Managed and Unmanaged Colocation

After you have decided to have a Web server under a colocation deal, you need to decide whether you would use managed or unmanaged colocation service. These are the primary options available to businesses from most colocation providers. The decision you would make would have an important impact on maintenance, server requirements, and overall pricing. How could you decide which of the two to choose?

Managed colocation, also known as dedicated server rental, makes use of a preconfigured dedicated server. The selected software and applications within the service could be used within limits. Additionally, the provider is also taking responsibility in providing software upgrades to provided applications within the system. It includes general maintenance like backups, reboots, and hardware issues. 

Managed colocation is specifically useful to small businesses with limited IT resources or individuals who do not have the technical expertise and inclination. It is also recommended to firms with less capability to handle mundane troubleshooting as well as maintenance. It should be noted that there are practical and logical restrictions for the use of this service. The managed server allows only supported applications to be processed and run on the servers. In this case, you would have no choice but to give up a need for a particular software application if the colocation provider does not provide that application. It could have limited usefulness. 

On the other hand, if you aim to have a greater control over your need for a server, unmanaged colocation is for you. This service is ideal if a technical requirement of operating or running a server is demanding applications not supported by the colocation provider. As mentioned, you may opt to take a bigger control over configuration and your own use of the Web server. This way, this type of colocation service is different from the managed colocation.

As a customer, you would be required by your colocation provider to provide your own hardware. You would also be asked to manage every software and hardware on your own. Thus, the unmanaged colocation service could facilitate greater flexibility. The drawback of this service is quite obvious: there would be more work and effort on your part. This is the reason why this type is more recommended for small businesses or individuals with adept and sufficient technical capability and competency. 

Overall, whichever you choose, your business would be bound to specific service agreements with the colocation provider. Most of such providers would have and implement clauses that would disallow specific activities, operations, programs, software, or application from being hosted and run on the server. It is important that you read the terms and conditions of the agreement very thoroughly before getting into any colocation arrangement with anyone. The list of items usually banned by providers includes mass emails and pornography.

This is because both are requiring a greater amount of online network traffic, which in turn could cause serious or severe problems eventually on the part of the colocation provider. Your business may not need to process such things anyway. 
