Colocation Blog

ServePath to host Philippine Airlines web site . Dedicated server provider and colocation hosting specialist, ServePath, has been selected for its cost-effectiveness and scalability, by Philippine Airlines (PAL), to host its corporate web site.

John Keagy, President of ServePath added, ‘’Philippine Airlines came to us to improve the performance of its online services, which are accessed by thousands of customers per day. Our dedicated hosting and managed services allow PAL to deliver the best possible customer experience. ServePath’s hosting solutions are ideal for organizations like PAL that need to focus on core business issues–not IT issues–and lack the in-house expertise to manage their hosting themselves.'’

For more than six decades, PAL has been serving passengers through a route network that spans 32 foreign cities and 20 domestic points, the airline continues to grow and expand its list of destinations.

Switch & Data, a colocation and hosting company, settles law suit for 3 million. The original claim was for more, when the complaint

“sought $29.7 million in damages for the alleged breach of a lease at a colocation facility in West Palm Beach.”

Ouch. I guess they worked it out.

According to this article on Colocation and Disaster Recovery Facilities:

“There are many reasons you could be faced with a disastrous situation. Especially if you are in the IT sector and/or if most of your data resides in electronic format. If you depend on computers for storing, accessing and using your data, you are potentially at risk.”

This is why Servepath offers Data Backup & Storage Area Network services to our customers.

Here are a couple vid clips of some data center workers moving the new Liebert CRAC Units into the data center. These units are so big they had to take the back of the elevator off to fit the thing inside!

Every morning I would walk through our data center to get to my desk. I always liked walking through there, just to see what was going on. Sometimes a colo customer would be in there setting up his server, or the data center technicians would be at work on our Cat6 cabling upgrade. On a warm day it was nice to get cooled down even if the noise was a bit overwhelming.

But since we recently moved to a new office to make room for our data center expansion, I no longer get my morning walk-through. Instead, I have a sweet window cube with lots of sunlight and a view of the street, so that certainly makes up for it. And, of course, I can always pop over to the data center whenever I want to see what’s going on.

By moving our sales, marketing and accounting department we freed up 3,000 square feet of data center space. This will allow our existing customers to expand as they grow their business, plus it will enable us to meet increasing demand for San Francisco data center space. The expanded space features Cat6 cabling designed to support applications such as IPTV, and it allows up to 10 gigabits per second hand offs to our cabinets or cages.

This is what my former office looks like now:

If you are looking to place your servers in a colocation facility or data center, you might have come across the term U. U is the standard unit used to measure the height of colocation racks, cabinets and the hardware which is stored there. 1U equals 1.75 inches, so a rack described as 20U has 20 spaces for hardware equipment and 35 inches of vertical usable space. 1U is the smallest unit and 7U the largest.

The width and height of a rack mount might be standard, but the depth sometimes changes. When you decide to store your server in a data center, be sure to check the exact specifications of your rack or cabinet. As I mentioned in an earlier post on Colocation Installation Tips, it is also good to let the data center technician know about the kind of hardware you’re bringing in, so they can determine where it is going to be stored. It’s no fun for anyone if you show up with gear that doesn’t fit into your assigned space.

This week I thought I’d share some installation tips with you. For those of you who are first time colocators or perhaps just starting to think about colocation it is nice to have an idea of what to expect when bringing your gear to a colocation facility, like our San Francisco data center.

1. Please make sure you install your servers facing the right direction
I know, this sounds like a joke, right, but it’s actually not Our rows are designed so the backs of the servers face each other, creating a current of heat that rises every other row. Because servers draw hot air in the front and push it out the back, hot air would come out of one side and be pulled into the servers in the next row if each row had servers installed the same direction.

2. If you are mounting a server on sliding rails, attach the rails first loosely.
It will be easier for you to mount the server if the rails have some give and can move to accommodate the server. After the server is in place, you can finish tightening the screws that hold the rails in the rack.

Also, we provide screws to standard equipment, but if you have special stuff, you need to bring your own

3. If you are using a hub or switch that has an AC adapter type power cord (the block kind), tape the plug to the hub or switch with electrical or duct tape.
Now that we have been doing this for some years, we have found that these cords can easily become disconnected from your hub or switch, especially in shared environments. Taping the cord to the hub will ensure that it does not become disconnected. Another good alternative is purchasing a larger 16 port rackmount switch, which normally use a standard AC power cord that is more difficult to knock loose.

4. Fill out all the forms and paperwork beforehand
If you submit your completed paperwork before showing up at the data center, your installation will go a lot smoother. When you are prepared, it makes it easier for everyone, especially for the data center employees who are planning and scheduling their time.

Also, it is good to let the data center employees know about ALL the equipment you’re bringing in – the size of your gear determines where it will physically be located in the data center and it takes time and money to move everything around.

On Wednesday March 22 ColoServe hosted the Juniper Networks Demo Truck on its tour around the country. The demo truck is a completely rebuilt 18-wheeler decked out with the latest and greatest in cutting edge security and routing solutions.

The truck was parked outside our San Francisco data center all day, and there was a steady stream of people coming to check out the latest hardware. Juniper brought a bunch of engineers eager to show off the gadgets, and both industry people and curious pedestrians got a full show.

In the middle of the day, ColoServe hosted guest speaker Roslyn Rissler, a member of Juniper’s “Infranet Controller” Management Team. Ms. Rissler gave an interesting talk about Juniper’s Unified Network Access Control solution before we all enjoyed a delicious lunch. ColoServe also provided guided tours of our data center throughout the day.

When deciding where to colocate there are several important factors to take into account. Here are some of the things you should look at before you decide on a data center.

Building Security
Building security is extremely important. You want to look for a building that offers quality security systems and guards on duty 24/7. Make sure that there are video cameras on all floors, so that anyone visiting the building is covered from the minute they enter to the time they leave again. Only authorized personnel should be allowed access to the facility, and there should be at least two ID checks before entering the data center itself. You should also make sure that there are locks on the actual cabinets or cages where your servers will be stored.

Read about ColoServe’s Secure San Francisco Data Center.

Power System
Ideally, the data center should be connected to two power grids with multiple entry points, but obviously you are only likely to find this in major cities. However, even if the facility is only on one power grid you should make sure that there are multiple entry points. You should also ask about generators and power backup plans. I would highly advise against ever colocating at a data center that doesn’t have its own generator(s). It is simply a must for a data center to have on-site generators and fuel, and a really great one will even have more than one.

Our San Francisco data center power is fed by conditioned UPS electricity, with redundant feeds from dual 2 Megawatt generators. One generator can power the entire building for several days time, and there is 20,000 gallons of reserve diesel fuel on site. These generators are tested monthly, and every third month the power is disconnected from the two utility feeds to ensure proper generator operation.

Network
One of the things to consider is your bandwidth requirements. In order to do that you need to know your current end-users (and the users you hope to reach in the future) in terms of where and how they access the Internet and compare that against the network connectivity and cross-connects afforded by each co-location vendor. The quality of the user’s experience is going to depend on how many hops it takes them to reach your site from their ISP. If it seems as if your users are going to need too many hops getting to and from their ISPs and the data center network, it is best to find another colocation facility; one that can better meet your requirements.

Read about ColoServe’s Screaming-Fast NetworkTM.

We have undertaken the huge project of upgrading the wiring in our data center with category 6 copper cable from Berk-Tek. This project is going to take several months to complete, and I’ll keep you updated on our progress right here on this blog.

So what does Cat 6 cabling do that Cat 5e doesn’t? Well, to begin with systems operating over Cat 6 cabling will have fewer errors for current applications due to its improved transmission performance and superior immunity from external noise. This means fewer re-transmissions of lost or corrupted data packets under certain conditions, which again translates into higher reliability for Category 6 networks compared to Category 5e networks. In addition to improved data throughput, the superior engineering delivers greater reliability and virtually eliminates “mystery” problems associated with antiquated Cat 5 cable plants that can haunt systems administrators.

The Cat 6 copper cable is specifically designed to absorb ambient energy sources such as Electromagnetic interference (EMI) and radio frequency interference (RFI), eliminating BER loss from these common cable associated problems. ColoServe’s Cat 6 cable plant has twice the bandwidth of Cat 5e systems with positive Power Sum Attenuation to Cross-talk Ratio (PSACR) up to 200 MHz.

But do you really need all that bandwidth since there isn’t yet an application that requires 200 MHz of bandwidth? Maybe not right at this instance, but all signs point to the fact that it won’t be long now. Data rates have been doubling every 18 months, and applications running at 1 GB/s are already pushing the limits of Cat 5e cabling. The demands for faster data rates will definitely increase as streaming media applications such as video and multi-media become more popular and commonplace.

Cabling infrastructure is generally considered a 10 year investment as opposed to two or three years for electronics. That’s why we are getting started on our wiring upgrade now. As always, it makes sense to plan ahead and to be prepared for whatever the future might bring.