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FeedsChoosing a datacenter
This really only applies to people looking for either colocation services or dedicated servers. Most people simply don’t look at the datacenter location/size/quality when purchasing shared/reseller or vps hosting. Anyway, the following is a list of key factors in choosing the right datacenter:
- Network. Obviously a strong network is a requirement, multiple bandwidth providers and DC entry points increase reliability hugely. Be sure also to check out which providers the DC uses and what hardware they have managing it all (routers, ports, etc). Certain bandwidth providers have better networks in different places, and you might want to look for a specific network in a DC depending on your target audience’s main location. As well as provider/reliability/location, you should run some speed tests against other DC’s, ask for a 100MB test file from the provider and compare to others. Also do this during peak hours and off-peak hours, a DC might have multiple providers, but if their capacity is small, you may experience slow speeds during peak hours.
- Power. Recently I’ve seen a couple of power outages. They happen, and a good DC should have a UPS system which will kick in, keeping everything online off a battery while they fire up the onside generator (which they should have, multiple generators for redundancy). If a DC doesn’t have either UPS or a dedicated generator, a simply power outage could potentially cause hours of unwanted downtime.
- Support. When choosing a DC, you are obviously looking for one with excellent support or at least, a knowledgeable tech team incase you screw up or hardware fails. Testing this before purchase is pretty difficult, but you could try emailing them a couple of tech-y questions, perhaps about hardware configs or the nitty gritty details of their internal routing system. The response should give some kind of indicator of level of knowledge.
- Reviews. This is one of the most useful indicators of a top notch solution for your dedicated servers/colocation/etc. Customer reviews. Finding reviews couldn’t be easier, here at Host Scout we have lots, some from other websites and some submitted directly. This means we have the most reviews available. Of course, there are other good websites too, try out some of the links in the sidebar to hunt down the reviews.
- Research. I cannot stress this enough, but do your research! You may have just finished developing your latest application or website, and be so eager to launch you’ll buy anything from anyone! Don’t, slow down, wait, look at reviews, submit sales requests, ask questions, build a list of potential hosts, but do not rush into a purchase (nor be hassled by sales teams and their “one time” offers).
Good luck finding a good provider!