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  1. #1

    ThePlanet @ Dallas Colocation

    I am looking to get a full rack and 10mbit @ the planet in Dallas Colocation facility.

    anyone have any suggestions or price points or hookups?

    thanks!

  2. #2
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  3. #3
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    Kyle,

    Also consider Colo4Dallas. They're about a block away iirc and should be peered with TP if im not mistaken.

  4. #4
    We don't have direct peering, but we both have multiple gigs to Level 3 as well as other common carriers.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by inteltechs
    IIRC, they don't *actually* offer colo anymore - it's bait and switch for their server offerings (from what I've heard). I'd also recommend looking at Colo4Dallas - they run an awesome facility/network.
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  6. #6
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    When we started making the move to collocation last year we toured both The Planet (who we were already a customer of since 2003) and Colo4Dallas. From the tour of The Planet I got the impression that they preferred to fill their data center space with their own servers instead of collocation clients. I guess that works our best for them.

    I also got the impression that those who did collocate at The Planet were more medium size companies looking to locate their internal servers (e.g. Exchange, Domain Controllers etc.) in a secure facility away from their offices as oppose to a shared hosting company like ourselves. This fits in with their new tag line "On Demand IT Infrastructure Hosting".

    The other thing which put us off The Planet was the pricing and lack of flexibility compared to Colo4Dallas. Support was charged at $150/hour compared to $75/hour for Tier-1 support at Colo4Dallas, bandwidth overages were $125/MBit compared to $75/MBit (and then tiered down from there) at Colo4Dallas and the list goes on. It worked out cheaper to actually lease servers from The Planet directly than it did to collocate with them.

    I have to say though that The Planet is a very impressive place to visit and the enterprise sales manager, Paul Atkinson, went out of his way to show us around etc. For example, he came in on his day off to give us a tour and drove us back to our hotel to collect our passports as we weren't aware we needed them for entry into the facility. That being said, Patrick at Colo4Dallas also came in on his day off and Paul was happy to meet me for a quick chat in Vegas at HostingCon.

    If you are in the Dallas area I would certainly go and take a tour of both The Planet and Colo4Dallas and see which one meets your needs best. Certainly for us though Colo4Dallas was the best choice and we have been there since September last year without any major problems.

    - Chris

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rochen
    When we started making the move to collocation last year we toured both The Planet (who we were already a customer of since 2003) and Colo4Dallas. From the tour of The Planet I got the impression that they preferred to fill their data center space with their own servers instead of collocation clients. I guess that works our best for them.
    Of course they want to fill it with their own servers, it is a much more profitable space to be in for their business model. Have you ever ran the cost comparisons for what they make on a rack of servers compared to a rack of collocation?
    Linn Boyd

  8. #8
    Thanks for a little bit of feedback.

    As far as The Planet. we want to go with them because of the business infrastructure. They are not going anywhere.

    Half of the rack will be filled up immediately with an ecommerce cluster which generates 50 million sales revenue /year.
    I am not trying to cut any corners or save any money. I want the best and if you search the top 10 colocation facilities on this forum somehow The Planet is always mentioned as one of the best.

    not to knock on the company or anything, I am just looking at this from a business perspective. When the owner of a company is the one digging the trenches and laying the cable you are not dealing with a very big or stable company. This company relies on the owner and at the current car accident rate in the united states I am unable to put all my marbles in one or two baskets.

    if you get what I am saying

    believe me I would love the oportunity to visit their DC and look at it as an option.
    price is right, service may be extrodinary.

    definitely looking for options but it needs to be stable.

  9. #9
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    I want the best and if you search the top 10 colocation facilities on this forum somehow The Planet is always mentioned as one of the best.
    I don't think that is true, especially for collocation which really isn't their primary business. And their primary business, dedicated servers, has gone *vastly* downhill post-merger. I wouldn't touch The Planet with a 100 ft pole.

  10. #10
    Sounds like someone has been talking to a competitor. Make an appointment and come by to see us to get the real story. Yes, I have been here from the beginning of the company because I was one of the founders. Did I dig ditches? Of course not. I am not very good when it comes to this type of labor. But during the 6 year course of the business I have run some cable in the facility but not in the last few years. I have also helped customers install their gear when they needed a hand. When I walk through the facility and see someone needing help I usually jump in whether it is a customer or employee. That is just the way I am and I cant change that.

    Rest assured that a high priority of mine was to have employees that can handle the facility on a day to day basis. I still do a lot of the planning, but most of my day is spent with contractors focused on our expansion. Those appointments frequently get interupted to meet prospects or just chat with a current customer, but that is my focus. I miss the old days of knowing every single customer that came in, but Patrick will tell you that I still take time to meet every customer that wants to talk with me.

    Believe me, nothing is more humbling than formulating a plan of how the facility could go on without me, but it can and does frequently. Like most companies we have key man insurance in place to be able to replace me with someone capable. Would the customers and employees miss me? I sure hope so, but the physical facility would go on without me.

    No matter where you go if you have one facility you are putting all of your eggs in one basket. It sounds like The Planet has given you the comfort with your decision and that is a good thing for both of you. At the end of the day you should follow your gut feeling, but be careful letting people give you an impression of a facility without actually going to visit.
    Looking for next opportunity

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kyle Keith
    not to knock on the company or anything, I am just looking at this from a business perspective. When the owner of a company is the one digging the trenches and laying the cable you are not dealing with a very big or stable company.
    Enron was a big company.

    Your statement doesn't really make sense, the size of the company is proportionate to the number of clients they have, that doesn't really affect how stable the company is.

    I want the best and if you search the top 10 colocation facilities on this forum somehow The Planet is always mentioned as one of the best.
    You must have been misinformed, just have a good read around and you'll see that their technical staff are highly incompetent in the majority of cases. The evidence is right here on this board.

    Dan
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  12. #12
    Does anyone else have some GOOD input on this topic. yeah I can go somewhere cheaper but I am not looking for my first colo and need to save money.

    I currently have colo space at Savvis in Irvine, CA 1/3 rack, a full rack at SBC's IDC in irvine, a full rack at Cox Communications in Orange County, CA and a 1/2 rack at 700 Wilshire in downtown Los Angeles.

    I am pretty good on the west coast and dont want to go all the way to NJ or NY for space yet. I could do one of Savvis's other locations but The Planet is probably my best option right now.

  13. #13
    I think there is already 'good' input in this thread, you just don't seem to want to hear it. From what you are saying it sounds like price points and hookups don't matter to you at all so long as you are in the largest, most expensive datacenter with the greatest number of Aeron chairs you can find.

    I'm not sure what other input you are looking for...
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  14. #14
    Also: I actually really do appreciate Paul's responses to my tough point of views.
    guess you can say I was throwing a knife to see what he would do with it.
    I tend to come off as being strait forward, and not so nice. but I am the nicest guy in the real world.
    I will definitely visit the dallas4colo site and tour the facilities.

    If colo4dallas plays golf that is definitely a deal maker!

    when it comes to reliability I have to be very careful with choosing providers. You are only as good as your providers and I hate explaining why things are not working in the case of failures.

  15. #15
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    Kyle,
    I couldn't agree more. C4D runs a good shop, many people I know have alot of equipment there. As far as Texas, I can't think of a better colo shop thats "big" for you. Paul and the guys do a job and aren't going anywhere. So if the business staying open and online nicely is a concern, I wouldn't worry about it at C4D. On the other hand, the Planet's network is spotchy to say the least. Loss is not uncommon during high usage hours. I'd be very, very careful going there. This kind of issue is the difference of just buying a car off the lot because it looks nice, or looking deeper to find one that has what you need at the right price. Just because its cheaper, does make it any worse.

    Jordan

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Kyle Keith
    I will definitely visit the dallas4colo site and tour the facilities.

    If colo4dallas plays golf that is definitely a deal maker!
    We definitely go to the course and pay greens fee's, not sure if I would call it playing golf though...But it's still fun :-)

  17. #17
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    I'd also recommend Colo4Dallas.

    If you're looking for other large stable companies, let me throw out Level3 and Equnix . Both are public traded companies, and their datacenters house a lot of internet infrastructure.

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tetraboy
    I'd also recommend Colo4Dallas.

    If you're looking for other large stable companies, let me throw out Level3 and Equnix . Both are public traded companies, and their datacenters house a lot of internet infrastructure.
    Equinix doesn't sell bandwidth - they're carrier neutral (well, with the exception of Equinix Direct, which IIRC, isn't available in Dallas).
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  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by mripguru
    Equinix doesn't sell bandwidth - they're carrier neutral (well, with the exception of Equinix Direct, which IIRC, isn't available in Dallas).
    I'd also like to add that single homing to Level(3) (or even any provider) is probably not a good idea...(referring to Tetraboy)
    Last edited by layer0; 01-26-2007 at 12:44 PM.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by mripguru
    Equinix doesn't sell bandwidth - they're carrier neutral (well, with the exception of Equinix Direct, which IIRC, isn't available in Dallas).
    True, but there should be no shortage of bandwidth suppliers, including InterNAP, a great provider.

    Quote Originally Posted by layer0
    I'd also like to add that single homing to Level(3) (or even any provider) is probably not a good idea...
    Unless you have your own BGP network with multiple providers, your technically single homed. At 10mbit, it's probably not going to be worth setting up your own BGP. If you want to avoid peering squabbles, the safest bet would be to go with a Tier 2 provider who has transit access to multiple Tier 1s, such as the aforementioned Colo4Dallas and Internap.

    Quote Originally Posted by layer0
    (referring to Tetraboy)
    I mentioned Level3, as the original poster mentioned they already had racks in several carrier owned datacenters. (SBC, Cox, Savvis)
    Last edited by Tetraboy; 01-26-2007 at 12:56 PM.

  21. #21
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    I think that you will find out that ThePlanet does not allow you to use your own hardware, equipment, or servers. If that is a problem for you, you may have to look elsewhere! From what I understand, they USED to do standard colo, but now only do racks full of their own machines. Looking at it from a stability standpoint, it makes me wonder what ever happened to their old colo customers when they made this decision. On some levels, a larger company is better/more stable, but on others you have to worry about how far they will go to make more profit. The bigger guys don't always put the customer first.
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  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tetraboy
    True, but there should be no shortage of bandwidth suppliers, including InterNAP, a great provider.



    Unless you have your own BGP network with multiple providers, your technically single homed. At 10mbit, it's probably not going to be worth setting up your own BGP. If you want to avoid peering squabbles, the safest bet would be to go with a Tier 2 provider who has transit access to multiple Tier 1s, such as the aforementioned Colo4Dallas and Internap.


    I mentioned Level3, as the original poster mentioned they already had racks in several carrier owned datacenters. (SBC, Cox, Savvis)
    There's a difference single homing to a provider like Colo4Dallas (who themselves are a tier-3 multihomed to a tier-2 and tier-1 [internap and level3]) and Level(3) [tier-1] where you are relying on a single backbone. But I think you have pretty much acknowledged that...

  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by RazorBlue - Dan
    Enron was a big company.

    Your statement doesn't really make sense, the size of the company is proportionate to the number of clients they have, that doesn't really affect how stable the company is.

    Dan
    Umm, no. The failure rate of small businesses is much higher than midmarket and Fortune 500/Global 2000 companies. The day Enron crashed there were probably hundreds of small businesses that went under; Enron was a very unique case in any regards. Large publicly traded companies are much more transparent than small private companies; if a customer has concerns on their vendor's financial status it's all out there to be viewed. I've worked on several projects for large companies, and if a vendor wasn't publicly traded and it was an important part of the infrastructure, they'd routinely require certified financial statements and/or funding documentation (under NDA of course). This board is littered with the horror stories of customers getting shut off and being locked out of their equipment by small operators unable to pay their bills, having family difficulties, etc. That's not going to happen with a large company; they don't simply shut down overnight.

    I don't want the above to come off as anti-small business, because I'm definitely not. I've worked at Fortune 500 companies as well as 5 person startups, and certainly don't have a preference for working in a large organization. But I think alot of people here seem to have this anti-large business vibe, implying or directly stating that going with a smaller operation is always better and leads to better service. And that's simply not the case and ignoring some of the important elements that go into some customer's decision making process, such as financial solvency, size/scale, stability, etc. These factors are important to some people, and in my experience I've had plenty of small companies offer horrible service and large companies bend over backwards even if it wasn't a large account.

  24. #24
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    The Planet is a private company, and they are under no obligation to release their financials to anyone.
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  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by John[H4Y]
    I think that you will find out that ThePlanet does not allow you to use your own hardware, equipment, or servers. If that is a problem for you, you may have to look elsewhere! From what I understand, they USED to do standard colo, but now only do racks full of their own machines. Looking at it from a stability standpoint, it makes me wonder what ever happened to their old colo customers when they made this decision. On some levels, a larger company is better/more stable, but on others you have to worry about how far they will go to make more profit. The bigger guys don't always put the customer first.
    I always scratch my head on where people get this sort of information. I know of companies with racks at ThePlanet with commits of 30mbps give or take that continue to add machines with no issue. The only policy I know if that has changed is shipping of things out you now need to cordinate that with a carrier opposed to ThePlanet doing it for you and sending it by UPS or whatever.
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