Collocation hosting is yet another web/server hosting type. The Collocation hosting is ideal for those businesses or individuals who want to have total control of their websites and applications but do not have in-house hosting facilities. Choosing the data center to host your server is like finding a nanny to take care of your child; therefore, there are several points and factors you need to consider thoroughly before making the final decision.

I am providing you below the 4 most important points that should influence your server’s collocation hosting decision.

1. Data Center Location

Location is one of the most important points when looking for a hosting provider. It is recommended that you find a location near to your target of business, and if possible find the one that also close to your location.

2. Contract and Terms – Questions to ask the provider

This is the second most important point to include in your evaluation. As you have narrowed your providers’ list down by the Location factor, it is time to ask for the Hosting Agreements and Terms of Service. Clarify scenarios like:

What happens if you exceed your bandwidth’s limit ? How much are extra fees for the additional bandwidth used ? What is the backup policy of the data center (if they offer any) ? Is there any uptime guarantee ? What is the minimum contract length ? Can I cancel, at any time, my hosting subscription if I am not satisfied from the service ? Are there any hidden fees (e.g. electricity, cleaning) ?

3. Support Options and Service Level Agreement

Some data centers offer a managed hosting service along with the collocation. This is also a key point that should influence your decision, especially if your business is physically addressed far from the hosting facility, or if you have no in-house server administrators. Ask the hosting provider what is their Service Level Agreement in terms of: First-level Response Time, Technical “Smart Hands” on (and what the charges are per hour of work on your server), What kind of issues can they resolve (as they are providers that deal only with network-related problems), and finally what is their Hardware Replacement Guarantee.

Server Monitoring & Statistics is a common service provided (without any extra charges) by almost all the professional hosting/datacenter providers. However, it’s wise to confirm that this service will be provided to you.

4. Internet Connectivity

Bandwidth, IPs and PIPE to the Internet vary from country to country and provider to provider. Be aware that whilst some providers will promote high Bandwidth, the fees upon bandwidth excess could be huge! Additionally you should have in mind that some countries are relatively new to this industry and therefore their legal infrastructure could either be loose or tight. Justification for multiple IP requests is a very common issue related to the law of each country.

A lot of great points covered here. Thanks.

I don't agree that location is the primary consideration, although it is important. I believe uptime is top dog - regardless of SLA guarantees. A 100% uptime guarantee on a Service Level Agreement means little if that data center has a history of going down repeatedly.

Regarding location - for some it's advantageous to be geographically close to their data center, but many successfully manage their servers remotely - more important is the infrastructure that stands behind your colo - what kind of performance can they deliver to your intended audience? Do they have a good blend of bandwidth? And at what speeds and latency? Prices on bandwidth commits and overages are important, and cost is certainly a major consideration.

Redundancy is huge too - as well as the ability to customize your power requirements.

These are the most essential points to be considered for a colocation.
Apart from this the point of security also should be considered.

Location becomes a very important factor in that case that the data center does not offer any management services, but only the rackspace. Therefore, you will definitely need a close data center to you, for emergency situations like hardware replacement...

Your point is well taken, but I've not run across any data centers that do NOT offer any management services - like hardware replacement. Of course, the pricing for those services varies widely. It's always best to ask pre-sales rather than be surprised on the back end of an issue.

Well, I am sure all the data centers can offer these services upon a certain fee, but I was actually meaning "complementary/in-the-box" management services However, this should be one of the top questions to ask when doing your market research...

Almost all data centers offer free hands-on for the fist five minutes, meaning reboots would be free unless they became excessive. The problem with providing emergency management services for servers you don't own is that you don't know what's on the server, how it's configured, what apps are running - and you most likely won't have spare parts for it on-hand. Quite often, clients that collocate at data centers some distance from their headquarters have hot spares available at their data center for just such emergencies.

Again, you don't absolutely have to be close to your data center to survive an emergency issue. Plenty of clients have thought through that scenario and developed workable disaster recovery and business continuity solutions.

You've never been to a telco colo then. There was no management when I was in the WorldCom colo in Chicago, have a rack in Jacksonville FL in a telco colo with none. Just about any telco colo is going to have no management, you either provide it yourself or contract local remote hands.

I do not agree with the conclusion in paragraph 1 - "Location is one of the most important points when looking for a hosting provider". Location IS NOT among the most important things. It is good to be in the local market, but no more. Paragraph 4 is obviously very important! Why anyone would enter into a carrier neutral data center or into any data center which does not provide choice of IP bandwidth?

What does location have to do with it? If the service is operating effeciently and effectively then location would have no effect on that happening.

Its really important to know about SLA before going with any company.
Because later on it will be creating many problems.