Colocation Advice

Exeperience in pricing and service?

[adfree]

I want to run my server (sitting around) via colocation.

There are several offers from folks who claim to have their own top notch data center, the best backbone, the best infrastructure, the best granny who cooks the best coffee and what have you. They ask for 469 Euro/m. for 100GB bandwidth.

Then there is the reseller type who claims to work with the most state of the art DC and to operate highly efficient. They give 100GB away for free and want to have 49 Euro/m.

What's your experience and what too look for, what needs to be covered on my side and how does pricing make sense?

I am in Germany.

Thanks for any advice.

[plumsauce]

For that kind of money I could throw in the server
as well.

[adfree]

Anyone else P L E A S E?

[ByronM]

1. get referrals - ask for customers who you can speak to.
2. Read the forums, search the news groups.
3. Verify bandwidth partners - if they say they use X0 give X0 a call and ask about them - tell them you are considernig co-locating and wanted to verify the facility and network arrangements.
4. go back to #1 - find out who uses them, and ASK questions!

Make sure your datacenters has

1. STAFF
2. POWER - Redundant Feeds
3. Redundant connections.
4. PHONE NUMBER

Send a test email to the support address, see how long it takes for a human response.

Ask for some 10 meg files that you can download from multiple sites to test throughput

Find some public traceroute servers and traceroute and find out what the routes/weights are like.

Talk to them in person.

[vrtlw]

Ask for a tour of the datacenter - any colocation provider will be able to provide this, then confirm their telco agreements with their supposed providers. Simple as that.