Large hosting requirement

phartars · 2 Oct 2009 at 12:00

daz said:
If you have a single server co-located, expect to get charged for someone's time to be with you whilst you access the server.

There's very little margin in co-located servers, so having to have someone sit/stand with you whilst you mess about with your server every week is not going to be profitable for them.

Do data centres generally have workstations for customers to access their servers ?

I might be able to do what I want to do with gigabit Ethernet connection and access to a DVD drive.

bigredshark · 2 Oct 2009 at 13:10

phartars said:
Do data centres generally have workstations for customers to access their servers ?

I might be able to do what I want to do with gigabit Ethernet connection and access to a DVD drive.

Generally no, most should give you a switchport for a laptop though. Would be fairly unusual to have workstations for customer use.

Ringiho · 2 Oct 2009 at 13:38

Some DCs can be bad for access to monitors and the like. If you are co-lo, in theory you should have all your own stuff. All depends on the company I guess.

phartars · 3 Oct 2009 at 12:05

Thanks for the replies. I guess the next step is to call a few local centres and see what facilities they can offer and how much they will bum me for it

All for the want of affordable upstream.

Ringiho · 3 Oct 2009 at 23:22

Where are you based?

dangerstat · 3 Oct 2009 at 23:26

Might be out of place, but don't Amazon do a cool think with their new "cloud" stuff, you can upload data and then mail them a hard disk for them to stick your data on?

phartars · 7 Oct 2009 at 14:47

Ringiho said:
Where are you based?

East Mids.

bigredshark · 7 Oct 2009 at 14:48

phartars said:
East Mids.

Good luck...

phartars · 7 Oct 2009 at 14:52

bigredshark said:
Good luck...

Luck doesn't come into it. Thanks for your input.

daz · 7 Oct 2009 at 15:04

Bluesquare have a nice new DC in Milton Keynes, we've just taken some space there and it's a good specification too.

bigredshark · 7 Oct 2009 at 15:05

Well I've spent a lot of time looking at datacenters in the last year and I think you'll need some luck to find somewhere decent and decently priced in that part of the world! Sure you'll find somewhere though!

#Chri5# · 7 Oct 2009 at 15:15

What's the reputation of Node4 like?

They have Derby and a brand-new factility in Wakefield:

http://www.node4.co.uk/products/datacentre

daz · 7 Oct 2009 at 15:22

Node4 are reasonable, not too expensive. Not sure what the connectivity is like but they recently opened a new place which we keep being pestered about.

accod · 7 Oct 2009 at 16:37

dangerstat said:
Might be out of place, but don't Amazon do a cool think with their new "cloud" stuff, you can upload data and then mail them a hard disk for them to stick your data on?

I was just about to mention this too. Worth considering? Google Amazon S3 storage. Not sure what they're able to offer with regard to mailing in/out hard drives though. If you need to, you could even create an Amazon EC virtual machine with fast access to the data.

phartars · 8 Oct 2009 at 09:11

bigredshark said:
Well I've spent a lot of time looking at datacenters in the last year and I think you'll need some luck to find somewhere decent and decently priced in that part of the world! Sure you'll find somewhere though!

Any opinions on CWCS ?

bigredshark · 8 Oct 2009 at 11:15

phartars said:
Any opinions on CWCS ?

Difficult to answer as I look for different things to most people, I need at least two decent carriers on site with diverse routes into the building (and I prefer at least 3).

CWCS and a heap of other similar providers try to sell a set package, which is rack space and their internet access included. That works for a lot of people and may be what the OP is looking for, for me, it's totally unsuitable and unacceptable.

Access and security is difficult to judge for a lot of these sites. I'm fairly certain nobody is going to steal kit from our suites in telecity facilities or telehouse but a lot of the small providers are just converted light industrial units and if somebody drove a car through the front door one night I'm not sure how that'd play out.

Same story with power and cooling, they have the generators and AC kit but how good is it, how well do their staff know it? Bigger providers are more of a known quantity here.

I don't want to say all the little small outfits are useless just because they aren't for me. They may well work for other people - just go into it with your eyes open about the potential issues.