate my own machine”. It is important to have an aswer on this because the right one would save one a lot of money. So lets say a few things about Dedicated Server Hosting and Colocation Hosting.
Colocation and Dedicated Hosting – Advantages and Disadvantages
When people buy a dedicated server, they get a certain amount of resources on a physical machine, which is leased exclusively to them. However the user does not own the physical server and it is their for as long as they pay a monthly fee. As anyone would assume the servers cost money and web hosting providers calculate the upfront costs they have on purchasing server into the dedicated hosting customer’s monthly bill. This is fair!
So the monthly costs of having a dedicated server are significantly higher than those for Colocation. However when someone wants to colocate a server they need to buy their own machine first! So unlike Dedicated Hosting, the Colocation requires the server owner to face upfront costs of ownership.
Dedicated Hosting definitely offers more flexibility to the user unlike Colocation. Anyone who got a dedicated server on monthly contract, could replace or upgrade the machine, if the hosted applications require more resources. The user just switches to another dedicated server or web hoster takes care of the upgrade. In colocation the server owners should order and install the parts on their own (or to pay for a remote hands to a data center technician). If the server owner has chosen a hardware redundant server and if the data center in which the machine is housed is located in the same area, the owners could do replacement on their own. Otherwise they need a technician to work on the machine.
So we can consider Dedicated Server Hosting as a type of hosting service which provides more flexibility to the customer. However, it is important to know that in a long run, when it comes to a IT hosting projects longer than 8 months, the total cost of ownership which people pay to use a Dedicated server a significantly higher that if they buy their own machine and colocate it in any data center.
Another thing which anyone should consider when choosing between Dedicated Hosting and Colocation is that if one needs to colocate more servers and want to use its own in-house management, it is a good idea to obtain its own Autonomous System and to consider to be independent of the data center when it comes to IP space and network connectivity.