[ILUG] box hosting

[Dermot Hanley]

> Yeah, colocation is stupidly expensive. I've been talking to a number
> of London-based `colocation shops' and several things have
> become clear:
>
> o Colocation is expensive - Just to put the machine in their premises,
>   without hooking it up to the net costs several thousand
> quid per annum.

Talk to one of the global co-location specialists (exodus.net, frontier
globalcenter, above.net, etc.) they'll give you the option of putting
your box in a rack in numerous location worldwide. These people often
have massive international peering arrangements with multiple 100Mbps
switched connections to the likes of UUNET, AOL and into exchanges like
LINX, though not INEX. Prices in dollars are usually about the
following:
 $1,000-1,200 for rack space per month
 $1,000-1,200 for 1 Mbps average usage per month (usually spiking upto a
maximum of 10Mbps)
So you're looking at a total of $2,400 per month which is about IR£1800
which is IR£21,600 per year, the alternative is to get a 1 Mbps leased
line into your office, drawbacks with that are:
 - Max of 1Mbps (no spiking available) which is a massive drawback!
Typical usage for an irish site would be quiet during the night, with
most traffic between 8am and 6pm, with large spikes at 9am and 1pm-3pm.
 - Reliance upon a single ISP and connection point to the rest of the
internet.
 - Cost of router + setup + maintenance.
 - Cost of buying a rack.
 - Cost of maintaining UPS + backup electrical supply.
 - Cost of maintaining a fire suppression system.
 - Cost of maintaining ideal environment within comms room.
 - Cost of 24 x 7 x 365 tech support

So co-location isn't all that expensive when you realise the hidden
costs you have to endure for doing it in-house.

> o Colocation shops are invariable based in London's Docklands.

Because that's where telehouse & telecity (the two LINX sites which are
connected via gigabit ethernet) are based, one of the busiest internet
exchange point in europe.

Dermot
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dermot Hanley, Systems & Network Administrator
 - Itronics Ltd, 4th Floor, Ballast House, Aston Quay, Dublin 2, Eire
 - Ph: +353 1 6714066 , Fax: +353 1 6714909