Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Colocation and Data Centers : Explain Co-Location

[Longbow-]

So, you use there space, rack & case, and you go in and put in your own HD and memory etc? Is that what co-location is?

Also, what does it mean by a burstable connection?

[sshepherd]

Co-location typically provides rack space, power, network connectivity, bandwidth, and basic support (for network connectivity/provisioning/etc).

You provide your own equipment be it rackmount servers, switches (for internal networking), etc.

If you need the flexability of having 100% control over your hardware and OS co-location can be the way to go providing you don't mind the investment put into that hardware as well.

Burstable bandwidth means you don't have a fixed amount of bandwidth such as your DSL connection which might have a 1.5mbit maximum.

Your co-location provider may allow anywhere from 1-10mbit of burstable bandwidth meaning you or users on your server could see extremely fast downloads, but that could also use up your provisioned bandwidth very quickly for example if you signed up for 1mbit. Most hosts bill on 95% percentile so you will be charged on the average usage according to their logs. Perhaps someone else can explain the 95% in further detail.

In the last year or two however co-location isn't a must with virtualized servers becoming more common, and more advanced hosting packages being made available. It's quite possible for most people to get access to everything they need now on a shared, or virtual server. You just need to weigh the pro's and con's to your needs and funding.

[astutiumRob]

you use their space, power and proabbly connectivity, but *you* supply the servers (in there entirety)

burstable is where you can execed the commited bandwidth rate of your switchport - for exmple you commit to paying for 20Mb/s, but you can burst upto 100Mb/s - often combined with 95%ile billing where you dont pay for the short bursts (simplified)

[Longbow-]

Mm.. ok.

Still not so sure on the connection bit.

If it can burst upto 100mb, why not just say 100mb?

And yes, please explain the 95% percentile a bit more

[jsw6]

The reason hosts don't simply quote 100Mb is you aren't paying enough to transmit 100Mb/s on a full time basis. You have both a committed information rate and a burst rate. The CIR, a term borrowed from frame-relay, is what you are paying for; while bursts are any traffic in excess of that. If you burst a lot, you will be charged for additional bandwidth.
Read my posts on these WHT threads for a detailed, technical explanation of how the utilization is calculated; or if you don't understand the linked content (many webmasters don't!), just give me a telephone call and I will be happy to take you through it.
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...14#post1969514
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...77#post2051777

[sshepherd]

Claiming 100mbit when a colo provider only provisions you for 1mbit would be rather misleading (though not much moreso than hosts claiming unlimited bandwidth).

In my experience you'll rarely see high burst speed, but your transfers can often peak into your burst range.

It's primarily there to allow your to balance peak bandwidth demands for short periods of time, not as extra unmetered bandwidth.

If you didn't have your provider cap you at a reasonable rate and you were only provisioned for 1mbit been constantly were able to burst into the 10mbit range for example with heavy web or ftp downloads you could expect a nice bill up to 10x your normal bandwidth charges.

If you're trying to determine your bandwidth needs a typical server rarely needs more than 1mbit which on average works out to 200GB of data transfer per month, and theoretically around 314GB/mo.

[buba69]

Originally posted by sshepherd
Claiming 100mbit when a colo provider only provisions you for 1mbit would be rather misleading (though not much moreso than hosts claiming unlimited bandwidth).

In my experience you'll rarely see high burst speed, but your transfers can often peak into your burst range.

It's primarily there to allow your to balance peak bandwidth demands for short periods of time, not as extra unmetered bandwidth.

If you didn't have your provider cap you at a reasonable rate and you were only provisioned for 1mbit been constantly were able to burst into the 10mbit range for example with heavy web or ftp downloads you could expect a nice bill up to 10x your normal bandwidth charges.

If you're trying to determine your bandwidth needs a typical server rarely needs more than 1mbit which on average works out to 200GB of data transfer per month, and theoretically around 314GB/mo.

Please dont take this above quote as the truth.

You cannot lump all servers into the same catagory and say that they typically push 1mb. It will depend on many factors including the type of information you are serving (downloading movies would use more bandwidth than small txt files), the number of people accessing your server at a given time, the physical load on the server (the lower the load or the higher quality hardware the faster information will be able to be served), method in which the info is served (sql database, straight file serving, etc...) and other factors.

You could easily see high bursts for sustained periods depending on what you are doing with your server.

If you think of it as the water pipe example you may do better. You get a large diameter water pipe to your house(provider). Only so much water can flow through that pipe. Your faucet(your colo connection) is also of a certain size. You may only use a little stream of water while getting a drink, but you want your fauect to be able to give you a whole pot of water and you dont want to wait while it trickels in. So you want as big a faucet as possible. You have to have a big water pipe going into your house so that you can turn your faucet on all the way. Similarly your provider has to have big pipes(bandwidth connetions) so that all of their customers can get bandwidth at a fast rate and nobody sees slow speeds.

Providers sell bandwidth based on the size of the pipe you need. You need a 1mb pipe but you want to have the ability to push 50-100mb for a minute or so for that guy that is downloading a large file (or filling up a large pot of water).

Yes the water example isnt perfect and we all know where the holes are - but it works to explain how bandwidth is delivered and billed on 95th percentile.

[jsw6]

I think sshepherd was just providing some example figures when he mentioned 1Mb/sec. In my experience, typical hosting customers get about 190GB of data transfer per 1Mbit/sec they are billed on a 95th percentile basis; which is pretty close to sshepherd's figure. Perhaps his or her post could have been worded more clearly, but the figures are certainly useful to the original poster of this thread.

I discuss web hosting utilization efficiency in detail in the URLs I referenced in my previous post on this thread.

[sshepherd]

jsw6 is right, just giving a example on conservative usage. I never said a server would only "push" 1mbit, only an example of a provider provisioning 1mbit which is adequate for the majority of servers. The burst speed is something the customer needs to determine with their budget and application needs in mind.

Longbow hasn't said anything about what type of application he plans on serving be it a static web site, dynamic, streaming audio/video, game server, etc.

If there's a application that makes sense for having the ability to push 100mbit at any time, by all means go for it. Just know the potential gotchas.

I'd rather he's fully informed and doesn't get more than he's bargained for as this would obviously be his first co-lo.

[dareality]

Colocation would be to have your own servers in a providers cage or
cabinet. It's up to you to put your server together and compiel the software.
Most providers will set you up with bandwidth. The bandwidth
is were they actualy make most of there money.

[buba69]

Originally posted by sshepherd


If there's a application that makes sense for having the ability to push 100mbit at any time, by all means go for it. Just know the potential gotchas.

I'd rather he's fully informed and doesn't get more than he's bargained for as this would obviously be his first co-lo.

it's not a gotcha - its just understanding how things work.

A majority of providers are not trying to "get" customers by selling them 1mb on an un-capped port and charging them for overage - they are just selling them what they will use and allowing them to go over if they need/want to. I would rather he be informed as well - but also that he knows the differences and is not scared into going with a provider who caps every server because he thinks he needs a capped port.

[jsw6]

Originally posted by buba69
A majority of providers are not trying to "get" customers by selling them 1mb on an un-capped port and charging them for overage

That's absolutely true. The ability to burst is a feature that allows you to handle traffic spikes or ordinary growth without upgrading capacity.
I sometimes have customers ask to have their port "capped" at a particular rate, say 20Mb/sec even though they have a 100baseT ethernet port. I'm happy to accomodate these folks, as if they go substantially over their budget and are unable to pay their bill, it's a no-win situation for both the customer and myself.
Not every co-location shop has infrastructure capable of this, but most equipment supports some form of rate-limiting these days. Be sure to ask the technical staff of your prospective hosts while you are still in the sales cycle.

[sshepherd]

buba69,

I stand by everything I've said even if you do minconstrue it in your replies.

It's not that providers are out to "get" anyone, it's choosing the right bandwidth/burst requirements for your application and budget.

The websites I've admin'd serving up downloads, streaming real audio/wmv video or audio, or even simply pages don't always equate into something where providing web visitors with unlimited burstable bandwidth makes business sense - especially if you're not making a income off your site or server.

Running a media site with 1mbit pipe that gets /.'d or rather popular and averages 20mbit for several days could come as a surprise to a customer that's not aware of how burstable bandwidth and 95th percentile billing is handled.

[buba69]

Originally posted by sshepherd

The websites I've admin'd serving up downloads, streaming real audio/wmv video or audio, or even simply pages don't always equate into something where providing web visitors with unlimited burstable bandwidth makes business sense - especially if you're not making a income off your site or server.

Running a media site with 1mbit pipe that gets /.'d or rather popular and averages 20mbit for several days could come as a surprise to a customer that's not aware of how burstable bandwidth and 95th percentile billing is handled.

These are both very good points - if you have a tight or no budget then yes you will probably want to limit your exposure as much as possible.

And if you get /.'d, you might not be able to pay for the traffic - though at the same time a port capped at a low limit would cause most of the people trying to access your site to error out - which could be a bad thing and cause your free publicity to be for naught.

If you are truly worried, keep a close eye on your usage. If you see something happen, or if you find out your site has been listed on a popular forum, you will have a day and a half or so to take your site down, get your port capped, or give a call to your provider to work out a deal for the increased traffic.

I completely understand "choosing the right bandwidth/burst requirements for your application" I just want people (especially the thread starter) to understand what can happen if he goes with a capped port.