When a company looks for “where to host infrastructure in Kazakhstan,” Timeweb, Yandex Cloud and local data centers often end up on the same shortlist. But these are different categories of service, and you should choose between them not “by specs” but by the job. Comparing them head-to-head is like comparing a moped to a bus: they have something in common, but they’re built for different purposes.

The right question isn’t “who is better,” but “what am I buying, and for what job?”

Two different models

Cloud and hosting (Timeweb, Yandex Cloud and others) is the rental of compute resources. You get virtual machines, managed databases, storage, additional services — and you pay as you go. You don’t buy or maintain hardware, you don’t choose the facility, and you have no physical access to it. It’s convenient and fast.

Colocation in a data center (the Akashi model) is the physical placement of your own equipment in a data center. You don’t buy “resources” — you buy space, power, cooling, connectivity, fault tolerance, physical access to your hardware and the ability to audit the facility. You fully control the equipment and the data.

This isn’t a “more expensive cloud” or a “cheaper server.” It’s a different layer of infrastructure — for those who need to physically host and manage their own infrastructure.

What you buy in each case

With cloud/hosting you buy:

  • virtual resources on demand (CPU, RAM, disk);
  • ready-made managed services (databases, load balancers, CDN);
  • instant scaling up and down;
  • no capital expenditure and no hardware worries.

With colocation you buy:

  • physical placement of your own equipment;
  • guaranteed fault tolerance of the data-center infrastructure (power, cooling, connectivity);
  • full control over hardware and configuration, including non-standard setups (GPU/AI clusters);
  • physical access and facility audit;
  • predictable costs over the long run.

These are different customers — and often different layers of one chain

These models serve different audiences. Cloud and hosting are closer to the end user of the service: someone building a chatbot, an agent or a SaaS, who cares about price, speed of launch, integrations and managed services. Such a project has no reason to put a server in a data center — it’s simpler to use the cloud.

Colocation in a data center is closer to the service provider and infrastructure owner: someone who cares about fault tolerance, power, cooling and physical control, because the continuity of their own services depends on it.

What’s more, these aren’t always competing — they’re often adjacent layers. A cloud provider physically hosts its own equipment somewhere. Once Akashi is completed, such companies will be able to place their infrastructure in it — and then sell their cloud services on top of it to end users. In other words, “the cloud” can physically live “in a data center.”

The decisive factor — data jurisdiction

Where the models truly diverge for Kazakhstani business is where the data physically resides.

Timeweb operates out of the Russian jurisdiction. Yandex Cloud is a Russian vendor. For some workloads this is fine. But if you work with the personal data of Kazakhstani citizens, the law requires storing it on servers physically located in Kazakhstan — and a Russian cloud creates limitations and compliance risks here (more in the guide on data localization in Kazakhstan).

Hosting in a local Kazakhstani data center removes this question entirely: the data is physically in Kazakhstan, you can scale, and the jurisdictional barriers fall away. Akashi is positioned as a (under-construction) Tier IV–level facility in Astana — the first of its kind in the region where you can host locally in Kazakhstan.

Who each one fits

Cloud/hosting (Timeweb, Yandex Cloud) — choose it if:

  • the load is variable and you need a fast start without capex;
  • you are the end user of a service (a bot, an MVP, a small SaaS, a website);
  • you need ready-made managed services and have no in-house team for hardware;
  • jurisdiction requirements for the data aren’t critical.

Colocation in a local data center (Akashi) — choose it if:

  • you need constant 24/7 load and your own (including non-standard) hardware;
  • you are a service provider yourself, and the continuity of your services depends on the infrastructure;
  • physical control, access to equipment and audit matter;
  • the data of Kazakhstani citizens must be stored locally by law.

If you’ve reached the question of the facility’s fault-tolerance tier, it’s worth understanding the difference between Tier III and Tier IV: it determines whether the infrastructure survives an unplanned failure without downtime.

Frequently asked questions

What should I choose if I’m building a chatbot or a small SaaS?

Cloud or hosting. There’s no point putting a server in a data center for this — speed of launch, price and managed services matter more to you.

When do you actually need colocation in a data center?

When the load is constant, you need full control over the hardware, fault tolerance and physical audit matter, or when the personal data of Kazakhstani citizens must legally be stored in Kazakhstan.

How is colocation different from renting in the cloud?

In colocation you host and fully control your own equipment, with physical access and audit. In the cloud you rent the provider’s virtual resources and don’t manage the hardware.

Where is it safer from the standpoint of Kazakhstani law?

In infrastructure physically located in Kazakhstan. A Russian cloud creates limitations on the localization of personal data of Kazakhstani citizens.

Contact the Akashi team — we’ll help you figure out which model fits your workload.