vs. Colocation | pages

	Colocation
Reliability	A server is a single point of failure. If a single disk fails, a memory card, or a network interface, your application is down. In most cases, an administrator will need to rebuild the entire software stack, from operating system to end-user application, and then restore user data. Colocation providers may offer a fix guarantee, but it's only for restoring the operating system, not your application. Failures can result in hours to days of downtime.	Our cloud technology will typically restart a failed server's software on a new server within 5 minutes or 1 minute, depending on the service tier ordered. PrimaCloud offers a 10x monthly fee credit SLA guarantee for unplanned outages exceeding the offered SLA tiers of 99.95% (22 minutes per month) or 99.99% (30 seconds per month). All data stored in PrimaCloud's grid is RAIDed for redundancy: the chances of data loss are negligible. Additional backup services on request. With PrimaCloud's multiple-location deployments, we can guarantee reliability of 5-nines, or less than 5 minutes per year!
Security	Depends on the colocation provider. Most don't offer managed hardware firewalls. If you want security, you will have to install a software firewall and maintain it yourself. 100Mbps connections to the internet backbone mean DDOS attacks can overwhelm your server.	Active Intrusion Detection / Intrusion Prevention firewalls with antivirus available to protect against hacking, viruses and DOS attacks. Multiple gigabit connections to the internet backbone mean DDOS attacks are absorbed by the firewalls, not your application. Highly secure VLAN management means your application is completely anonymous to other PrimaCloud customers. For maximum security, PrimaCloud service may be ordered as a Hosted Private Cloud with no resources shared with other customers.
Server Cost	You pay for the server purchase or lease, as well as power and rack space. Because servers are expensive and time-consuming to upgrade, you have to buy enough server to handle computing peaks and projected demand over the life of the server. You're always paying for 100% of each server, even though typical usage is 5-10%.	PrimaCloud's per-server charges are somewhat more expensive than purchasing and colocating a server. However, PrimaCloud only charges you for the computing resources you actually use, with all charges included in an hourly rate, usually resulting in savings over colocation. Discounts for committed minimum usage levels over a term period or for prepayment allow you to save as you grow. You don't have to pay in advance - ever! If you only need 5% of a server, you only pay for 5%. If you need more for a month, then you only pay for that month's extra usage. If you need 1.1 servers, you don't pay for 2 servers. Automatic workload management can save you up to 80% over purchasing statically allocated resources by scaling your application automatically to match the load from users/customers.
Other Costs	Colo providers often include fixed amounts of bandwidth, disk storage, and IP addresses with your server. If you exceed them, the cost jumps dramatically.	PrimaCloud charges a per-unit rate for bandwidth and disk storage, with quantity discounts. No surprise overage charges. IP addresses are $1/mo. We want to make it easy for you to grow!
Performance	Once you buy/lease your server, you're stuck with the performance it offers. If you guess wrong, you have to buy another server and install it, which is time-consuming.	With PrimaCloud's cloud, you can expand from a fraction of a server to tens of servers, without changing your application or waiting days or weeks for an upgrade. Our high- performance quad and 8-core servers handle the toughest loads. Memory can be expanded to 16GB per server instance, or beyond on request. Ultra high-speed interconnect architecture eliminates I/O wait bottlenecks for select service tiers.
Storage	Once you buy/lease your server, you're stuck with the storage it offers. If you guess wrong, you have to buy another server and install it, which is time-consuming and requires downtime for your application.	Storage is allocated independent of server size. Use as much as you need, to 5TB and beyond, while paying only for what you use, with quantity discounts available. High performance SSD-backed storage is also available for serving transactional loads (additional charges may apply.) Choose one performance level now, and upgrade later when you need more speed.
Compatibility	The reference standard. All software will run on standalone servers.	Close to perfect. Our cloud system was designed to simulate a physical data center. The virtual servers in your VPDC function much like physical servers, but with more scalability and self-healing reliability.
Controllability	With root access, you can control your server, but you also have to know how.	PrimaCloud offer root logins to virtual servers in your VPDC, as well as management plans that eliminate the need to log in or know anything about how to manage the server. Your VPDC can scale automatically in response to changing load conditions.
Observability / Monitoring	If you want to know what's going on inside your server, you must provide your own monitoring.	PrimaCloud offers enterprise-grade monitoring at the application and server levels, to let you know what's going on with your VPDC and application. We can notify you automatically if your server isn't working the way you want it to be. We can even remotely monitor the experience that your customers are having on your site!
Network	N/A	Multiple gigabit connections to multiple carriers ensure best-in-class network performance.
Deployment	You figure out how to deploy and manage your application. You have to understand everything about your server and the software on it.	PrimaCloud's experienced staff of IT professionals deploys your application in a virtual data center of your design, with full management services available.
Vendor Lock-In	None, except that moving your software to another physical server requires configuring the new server's software environment to be identical to the old one.	Our paradigm for delivering Cloud services as a VPDC means that your software can usually be run unchanged in PrimaCloud's cloud. This makes it easy to move them to other VPDCs or to a physical data center. Standards-based hypervisors, such as VMWare or Xen permit easy migration in and out of PrimaCloud to other virtual architectures.
Support	Colocation vendors usually only support your hardware and possibly the operating system on it.	You call the phone and we answer, with guaranteed service response times. Our system admin experts take responsibility for your servers and software.
Intended Customer	Highly technically capable organizations more interested in price than reliability and flexibility.	Organizations requiring enterprise-grade guaranteed service levels without staffing investment, wishing to take advantage of PrimaCloud's extensive data center design expertise.

Us vs. Them