Outsourceing your hardware infrastructure is a form of outsourcing your software. This means outsourcing hardware infrastructure, such as your data center, the servers and storage devices that run your applications, and network infrastructure like routers and switches. Because you’re no longer working for a company that owns the hardware infrastructure, you’re free to work on your own hardware, so you can focus on the other things in life that you want to do.
No matter which one of these is true for you, it can be a good choice. Of course, if you decide to outsource your data center, it can be a bad choice. The data center provides a lot of services that you are not going to get for free, such as hosting the server that runs your website, keeping your backup copies in cold storage, and hosting multiple versions of your website.
If you do outsource your data center, you’re free to work on your own hardware, but you’re going to need to hire somebody to run your hardware, maintain the hardware, and service the hardware when it breaks or gets stolen. These are all things that you can do on your own hardware, but if you want these services, you will need to outsource them to somebody.
If you have hardware on-site, then you can expect to be paying for its maintenance and repairs. This is because hardware is an asset. It is something that you own and use and you should expect to be working with it to make it as useful as possible. With websites, your hardware is one of your many assets that you should expect to outsource to another party. If you hire someone to manage the hardware, you should expect to be paying them to keep it running.
Hardware is also the thing that someone who owns your website owns. As such, you should expect your hardware to be run by somebody. The other party you should expect to outsource all of your hardware to is someone who has a network of customers. For example, my web host has a long list of clients (I’ve gotten several free months of hosting space on their web server).
A lot of what we do at this site is outsource to other people, as that’s part of our business model. We can either pay our web host or we can try to negotiate. Either way, we’re dependent on their good faith.
I’m definitely a fan of outsourcing our network infrastructure, so I would say you should expect your hardware to be run by someone. The other party you should expect to outsource all of your hardware to is someone who has a network of customers. For example, my website has no hosting server at all, and thus I’m relying on a third party to host my website.
I think you may be confusing outsourcing hardware with outsourcing the process of finding new servers for your website. You are going to do the same thing with your website hosting. You are both outsourcing the same thing. You are just going to be using different parties.
I think the two things are usually related, but not always. I think the correct term is “outsourcing”, which in the context of website hosting means the process of choosing a provider, rather than choosing a provider itself. Of course, in the context of website hosting we’re talking about something slightly different, as you are choosing a hosting service provider rather than choosing a website hosting service provider. In this case the hosting service provider is actually a third party.
The process of selecting hardware providers is usually referred to as buying a hosting. But this is not true of outsourcing. In fact, outsourcing hardware infrastructure means that a third party (or other provider) is contracted to provide the hardware to your site.