I'm curious about the transition from managing server rooms to using colocation services. While I know cost is a big consideration, it seems like not having to stress over details like temperature, humidity, and AC maintenance would be a significant advantage. However, I'm facing some resistance from my colleagues and management who might not fully appreciate the risks of keeping everything in-house. What were the pivotal factors for you in making this decision? Were there any specific points that helped you get management on board with understanding the risks involved when keeping everything managed internally?
5 Answers
We made a different choice actually, keeping our servers on-site. For us, it just makes more sense since we have a small number of servers, and it's easier to manage them in-house than to deal with colocation facilities, especially when it comes to on-site repairs and maintenance.
We've kept our servers on-prem primarily because of cost, plus having them close to our tech team is a big plus. Managing three racks isn't too challenging. Plus, some local colos have stringent access requirements, which complicates things when we need quick fixes.
Working at a rural ski resort, having everything on-prem is crucial for us because our needs are very specific and time-sensitive. We rely heavily on edge servers for low latency, and colocation just doesn't fit our operational model.
Security is another strong point for colo. At our last job, we moved critical workloads because it had better physical security; you can't just walk into a data center like you can a server room. Plus, compliance often requires that level of security.
When we made the switch to colocation, it was largely due to issues with power outages and equipment failure in our server room. We had a couple of incidents where our backup systems let us down, so moving to a colo made sense for redundancy and improved uptime.

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