You probably have a few servers now and are wondering what the next step would be. Would having your own servers and create your own network something for you? Probably. We have a few tips and ideas for you to consider.

You want to build your own network, whitelabel — you want to be independent from other providers and want to build your own whitelabel network. You want to be seen as a independent ISP and want to offer your services accordingly. This is one of the most used reasons for getting your own colocation. This is true when you currently have dedicated servers that are not whitelabel and are linked to a certain providers network. We offer all our dedicated servers whitelabel as well (i.e. people can’t see it’s hosted at HostSlim right away).

You want to manage your own hardware — you want to take care of your own hardware and want to guarantee your clients certain response times on HDD replacements, hardware failures and further configuration checks etc. With colocation you can indeed do this and you can also make an agreement with your colocation provider to do this as they do have employees on the datacenter floor.

You want to be in control — this is something entrepreneurs crave. They want to be in control anywhere anytime. With your own colocation you are indeed in control of all processes and you have full access. The downside is that you also have to manage everything yourself and fix any issues that might occure with the hardware.

You want to safe money — colocation might be a big step in the start as you have to buy your hardware and switching first, but it will pay back later once you compare it to lease terms of dedicated servers and buying your own servers. The ROI is probably around 10-12 months. If you have the liquid means to buy your own hardware, then colocation is something for you. If you don’t it might be good to stick with dedicated servers as you will also have costs on failing hardware and other hardware related issues, which you will not have with dedicated servers as your provider covers those costs. You also need to consider that you need to buy all the network and power cables and your own routing/switching which can also be more expensive then you might have expected.

You want to look legit — yes, you want to look legit. You want to be different than the other mom and pop shops and basement businesses. Colocation is a great way of showing that you are “having your own network” and you “control and own” your own hardware. But it is no guarantee of success. As you know… all that matters is client satisfaction. I know plenty of providers that are doing very well and they are leasing servers and don’t own any hardware themselves.  It’s up to you to decide what will work for you.

I hope this post helped and makes colocation for you a little bit more understandable. If you still have any questions — leave a comment below.

We offer all kinds of hosting services, check out our colocation here.