How To Select a Colocation Provider

One of the biggest decisions you and your IT team will make is choosing which colocation provider to go with. The final choice may be based on a number of factors, including solutions, pricing, flexibility, contract length—the list goes on! 

In this article, I’ll go over some quick best practices when it comes to selecting the right colocation provider for your enterprise. 

Why do you need a colocation provider? 

Before you even start looking at potential colocation partners, you and your team need to determine the company objectives you’re driving towards. Digital transformation at your organization shouldn’t be implemented because it’s “trendy” and what other organizations are doing right now.

Many organizations are going through drastic digital transformations, but not all of them are successful. The reason? They’re not aligning their IT goals with business goals. Not having a clear goal for your colocation strategy is the quickest path to failure (not to mention all those wasted IT dollars). 

One key reason why businesses are moving away from on-site data centers is that they have realized something important: Their time is better spent elsewhere. Focusing on more critical business operations puts them in a stronger position to reach their business objectives. Leaving data center management to a partner just makes more sense. A third-party vendor can help reduce IT costs while providing more flexibility, reliability, and specialized expertise and solutions. 

Prepare with your organization

Communicate, communicate, communicate. Partnering with a vendor that provides colocation services not only impacts your IT team but your entire organization. While the decision-making process may lie in the hands of certain people, take time to speak with other departments as well, such as sales, marketing, and so on. 

This will allow you to understand what issues different departments are dealing with so that you can ask potential colocation providers the right questions. By getting a variety of perspectives, you’ll know what your colocation solutions need to address. 

Developing a strategic request for proposal (RFP) can also help align your needs with the support a colocation partner can provide. These are most useful for highly technical or more complex projects or for industries with more rigorous compliance requirements. 

Consider location carefully

Some providers might operate in a small handful of regional areas. Other colocation providers, like Flexential, have a much broader national footprint and are located in geographically dispersed markets. Why is it important to find a colocation provider in your region? 

Location plays an important role when it comes to the overall performance of your IT infrastructure. Data takes time to send and receive, so it’s in your best interest to choose a data center that is close to your location. This will minimize latency and data replication issues that could cause major headaches down the road. 

In addition to performance, there are some other benefits of partnering with a regional colocation provider. For example, your team will be able to visit the site in person. This is especially important if a prospective partner doesn’t offer any virtual facility tours on their website. 

Future-proof with flexibility and scalability

While understanding your goals and developing an RFP are useful steps, it’s safe to say that your business today is going to evolve over the years. This means your IT needs may change as well. As your organization changes, can your colocation provider keep up and support you during times of expansion or decline?

With more businesses adopting a multi-vendor approach to their IT infrastructure, your prospective colocation providers must be able to offer flexible solutions that can be tailored to your needs. Look for service providers that are able to pivot and give you a full suite of services quickly and efficiently. 

To learn more about what a robust colocation portfolio looks like and more on why scalability is key, check out this infographic, “5 Ways Your Colocation Partner Can Help Future-Proof Your Footprint.”

Ask about uptime and reliability

There’s the idea that if a data center is located on-site, an organization’s internal IT team can just handle the issue themselves. It sounds more reliable and efficient, right? 

In reality, data center management requires more time than what most IT teams can afford. I previously shared a video about one of Flexential’s partners, Children’s Minnesota. The director of IT infrastructure said he once had to climb to the roof of their data center after an AC unit got clogged. This is just one example of how legacy data centers can negatively impact your business. 

When looking for a colocation provider, ask about their uptime and reliability. What processes do they have in place to ensure that service runs smoothly, even if unexpected issues occur? For example, Flexential worked with Amalie Arena’s IT team to ensure their infrastructure not only performed at a high standard but that we also delivered 100% uptime. As one of the busiest entertainment venues in the world, Amalie Arena is located in Florida so weather conditions were a key concern of theirs. Learn more in this video, “Delivering a World-Class Fan Experience Demands 100% Uptime at Amalie Arena.”

Check data center security and compliance

Your organization’s data is its lifeblood. When choosing a colocation provider, ask about their security protocols and ongoing management processes. If your business is in a heavily regulated industry with complex compliance requirements, this is an important topic to discuss with potential service providers. At Flexential, our wholesale data center offers 24/7 on-site security 365 days a year. Other security features at our facilities include: 

• 4-zone security access
• Monitored security cameras
• Cage cameras
• Dual-factor authentication access
• Biometric scanners

When it comes to compliance, ask about the colocation provider’s certifications and ensure they’re up to date and relevant. Some of the rigorous compliance standards we go through at Flexential include annual independent audits based on frameworks such as HIPAA and SOC 1 and 2 Type II. Ask potential colocation providers if they can supply you with a data center fact sheet, which should provide a comprehensive overview of the facility. Here is an example of a fact sheet from our Tampa, Florida data center.

Selecting the right colocation provider can make all the difference for your organization

Here’s one final tip: Choosing the right colocation provider isn’t just about what service you’re signing up for. It’s also about the people you’ll be working with. Is the colocation provider a good culture fit for your organization? Do they share similar values? Don’t forget to search for customer stories about providers you’re researching. Testimonials give you an inside look at what a colocation provider did that really impressed their business partners. 

For a full, in-depth guide on choosing the right provider, take a look at this report, Colocation Providers: A Guide to Selecting the Right One. There’s a full Colocation Checklist you and your team can use to measure prospective vendors and how they stack up based on your business objectives. 

For those of you who recently went through the process of choosing a colocation provider, what was the biggest challenge you faced? Leave your insights in the comments section below and help out someone who may be going through this process right now.