One of the most popular Los Angeles colocation hosts is Colocation America. They are a fairly large company, as the name implies, with colocation facilities spread out across multiple cities in the continental United States. They offer a small range of colocation services as well as more traditional hosting service models. Their pricing is extremely competitive, which is the source of their popularity, and their physical security and services are adequate for most needs. There is one major factor which they have not addressed, however, which is constantly on the mind of all Californians: earthquakes. While they have great power and redundancy, they don’t have any special contingencies for seismic damage. This key factor makes Colocation America is a great choice for small and medium businesses who are operating on a budget, but don’t have mission-critical data hosted on their servers.

Next on the list is NetworkRim, which is also a large company based in Los Angeles. It runs two separate data centers, both of which are located within LA. Their centralized location gives them a couple of advantages over the competitors, such as being directly located near gigabit fiberoptic trunk lines, ensuring your servers have the fastest possible access times. Additionally, being centered in LA has given them unique perspective and insight into the earthquake problem – all of their data centers and even the most basic colocation plan includes special seismic bracing for your servers, ensuring that even the most heavily-trafficked site won’t suffer data loss during an earthquake. However, as a result of this special attention, NetworkRim offers the most expensive services, ranging up to $7900/month (although this is the most expensive package, and thus the most robust – they start at $99)

Finally, we come to IX2. Like NetworkRim, they feature multiple data centers in downtown Los Angeles, and they have been offering hosting since 1998, making them the oldest company we reviewed. While their security is decent, it isn’t quite up to the high-tech futuristic standards set by the other two companies. They offer standard redundancies, protecting against fire, power loss and overheating, but they don’t offer any specialized seismic protection. Additionally, their website is a bit out-dated, which is a very bad marketing choice for a hosting company whose business is entirely based on the Web – they don’t even have an order form listed on their site! They simply list an email for contacting them, which is generally a tactic used by smaller businesses.

After the full review, it looks like NetworkRim is the clear winner – they offer a great balance of price, access and security, making them the best possible choice whether you’re a small business owner looking to upgrade your e-commerce website or a mobile payments startup that requires enterprise-level security!

There are four main types of hosting service: dedicated hosting, virtual private servers, colocation facilities, and cloud hosting, and naturally each has its strengths and weaknesses.

Dedicated hosting, which is sometimes referred to as managed hosting, is the most common type of hosting solution. The hosting service company provides a dedicated server computer for your use for a monthly fee, and usually will provide a set amount of bandwidth available each month.  You have complete control over the software installed on your server, and do not share resources with anyone.

Virtual private servers, on the other hand, have multiple user accounts on a single server computer. Each is compartmentalized in some way so that no user can affect any other users’ data or settings, but resources must be shared in this setup. Depending on who else shares your server and what they are using it for, this can adversely affect the effective performance of your website or other data access.

Colocation facilities, which are sometimes known as a colocation center, offer a uniquely specialized service. They provide a physically secure location, complete with real-time security measures such as full camera surveillance, biometrically-controlled access, and in some cases, even on-site security personnel. You and your business have full control over the physical servers you locate there, as opposed to a dedicated hosting scenario where you effectively rent your computer time. Colocation is easily the most expensive option of the four, but at the same time, it is also easily the most secure. If you’re dealing with sensitive information or large amounts of money, for example a large e-commerce retailer, colocation facilities are a great choice.

Cloud hosting is the newest kid on the block, and is still settling down as a market. It is the most flexible option among the four hosting solutions, by its very nature. “The Cloud”, as it is known, is a concept wherein multiple base units are combined to create a scalable infrastructure – if more processing power is needed, it can be rented by the processor hour. During lower usage hours, less processing power can be rented, saving you money. It transforms hosting into a service that you use, instead of a product that you purchase, which is an interesting twist, and the reason that everyone is love with ‘The Cloud’. Many different companies offer these services, including Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon.

How can companies benefit from this type of service?
Well, it can essentially suggest security and increased productivity for companies that go through repeated server outage or those that don’t have their own servers to begin with. Also, co-location is an alternative to creating and maintaining your own data facilities which can initially save you more money at business startup. It can equally help organizations address physical and compatibility issues. To illustrate, a business in town with a co-location service plan can certainly leave its server behind the same data center while it moves or transfers to a new strategic location.

Generally, choosing co-location services must not be taken lightly, as this kind of partnership needs a certain level of trust and confidence. Unlike most partnerships, the selection involves entrusting your data files to a reliable provider with advanced safeguarding and operational measures. Many co-location providers share space for dozen of racks and they typically charge by the rack amount, bandwidth used and power consumed. Selecting the right co-location service for your business needs some thought for these considerations. You can heed other companies’ suggestions and go with their proposed service provider or you can search the Internet and pick from among the list of co-location companies in the city. When you’ve selected a couple of firms, you can opt to visit their facilities and access firsthand how things are. You must also realize that it’s important to learn about their security procedures and the extent of its implementation as this can be also factored in to your overall decision.

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