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Managed colocation and how to launch a small hosting company
I know there are a lot of discussions on this, but I'm still wondering a few things. I thought it wouldn't hurt to begin a new thread, hopefully that's alright...
First I understand the basics of colocation, renting a cage, and stuff. And I know really big web hosts or corporations will rent huge sections and have their IT guys running in and out everyday.
But for smaller companies or smaller teams, who don't want to use like VPS (e.g. WHM hosting or cloud networks, etc) services from typical web hosting brands, but who still want more control to setup their own KVM servers and various operating systems and software, what exactly are the options for them if they don't have huge budgets to hire sysadmins and engineers etc?
In other words, I don't see much talk about "managed" colocation on many datacenter homepages, usually its just like "rent a cage!" and stuff like that... what if you don't have IT guys? But you are good at software or containers or general web hosting for your clients........
Just tired of dealing (and paying) for all the various cloud providers, want to consolidate costs in a single datacenter somewhere but still maintain high performance and KVM if possible.
Like how to make a "mini" version of Vultr or Linode?
Comments
It's very common to start out with just a single colocated server or a half rack or similar.
You can get remote hands of nearly every colocation provider. Best is to create a small overview what you need and what you expect and contact (smaller) providers around the area you want to colocate. You might want to look out for smaller providers, they will be more serious with you and could make custom deals.
Wheres ur base? Sri Lanka?
Thanks for your information.
Is "remote hands" meaning on-site engineers/sysadmins that you pay extra for? I'm just trying to determine how much management is typically included in most colocation plans, etc.
Are the prices quote nearly always meaning "you manage yourself we just give you the rack and the network interfaces but that's it" or is there usually more than that?
No mostly I have US clients, and some Europe.
Well I'm hoping to look at colocation options in low tax US states like Nevada, Arizona, or Utah.
remote hand means the provider is doing work for you. In most cases this means something like replacing a harddisk or similar. Normally there is no management included at all.
Yes the prices you normally see means "give me your hardware. We put it into the rack, plug in power and network and good luck"
Gotcha. Yah I just talked to a datacenter in Nevada getting famous and they said "oh you want management, here's a short list of our sub-providers" like it surprised them? Maybe just because they are a bigger datacenter brand...
I didn't realize even the hardware is not provided in most cases, wow. Thanks!
You talk about "colocation" that mean you want to rent a rackspace for your own hardware.. if you want to rent the hardware then you should tell as rent a dedicated server.
Colocation also have some different services, if you just need to rent space for 1 server (usually 1u or 2u) then you will get same rack with other people, you also can rent entire rack ( 20u or 40/42u ) and this usually need some custom quotations ( power, network, etc that you will need ). In some datacenter you also can rent just space, power and network then send your rack,server,network equipment etc. Some datacenter also have a "virtual" datacenter, basically your hardware will be keep at some cage so another people can't get access to your hardware.
And it is rare for datacenter give a management for colocation, they will just redirect you to another company that have management services.
If you want to rent dedicated server then you can talk to provider here and request some management. Usually basic task such as reset your server, check physical condition is free. But if you need them to manage your OS, Cpanel installation, virtualizor/kvm installation and configuration you need to pay for managed services.
Colo, you pay to host your hardware in their DC. Generally priced on power consumption and space.
Dedicated, you rent hardware everything else Is normally included.
I have found dedicated seem to be far cheaper than colo.
I rent a online.net server for 30 a month. I have a colo server on the UK 1u small hp120 and that costs me 70pm.
Starting from scratch in would go dedi and not colo.
Cool thanks. I've used dedicated servers in the past, but it seemed that term was fading now that everything is virtualized... seems everything is now cloud VPS, or containers, KVM etc.
But if that's still the correct term, it helps me to know that at least going forward.
Part of the problem seems that every company uses these terms differently. But yes, 100% of the software, OS, and software stack I want to control/install. But I would need another company to fully manage the hardware, dead or frozen hard drives, and that type of stuff.
Thanks.
What bothers me me with Vultr, Linode, DigitalOcean, Ramnode is they all have different policies and APIs. So if we get an abuse complaint for a newspaper client about stuff like defamation or gossip, even if its legal speech in the US, each company handles it differently. And sometimes they integrate GDPR rules too even if the server is in the USA. Literally one of these cloud providers said you couldn't mention someone's name without permission. I was like WTF? When I asked them to explain what policy it violated, they refused, and told us to disable the server.
They are too rich I guess, they can afford to reject anything remotely controversial.
I have literally got complaints to remove content from these clouds just because it was a controversial blog post or article. One cloud even cited the GDPR, and another cloud said it went against their "national security, public health, and abuse" policy. Mind you we help multiple journalists who are covering news like mafia, corruption and beyond.
And if you want to maintain APIs for remote server setup, each cloud is different.
So I'm thinking just have one datacenter partner (or dedicated server partner)... I just want to have things streamlined, both policies and APIs for easier management... not sure if possible.
NearlyFreeSpeech seems like the only American company that puts all policy into your hands, as long as its legal in the US. But their config options suck ass.
Seems like owning your own hardware, or datacenter is the only complete solution
good ol land of the free
murica always a fun shit show.
but yea that sucks when US companys freak out when someone sneezes in there direction with a fake DMCA or some bullshit abuse claim.
Back in the day FDCservers seemed to be pretty "tolerant" and had alot of dedi options in the US not sure how LET feels about them or if they have maintained a good standing over the years but might be worth taking a look.
Yah no kidding. It doesn't help that some 25 year old IT geek with no law degree from some backwoods town in Michigan is the one on the abuse tickets, citing the GDPR.
Thanks will check out FDC.
I think it depends on what exactly you are looking for. As others have mentioned, colo providers will allow you to start small and scale up. You can start as little as 1U and bump up to 1/4, 1/2, full cabs, etc.
It also depends how much equipment you provide of your own. If you want to put in your own switches/routers or if you want to buy ports off your colo provider.
With remote hands, you have to watch the price. We have seen some charge $150/hour to do power resets and others charge $50/hour. Others include things like power resets.
I can tell you we have a pretty lax tos when it comes to stuff like that. Honestly, unless we get hit with a warrant, VALID DMCA (we manually review these and make sure they are legit), or you are sending a shitton of spam we aren't going to terminate you or bother you. https://www.spryservers.net/legal/tos