Hello guys, this is not an advertisement or request (i put that in the request forum). I am writing for your advice on colocating servers. I have about 6 right now (1u) and am looking to colocate them in 1 datacenter. They are currently all over the country in multiple datacenters. I plan to grow to about 12 servers by september atleast and more later on. So, purchasing a cabinet now would be a good idea right? Also, I have 3 webservers pulling average this month of 360kbps each so they basically need their own 1mbps line. I also have 3 gaming servers for counterstrike which almost use a t1 themselves. What do you guys recommend doing (gals too)? Any help would be good...where do you recommend? How many mbps do you recommend? Any help would be appreciated :)

Thanks,
Darren

Well, the two that have best pricing as far as I've seen...

http://www.affordablecolo.com/
http://www.he.net/

I will suggest VortechHosting.com

They have a new NOC and lots of Resources.Their Support is awesome. They have great Techs. and Support Team. Quick Response. I am not looking for anything more than that. :)

I think I will suggest them for your Colo Needs.

GREAT NOC!!



Thank you,


Rajiv Mehta

Id recommend colo4dallas for all your colocation needs you can contact paul at 214-630-3100 x21 their a great bunch of people.

First off - having your servers spread around has advantages :) I always recommend redundancy, 2 centers better than 1. Of course, having 12 isn't good :)

Relative to recommending a provider:

Co-locating that many servers -- how do you upgrade manage them? Do you swap them out? If a center charges you $200/hour for labor to your servers... is that going to be a problem?

I see no reason to PURCHASE a cabinet... your real cost is in RELOCATING your servers. you can mail a single 1u server, but mailing a rack :)

Consider the rack negotiable... the ISP's costs are in the support and in the bandwidth... And even if you purchase the rack yourself, aren't most ISP's going to ding you for the floorspace and power?

For a small number of servers, $30 per u is what I consder reasonable including power and all.

Your bandwidth needs for those game servers stick out like a sore thumb. Given that 4/5th of your bandwidth is just for that purpose, and that is very latency sensative -- you may want to shop that seperate from the rest of your servers. Just my thoughts. Unless you are focused on "Easy" vs. cost.

Originally posted by StephenRS


Consider the rack negotiable... the ISP's costs are in the support and in the bandwidth... And even if you purchase the rack yourself, aren't most ISP's going to ding you for the floorspace and power?

For a small number of servers, $30 per u is what I consder reasonable including power and all.

Your bandwidth needs for those game servers stick out like a sore thumb. Given that 4/5th of your bandwidth is just for that purpose, and that is very latency sensative -- you may want to shop that seperate from the rest of your servers. Just my thoughts. Unless you are focused on "Easy" vs. cost. [/B]

Customers may pay for cage space and put in racks or cabinets, rarely do they buy their own racks for space on floor.

Depending on the data center, $30.00/U may not cover the cost of putting it in. If you expect biometrics, skilled sys admins 7X24, handholding everytime you reboot, etc. then costs go up exponentially.

Game servers will stop a lot of colo companies from doing business with you. Too much pipe, not enough revenue.

The costs are for space, power, pipe and air. If you are not going to colo in a data center but at an ISP, their space costs may be lower. In any colo facility someone has to pay for the generators, the routers, the building rent, the power, the battery backup system, the power conditioners and the racks.
If all I had was a couple T-1's in my garage maybe all my costs would be for pipe and payroll.

Tom