It isn’t uncommon for a company to have its own server. However, many companies are beginning to use colocation services to get the benefits of having their own server without the headaches involved in its maintenance.

Focus On Your Core Business

Servers are high-maintenance items. They need to be babysat 24/7 in order to make sure they are always online or can be rapidly recovered if something goes wrong. Most manufacturers, especially those with smaller operations, really cannot spare the manpower and other resources necessary to do this right. It simply makes more sense to hire a company to do this for them, thereby allowing the company to focus on its core business and not on its servers. For manufacturers, the stress involved in running their own servers can be a huge distraction from higher priority business functions.

What is Colocation?

Colocation is a form of resource pooling. It involves servers that are colocated with the servers of other businesses. In other words, they are all located together and serviced together by a third party, thus freeing up the companies in question to focus on their core businesses.

A Secure Connection, Guaranteed

Colocation can enable smaller to medium-sized manufacturing companies to have server infrastructure on par with that of multi-billion dollar global corporations. By hiring a colocation service, the servers of the company can have the same redundant architecture expected by the best companies in the world to keep electricity and Internet access on at all times and keep the servers running round the clock. Professional IT staff can dedicate themselves to this task and the small business only pays a fraction of the cost of having a similar level of service done in-house. This allows for a high level of uptime, something that in-house solutions cannot accomplish without paying an inordinately high price for the privilege.

Special Issues For Manufacturers

An issue somewhat peculiar to manufacturing is that servers, like all computers, are somewhat sensitive machines. They can be negatively impacted by strong vibrations or serious temperature fluctuations. These are not typically present in an office environment, but can be big problems for manufacturers. Moving to a colocation service eliminates this issue.

Handling the IT needs of manufacturers is already tricky enough without having to worry about server maintenance. With more and more manufacturers looking to become Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliant, others have realized the importance of having well-managed data. These manufacturers have begun seeking out third-party IT experts, like Stealthbits, to help them become compliant. This increased interest in outsourcing IT has led some manufacturers to find colocation partners.

Colocation offers some awesome benefits for manufacturers. The old world of manufacturing is finding new solutions in the Information Age. Solutions like colocation have improved operations, putting manufacturers who use them ahead of the competition.