Colocation packages

Aegis

I've done a search for colocation on the forum, but have only seen a couple of references. I figure that this is something at least a few people are going to be interested in for either business or large-scale personal use.

In case anyone's interested in the basics, here's my interpretation of what it is, complete with a little bit of background on the various hosting methods.

Small Site Web Hosting

I think that most people who use the internet have considered setting up a website for themselves at some point in the past. Standard web hosting allows you access to a little bit of your very own server on the internet, complete with an IP address and usually some sort of content management system.

You can get the most basic web hosting packages for free (or used to be able to), though you end up with adverts on your site if you go down that route (again, this is from when I used to have a free !!!!!! site, things may have changed since!).

For a little more cash you can get an ad-free site. I managed to find a rather nice link from here to relichost, who are charging me about 50p a month for a small website I'm setting up for a local children's club. On top of that I pay about £6 more a year for my domain name, which I've set up to point to my bit of webspace. Definitely good for the smaller sites with limited traffic, but what about the next step up?

Large Scale Web Hosting

When a site reaches a certain size, it becomes too large to host with a simple package as above. At this point other methods need to be considered. Some opt for Virtual Private Servers at this point, which are essentially larger versions of the simple packages above, but you have more control over how a partition of a larger server operates. I believe that you typically get more bandwidth and such with these than with a standard site host, but I'm not sure.

At this point you can start installing your own programs on the site, meaning greater flexibility with what you can actually run for your visitors.

As I've not used VPS before, I'll talk about the next two packages:

Dedicated and Managed Servers

When your site gets to the point where it needs an entire server to itself, these are the packages you need to look at. A dedicated server package is when you rent the hardware and some of the software from a hosting package. You have an entire computer to yourself to build your site/forum/e-business on, and that server has its own (usually high speed) internet connection.

The difference between dedicated and managed effectively comes down to what sort of service contract you want. A dedicated server means that you have to handle pretty much everything yourself, and if you need any changes to the server carried out by the technicians, you'll typically pay £60 an hour or more for the privilage. A managed server usually means that the company will take care of the majority of issues for you at no additional cost above the monthly payment, but as a consequence the monthly payments will be a lot higher. Depending on how much you want to do for yourself, either can be more appropriate for you in the long term.

Of course, both of these packages come with their own distinct disadvantage: you are renting equipment which you could buy yourself, often at bargain prices. This is where colocation comes in.

Colocation

Colocation is similar to a dedicated server package, except that you buy the server yourself and host it with a company. Rather than being limited to their technical specifications, you can make your own computer, load it with whatever software you want, then you can take it to a colocation company and you effectively rent the server space, the power supply and the network connection. This gives you a much lower monthly cost than for a dedicated server (the one I'm looking at right now will save somewhere in the region of 60% a month), but means that you have a much higher initial cost because you need to purchase your own rack server.

Naturally the choice of server is down to the buyer, and you can pick up some fairly reasonable ones from places like ebay, but you're still going to be looking at a few hundred pounds to set one up that gives you the same performance as a mid-range dedicated server.

You can get a managed colocation package, which is much like the managed server package without the server. The hosts will take care of your server and will make necessary adjustments as required, but again you pay a premium for this service.

Colocation hosts

Now on to the point of what I've been writing about. I'm looking for any additional advice as to how to choose between these hosts from anyone who has actually had to do this before. Essentially I've managed to narrow my search down to 3 providers. The other ones out there generally seem to be a lot more expensive once you add on all the extras. For example, one company I saw offered packages starting at £20. Great rate, but it didn't include any bandwidth. The cheapest add-on for that was around £40, making this quite expensive compared to the ones below.

Rapidswitch

This was the first colocation company I managed to find, and it's still the cheapest at £40 a month plus VAT for a single shelf. They don't offer unescorted access to the server, which is a disadvantage if you need to make regular changes tot he hardware or if you have teething problems with the software. If you need to make any modifications, I believe they charge £30 per hour for use of their build room, making it impossible to adjust anything without interrupting the connection for some time. This may be more critical to some than to others. They offer a free KVMoIP service (Keyboard, Video and Mouse over IP, i.e. you can access your server from your own machine and operate it from your own desktop) once a month, and charge an additional £20 per four hours after that. Reboots are available remotely at no charge.

A2B2 Hosting

Much the same specification as above, but they offer free access to the server when needed, free KVMoIP and 15 minutes of technicial time per day. Costs £45 per month plus VAT and has a £20 setup fee on top of that.

A1isp

Much the same as A2B2 by the looks of it, but with a £49.99 monthly fee with no setup.


At this stage I'm leaning towards A2B2, but if anyone has any experience with these, that would be great to hear!

On top of that, I'm not an expert on any of these matters, so if I've said anything absolutely incorrect, please correct me so I can correct this post!

456789

Small site web hosting - Yes free sites inevitably have ads or some other restrictions (i.e. putting links to the hoster in your website etc.)

This tends to be known as a Shared Hosting Package

Quite a lot of the bigger paid now offer one-click installation of blogs, forums etc. so making it quite easy for people with limited experience to set up a site.

Virtual Private Servers also known as Virtual Dedicated Servers - shortened to VPS/VDS - In this case the hosting company usually divides a Dedicated server in their datacentre into smaller parts using virtualization software - i.e. they could split one system into 4 virtual systems - end-users usually end up with a mini-dedicated server which is cheaper than a dedicated server but has more access than shared hosting. They typically run on Linux as a Windows license usually costs the same as the VPS itself.

The main reason for moving to a VPS is usually busy forums need more RAM than they get with Shared Hosting or they need direct access to the forum's database.

Dedicated Servers - You rent the server from a company and can then access it using remote access software which brings its desktop to your home pc as if you were sitting in front of it.

They typically have a 100Mbit connection with a set amount of allowed bandwidth. Some have 1000Mbit/1Gbit connections aswell.

You can either have shared/unshared.

Shared - a number of servers in a datacentre will be connected to a shared switch which is then connected to the internet. Speeds can be affected by other users on the switch.

Unshared - You have a direct connection to the internet. This is usually much more expensive than shared.

You usually go to a hosting company's website and select the hardware specs you want from a selection that they have (some will make a custom server with specific specs if you want). Then you need to select which operating system you want.

Linux - usually free but you'll need to set up your own GUI etc.

Windows - Microsoft charges a license fee for this so most providers will charge a fee for it (Some say they offer it free but really they have just factored in the cost of windows to the hardware fee). Also note this is usually Windows Server 2003/2008 - it is similar to XP/Vista but isn't the same it has many server administration options and isn't as user-friendly.

Typically servers will run something like Apache, Lighttpd for serving web pages and this will be accompanied by MSSQL, MYSQL, PHP etc.

For FTP - Filezilla Server is very easy to use.

You will usually sign up for a fixed contract but you don't have to get a 12 month one - most offer 1/3/6 month contracts. You may get a discount if you sign up for a longer period.

Managed Vs Unmanaged

Managed - The server company will help you to set up Apache/PHP/MYSQL etc. and assist you if you run into any problems/errors - usually costs a bit more each month.

Unmanaged - They won't help you with software but if there is a hardware error they will fix it - Some offer this for free some charge a fee - though I think a £60/hour estimate is a bit high

Some will offer free re-installations of the OS and free reboots of the server - though some charge so always check all this before buying.

Control Panels - There are 2 types of these the first is one provided by the company: This will usually have buttons for rebooting the server, contacting support, billing details, bandwidth usage etc.

The second type is commercial panels such as Plesk which allow 1 click installs of apache, user adds etc. - Usually not needed if you have a decent grasp of server administation

Colocation - As pointed out above you buy your own server and put it into a datecentre - This is best when you have highly specialised custom server needs or you need physical access to the server sometimes (i.e. you can go into the datacentre and do things to it - with Dedicated you cannot do this)

Personally I am not a big fan of colocation because of the following

1) Hardware - if you rent a dedicated server then in 12 months time the company will usually have updated its new servers to the latest technology - so you can just upgrade or order a new server (maybe even with a different company) and copy your things over - Sometimes you might save money as the new package may be cheaper - or pay a similar price (but its better than staying with the old server as you would be paying the same price as you did 12 months ago for old hardware)

2) Bandwidth - As an example lets say a company advertises the following

Dedicated servers with 10TB of bandwidth
Colocated servers with 4TB of bandwidth

Now in reality what usually happens is

Dedicated customers use 1/2TB of their allowance
Colocated customers use the full 4TB of their allowance

So providers will usually offer a higher allowance on the Dedicated servers - most people don't use it all but if you wanted to you could. So if you used say 8TB your money would be going further than it would with a Colocated server. (BTW if you go over your bandwidth allowance you are likely to be charged extra by the company)

Also

Rather than being limited to their technical specifications

- The offers on dedicated company websites are what are most popular - but most companies if you email them they can accomodate your needs and make a custom dedicated server for you

Dedicated usually cost a bit more than Colocation but normally you will get more bandwidth and more flexibility to upgrade/switch company.

As for your questions about server companies:

Rapidswitch - I would not recommend them at all because of:

1) A while ago they offered all their customers existing and new 10TB of bandwidth - this meant that lots of new people signed up to their service (some incurred costs and downtime due to the move) then a few months later they changed their mind and downgraded everyone to 4TB of bandwidth - which caused some people to have to move again and incur more downtime and hassle - Their was a lot of outcry from customers and on web hosting forums

2) I have heard of people having problems getting to their servers and loss of packaging etc. when sending servers to them.

A2B2 - A smaller company than RapidSwitch - smaller companies tend to offer a better service for customers as they can't usually compete on price with bigger companies

A1isp - never heard of them so can't offer any opinions

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ is a very good site for checking up on hosting etc. also if anyone has further queries feel free to ask

(BTW Aegis I sort of wrote this as a general outline - don't mind my preference of Dedicated over Colo - everyone has their own needs)

Aegis

(BTW Aegis I sort of wrote this as a general outline - don't mind my preference of Dedicated over Colo - everyone has their own needs)

No problem at all. In the case of the site I'm looking for, I've done a cost analysis and to upgrade our equipment we'll end up paying far more for dedicated than colocation. Admittedly it's not going to be brand new, but we're not in need of cutting edge technology by a long shot, just something with a hard drive and plenty of RAM.

At the moment, we're looking at spending just under £300 on a server, and we'll be saving about £60 a month by doing that. So in 5 months the server will have paid for itself, plus it gives us something that we can later sell if we decide to upgrade further (not for much, but still better than having to pay monthly for a server that essentially doesn't change, not for us anyway)

Upgrading to the next package up from where we are now (out hosts refuse to simply put an extra GB of RAM in our existing server for us) would increase cost by something in the region of £50 a month, so we'd need to change provider even if we were going to stick with a dedicated server. Trouble is that we don't currently earn enough revenue to pay for that as time goes on, so colocation with a second hand server looks like the best alternative for us, plus it allows us to customise our server to best suit our site. We don't need the huge hard drives included in the majority of dedicated packages with the RAM that we think we need, nor do we need the latest ultra-fast processors or a RAID array. We need a simple set up, but with a fair chunk of RAM available.

In any case, we've now gone ahead with a server purchase and just need to pick a colocation provider.

To address your points on rapidswitch, 4TB is more than enough for us at the moment with our current size, and as our revenue changes more or less in proportion to our traffic, we're not too worried about needing to purchase more. On top of that, I plan to simply take the server over to their data centre, as it's only a few miles from where I live, maybe 40 minutes drive. As such, I won't be requiring any packaging.

As mentioned, though, I currently like the look of A2B2 more than rapidswitch, so these issues shouldn't affect me in any case!

456789

You are right that you can make savings with a second hand server - I hadn't thought of that (I have spent too many hours on the Dell/HP websites playing around with their server config pages )

About Rapidswitch what I meant was their reputation fell quite a lot in the hosting world when they effectively tricked people into moving to them and then reduced things drastically incurring costs, hassle and downtime for a lot of people - so it is a risk going with them as you never know what they might turn around and change.

Also as a general note for upgrading HD or RAM a lot of hosts expect you to pay extra monthly for it which if you are keeping it for a while is very expensive. Luckily a few offer a one-off upgrade fee.

Good luck with your site

Aegis

456789 wrote: »

You are right that you can make savings with a second hand server - I hadn't thought of that (I have spent too many hours on the Dell/HP websites playing around with their server config pages )

I was fully expecting to have to pay somewhere in the 4 figures for this server, so looking on ebay was the best idea I'd had in a while. We still need to pay extra for a hard drive and a CD drive for the OS install, but the saving from £1000 or so down to £300 is still pretty nice!

About Rapidswitch what I meant was their reputation fell quite a lot in the hosting world when they effectively tricked people into moving to them and then reduced things drastically incurring costs, hassle and downtime for a lot of people - so it is a risk going with them as you never know what they might turn around and change.

Understood. We will keep an eye out for them if we go there.

Also as a general note for upgrading HD or RAM a lot of hosts expect you to pay extra monthly for it which if you are keeping it for a while is very expensive. Luckily a few offer a one-off upgrade fee.

Ours wanted $20 a month for an extra GB of RAM. Then they told us that our current server was full (2GB of RAM in there) and told us we needed to upgrade from our current server to a new one at a fairly enormous cost increase per month (about $70 more per month) when all we needed was the extra RAM.

This is what prompted the move in the first place!

Good luck with your site

Thanks very much, we are very much hoping that this will be what stops the site from losing money every month!

Dime_Bar

Just out of interest which Data Centre are you planning on have your server CoLo'd in? Obviously that is something for people to keep in mind if they have unmanaged or have access to the server as there is no point it being hundreds of miles away.

I think this site is hosted in the Data Centre down the old nuclear bunker near Nantwich Cheshire.

Aegis

Dime_Bar wrote: »

Just out of interest which Data Centre are you planning on have your server CoLo'd in? Obviously that is something for people to keep in mind if they have unmanaged or have access to the server as there is no point it being hundreds of miles away.

I think this site is hosted in the Data Centre down the old nuclear bunker near Nantwich Cheshire.

All of the ones I'm considering are in Maidenhead. I can get there in a little over half an hour, I reckon. Maybe 45 minutes with traffic. It would take me longer to get to the Docklands or the next nearest datacentre after those two despite being in London.

456789

Have you set this up? How is it going?