Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

Organisations are no longer limited to running everything in-house. The real question is where different workloads should sit to deliver the best long-term results. For many, that means weighing up cloud vs colocation. Both offer advantages over traditional infrastructure but serve different aims. Cloud makes it simple to scale and launch new services, while colocation provides predictable costs, direct control, and stronger assurance for compliance.

When a data centre migration is executed well, it enables growth and strengthens resilience. When it is not, the consequences are immediate: service downtime, compliance breaches, and operational disruption that affects both clients and internal teams. For IT leaders, the pressure lies in modernising infrastructure without compromising continuity.

In today’s small and medium-sized UK businesses, most of the cybersecurity budget goes into protecting data and strengthening authentication. Those are important measures – the cost of a data breach is still enough to close your firm, after all. But they aren’t enough. Because in 2025, thanks to increased capabilities of DDoS attacks, you don’t have to lose your data to lose your business– you just have to lose access to it.

When you’re planning your IT strategy, deciding between cloud computing and colocation services isn’t always simple. Each option comes with its strengths and potential pitfalls. And with tech at the heart of most modern operations, knowing where to house your data and infrastructure is a big decision, and one that could shape your business's future. So, which one is best for your business: cloud computing vs colocation?

Data centre energy use has become a critical factor in business infrastructure strategy. Once a background cost, it now plays a direct role in decisions about operational resilience, sustainability reporting, and future capacity planning. The scale of consumption is hard to ignore. Even smaller facilities can draw between 1 and 5 MW of continuous power, enough to supply thousands of homes. Larger hyperscale environments consume significantly more, 20 MW to over 100 MW of power.

The demands placed on digital infrastructure have changed. Businesses are adding locations, connecting to cloud platforms, or responding to changing compliance requirements. Rigid network contracts and fixed provider models no longer make operational sense. Carrier neutral data centres offer a different approach. By enabling provider choice, flexible routing, and integration on your terms, they give infrastructure teams more control, and more room to move.

Security expectations around data centres have changes, and it’s no longer enough to secure the perimeter or roll out a firewall policy. Today’s infrastructure relies on interconnected systems, from APIs and cloud endpoints to HVAC controls and building access tools, all of which can be targeted, misconfigured, or exploited.

The past few years have seen the incredible rise of cloud-native AI start-ups, many of them born during the pandemic. These companies emerged agile, experimental, and ready to scale. But as their ambitions grow and their AI models become more complex, they face a critical crossroads: how to manage infrastructure sustainably while continuing to innovate at speed. In the early days, public cloud services were the obvious choice.

Data centres often hold the fluorinated gas (f-gas) HFC-227ea, traded under the name FM-200, as an emergency measure to stop fires in data halls and technical space without harming electrical equipment. Robust fire prevention helps avoid devastating human, operational, financial, and environmental consequences, but there’s a problem with this particular gas – if released, it has an immense global warming potential.