When it comes choosing a hosting location, whether for your servers or website hosting, the most immediate consideration is on cost. However, there are several other factors that you need to consider. These are:
- Location of the target audience
The server should be located as close as possible to the target audience, or where the majority users are in case of a global audience. This is to make it faster for them to access the server, as it takes time for data to travel from the server to the clients. The shorter the time, the greater the user experience.
- Cost
The cost of having your server hosted has an implication on the margins of your balance sheet. This requires that you find the best quality service at the lowest possible cost. However, balancing costs and other factors is an intricate process, but quality should never be compromised.
- Service availability and uptime.
Critical applications need to be available all the time, unfortunately, no Data Center can guarantee 100% uptime. Nevertheless, there are ways to go about this challenge by having redundant hosts. However, a good Data Center should guarantee a high level of availability and uptime, clearly stated in the SLA.
- Risk involved
One needs to be risk averse, especially when political and other factors are concerned. It is not about loss of data and through natural calamities or civil wars, but also integrity of the data and risk of access, especially when high value data is concerned.
