Co-location has one primary advantage over dedicated servers…
You own a server and you want to connect to the Internet. Numerous companies can make that connection for you and one option they offer is co-location. Co-location has one primary advantage over dedicated servers… you retain ownership of the server and control over its configuration. If this control is important to you then Co-location may be your best route for connecting to the Internet.
If you are co-locating a server, there are a number of factors to consider that don’t apply to dedicated servers. A major difference is that both rental fees and connection fees apply to a co-located server. Rental fees are the charges for physically locating your server in the web host’s data center. The server is measured by its height, usually from 1U to a full rack. Most servers are either 1U or 2U configurations. However, servers with a large number of hard drives could be as large as 3U or 4U.
Connection charges are based on a connection average rather than the total number of gigabytes transferred per month. For example, a 1 mbp/s connection means that for an entire month you average 1 megabyte of transfer per second. One way of measuring the transfer is to take the amount of bandwidth used in a given month, divide it by the number of seconds in that month and arrive at the transfer figure. Another more popular method of measurement is called the “95th percentile”. With this method bandwidth measurements are taken every 5 minutes. At the end of the month the highest 5% of readings are not counted, and the highest remaining reading that is left is the measurement used for billing.
Besides rental and connection fees, there are other considerations to keep in mind. Since you own the server, where your server is physically located is important. In the case of a natural disaster how safe is your equipment? You want to be certain that your server and the data it contains are as safe as possible. What kind of security is in place in the building? Who will have access to your server? You want to ensure that only those people who have the appropriate authorization will be able to access your server.
Also be sure to check into the bandwidth offered by the host company you are considering. Bandwidth measures the rate of data transfer in gigabytes. Some companies offer extremely fast connections that often come with a high price tag. You can save money by choosing a provider that has slower bandwidth. To test a potential host company’s response time, visit their website at different times of day. How fast does their site load? A slow-performing website may indicate the company’s bandwidth is already overloaded.
If you will be using features such as private name servers, %%%anonymous FTP%%%, or game servers, having several IP addresses could be important. You will want to make sure that the web host can meet your needs.
Look closely at the company’s technical support services. Find out who handles tech support and what kind of IT credentials and experience they have. What do the company’s current customer’s say about their support? Ask for references.
You rely on your server so uptime is critical. Ask the company what kind of guarantee they offer in terms of uptime and get that guarantee in writing.
When you are ready to sign a contract for Co-location services, negotiate and review all of the terms carefully. In addition to an uptime guarantee the contract should include the terms of service, the length of contract, the level of service and payment terms.
Archivo Ospite is the owner of ABWebHosting.com, a site dedicated to sharing information about web hosting on the Internet today. For more information, please visit A B Web Hosting to find all of his articles and other hosting tips.
Filed under: Hosting on June 23rd, 2006 No Comments »
