As your small business grows, so does your need for computing resources. Unless you can afford to keep highly-skilled dedicated technical resources on your staff, deciding what your new technical requirements will be is a challenge. Instead of trying to do this yourself, keep your staff focused on the core business areas that make your company successful. Here is how a colocation facility will work with you to support your growth.
Determining the Resources That You'll Need
Predicting the need for future technical resources requires an understanding of how your business uses the current resources. This takes time and dedicated staff who know how to collect and interpret the data. The colocation data center has staff trained in performing such tasks as:
- monitoring your system and application usage and performance
- collection of usage data at specific intervals
- tracking events that cause peaks and valleys in usage, such as during the month-end close of the books or a payroll run
With this information, a colocation system architect can determine several trends:
- the average system use and use at peak times
- the amount of resources each individual uses during those times
- the impact on the resources when new staff start and are trained
From this data, they will also be able to predict:
- how much additional capacity you'll need to support the growth you anticipate
- when you will need the additional capacity
With this information, your business will have the additional capacity just when you need it.
Making Resources Available When You Need Them
The colocation facility also solves another problem with small business growth. You plan on adding additional staff and they will all need desktops or laptops. More people online will require more server hardware. Do you purchase the equipment now and store it until you need it? What if your growth plans change or are delayed?
When you use the hardware available at the colocation facility, this problem is solved. Working with the staff monitoring your activity, they will estimate the additional hardware that you'll need. You'll have access to it when you need it and you won't be paying for unused equipment.
They can also support you when you have a temporary growth need. For example, a new client project requires you to add twenty more data entry people for three months. The colocation facility will make the necessary adjustments to the hardware during the project, and absorb the capacity back into their facility when the project is over and the temporary staff are gone.
Instead of taking your staff's time away from the business to address these technical issues, work with the colocation facility to make sure you have just what you need, when you want it, to support the next growth phase of your business plan.
For more information, visit http://www.cologix.com/ or a similar website.
