| The world of data centers has grown dramatically in | | | | owner of the hosting center doesn't really touch your |
| the ten years since the business was invented. Sure, | | | | computer. They provide you bandwidth, power, and |
| there have always been computing centers where | | | | an appropriate environment (air conditioning, fire |
| you could rent processing power. Going all the way | | | | suppression, physical security). |
| back to the days of punch cards and huge data | | | | Other versions include actually renting the server |
| reading systems that milled through all the cards with | | | | from the colocation company. And it gets even more |
| holes in them, there were services you could pay for | | | | complicated than that. With the introduction of |
| when you needed data crunched on a large scale. | | | | virtualization several years ago, hosting companies |
| Things are a little different today, but in some ways | | | | are able to actually sell you a portion of a server. |
| the same. Today the big need most people have is | | | | Using this method, they charge you based on the |
| to host a website. There are still some who need | | | | size and processing capabilities of the virtual machine. |
| massive processing power, but those are mostly | | | | This allows them to sell parts of a server to several |
| companies who can build their own data centers. For | | | | different customers. Each operating system |
| the average consumer or small business person, the | | | | installation has no idea that there are other virtual |
| need is for a website, email, perhaps a database | | | | computers on the same hardware. |
| server or other application server. This is where the | | | | So in some ways, the world of colocation hosting and |
| colocation hosting industry comes in. | | | | virtual servers brings us full circle to the days of the |
| Today there are many companies who are in the | | | | punch card. You are, again, paying for processing |
| business of building and running data centers only to | | | | power. However, this time it is measured in terms of |
| provide hosting services to individuals and businesses. | | | | ram, ghz and gb of disk space rather than CPU time |
| Colocation hosting means that you have a server in | | | | or cards read. But if you still want to keep it simple, |
| someone else's facility. There are several flavors. In | | | | you can simply rent a space and slide your server |
| the simplest version, you rent space in a server rack | | | | into a rack and call it a day. |
| but you actually own the server. In this model, the | | | | |