Colocation, or ‘colo’, is a service that offers space in data centres to businesses looking to store servers and computing hardware. Instead of companies keeping all their IT equipment on-site, colocation services offer businesses the chance to store their equipment in an external data centre that provides professional infrastructure, support, and maintenance. Colocation space in data centres consists of racks, cabinets and rooms, with customers able to choose the right amount of space for their storage needs.

The major reason that businesses choose to use colocation services is to make use of the professional infrastructure that data centres provide. Data centres are able to provide 24/7 physical and cyber security, temperature and humidity control, power redundancy, disaster recovery and ultra fast connectivity, allowing businesses to rest assured that their data and equipment are secure and can be operated continuously. To find out more about the benefits of using collocation services, follow this link.

As the two have some overlap, it can be confusing to understand the difference between colocation and data centres. To put it simply, colocation is a service that provides the professional storage of IT equipment such as servers, networking equipment, storage devices and backup recovery systems at data centres. Colocation is generally offered to businesses who choose not to build their own data centres. Data centres, on the other hand, are the facilities in which data and equipment are stored. Some businesses choose to build their own data centres, in which case they do not require colocation services as they manage their own IT equipment in-house.