What Is Colocation? A Practical UK Buyer's Overview
Colocation explained without jargon — racks, power, remote hands and when 1U to full-cabinet colo in Cambridge beats the public cloud.
Colocation means you own (or lease) the servers — we provide the space, power, cooling and network in a professional data centre.
Who colo is for
- Hardware you must control end-to-end (compliance, specialised NICs, GPUs).
- Predictable monthly costs instead of cloud bill shock.
- Hybrid designs: keep latency-sensitive kit in Cambridge and burst to the public cloud.
Typical footprints
| Size | Typical use |
|---|---|
| 1U–5U | Single servers, firewalls, edge appliances |
| Quarter rack (10U) | Growing stacks with room to expand |
| Half rack (21U) | Serious production + storage |
| Full rack (42U) | Private cabinets, bring-your-own gear |
What “good” colo includes in the UK
- Dual A+B power, N+ cooling, biometric access
- Real remote hands on site — not a ticket that waits until Monday
- Carrier-neutral connectivity and peering (we operate AS48825 with LINX/LONAP membership)
- Always-on DDoS filtering at the edge
Read the longer colocation buyers guide before you sign — power density and contract term matter as much as the headline rack price.
If you already own HPE or whitebox gear, colo is often cheaper and more controllable than re-buying the same capacity as cloud VMs.