Self Hosting versus Colocation versus Dedicated Server.

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Naylz

40 posts

Geek

# 82451 29-Apr-2011 13:51

I run a website design and development company and have 3 servers hosted with Codero in the USA. This comes up for renewal in August.

2 are smaller spec linux servers and 1 is a high spec server for community websites.

We run Windows server 2008 and a Plesk control panel off the main server and plesk for the other 2 servers as well.

We have 5 IP addresses per server and host a number of mostly static websites.

It costs us approximately US$6000 per year for the 3 servers, which I manage locally via remote access.

I am wanting to do things locally and am considering my options.

Hosting locally (we are Hamilton based and have access to the Velocity Network).

We will still need to connect to a high speed ISP service.

I really am unsure whether to host this in our offices, use a colocation service, get Dedicated servers locally in New Zealand or just continue with Codero.

My current main server configuration is:

Xeon Quad Core 2.66 GHz

2 x 500 GB SATA Hard Drive

RAID 1 Controller

6 GB Memory

5 IP Addresses

2 TB Transfer/mo

100 Mbit Connection

Plesk 10 Unlimited Domains

Any advice would be appreciated.

cheers
Naylin

boby55

1539 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

# 463720 29-Apr-2011 13:55

Do you own the current servers? (Co located over in the States?) or just rent them?

Where do most of your Traffic for each server come from?

I Recommend moving the server to where ever is closest to that, E.g Most of Geekzone is NZ Traffic I would imagine, So it would be pointless and slow hosting it in USA compared to here in NZ

Naylz

40 posts

Geek

# 463723 29-Apr-2011 13:59

I rent them but I currently have the software required (apart from Plesk) and most of the hardware which we use for our local intranet.

itxtme

1704 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

# 463725 29-Apr-2011 14:01

boby55: Do you own the current servers? (Co located over in the States?) or just rent them?

Where do most of your Traffic for each server come from?

I Recommend moving the server to where ever is closest to that, E.g Most of Geekzone is NZ Traffic I would imagine, So it would be pointless and slow hosting it in USA compared to here in NZ

It depends on what you are trying to achieve. With the failure of ISP's to pair with each toher a large chunk of traffic goes offshore to get back again anyway! In reply to the OP you say you "manage" the servers, what do you mean? If you host them locally I feel you wont have the redundency necessary to ensure no downtime compared to a multimillion dollar data center

DaveBassJunkie

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

# 463742 29-Apr-2011 14:56

Given that you already have a well established service, I would be looking introspectively for the answer to your question. How close are you getting to your resource limits? Do you find that during peak times you are struggling to keep up with load?

Hosting in your office is a bad idea - you will require an off-site backup solution, and you will need to invest a bit of money into Air con, UPS, Generator, etc., unless these are provided by your building already.

When deciding whether to look locally or overseas for a dedicated hosting provider, you'll be looking at two factors: Price and reliability. Local providers may be more difficult to find a track record for, but generally have higher stability and better customer service. It also gives you the benefit of being able to advertise that you are 100% New Zealand. That said, overseas providers are a hell of a lot cheaper, and if you can put up with the speed delay it'll pretty much come down to a decision of how much you're willing to spend for the extra customer service and the marketing side of it.

robbyp

1163 posts

Uber Geek

# 463751 29-Apr-2011 15:12

Naylz: I run a website design and development company and have 3 servers hosted with Codero in the USA. This comes up for renewal in August.

2 are smaller spec linux servers and 1 is a high spec server for community websites.

cheers
Naylin

$6000 per year is pretty cheap, and I think you may find it is a lot more in NZ. I think you need to consider what you clients want, and what their requirements are and draw up a pros and cons list. I have found some of my web design clients demand NZ based hosting, while some don't care, so you could run services in both countries first of all to try it out. If you find your current service is good and reliable, why fix what isn't broken. However running services yourslef when they are based overseas could be high risk and quite stressful for you when problems occur, as you can't exactly go down to their offices to get them to fix it, so you would also need to factor that into the equation.

Ragnor

8035 posts

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Trusted

# 464065 1-May-2011 03:19

Self Hosting:

Wouldn't go down this route for a small company, it's too big of an investment for the redundancy you need in order to provide a reliable service that doesn't fail or have significant downtime.

Two different links with two different providers/isp (preferably fibre), two routers, some kind of failover and/or load balancing over the connections, two firewalls, two switches.. then you have racks, ups, air con, backup generator etc, staff to manage that stuff as their full time job.

Let someone else worry about all of that imo.

Co-location:

You can get a half rack in a top class data centre for around $600 /month probably. Get a round of quotes from Orcon, Maxnet, Unleash, ICONZ, quite a few others that have slipped my mind... then go back to the ones you like get them to sharpen the pencil on pricing/features/int data allowance etc.

Make sure to visit the ones on your short list if possible, don't underestimate the convenience of your chosen data centre being local too... quite handy in worse case situations where something has gone wrong.

Dedicated Servers or VPS/cloud style service:

Similar to co-location but in theory a lower cost of ownership over time and a lower upfront cost.

It's worth running the numbers against co-location to see if it will suit your needs.

Lots of people providing this type of service: Maxnet, Where's My Server. Swizzle, iServe, Webdrive, OpenHost, Net24 etc

Zeon

3511 posts

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Trusted

# 467461 10-May-2011 11:23

The big question is where is most of your traffic (important traffic aka clients of your clients) coming from. If most visitors are from new Zealand you should be definitely hosting in NZ as that will provide the fastest experience for visitors to the sites you host.

In terms of your hardware you could easily fit all of that onto a highly specced box running ESXi server for virtualization. For $4k you could have redundant cooling, power supplies, hard drives (which are the things most likely to fail) so even if you did have a failure you wouldn't go offline.

I wouldn't recommend looking at self hosting at all for the reasons mentioned on here already. Colocation could be an option but you would be responsible for the hardware then, so if something fails you need to supply the replacement (or have a good warranty). You'd most likely be at a datacenter in Auckland like Orcon, Maxnet or ICONZ and they should be able to liaise with your warranty provider to replace the part so you don't need to come to Auckland.

Cost wise maybe budget:
- $4k one off for hardware
- $1k one off for windows 2008 r2 web server license
- $150 a month for colocation for a 2u server
- $200 a month for flat rate 512kbps bandwidth
- $100 a month for plesk unlimtied domains license

IMO dedicated with an NZ provider would be your best bet as its fully managed. I would expect to budget around $500 a month for the hardware, rack space and bandwidth but you'd need to pay for the windows licenses and plesk licenses on top of that.

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