The GTE Federal Credit Union of Western Florida has chosen to house its servers with Colo5, a Jacksonville, Florida, colocation provider. Colo5 houses servers for companies in retail, banking, managed services and healthcare. With GTE, the company looks to expand its sights beyond Florida.

“We are very excited to have a client like GTE Federal Credit Union in our facility. Our goal is to expand our offerings outside of the Jacksonville market,” said Scott Larsen, Colo5’s vice president of Sales. “When clients like GTE Federal Credit Union make the decision to come to our facility, it further validates our strategy and validates Colo5 as a viable Data Center/Disaster Recovery option for companies across the state of Florida and beyond.”

Colo5 offers over 140,000 square feet of dedicated data center space that offers robust security, redundant power systems and a state-of-the-art fiber network. The company boasts that its facilities can withstand the force of a Category 5 hurricane while handling the power density, bandwidth and cooling needs of today’s colocation market.

“We chose Colo5 mainly for two reasons. The first reason was the location. We considered other locations outside of Florida but Jacksonville made the most sense from a logistical stand point,” says Anthony Bender, vice president of Member Systems and IT for GTE Federal Credit Union. “The other reason was cost. Colo5 was more cost effective and provided everything that was required for us to do business out of their data centers.”

For many companies, colocation provides the advantages of a data center build-out without the associated headaches. Colocation also gives companies the option of using operating expenses, rather than capital expenditures, to update their IT departments. Potential issues involve training IT personnel to work with a colocation provider and ensuring that managed services integrate seamlessly with the company’s existing infrastructure.

Colocation also offers significant advantages for disaster recovery, which is crucial in an area like Western Florida. The state is affected by hurricanes generally once every two to three years. The redundancy of colocation offers business continuity, which prevents lost revenue during natural disasters.