Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Colocation and Data Centers : network at colocation help needed

[vanle32]

network at colocation help needed..suggestions are appreciated

I have been renting four servers, but i need to setup 10 more servers within the next three months. after comparing the price of renting 14 servers to actually renting a cabinet with that can store 25+ servers (1U), i found going on my own and rent rackspace is much cheaper.

number of servers needed to be setup right away: 4
number of servers that will be coming: 10
current bandwidth: 200 gig/month
potential bandwidth needed: ~700 gigs/month

The rackspace provider (ANET) provides a ethernet cable and 32 IPs for my servers. i have a vision of the network i would like to have, but i do not know if it's possible. here are some of the suggestions that i have got other who have given me their valuable time:

Suggestion 1) just plug in the IP, subnet mask, provider's gateway and run on each server individually. install some software firewall for each server. that's it.

Suggestion 2) ask the provider to create a VLAN and setup my network within that VLAN with the assigned IPs. this way i have to have a router, firewall, the only servers existed are mine.

Here's my vision of the network i would love to have: I will be using windows2k mainly and i would like to create a domain and put all these servers under this domain. as the same time, i would like to setup norton antivirus server where all my and only my servers can download the virus updates. since my servers have two network cards each, i would also like to get up a internal network using (10.*.*.*) so I can trasnfer files or do whatever i want without using the public IP interface because i will measure the bandwidth used by each server coming from this interface. at the same time, i would like to have a gateway - because i want to show a hop there before getting into my servers. since these servers are under one network, i definitely want to setup a firewall to protect all my servers.

Should I go and ask to have a VLAN created? Or simply, go with suggestion number 1 which I don’t really want. Is there another alternative that is feasible, at the same time, accommodated my vision?

Do you have any advices? I am just starting out into this business and technical-wise i am trying.

any advices is greatly appreciated.

[Mfjp]

Showing a hop in there requires at least a Layer 3 switch or a router. There is another post in the colo forum currently about this subject. For the space and server you have, you should be asking for a whole Class C and do static routing on it either thru a Layer3 switch or a Router.

You also do not need another NIC to get internal IPs. For the colocation setup, you'll have to send a switch or some sort of thing like that along. If you bind a set of 192.168 address to the machines, they'll all be able to communicate internally.

For the firewall, I also recommend a Hardware firewall sitting between you and your provider and do firewall service for the whole subnet (Althought I don't know how much would one of these thing cost. I have been told the Cisco PIX is good at this).

One more thing, if you're colocating with a cabinet and router, u're pretty much on your own on how you would do the whole thing.


Woh! Anet got Level3 connectivity, mind to tell me what price you pay per mbps?

[JTY]

Hmm. Your provider should be able to provide a VLAN, and do your routing. That way you can have your "hop".

Also, for a hardware firewall, you could use one setup in a bridging fashion.