Data center colocation refers to the practice of renting space in a data center facility to house an organization's servers and other computing hardware. Colocation data centers provide the infrastructure such as power, cooling, and physical security, while the organization brings its own servers and other equipment to be housed in the space.
Organizations that use data center colocation are typically looking for a cost-effective way to have their own servers housed in a secure location, with the added benefits of redundant power and cooling systems. They may also be interested in reducing the amount of space needed for their own on-site data center, or in having their servers located in a specific geographic location for reasons such as latency or compliance