Choosing a colocation provider

Looking to colocate a server? Well, you can’t trust your server with anyone, can you? Selecting a colocation provider can be a difficult task. While cost is often of most importance to buyers, here are some other factors you should consider before making a decision:

1. Location. Pick a location that is easy for you to get to. You may think you can just ship your server or drive it to the data center once and forget about it, but what about maintenance and upgrades? Not all colocation servers will do these things for you at a fair price.
2. Bandwidth. Can you get a good connection at the data center? Make sure your provider has hook-ups to all the major upstream providers. Servers in “Internet hubs” like Chicago, Dallas, and New York will get better latencies than their counterparts in out-of-the-way places.
3. Security and reliability. How secure is the data center? What sort of backup measures are in place in the event of power failure or a natural disaster? Do the people working there seem to know what they’re doing? Be sure to visit and ask for a tour before handing over your precious server to a colocation provider.

Colocate an iPad?

Ever since Steve Jobs announced the iPad some time ago, the new product has received its fair share of hype and heat. A colocation company has taken things to a new level, however, with the launch of iPadcolo.net.

The site advertises iPad colocation with 64 GB of storage in a world-class data center. According to the FAQ page, the iPads all run from Wi-Fi and are clustered together onto racks. Each iPad is allowed to fully charge and then unplugged until the battery requires recharging. Worried about multitasking? The company advertises the ability to remotely start and stop services, which must be run one at a time.

By now you’ve probably caught on that this isn’t real. The site is actually part of a marketing campaign for a colocation provider specializing in the OS X operating system. Pretty cool, huh?

Photo | Flickr

Mozilla to launch new data center

Mozilla, developer of the popular Firefox web browser, has plans to launch a new data center in Phoenix, Arizona, to keep up with its ever-growing computing needs. The facility will house 80 servers on six rack. In addition, to smaller satellite data centers have been set up in Amsterdam and Beijing.

According to Matthew Zeier from Mozilla Operations:

Since 2006, we’ve tripled the amount of data center floor space (and tripled our IT/Ops team), grew our user base 8.75 times and now push 18x the bandwidth. Sure, in comparison to other sites, this growth is small. It’s no Facebook. But it’s still a significant amount of infrastructure that supports 350 million users and the world’s most popular web browser (we’re at about one engineer to 43.7m users (or one to 800 servers).

The Phoenix servers are actually colocated in a much larger 538,000 square-foot (163,982 square meters) data center used by a number of other companies and organisations. The new systems are needed to keep up with Firefox’s phenomenal growth.

Source | Data Center Knowledge
Photo | Flickr

Hosting a server in the office

After experiencing heavy downtime on a server in a colocation facility, a business owner at this forum is considering hosting the server from his own office.

While placing a web server in an office might perhaps make it more accessible to the owner, most offices do not have the right kind of resources to host one. For starters, the upstream speed on most business Internet lines isn’t fast enough. And as others in the forum alluded to, an office does not have the same resources a data center does to fix problems.

If you have a large number of servers, it may be cost-effective to hire your own technicians and obtain the necessary infrastructure to host onsite. But this is only the case for large companies. Nearly all small businesses are better off with colocation or a dedicated host.

Colocation services

With the effects of the economic downturn still being felt, many companies are looking for ways to cut hosting costs. Because of this, there has been a large increase in demand for colocation services.

While renting data center space is still expensive, it’s cheaper in the short-run then building a data center. Colocation also has the benefits of providing server space on demand. As IT analyst Lydia Leong aptly put it, “Colocation is where you go when you need space right now.”

Leong also stressed the importance of searching nationally for the best colo provider. “The greater your willingness to conduct a national search, the lower your costs will be,” she said. “We have providers who are terrible in one facility and great in another city. The difference is often the data center manager.”

Source | Data Center Knowledge

What is the best way to ship a colocated server?

Colocation is a dedicated hosting solution growing in popularity where the customer owns the server and rents space from a data center.

Colocating a server is a great way to save money, but you may not have a data center nearby. So what if you have to ship your server to a facility?

If you live in the region, it might very well be worth your time to drive to the data center and set the server up yourself– even if you have to travel a long distance. You can make sure everything is the way you want it, and ensure your little baby is in good hands.

If the facility is too far away to visit in person, shipping is naturally your only option. This is fine, so long as you do it properly. Just as you would with anything else important, use a reliable carrier and require a signature upon delivery. Be sure you can track the package as well. Last but not least, a good amount of protective packaging and insurance are a must!