For a company thinking about going down the co-location route, there are many hidden costs to take into consideration, which mean that it is not as cheap as you might think. Instead, managed hosting carries many advantages and removes most of the headaches usually associated with hosting.
The hidden costs of co-location include up-front capital expenditure, hardware depreciation, overall maintenance and network infrastructure, all of which ultimately lead to additional risk.
Capital Expenditure
When pursuing the co-location option, companies need to buy all the necessary equipment up front, which can impact on a company's budgeted capital expenditure. Whereas Rackspace® eases the financial burden, allowing a company to spread the cost more evenly in affordable monthly instalments.
Hardware Depreciation
The exponential rate of technological change in the server component market means that once systems are bought, they will quickly depreciate. Through taking the responsibility of owning equipment that will depreciate, Rackspace alleviates this burden for customers as well.
Overall Maintenance
In a co-located environment, a company must take steps to ensure they have a disaster recovery solution in place in the event of equipment failure. For a truly robust solution, a company needs, at a minimum, a warm spare for every component in the configuration on hand, as well as level III technicians ready to diagnose and address the problem. Specialising exclusively in managed hosting, Rackspace has all the necessary equipment, multiple spares of every component and level III technicians on hand 24/7/365 to ensure that our customers receive the best service. This takes the headache and expense away from our customers.
Network
Companies who choose co-location will have to recreate network infrastructure which can also be very expensive. Rackspace has a multi-homed network through several providers to ensure that we are not completely reliant on any one provider should they experience network problems. This means that our customers' data will always reach its destination in the shortest time possible and with minimal packet loss. In addition, Rackspace has a Cisco powered Network, with unique self healing attributes, allowing us to deliver on our 100% infrastructure availability guarantee.
Risk
The upfront costs associated with co-location, plus the tying up of funds into hardware, re-creating the network, hardware depreciation and failure, as well as hiring staff to man it all, commits resources into just one area of the business. In doing so, this inherently means a lot of risk for a company. Rackspace allows customers to have flexible month-to-month contracts so there is little risk involved. In addition, by taking over the management of our customers' hosting environment, Rackspace alleviates the pressure on their internal IT staff, freeing up resources to be re-deployed into more profitable areas.
For more information on the true cost of co-location and the reasons to opt for managed hosting from Rackspace, Click here.
