If you’ve perused the different topics we write about on the TeleGeography blog, there’s a chance you’ve stumbled upon our colocation content.
But what defines colocation?
In short: a colocation center is a data center that provides shared space for network storage and interconnection.
Unlike a web hosting site, a colocation facility provides storage for the customers’ own equipment. The facility typically provisions power, cooling, security, and intra-site connectivity, among other offerings.
Follow-up question: how does this differ—or relate to—cloud computing?
Cloud computing is essentially dynamic hosting, where users share computing resources that are allocated on-demand from the cloud provider’s servers.
Colocation, on the other hand, is the physical space in which you may operate your company-owned software and hardware. (The joke we like to make is that the cloud doesn’t really exist; it’s just someone else’s server.)
Jon Hjembo
Senior Research Manager Jonathan Hjembo joined TeleGeography in 2009 and heads the company’s data center research, tracking capacity development and pricing trends in key global markets. He also specializes in research on international transport and internet infrastructure development, with a particular focus on Eastern Europe, and he maintains the dataset for TeleGeography’s website, internetexchangemap.com.