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Maybe for 1 or 2 servers in a quarter rack; but all of these questions and concerns are very salient if you are filling full rack(s) or cages and plan to get yo

Maybe for 1 or 2 servers in a quarter rack; but all of these questions and concerns are very salient if you are filling full rack(s) or cages and plan to get your own ASN and such (as any serious internet company should, since otherwise you are not PART OF THE INTERNET). Not getting the answers to these questions is the difference between quite a lot of pain, heartache, and money spent or having everything run (relatively) smoothly.

moe 14y ago
I have to agree his list is a little unfortunate. It contains all the basic questions that you should ask (responsibilities/transits/power density etc.), but then also rather specialized things (PDUs, RFOs) that are a little over the top when you're going to rent half a rack without significant growth perspective. That said, the colo should indeed answer all these questions. It's just that most small shops will not be able to make sense of the answers... If you're a small shop looking to dip a toe into colo then a good summary question to ask is "Who else do you host?". If they have a few big-names to share then they'll probably be good enough for you, too. Ideally ask for permission to ring up one or two of their reference customers and then actually do that. Colos don't like that very much - but if they outright refuse then you'll know to better look at another one.
- justauser 14y ago
  Ideally, most of this would be on a provider's website. Unfortunately, the NAPs of the world rely on multi-level sales staffing that present what they think is important(or differentiates them). The smaller colos who envision themselves the equivalent of the NAPs refrain from sharing much info as well and then the consumer ends up in a dim corner of "kinda/sorta generally acceptable commodity(service and quality) level colocation." It is then your burden to translate that to a customer why their LOLcats website is loading slowly for Uncle Bob. SLAs are hard and most providers treat them like a joke. If you're a startup and want to pass the buck, then just go with AWS. There is a solution for everyone.
  - lsc 14y ago
    Yeah, I find this incredibly irritating. Just getting the real price can take months of back and forth. On the low end, the cost of just the negotiation can dominate everything else.

moe 14y ago

I have to agree his list is a little unfortunate. It contains all the basic questions that you should ask (responsibilities/transits/power density etc.), but then also rather specialized things (PDUs, RFOs) that are a little over the top when you're going to rent half a rack without significant growth perspective. That said, the colo should indeed answer all these questions. It's just that most small shops will not be able to make sense of the answers... If you're a small shop looking to dip a toe into colo then a good summary question to ask is "Who else do you host?". If they have a few big-names to share then they'll probably be good enough for you, too. Ideally ask for permission to ring up one or two of their reference customers and then actually do that. Colos don't like that very much - but if they outright refuse then you'll know to better look at another one.

justauser 14y ago
Ideally, most of this would be on a provider's website. Unfortunately, the NAPs of the world rely on multi-level sales staffing that present what they think is important(or differentiates them). The smaller colos who envision themselves the equivalent of the NAPs refrain from sharing much info as well and then the consumer ends up in a dim corner of "kinda/sorta generally acceptable commodity(service and quality) level colocation." It is then your burden to translate that to a customer why their LOLcats website is loading slowly for Uncle Bob. SLAs are hard and most providers treat them like a joke. If you're a startup and want to pass the buck, then just go with AWS. There is a solution for everyone.
- lsc 14y ago
  Yeah, I find this incredibly irritating. Just getting the real price can take months of back and forth. On the low end, the cost of just the negotiation can dominate everything else.