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  1. #1

    What does it take to setup a cage?

    Although this is only a very distant dream for me - what does it take to setup a cage to its maximum potential? How many racks do you think a cage could hold and what hardware, racks, etc. would you need to buy?

    thanks.

  2. #2
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    webephex,

    The size of your cage is going to set a hard limit on how many racks you can fit. Some carriers will limit you and say you can only load thier floor space at x Lbs per SQFT.

    a 100 SQFT Cage can comfortably hold 9 Open Racks and a small desk. If you are using large cabinets you would only get 6 of them in a 100 SQFT.

    Don't forget your gonna need some x connect patch panels, power cords, switchs, and lots of patch cables.

    Oh and Don't forget, the most important thing a Label Maker so you can clearly mark each box front and back so that your NOC Monkeys can reboot the right machines when they are told to.

    Hope this helps, and good luck reaching your dream!

  3. #3
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    NOC Monkey ....... ouch

  4. #4
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    Techie with some technical skills that is underpaid, walks to boxes, reads label, presses reboot button, walks back to desk, sits down, closes ticket, goes back to sleep = NOC Monkey !

  5. #5
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    Originally posted by lostpacket

    a 100 SQFT Cage can comfortably hold 9 Open Racks and a small desk. If you are using large cabinets you would only get 6 of them in a 100 SQFT.
    Wow. That is a little tight in my opinion. 8 open racks in a 10X10 is pushing it.
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  6. #6
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    Originally posted by lostpacket
    Oh and Don't forget, the most important thing a Label Maker so you can clearly mark each box front and back so that your NOC Monkeys can reboot the right machines when they are told to.
    Aint that the truth! Nothing worse than a "NOC Monkey" rebooting the wrong server.

  7. #7
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    Originally posted by UmBillyCord
    Wow. That is a little tight in my opinion. 8 open racks in a 10X10 is pushing it.
    Just enough room for a very small tech and a very small desk. You could probably manually reboot most of the servers while sitting in your chair at your desk!

  8. #8
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    You're also going to want some space for a cart to put spare parts and such in. If something should break, you'd want to fix it in a timely manner, correct? Another thing you'll want is some cable holders. Nothing worse then having cords all over the place. Your "NOC Monkey" could trip and fall when he wakes up!

  9. #9
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    They trip anyways...
    Some have three legs.

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  10. #10
    i imagined you would need some of those pricey cisco parts as well.

    any idea on putting a price tag on the 8 racks with everything needed to hook up servers (cables, routers, racks, etc.)?

  11. #11
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    a few K would do it.

    If you buy chatsworth racks they are about $500/each new. You can find them used for about $100 though.

    Shelves are expensive also $20-60/each


    All depends what you want. Even if you came up with a set number your going to find that your requirements are going to change along the way, and increase your price most of the time. The IT field sucks, nothing is set in stone anymore.

    Anyone know where I can get my hands on a blind , one armed monkey or ape ?

  12. #12
    1 blind heavily armed noc monkey here! *points to himself*

    Will work for a crate of bananas!

  13. #13
    if it only costs a few K then why do racks cost 1-1.5K/mo. ?

    I thought the routers alone cost that much.

    BTW i think managed.com should get some monkeys to work their office, may cut down those setup times.

  14. #14
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    Because your paying for infrastucture cost, BW, PWR.

  15. #15
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    lets see - what could possibly be in a cage

    the racks - open racks or locking racks. Single doors or double doors (top and bottom). Programmable locks or keyed locks. Cable trays (fiber, coper, other). Access to the cage? Doors? Lighting?

    Now i think thats the bare requirements. If you want to work in your cage a lot (read daily basis) then you are probably going to want some work tables/desks/chairs. Perhaps a tool chest/cart/cabinet. Storage for spare parts/equipment?

    Wow thats a lot of stuff. But wait - we dont have any real equipment in the cage yet. When we bring that in we are probably going to need power. What type, distribution, locations? Remotely accessible?

    Ok i think we got a start - but why are we building the cage in the first place? Are we doing shared hosting? Colocation? managed dedicated servers? bandwidth? If you are doing colocation then you need to have routers and switches and cables. cable management.

    Could i go on?
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  16. #16
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    Yes, there are so many factors in having a data center or even your own cage in a DC.

    The nice thing is that if you lease a cage somewhere, someone else is responsible for PWR, Cooling, Fire Supression, etc..

  17. #17
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    Originally posted by lostpacket
    Techie with some technical skills that is underpaid, walks to boxes, reads label, presses reboot button, walks back to desk, sits down, closes ticket, goes back to sleep = NOC Monkey !
    It's a sad fact, but I personally know way too many of 'em. Try asking them to flush the ip tables sometime! See what reaction you get

    (No offense to anyone working in a NOC, I'm sure there are plenty knowledgeable NOC monkeys out there)

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  18. #18
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    Common sense, accountability, business sense.

    Not much else can be said , you can make a "welfare" cage for whatever the Data Center/Carrier Hotel's bare cost is plus a few wire bakers racks if you were tight on the budget, realistically speaking, everything else is optional, with the exception of probably power bars, and network switches (upstream can potentially do routing, you can require customers to bring in their own monitors, etc.), just depends on how professional you want to go.
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  19. #19
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    I never meant any offense to any noc monkeys, noc engineers, noc workers. The facts are there are alot of budget providers who hire teenager, old guys, blink guys to do reboots, answer tickets troubleshoot major network issue. Its proven that an experienced staff will make any company succesfull.

    Just the other day we interviewed a 19 year old who claimed to have 3 years of linux / unix skills. We were giving him a tour of our cage and I had to stop and do something on a box for a client, and I typed vi host.allow and he kid says "whats vi?"

    I finished what I was doing, walled him to the door and told him we would be in touch if we needed his services.

  20. #20
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    Originally posted by lostpacket
    ... and I typed vi host.allow and he kid says "whats vi?"
    ROFL, that's a classic...
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  21. #21
    i guess i shouldnt ask what vi is .... but i dont claim to have unix/linux experience - i need my MS GUI!

  22. #22
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    Well, vi is a popular text editor. But what's really funny, is that the kid has been claiming that he has 3 yrs of unix/linux experience. Well vi is one of the first things you run into even if you're remotely in touch with linux!
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  23. #23
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    I'm more concerned about my techs using proper spelling and grammar (long, pathetic story for another day)

  24. #24
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    you are more concerned about your techs using proper grammer than about them knowing how to fix problems???

    I'm all for good business and everything, but I would much rather have my problem fixed then the tech telling me in proper english that he has no clue what is happening...
    the end of the world is upon us...absolute power corrupting absolutely...free speech is never free...

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  25. #25
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    No man, you guys are forgetting some people use Pico and don't use vi.

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