For SMEs: An Ultimate Guide to Colocation, with Whitelabel’s Mildred Enamorado
Digitized practices have become the norm for businesses of all sizes. The COVID-19 pandemic illustrated that sophisticated IT solutions can benefit companies across all industries, helping them streamline operations and connect with customers.
Colocation services proved to be particularly helpful to smaller businesses throughout the pandemic, providing a means to manage new data and enabling brick and mortar firms to ‘go digital’.
We spoke with Mildred Enamorado, Marketing Manager of Whitelabel IT Solutions, to discuss all things colocation. In the interview, we touched on the fundamental principles of colocation, discussed industry trends, and outlined key considerations small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) should make when selecting a provider.
Colocation 101
Let’s start with the basics. Colocation is an IT service that enables businesses to lease power and space in a physical location called a data center. Data centers are purpose-built to efficiently store and connect IT infrastructure for many different companies. Colocation is a service provided by the data center where they host your IT hardware (like servers) outside of your place of business to enable greater security and efficiency.
Colocation has become increasingly attractive to smaller businesses looking to digitize and expand their operations. According to Ms Enamorado, “Businesses of all sizes eventually need a place to manage their data. However, with fewer resources, SMEs have a tough time competing with larger companies. That’s when colocation comes in handy because it provides a space for your company’s hardware, while also providing power, cooling, network, and security, among many other benefits.”
Essentially, colocation enables smaller companies to access sophisticated IT infrastructure. By leasing space in a data center, SMEs can securely store their technological property and have the bandwidth to expand, locally or internationally, should the need arise.
An Ever-Evolving Industry
As mentioned above, the colocation industry saw a significant shift following the events of 2020. The sudden requirement for businesses to adopt digital practices saw a drive towards virtual environments instead of physical ones. Essentially, the pandemic accelerated the shift towards new IT architectures and infrastructures, and businesses unable to adapt, unfortunately, fell behind.
As remote working becomes the norm, companies worldwide use colocation to facilitate Edge Computing solutions. Edge Computing is when a business establishes IT infrastructure closer to their customers or employees to improve their connection quality and mitigate the risk of lag. As Ms Enamorado says, “As we come close to a new phase of the global internet infrastructure, the adoption of technologies with long deployment reach, like Edge Computing, is stronger than ever before… The exponential growth of applications and internet-connected devices is changing the entire industry at a fast pace.”
Facilities and services that manage IT infrastructure have become pivotal to day-to-day business operations. Businesses of all sizes depend on these resources to house the data and equipment needed to successfully operate. As Ms Enamorado puts it, “As a colocation provider, Whitelabel understands the importance of what we do for businesses all around the world. That is why we always strive to deliver the best and most affordable services to our customers. Your success is our success, and we want to continue helping businesses, especially SMEs, to achieve their goals.”
Selecting a Provider
Colocation is a diverse and expansive industry, making it difficult for inexperienced businesses to select a service provider. Organizations starting this process first need to identify their specific needs, business goals and budgets. This helps them understand their unique requirements and articulate their needs to providers.
According to Ms Enamorado, the next step is to start comparing different providers. When assessing the suitability of a supplier, Ms Enamorado recommends evaluating the following:
- Location – where is the provider based? Does this align with the location of your company HQ and customers?
- Network Connectivity – does the data center/colocation provider have the connective capabilities to reach all of your customers/employees?
- Managed Services – does the data center/colocation provider offer sufficient IT support? Look for a vendor that provides services like system administration, hardware assistance, response monitoring, equipment management and server backup.
- Scalability – does this provider have the bandwidth and geographical diversity to enable your business to grow?
- Security – does the supplier offer sufficient physical security and the protection of IT equipment from environmental hazards?
By keeping these considerations top of mind when selecting a colocation provider, SMEs can be confident that they’re partnering with a vendor that corresponds with their business objectives and goals.
The Whitelabel Solution
Whitelabel ITSolutions is a managed colocation provider that reliably caters to businesses of all sizes and across industries. Based in New Jersey, Whitelabel has helped companies worldwide to establish network and colocation strategies to meet their specific requirements and budgets.
SMEs can particularly benefit from their services, as Whitelabel provides businesses with an easy and cost-effective method of establishing Edge Computing presences. Additionally, partnering with a supplier like Whitelabel empowers SMEs to grow by providing the bandwidth and capital required to scale.
“At Whitelabel, we are proud to deliver premium solutions targeting mostly small to medium-sized companies, supplying redundant network connections, top-notch security, power redundancy, and higher bandwidth capabilities, among other advantages. By doing so, our colocation services give these organizations all the room they need to grow.”, Ms Enamorado says.
Whitelabel offers flexible solutions, enabling SMEs to start with simple services and upgrade their network package as needs develop. This accommodating approach helps businesses access colocation in a budget-friendly and straightforward manner.
Think Whitelabel ITSolutions could be right for your business?
Head over to Whitelabel’s profile on Cloudscene to see what they can do for your business, or reach out to Cloudscene’s team of experts for assistance with colocation or connectivity.
Contributor – Mildred Enamorado | Marketing Manager
Mildred joined Whitelabel IT Solutions INC, in 2018. She is responsible for developing, implementing and executing strategic marketing plans for the entire organization, among many other field related tasks. Mildred has a great deal of passion for driving brand awareness, and her role has brought many positive contributions to the company.
