Selecting A Colocation Service Provider
So now you understand the basics of Colocation, and you think it might be the right approach for you. How do you pick a provider? There are many factors to consider when selecting a Colocation service provider; here's a list of a few of the major ones, with comments:
PROXIMITY. Since Colocation puts you in charge of your hardware and software, it can be useful to select a colocation facility within reasonable driving distance of where you live or work. This way, visits to the facility do not require a plane ticket or a full day's time on the road. However, the better Colocation providers will offer free remote hands support, which will free you from having to visit the data center for minor tasks like server reboots, screen reads, putting a disk in drive, etc. In every Colocation facility, you will find the equipment of clients in far-flung locations - either quality colocation is not available or not cost-effective in their region, or they need the equipment to be where it is for geographical considerations. They perform most of their maintenance by remote control, using remote hands service when they need some simple human interaction. If more involved work is required, they hire on-site staff, or send in their own third-party provider to take care of it. So proximity of your Colocation data center is important, but perhaps not critically so - it depends upon your particular needs.
REPUTATION / YEARS IN BUSINESS / CORE BUSINESS. Obviously, you'll want to consider your Colocation provider's reputation for quality and reliable service, as well as how long they've been at it. It's no guarantee, but the old adage that the cream rises to the top is generally true. Many hosting companies offer Colocation 'on the side' - while this is perfectly legitimate, and some are no doubt quite good at it, the needs of Colocation clients are quite different than those of Managed Hosting clients, so choosing a provider that focuses solely on Colocation is probably the most targeted approach. You'll want to consider all aspects of their reputation: service, support, reliability, stability, commitment. Don't be afraid to ask for references - if they are unwilling to give any, consider that to be a sign.
CARRIER-NEUTRALITY. This simply means that the Colocation provider has not locked itself in with exclusive commitments to one or two carriers for their bandwidth - which in the case with many facilities out there. Their doing so limits your choices as a customer, should you want to order a dedicated line, and it can also compromise the stability of the Colocation provider's offering. A solid carrier-neutral facility has redundant connections from an array of providers, and has also made direct peering arrangements with other networks across the Internet - the end result being a stable and fault-tolerant network. We've all had the experience of having our home or office Internet connection go down, sometimes for hours. Imagine if you had two, three or even more Internet connections from different providers, and you could automatically switch between them if one went down. You'd likely never have downtime again! That's carrier-neutrality.
NETWORK STABILITY AND EXPANDABILITY. A Colocation facility that has super-fast, scalable connections to the Internet is a must. Look for a Tier 1 Colocation facility with a large Optical Carrier (OC) connection - at least an OC48, with an OC192 being preferred. Additional redundant connections are a plus and count in the facilitie's favor, especially if they are directly connected to other carrier networks (this is a reciprocal arranement known as peering) - such connections can greatly improve transit times. Beware of Colocation providers who oversell bandwidth - this is quite common! Once they start to push the limits of their connection(s), degraded performance can be expected. Don't be afraid to ask for an IP target within their network, against which you can run some packet tests to see how their response times hold up.
FACILITY FEATURES. Colcation data centers can vary widely as to what they offer the client. You'll want a facility that offers you 24/7 physical access, and that is staffed around the clock with technical support personnel to assist you if needed. You'll want security features, like keycard-lock access to the Colocation data center floor and other sensitive areas, closed circuit TV monitoring, and a controlled check-in / check-out process for all visitors, requiring positive identification. You'll want the power they provide you to be fully conditioned and backed up by UPS and a continuous source generator. Finallly, you'll want enviromental controls which keep the Colocation data center at a constant temperature.
MEETING YOUR CHANGING NEEDS. No one has a static business these days - whatever your Colocation needs are presently, chances are good that they will be changing in the future. A good Colocation provider can continue to service your business as your needs grow and change. Perhaps all you need right now is a single server and 1 Mbps of bandwidth. But what if you need a full data cabinet and 100 Mbps down the road? Don't be afraid to ask the prospective Colocation provider if they can meet this demand, how quickly, and how much it will cost you. They should be able to provide meaningful answers!
ALL-INCLUSIVE PRICING. You'd be surprised how many Colocation providers use à la carte pricing for the basic things that you need to put together a Colocation package. You'll see a great deal advertised - "only $X for a YYYGB/Mbps!" - just to find out that power is priced separately, cabinet space is priced separately, you only get one free IP address, no support is included etc. This nickle-and-dime approach is not customer-friendly. A good Colocation service will quote you a single price that includes the bandwidth, cabinet space, power and IP addresses that you need. Furthermore, the better providers will also include basic remote hands support, free installation (if you cannot be present during the install), unlimited free IP addresses, free bandwidth usage data and the like. A stripped-down, no-frills deal may look like a bargain - but it's usually not.
PRICE. This is a good spot to reiterate the lesson from the previous paragraph - be sure that you know what you are getting for the price you've been quoted! That being said, price is an important consideration when choosing a Colocation provider. You are not necessarily looking for the lowest price. You are looking for a fair price for the package of Colocation services being offered. Do a bit of sampling, and you'll start to get a sense of what is fair, high, and too-good-to-be-true. Fair will be a range; once you've found a fair price for Colocation, evaluate the provider against the other considerations we've covered to determine if they are the winning candidate.
Lesser Considerations When Evaluating A Colocation Service Provider
In evaluating Colocation service offerings, you likely come across these other factors. While they are not without value, a healthy dose of skepticism and perspective is called for:
SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS / GUARANTEES. A Colocation provider may wish to impress you with the statement that they "guarantee" their service accorinding to a Service Level Agreement (SLA). This is something of a marketing tactic, designed to convince you that the provider believes their service to be so solid, they are willing to put it in writing and put money on the line. If you bother to read their SLA, you are likely to discover that all it says is: if they have a service outage, you can get a credit against your bill for downtime, provided that you report it in a timely manner (right away, in some cases) in the prescribed manner (usually in writing, with supporting details), and that a review of their logs corroborates your report. This is NOT a guarantee that their service will never go down, or that if it does go down, it will be resolved in no more than "X" amount of time. It's also not a guarantee that you'll get the credit (if you report it too late, or you can't prove the outage). And in any case, you can never reclaim the time that you were down - it's gone forever! So if you are expecting a lot of downtime with a provider, an SLA might be a good service feature - but then again, why would you choose a provider with a lot of downtime anyway? Better to choose a provider with a reputation for stability instead, and not worry about the SLA.
NO SETUP FEES. Hey, nobody likes paying setup fees, right? The lack of setup fees is generally a good thing, and it's a point in favor of any Colocation provider when doing an evaluation. But, just like price, don't put too much emphasis on this. The bottom line is that you will only pay a setup fee once; a reasonable setup fee should not disqualify a Colocation provider. Chosing an inferior provider for the wrong reason (such as low price or no setup fee) is much more costly in the long run.
NO CONTRACTS. At first this sounds good - no commitment on your part, allowing you to stay flexible. But here's the thing: once you've gone through the trouble of getting installed and set up in a Colocation facility, moving right out again is not going to look very attractive - especially if your server is online and doing traffic! You are not going to be able to take the Colocation provider's IP addresses with you, which means new IPs and software and service reconfiguration, on top of server downtime and time out of your busy schedule to make the move to a new data center. Here's another shortcoming of no contract - no price protection! The Colocation provider can raise your fees at any time, because you have no contract locking in your pricing for the length of the term. If you've done your homework in selecting your Colocation provider, signing a contract should present no problem. A good Colocation provider will offer terms as short as six months or even three months, so you aren't committed for the rest of your days. But the point is to NOT move, so don't be afraid of that contract!
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