How do the smaller hosts setup your main site server as well as the server you host your clients on? I would imagine that most of the smaller hosts have a minimum of two servers. The question is, what is your contingency plan for a technical server issue (something goes out) when you are co-located?

Do you let the NOC hold spare parts for you?
Do you have some sort of a cluster set up?

Obviously if you have a single server and host your main site as well as your clients on it, if it goes down (co-location), you have a problem. If the NOC doesn't have the parts necessary to fix the particular brand of server you have then you are pretty much screwed.

What are your server downtime emergency contengency plans? What setup would you have for downtime on your main site server?

Thanks

Most smaller hosts will have a few managed dedicated servers. They usually will not colocate thier servers unless they live close to the NOC.

I see. Well I'm 12 hours from the NOC. I was planning on leaving parts there for the servers unless anything goes down. See any problems with this?

You might check with the NOC to see how much they charge you for replacing parts. They usually charge $60 - $100 /per hour and may have 1 hour minimum. Imagine each time they charge $100 it will add up a lot for a small hosting firm.

Yes it could indeed if your servers go down all the time. I'm hoping the servers won't be down all the time. Be hard to give a 99 percent uptime if they were down?

Yes, it would be very costly :) I recommend you go with a managed dedicated server unless you can take care of them (drive 12 hours?) ? :)

You should check with your host. We, for example, keep spare servers, HDs, memory, CPUs, CD-ROM, etc. in stock and sell them at our cost. We also only charge ~$25.00 to install hardware and most of the time we can do this with in minutes of the failure.

It all depends on the host, but I am sure if you ask they can tell you their solutions.

I understand. But would you have spare parts for an APPRO 1U enterprise class server?

I mean, I really cannot imagine someone having a spare power supply for these servers.