Colo costs are starting to kill me, need options
December 3, 2007 1:50 PM Subscribe
Colocation in Vancouver BC. Looking for a good, not too expensive colocating facility for a company whose traffic is growing (and costing us more at our current co-lo).
Currently our operation is with Peer1 in Vancouver, and while I'm quite satisfied with the infrastructure there, the bandwidth pricing is a little on the high side. When we first started hosting there, paying a couple of bucks/gig wasn't too much of a concern as our sites didn't really get a lot of traffic, and our pricing had 25GB thrown in free per month, so we rarely exceeded that. However, now my company's bandwidth needs are starting to grow, and looking around I see other companies in town with packages that are throwing in 200GB a month for free, not to mention the ubiquitous 8$ a month hosting packages that give dozens of gigs of traffic inclusive from Big Providers. So all of this is making me wonder if I'm not paying too much for my hosting for what I'm getting. Who would you recommend going with in Vancouver, co-lo wise? Our needs are relatively simple:
Need to colocate a quarter cage worth of 1Us
Need physical access to the boxes periodically
Need either low bandwidth costs or a large amount thrown in as part of the plan
Service can't suck (has to be reliable pipe).
As far as reliability goes, for an example, the only person I've talked to who had boxes at In2Net in Burnaby was dissatisfied with lag, and moved out to Peer 1 in a cage near mine. That being said, he was doing VOIP apps, and for him 200ms of lag is unacceptable, whereas our applications wouldn't care less about 200ms of lag, as they're simpler serving-up-data type things as opposed to realtime communications. So In2Net sounds interesting, and has the cheap bandwidth, but I'm a little gunshy as the only person I've talked to who colocated there ended up leaving dissatisfied.
So if you've got experience colocating boxes in Vancouver, who would you go with to keep bandwidth costs reasonable without killing service?
Currently our operation is with Peer1 in Vancouver, and while I'm quite satisfied with the infrastructure there, the bandwidth pricing is a little on the high side. When we first started hosting there, paying a couple of bucks/gig wasn't too much of a concern as our sites didn't really get a lot of traffic, and our pricing had 25GB thrown in free per month, so we rarely exceeded that. However, now my company's bandwidth needs are starting to grow, and looking around I see other companies in town with packages that are throwing in 200GB a month for free, not to mention the ubiquitous 8$ a month hosting packages that give dozens of gigs of traffic inclusive from Big Providers. So all of this is making me wonder if I'm not paying too much for my hosting for what I'm getting. Who would you recommend going with in Vancouver, co-lo wise? Our needs are relatively simple:
Need to colocate a quarter cage worth of 1Us
Need physical access to the boxes periodically
Need either low bandwidth costs or a large amount thrown in as part of the plan
Service can't suck (has to be reliable pipe).
As far as reliability goes, for an example, the only person I've talked to who had boxes at In2Net in Burnaby was dissatisfied with lag, and moved out to Peer 1 in a cage near mine. That being said, he was doing VOIP apps, and for him 200ms of lag is unacceptable, whereas our applications wouldn't care less about 200ms of lag, as they're simpler serving-up-data type things as opposed to realtime communications. So In2Net sounds interesting, and has the cheap bandwidth, but I'm a little gunshy as the only person I've talked to who colocated there ended up leaving dissatisfied.
So if you've got experience colocating boxes in Vancouver, who would you go with to keep bandwidth costs reasonable without killing service?
Response by poster: Yeah, unfortunately it has to be in Vancouver, as I'll need access to the cage every so often. I've done the looking around to see what's in town, but I want to hear from people who have had systems in these places, not the marketing departments. Because if that was all that mattered, these places are ALL amazing and I should be signing up right now....
posted by barc0001 at 12:03 AM on December 4, 2007
posted by barc0001 at 12:03 AM on December 4, 2007
We do our own in the office. I think the other tech company I know any details about in Vancouver does the same thing.
Maybe you should start a colo company.
posted by blacklite at 1:09 AM on December 4, 2007
Maybe you should start a colo company.
posted by blacklite at 1:09 AM on December 4, 2007
Response by poster: We run some test stuff out of our office as well, but that's only test/development equipment. I've used Telus, Shaw, and Group Telecom feeds to the office, but their reliability and uptime is somewhat suspect and that's not really an option for the reliability we promise our customers. In the past, even paying bales of cash (in 1999) for a Telus ubiquity link doesn't guarantee that some idiot isn't going to run into a pole down the block and knock you offline for 6 hours as I've learned through hard experience. Co-location facilities are *usually* hardened against such singular points of failure, which is one of their appeals. And the co-lo's that aren't, well, they're one of the things I'm trying to avoid with this question ;).
posted by barc0001 at 2:36 AM on December 4, 2007
posted by barc0001 at 2:36 AM on December 4, 2007
Uh, one more thing; Here in Salt Lake, we have a few local ISPs, like Xmission.
I find it's common for a semi-large local ISP to have their own colo that they don't advertise much for clients. You might check into any Vancouver-based ISPs and see if they have colo services.
posted by SlyBevel at 10:10 AM on December 4, 2007
I find it's common for a semi-large local ISP to have their own colo that they don't advertise much for clients. You might check into any Vancouver-based ISPs and see if they have colo services.
posted by SlyBevel at 10:10 AM on December 4, 2007
We provide colo space in Harbour Centre (which is probably where you are now, though maybe you are in their Spencer building facility) and would love to work with you. Our bandwidth pricing can be quite competitive especially for the Vancouver market. I think you will also be quite pleased with the quality of the service we provide. You can get in touch with us at http://www.omegasphere.net/ and we would be happy to provide you with a quote.
(I double checked the site rules before posting this and it looks like this is safe to post since its very much on topic, I hope I am not stepping on any toes).
posted by ddent at 10:40 PM on December 13, 2007
(I double checked the site rules before posting this and it looks like this is safe to post since its very much on topic, I hope I am not stepping on any toes).
posted by ddent at 10:40 PM on December 13, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
Your question seems to be limited to recommendations in Vancouver, but I'm not sure. Since there's a tiny little bit of doubt on that front, I'll make a Southerly recommendation.
I've toured the Consonus facility in Sandy, Utah. It's really an amazing place. Surely it's not unique in this regard, but if Armageddon suddenly happens, and your server is at the Consonus facility, your data will be fine.
Earthquake proof, flood proof, bomb proof, months-without-utility-power proof...really, it was dizzying.
posted by SlyBevel at 9:59 PM on December 3, 2007