4 ms·

Those costs are minor compared to the hardware solutions being discussed.

by modoc 17y ago

gaius 17y ago
Haha! Unexpectedly needing a new cage at your DC, or an extra 50kW power, or being told you can't put anything more in your half-full racks because you've exceeded floor loading gets expensive real quick.
- lsc 17y ago
  At svtix, a tier3 data center in downtown san jose, Not at the top end of the price scale, but not at the bottom, I can get 2 20a 120v circuits (4800w, that's 3360 usable.) and a full locking rack for around $1100 a month. I can buy two or three racks full of power. If I wanted to pull a gig connection to another nearby data center, say, because I couldn't get more at svtix, we are talking something like $500-$1000 a month, depending on how badly I get screwed by my poor negotiation skills. Just sayin, at those prices, it takes a long time to amortize out a six figure appliance.
  - antonovka 17y ago
    At svtix, a tier3 data center in downtown san jose, Not at the top end of the price scale, but not at the bottom, I can get 2 20a 120v circuits and a full locking rack for around $1100 a month. I can buy two or three racks full of power. As long as that space is available. To guarantee business capacity you'll probably need to buy a large block of rackspace at one time. Of course, capacity availability varies based on the current local business climate, but that's something you have to plan for too. If I wanted to pull a gig connection to another nearby data center, say, because I couldn't get more at svtix, we are talking something like $500-$1000 a month Upwards of $1000, but note that GigE is a fairly small link for data center cross-connection and will still usually have a large lead-time. Not only do you need to be able to guarantee sufficient capacity either at svtix or at the other colo, but you need to be prepared to wait to get that capacity allocated for your use.
    - lsc 17y ago
      you have a very good point that you pay much higher prices (or just massively overbuy, which is similar) if you want guaranteed capacity right now, right were you are. My model is such that it's not that big of a deal to just get an unconnected rack at a new data center and buy transit there. When I was blocked on new power at SVTIX, I slapped a few new servers in at rippleweb.com, which is in Sacramento. If I had a big, expensive san I couldn't replicate, well, then I'd have a different model. (rippleweb has awesome prices on high-power 1U server co-location, but it's not as good as getting a full rack elsewhere.) But yes, the observation that you pay more if you want your stuff provisioned right now is very correct. At prgmr.com, well, I wait for the deals, so I end up paying a lot less than I would otherwise. (but then, sometimes the 'we are out of space, come back later' message is up for longer than I'd like, as well. It's definitely a compromise.)
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      The use case for a company like backblaze though allows you to buy bandwidth very cheap because it will be mostly upstream, the direction in which datacenters are normally not seeing much traffic.
- antonovka 17y ago
  Upvoted. I would upvote a million times over if I could. So many developers seem to not realize just how expensive physical plant (and the people to administer it) really is -- "hardware is cheap" fails to account for the facility costs involved in acquiring necessary space, power, cooling to run it -- often ahead of time. Managing the IT team and a growing data center installation for a medium size business was one of the most enlightening experiences I've had as a developer writing software targeted at "internet-scale".
  - gaius 17y ago
    A few years ago I did some consulting for a datacentre provider that you've almost certainly heard of who were giving serious consideration to buying a utility and operating their own power station, to get their power and cooling at cost. They'd already contemplated and rejected moving their entire operation to northern Alaska/Canada/wherever and just paying to plumb in the bandwidth (customers wanted to be able to get at their kit if they needed to).

Those costs are minor compared to the hardware solutions being discussed.

by modoc 17y ago

Those costs are minor compared to the hardware solutions being discussed.

gaius 17y ago

Haha! Unexpectedly needing a new cage at your DC, or an extra 50kW power, or being told you can't put anything more in your half-full racks because you've exceeded floor loading gets expensive real quick.

lsc 17y ago
At svtix, a tier3 data center in downtown san jose, Not at the top end of the price scale, but not at the bottom, I can get 2 20a 120v circuits (4800w, that's 3360 usable.) and a full locking rack for around $1100 a month. I can buy two or three racks full of power. If I wanted to pull a gig connection to another nearby data center, say, because I couldn't get more at svtix, we are talking something like $500-$1000 a month, depending on how badly I get screwed by my poor negotiation skills. Just sayin, at those prices, it takes a long time to amortize out a six figure appliance.
- antonovka 17y ago
  At svtix, a tier3 data center in downtown san jose, Not at the top end of the price scale, but not at the bottom, I can get 2 20a 120v circuits and a full locking rack for around $1100 a month. I can buy two or three racks full of power. As long as that space is available. To guarantee business capacity you'll probably need to buy a large block of rackspace at one time. Of course, capacity availability varies based on the current local business climate, but that's something you have to plan for too. If I wanted to pull a gig connection to another nearby data center, say, because I couldn't get more at svtix, we are talking something like $500-$1000 a month Upwards of $1000, but note that GigE is a fairly small link for data center cross-connection and will still usually have a large lead-time. Not only do you need to be able to guarantee sufficient capacity either at svtix or at the other colo, but you need to be prepared to wait to get that capacity allocated for your use.
  - lsc 17y ago
    you have a very good point that you pay much higher prices (or just massively overbuy, which is similar) if you want guaranteed capacity right now, right were you are. My model is such that it's not that big of a deal to just get an unconnected rack at a new data center and buy transit there. When I was blocked on new power at SVTIX, I slapped a few new servers in at rippleweb.com, which is in Sacramento. If I had a big, expensive san I couldn't replicate, well, then I'd have a different model. (rippleweb has awesome prices on high-power 1U server co-location, but it's not as good as getting a full rack elsewhere.) But yes, the observation that you pay more if you want your stuff provisioned right now is very correct. At prgmr.com, well, I wait for the deals, so I end up paying a lot less than I would otherwise. (but then, sometimes the 'we are out of space, come back later' message is up for longer than I'd like, as well. It's definitely a compromise.)
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    The use case for a company like backblaze though allows you to buy bandwidth very cheap because it will be mostly upstream, the direction in which datacenters are normally not seeing much traffic.
antonovka 17y ago
Upvoted. I would upvote a million times over if I could. So many developers seem to not realize just how expensive physical plant (and the people to administer it) really is -- "hardware is cheap" fails to account for the facility costs involved in acquiring necessary space, power, cooling to run it -- often ahead of time. Managing the IT team and a growing data center installation for a medium size business was one of the most enlightening experiences I've had as a developer writing software targeted at "internet-scale".
- gaius 17y ago
  A few years ago I did some consulting for a datacentre provider that you've almost certainly heard of who were giving serious consideration to buying a utility and operating their own power station, to get their power and cooling at cost. They'd already contemplated and rejected moving their entire operation to northern Alaska/Canada/wherever and just paying to plumb in the bandwidth (customers wanted to be able to get at their kit if they needed to).