Seeking a datacenter near South Dakota. Yes, I'm serious :)

I'm looking for a datacenter near Sioux Falls (Southeastern South Dakota) that has good connectivity to multiple providers. It looks like my options are out-of-state, such as Denver, Omaha, or Chicago. Omaha would of course be best for me location-wise, but I would consider Denver or others within 500 miles or so.

I'm planning on starting with one or two 1U servers, consuming around 80GB/month total. Since after-hours travel is likely, 24/7 access is preferred but not required. The usual standards and redundancies are required, power, cooling, security, etc.

I am new to colocation, but have been a dedicated server customer for two years. If I've left something out, just ask. This is not really a request for quotes, I'm looking for recommendations. Thank you in advance for help!

The big colo providers all used the Football City mentality when setting up shop. Equation (pro football = colo build)

South Dakota was not on the list. Your next choice would be to find the largest regional provider or don't worry about the distance and setup at a colo that gives you remote console access and remote hands support.

Can I ask why you require frequent access to your server?

Wouldn't Minneapolis/St Paul be the closest?

You are right, I don't expect to physically access the server much. I've never seen the dedicated server I've had for two years, and I've only had to call on the techs once or twice. But I'm thinking for major hardware upgrades for instance, it'd be "fun" to take a weekend and go to the datacenter and put in new RAM, harddrive, whatever. Perhaps I am majorly overestimating my need for that, and overestimating the cost to just have the onsite techs handle it. In any case, I am more concerned with Location to backbones rather than Location to me.

Yes, Mpls would possibly be an option. Omaha is just two hours away, Denver and Mpls are both probably 8 to 10 hour drives. I think I would like to visit the center at least once, probably deliver the server.

Anyone have any experience with affordablecolo.com? Their price certainly seems reasonable, and they have a center in Denver.


I'm mentioning these cities because they seem to be the nearest POPs for Level3, AT&T, UUNet... I went around and printed all the major backbone network maps.

Your idea of fun is to drive 500 miles and back to install ram.....?

I just graduated with a degree in Computer Science, and have a pretty good job, plus this webhosting has been going well and I enjoy it.

Do you really think I'm going to suddenly have a social life very soon?

So, yeah, driving 500 miles to install RAM would be fun, 'cause it's a reason to see Denver :)

But back to the thread, I'm starting to lean towards hosting right here in Sioux Falls. The building I work in has an OC12 SONET ring with AT&T, UUNet and Sprint I believe. If I can get past a potential conflict of interest, I really have a great opportunity here. I've bounced it off my boss. It's sounding like I'm the only one much worried about it. (I'm cautious about being in a situation where my server is hosted by my boss, and I'm offering similar services to the company I work for. But our markets are completely different, they are strictly local higher-end business.)

It might be a little more costly, but it's been a few years since I was in the switching rooms and I starting to think I'm sitting on a better network than I realized...

Originally posted by getweb

But back to the thread, I'm starting to lean towards hosting right here in Sioux Falls. The building I work in has an OC12 SONET ring with AT&T, UUNet and Sprint I believe. If I can get past a potential conflict of interest, I really have a great opportunity here.


Let me guess.... You work for SDN??

Barry

(Actually I started an email to you but put it on hold. Thanks for your posts, Barry.)

A building in Sioux Falls with an OC12 narrows it down, eh? Actually, I'm in the SDN building, but I work for Omnitech. We lease space and connectivity from SDN. Our space includes a 300 sq ft server room with anti-static flooring, seperate cooling & fire suppression. The space is ideal, I had just thought about going with a larger datacenter with many colocation clients and closer to a major POP. Bandwidth will probably run more expensive here, too.


So do you actually go through this building? I see Northern Valley on the list of long distance companies.

The only building I know that has SONET other than QWEST.. Actually, if the bandwidth is managed properly, you should be fine at SDN (Omnitech). As for our connectivity, we have some gear in the switch room about 15 feet away from the Nortel Passport 15k.

Barry

P.S. Actually I think the connection to UUnet (MCI) is an OC-48. I know this because I was the 1st customer on the link (DS3).

Good luck

Im in omaha

Axiom integrations has a datacenter here
by the airport off of abott drive

http://www.axiomintegration.com


^^ Check em out