In Education, Colocation Boosts Efficiency and Lowers Costs

We talk often about the benefits of colocation in an enterprise setting.

As we’ve said many times before, colocating rather than building your own company-operated data center can save costs, make your business more efficient, increase agility, and bolster connectivity—to name a few benefits. That much is clear for businesses in need of a robust IT infrastructure.

One space we haven’t talked about much before, however, is education. After all, not many people have the perception of educational institutions as cutting-edge organizations in need of a robust IT infrastructure.

Not only do we think educational institutions are more innovative than people realize, we also believe that they can stand to benefit significantly from colocating rather than trying to manage their own data center.

A new article from EdTech magazine shows just how true this can be in practice. As writer Alan Joch notes in the article, Chippewa Valley Technical College in Eau Claire, Wisconsin is doing things differently after creating its own colocation facility.

Seeing the need for robust infrastructure throughout the state, Chippewa Valley partnered with two local institutions to build a state-of-the-art data center that it could use for itself, but also lease out to other public-sector organizations.

For the facility's tenants, the benefits have been clear. Jim Dahlberg, senior IT director at Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College (WITC), told EdTech that "we weren't able to provide the uptime levels we wanted to for our students and our staff." Though WITC thought about upgrading its campus data center, it ultimately realized it would get a much better bang for its buck by colocating in the new facility.

Now, Chippewa Valley's colo facility is home to seven organizations, from universities in Wisconsin to a K-12 school district. For all parties involved, it’s been a success.

An international enterprise and a local technical college may seem worlds apart, but both can benefit significantly from colocating into a data center rather than building and managing their own. In fact, these two different types of organizations see many of the same benefits, even if on a different scale.

As this excellent success story from EdTech magazine shows, opportunity stemming from colocation lies in unexpected places. Even in education, colocation can significantly boost efficiency and productivity while significantly reducing costs.

Whether you’re an international enterprise or a local school district, our colocation solutions can help your business become more efficient, reduce costs, and increase agility across the organization. To learn more, reach out to us via our contact page, or connect with us on social media (Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn).