Hello everyone . I'm thinking of starting a low cost Canadian colocation place (in ottawa , ontario) and I'm interested in hearing what it is people want in there colocation providers . Also what are people willing to sacrifice to save money?

Service
Big Name (IE: RackShack, ThePlanet, not "Joe's Garage Shop Host")
Price, Price, Price

Also the names of the carriers.. Different levels of bandwidth 'quality'.. Either cogent/yipes or sprintlink or other... Depends on the budget and how much bandwidth you need.

-David

what do people think of the peer it your self method?
I was thinking of getting a 154mbs link to torix.net (toronto internet exchange) and posibly an OC3 to qix (quebic internet exchange).
Would people prefer a cogent connection over that?
Also what size of servers to people prefer to colo (1u , 2u , 3u , 4u , min tower , mid tower , full tower , other?) .
Do people want a 24/7 tech support pager?

Be careful with those full towers. I've heard from colo center owners that people would bring in a 'full tower' that's way, way larger than is acceptable.

If I were looking right now, I'd look for:
24/7 pager AND phone contact
Mid-tower
How you bill the bandwidth (95th percentile?)
What kind of power conditioning and infrastructure you have
I'd likely colo mid tower machines, so I'd need to know if you're charging more for those than a 1U/2U chassies..

If you offer the torix.net and qix, you might just want to include who you peer with on the main page. Not many people know qix or torix...

-David

Thanks . On that note do people prefer 95% billing method OR average consumption OR by the gb OR capped .
Or are there enough people who would want it in different ways that it would be worth offering billing in all those different methods?
As for power , how long to people expect me to keep the datacenter running if ontario hydro cuts the power?
Would they be interested in having different tiers (like everyone goes on a 5 minute UPS but you can pay extra if you want to go on a 5 hour UPS) . Do people expect me to have backup diesel generators (expensive , to buy , run ,etc.) .

"Thanks . On that note do people prefer 95% billing method OR average consumption OR by the gb OR capped ."

Depends on the customer, really.

Or are there enough people who would want it in different ways that it would be worth offering billing in all those different methods?

More flexibility will bring you more customers, so this could be a good thing for you to highlight.

"As for power , how long to people expect me to keep the datacenter running if ontario hydro cuts the power?"

Forever.

This is the standard that tier 1 ISP's run at. If you don't have this capability, then you'll need to price yourself accordingly.

"Would they be interested in having different tiers (like everyone goes on a 5 minute UPS but you can pay extra if you want to go on a 5 hour UPS) . "

I don't think so.. What I expect in a datacenter is a UPS that will take over if mains power is cut, and then a generator to run if it doesn't come back up within x amount of time.

"Do people expect me to have backup diesel generators (expensive , to buy , run ,etc.) ."

Yes. Some with non-mission-critical issues would maybe not mind, but most I'd think would want you to have one that can power your datacenter. It's also expected to have a agreement with a fuel supplier, so they can refill as you use the diesel.

-David

Thanks . I had no idea that people expected a diesel generator (gotta check zoning now ...)

how much does it cost to run a colocation business?? or the start-up cost?

can anyone give me a briefy estimation or something please?

"If you have to ask, you can't afford it." :)

It's seriously expensive, to do it correctly. You might consider renting space in a facility first before you build (ala dedicatednow)

-David

Yah , I have been doing some pricing . Dont know about the deisel generator (forgot to factor that in . do!) . A small colocation facility would probably cost $8,550/month assuming you are on call 24/7 (no life!) ; you use public peering points only ; you lite up dark fiber ; you dont get an cages or racks untill you need them . Note : these prices are for running on out of Ottawa , Ontario , Canada ; us prices are probably higher .

Note:
You probably can not get away with 100% public peering . A more relastic price would be around $12,000/month

As for setup you would be looking at probably a months cost , assuming you got all your hardware used of e-bay & the news groups along with doing all of the setup your self.

For $12,000/month in ottawa you could get 400mbs of data transfer (100mbs non public peering + 306mbs public peering) . On top of that you would probably have to higher staff eventualy. Also if you wanted to do dedicated add in the cost of purchasing an ass load of computers .
It would also probably take you one month (or more) before you wanted to let any paying customers on your network during witch you would be burning 12gs a month .

So....

about $12,000 setup fee
and at least $12,000/month

so the start-up cost would be somewhere around $24,000.
This isn't really bad at all, cosidering this is a serious business.

But does it worth it? Is it really that profitable?

(I am very interested too, although I don't know much about it... hehe....)

heres the problem , if you dont know mutch about it you would probably have to higher some help eh?
That would bring the costs up a lot.
Those prices are for some one who allready knows how to setup routers , servers , deal with the crtc (or is willing to read legalise) (I guess in the us it would be fcc?) , and be on call 24/7 .
As for it being profitiable , work it out .
Lets say you takeing colocation of mid towers & mini towers only . In the office which I was considering renting I could probably fit 900 mid towers in there (along with my routing equipment) . Now if I charged $30/month (canadian) ($20us) I would have a profit of $15,000. That is assuming I could totally fill up the colocation facility . Now since I am in Canada the incumbent phone company (bell) is required to allow smaller ISPs access to its lines for DSL purposes so I could try and make a bit more by selling DSL acess as well.

As for profitibility for you , it depends how much of it you are willing to yourself and where it is you had in mind of setting up shop (the office I found is dirt cheep) . Remember : they have to have really really good power setup otherwise your steel on space will end up killing you (in more ways than one eh?) .