Server hosting or Co-location in/near London. Recommendations?

wasc

wasc

wasc

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My company is looking to either rent a dedicated server, or alternatively to buy the hardware ourselves and co-locate. Finding a company is hard though as our requirements are higher than most. As an example, we need at least 4.5 TB of storage space with easy future expansion when required.

Basically we're looking for something like a 1U Server connected to a DAS which are typically 3 U. Bandwidth is likely to be around 100Gb per month to start with. The datacentre must allow access by our staff, or alternatively unlimited free "remote hands". This is because we will frequently need access to large amounts of data on this server (500Gb at a time) so will need to attend site to plug a disk into the server to pull data off.

Anyone got anything with a Datacentre they would recommend?
 
An ISP I do work with moved all their kit (250+ servers, switches, firewalls etc) out of Sovereign House (Telecity purchased it from Redbus in 2006). Last straw for them was a further rise in charges which worked out as 440% increas in prices since 2006.

They moved all their kit to London Hosting Centre but I don't know much about that facility.
 
I think it depends were you are located and how people will get to the co-lo site. By car/van or train...

Interxion is very well organised but located on the border of the congestion zone so parking can be a bit of an issue. There is parking available but about £12 a day and had limited spaces. Metered parking is also very close by but also a limited number of spaces and limit of 2 hours. When removing any hardware access has to be arranged with the security to remove devices... not sure if this is part of my company policy or part of Interxions.

Telehouse is good for access as its off the A13. Plenty of car parking and has a canteen! The place is not the easiest to navigate inside. Staff are very helpful and will point you in the right direction.

Telecity is OK- limited to 2 hours parking unless you ask for the access card to get into the underground car park... its free but again a very limited number of spaces.
Very easy to navigate inside and hands and eyes assistance is very quick to respond. – not sure of the cost.

In terms of costs I have no idea, but I have worked in all these and highlighted the main points that affected me as a customer going to do work onsite.
 
You've got the usual docklands locations... Telecity Rebus Sov, Mer, Hex etc. Then you've got the more central locations - Level 3 Goswell Road (congestion charge zone, parking is probably an issue. Superb facility though). Then you have ones that are on the outskirts - Equinix Heathrow, Equinix Slough, BlueSquare.

All the above have their upsides and downsides.

I'd recommend visiting www.forum2.co.uk where you can get a very wide range of opinions of the various facilities etc.
 
Thanks all for your help. As long as the facility is near a train station then thats fine - car parking isn't an issue. I'll check out that forum you suggested daz. I'll check out the places others have suggested too.
 
#Chri5# said:
An ISP I do work with moved all their kit (250+ servers, switches, firewalls etc) out of Sovereign House (Telecity purchased it from Redbus in 2006). Last straw for them was a further rise in charges which worked out as 440% increas in prices since 2006.

They moved all their kit to London Hosting Centre but I don't know much about that facility.
Click to expand...

Similar story to us, we're moving our servers out of telehouse and in to some place in reading now.
 
Curiosityx said:
Rack space and power prices are becoming ridiculous at the docklands, would you consider going outside London, i would recommend NDR.

http://www.ndr.co.uk/
Click to expand...

What he said.

Thing is that datacentres are deliberately trying to get out of the small business market - they don't want 1 server or even 1 rack outfits. So you may well find they are ridiculously expensive for your needs.

By the way wasc - LOVE your sig. :D
 
I visit most datacentres in London weekly. I'm in a hotel in Glasgow right now and off to a couple of DC;s around here tomorrow.
What can say is that you will find it very difficult to colocate directly with a DC unless you take at least a full 47U rack.
You need to look at colo resellers such as adaptplc.com or intechnology who rent large space in DC's and will happily sell you a few U rack space and also provide connectivity.
 
Have a look at http://serverstream.net

Register1s parent company, Serverstream.. they deal in large corporates / PLCs and the like, who require high level SLAs and high uptime.

Used them myself for various services, top notch.

If you contact them mentioning you're an OcUK member you may even get a discount ;)
 
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