Colocation or a dedicated server
Both put a machine of your own in Amsterdam. The difference is who buys it, who replaces it, and how long you are committing for.
The short version
- Dedicated server
- We own the hardware, build it to your specification, and replace anything that fails from stock on site. Monthly, paid upfront, no minimum beyond the month.
- Colocation
- You own the hardware. We provide rackspace, power, cooling and network, and our engineers are the hands when something needs doing physically. Annual contracts, from a single unit upward.
When colocation is right
- You already own suitable hardware and it has life left in it.
- You need something unusual — a specific card, a licensing dongle, a configuration nobody rents.
- The economics work at your scale. Past a certain number of machines, buying and depreciating beats renting, provided you also budget for spares and for someone to care about them.
- A licence is tied to the hardware, which still happens with some enterprise software.
When a dedicated server is right
- You want a failed disk to be somebody else's problem. We hold parts in Amsterdam and replace them; with colocation, you ship the spare or we fit one you have left with us.
- You do not want a year's commitment. Monthly, cancel before the next invoice.
- You would rather not forecast. Specification changes are a ticket, not a purchase order.
- Capital is better spent elsewhere than on metal that depreciates.
The thing people forget: spare parts
With colocation you own the failure. A disk dies at two in the morning and the question becomes: is there a spare in the rack, and may we fit it? Customers who leave a labelled box of spares with us have a good night. Customers who do not are waiting for a courier.
Agree this when the hardware arrives, not when it breaks. See shipping hardware to us — nothing is accepted without a ticket reference first — and remote hands for what our engineers can do on your behalf.
Why the contract lengths differ
Rackspace, power and port capacity are reserved on your behalf and cannot be resold the moment you leave, so colocation runs on annual terms. A dedicated server goes back into stock, so it can be monthly. That is the whole reason, and it is in contract lengths and payment terms.
You can mix
Plenty of customers colocate the machines they already own and rent dedicated servers alongside them for growth or for the parts of the estate they would rather not maintain. Same network, same rack, one invoice.
Tell us what you have and what you are planning, and we will say which way round makes sense — including when the answer is “keep renting”. See writing a good quote request.
Still stuck? Mail support@novogara.com — an engineer answers, at any hour. Back to the knowledge base