I have a pretty good size building, 3600 sq ft in an extremly high class area of town in Orange County California. Heres what I am thinking, since I can get a ds2, ds3 line or whatever ran, converting the entire warehouse area of my place to a colocation area?

Building some raised floors etc etc etc. Im just curious, would it be profitable for me? I mean, I have the lease on my building paid for for another 12 months, and I can get the lines inexpensively. I have access to A/C temp control units, servers, and the floors arent hard to build, so, in your trusted opinion, would this be something you would recommend for someone like me?

I just figure maybe it will be somewhat of a return in the end because right now I dont use the space. Its just empty, nice looking warehouse space, that could so easily be built into a colocating facility. Maybe I could be an Orange County, or LA colocator? Because my size is enough, and Im in the heart of the area. So clients can come visit thier machines.

I dunno, but I would love to hear good opinions.

Yeah, well, say IF I had a DS2 or DS3 line, would it be profitable? Thats what im interested in??

Thanks,
Jason Schultz


after the post ----
power is not problem. my place has backup gen's.
the question Im asking is not, what else do i need, please help, it is WOULD IT BE PROFITABLE TO MAKE THIS KIND OF DECISION???

Well, you best start off with at least 2 DS-3 lines. You aren't going to get many customers with having a t1 line.

A t1 isn't really good enough t do any major server hosting on. You would have it maxed out in no time.

Are they still having power probs in CA? You'd better invest in some generators and backup battery supplies.

I would suggest getting quotes on the local loop charge and a ds3 at least to start. If the building is already paid for thats going to be your major cost. Fire me an email dilhole@dahi.net I would love to talk to you about this.

Hey guys since we live so close to each other, maybe we can talk this over someplace ?

I live in orange county too , i'm in laguna beach - Irvine area.

Me and my brother would be very interested... :cool:

check this link out http://www.pajo.net

ps: i think chicken (the moderator) lives by south county too ?

Originally posted by jazon007
I have a pretty good size building, 3600 sq ft in an extremly high class area of town in Orange County California. Heres what I am thinking, since I can get a ds2, ds3 line or whatever ran, converting the entire warehouse area of my place to a colocation area?
... WOULD IT BE PROFITABLE TO MAKE THIS KIND OF DECISION???



You should be taking off your techie hat and putting on one of a business person. Some questions you should have ready answers to:

On the revenue side:

how many racks can you put into you space?
what's the revenue per rack you can expect? i.e., how many servers do you expect per rack? what percentage of the racks will be full at any time?
etc


And on the expense side:

marketing costs to attract customers to your colo center
how many racks can a tech support person handle, in other words, do you need one tech support person for every ten racks of equipment? Use this ratio to figure out salary and benefit costs
what does the bandwidth cost? how much bandwidth do you need, based upon the number of racks you will have.
what is the cost to run the facilities? (3.45BTUs of heat is generated for each watt of power consumed. I usually use 4.5BTUs per watt to give myself a nice safety factor. 12000BTUs per hour is a 1 ton air conditioner. how large is the building's a/c unit? How many servers can it handle?)
etc


As you can see, it is far easier to think up expenses than it is to think up revenue sources. :)

Throw all this info into a spreadsheet that will serve as the business model for your new business. Then track how things are progressing according to your model. If you start to stray too far from the model, see which of your initial criteria are incorrect. Adjust accordingly and see where your new plan takes you.


If you know where you are going, it is a lot easier to get there.