Hi guys,
I thought it might be helpful if I chimed in here. You are both saying a lot of the same thing but it doesn't appear that you're finding common ground. My opinion is that you can have good hosts at bad datacenters and bad host at good datacenters, basically. The limiting factor is that a good host at a bad or not top quality datacenter will always have some limitations and risk factors that hosts at a premium datacenter and location don't have to worry about. In other words, at a B or C grade datacenter a host can only control so much and potentially be "so good".
Things that I believe are important and create tangible differences are:
- Properly managed environmentals such as cooling and humity control. Appropriately designed and implemented is important, just because a datacenter has a raised floor and multiple cooling units doesn't make it top shelf. Having redundancies in things like the total amount of available cooling, redundancy with water chillers and proper floor design to prevent 'hot spots' is long term extremely important.
- The amount of dark fiber at a location, path diversity leaving that site and total number of transit (bandwidth) and transport (OCx and wavelengths) available. Some datacenters are much less desirable due to the available network infrastructure. Small, even medium sized datacenters often have a limited carrier roster of 5-10 carriers and sometimes only have one or two of those companies owning the fiber assets. Sometimes sites have two fiber exits but they end up at the street on the same physical path which is ultimately a risk for fiber cut.
- Power infrastructure... Huge subject! Some sites have connections to multiple power grids while most only connect to one. Some sites have only one generator and a small capacity for diesel fuel. This is a risk if there is a failure with the primary generator or in a blackout situation if the site does not get priority refueling and can only run for 24-48 hours on the diesel they have in storage. Many sites do not have redundancy in their UPS or battery systems or maintain them properly. Sites with UPS that rely on batteries need to do a complete replacement every 10 or so years because they become a degraded risk. Lastly, in a broad sense the attention to detail designing a complete power infrastructure and implementing it is extraordinarily important.
- Physical security. Proper security at a datacenter isn't just for show and tell, it's crucial. Datacenters are basically shared environments with space carved out for tenants in cages, cabinets or seperate suites. Cameras, access badges with RFid that track location, proper shipping and receiving, all of these things are important. Equipment can be lost, stolten, sabotaged. You would also be surprised how many datacenters are not staffed with security or operations personnel 24 hours daily.
- Infrastructure designed to protect against the elements and natural disasters. Most datacenters were not "ground up" design for todays needs. The bulk of datacenters out there are retrofitted office space or warehouse space that was repurposed. Most datacenters are not truly built to withstand extreme events such as flooding, tornados, hurricanes, extreme snow, high winds, earthquakes, etc. You would be surprised how many datacenters have windows. LOL
Bringing things full circle, basically here is what I am saying. You will find good hosts and bad hosts in every type of datacenter. The best hosts in lower tier datacenters are ultimately limited by the quality of the infrastructure available to them. Similarly, I've seen some horrible hosting in excellent datacenters - including the one I am in. We are in a fantastic site and are an awesome host but how others decide to design and implement their network infrastructure, support, server hardware and power distribution can make a huge difference. I've seen a few cages at the site we are in whose cabling is at best a "rat's nest". As a tenant of a datacenter you are essentially given a blank slate and charged with implementing your own space design and whole suite of service.
One could pick the best datacenter in the world but if they don't know how to run a world class hosting company then they will never be a great host. You can have dozens or more than a hundred carriers available (our site has 170+ carriers) but unless you choose to connect to them you cannot enjoy those benefits. Even if a host does connect to many good carriers if they don't manage their BGP well then they might not inherently choose great routes. The whole subject of design is large, you could connect to multiple carriers but unless you do your research in advance you could end up with no physical fiber path diversity leaving the site.
Brad