Colocation is a data center service where businesses rent physical space to host their own servers and networking equipment within a third-party facility. The colocation provider offers the building, power, cooling, security, and connectivity, while you retain ownership and control of your hardware.
How Colocation Works
In a colocation setup, you install your servers and other IT gear in racks, cages, or suites provided by the data center operator. The provider ensures constant power, backup systems, cooling, fire protection, and physical security. You manage the software, storage, and network configuration of your own equipment.
Unlike public cloud, colocation gives you full control over your infrastructure while reducing the burden of managing physical space and utilities. It also allows you to scale capacity without the long-term investment of building your own facility.
Why Colocation Is Used
Colocation is ideal for organisations that want to maintain control of their infrastructure but do not want the overhead of owning and operating a full data center. It supports high availability, regulatory compliance, and predictable performance, especially in sectors where data governance is critical.
Colocation also offers better connectivity options. Most facilities provide access to multiple carriers, cloud on-ramps, and direct peering, which helps reduce latency and increase redundancy.
Colocation Adoption in India
Indian enterprises are increasingly choosing colocation to modernise their IT footprint. It allows them to scale quickly, comply with data localisation laws, and reduce capital expenditure. Sectors like BFSI, healthcare, and telecom use colocation as part of a hybrid cloud strategy.
Colocation is also seen as a bridge between traditional on-prem setups and full cloud migration. It supports private cloud deployments and edge computing requirements.
What You Should Know
Colocation helps you stay in control while reducing the cost and complexity of managing a data center. Proactive helps you evaluate, deploy, and manage colocation environments that align with your performance, compliance, and business goals.
