From ulf at Alameda.net Tue May 3 13:17:35 2005 From: ulf at Alameda.net (Ulf Zimmermann) Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 13:17:35 -0700 Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed Message-ID: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> Hello everyone. My company needs to expand their colocation and I am looking for suggestions where to check. Our requirements are something like this: 20'x14' cage to be able to put up to 6 HP 10000 cabinets 47U high. Initial we would put 4 in but want space to be able to add 2 more. For each cabinet we would need 2 circuits 40A or 50A at 208V hard wired. Carrier neutral would be nice but doesn't necessary have to be. It needs to be a presentable colocation as our customer include companies like Ford and Chase and they sometimes come by to look at things. Our company itself sits in Menlo Park so something close would be good, but we are pretty much open elsewhere in the area (our current colocation is in Fremont). We also have a 10Mbit/sec Ethernet link to our Phoenix failover site, so experiences with colos who have providers in house to provide simular links would be good also. Looking forward for any hints :-) -- Regards, Ulf. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-865-0204 You can find my resume at: http://seven.Alameda.net/~ulf/resume.html From bferrell at baywinds.org Tue May 3 13:30:39 2005 From: bferrell at baywinds.org (Bruce Ferrell) Date: Tue, 03 May 2005 13:30:39 -0700 Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed In-Reply-To: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> References: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> Message-ID: <4277DF6F.3080903@baywinds.org> You might want to talk to JMA wired in San Francisco. Their building hosts ColoServ. There are a number of bandwidth providers in the building. I'm just a satisfied customer. Ulf Zimmermann wrote: > Hello everyone. > > My company needs to expand their colocation and I am looking for > suggestions where to check. Our requirements are something like > this: > > 20'x14' cage to be able to put up to 6 HP 10000 cabinets 47U high. > Initial we would put 4 in but want space to be able to add 2 more. > For each cabinet we would need 2 circuits 40A or 50A at 208V hard > wired. > Carrier neutral would be nice but doesn't necessary have to be. > It needs to be a presentable colocation as our customer include > companies like Ford and Chase and they sometimes come by to look > at things. > > Our company itself sits in Menlo Park so something close would be > good, but we are pretty much open elsewhere in the area (our current > colocation is in Fremont). > > We also have a 10Mbit/sec Ethernet link to our Phoenix failover site, > so experiences with colos who have providers in house to provide > simular links would be good also. > > Looking forward for any hints :-) > From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Tue May 3 15:36:23 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 15:36:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed In-Reply-To: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> Message-ID: hi ya ulf On Tue, 3 May 2005, Ulf Zimmermann wrote: > My company needs to expand their colocation and I am looking for > suggestions where to check. Our requirements are something like > this: try via.net ( san antonio and charleston in PA ) for "close" above.net probably will be more hungry for your biz too unless the sales droids wants a bigger commission c ya alvin From guy at extragalactic.net Tue May 3 23:18:33 2005 From: guy at extragalactic.net (Guy B. Purcell) Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 23:18:33 -0700 Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed In-Reply-To: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> References: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> Message-ID: <315F2446-55D2-4C51-96A9-88065B314957@extragalactic.net> On May 3, 2005, at 13:17, Ulf Zimmermann wrote: > My company needs to expand their colocation and I am looking for > suggestions where to check. Our requirements are something like > this: [...requirements...] I'm not sure if this site meets all your requirements or not (eg. it's not a "pretty" facility--or at least it wasn't in 2001 when I worked for a company co-located there), but I really liked Exchange Colocation [1]. That company I worked for got in pretty early, back when it looked like AboveNet was going to go under like Exodus had, and I got a good look as this place was building out their infrastructure. It was very good--clean, tight, redundant. I don't think you'll find a better choice of network providers, either; this place sites at a crossroads of several fiber runs on the Peninsula. And, at least back then, they were backed by non-tech-sector money (owned by some British shipping company), so they weren't likely to go under in a tech-sector crash. -Guy [1] From jxh at jxh.com Wed May 4 08:19:15 2005 From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein) Date: Wed, 04 May 2005 10:19:15 -0500 Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed In-Reply-To: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> References: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> Message-ID: The Baylisa host is at Meer.net's facility in Sunnyvale. So is a lot of other stuff I was able to push their way. Enormously clueful, and hence responsive and flexible. From rsr at inorganic.org Thu May 5 20:29:08 2005 From: rsr at inorganic.org (Roy S. Rapoport) Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 20:29:08 -0700 Subject: A Question About Apple Employee Discounts Message-ID: <20050506032908.GA15526@puppy.inorganic.org> How big of a deal is it to ask an acquaintance to use their Apple Employee Discount for your purchase of a computer? Is it a case of "you're mortally insulting them unless you've known them for 20 years and was the godfather of their child," or more of a "well, as long as they don't respond 'roy who?' it's OK"? -roy From jac at panix.com Sun May 8 09:15:21 2005 From: jac at panix.com (John Clear) Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 09:15:21 -0700 Subject: A Question About Apple Employee Discounts In-Reply-To: <20050506032908.GA15526@puppy.inorganic.org> References: <20050506032908.GA15526@puppy.inorganic.org> Message-ID: <20050508161521.GA29197@panix.com> On Thu, May 05, 2005 at 08:29:08PM -0700, Roy S. Rapoport wrote: > How big of a deal is it to ask an acquaintance to use their Apple Employee > Discount for your purchase of a computer? Is it a case of "you're mortally > insulting them unless you've known them for 20 years and was the godfather > of their child," or more of a "well, as long as they don't respond 'roy > who?' it's OK"? This is one of those 'it depends' type things. How well do you know the person? How many purchases can they make per year? How many purchases do they have left over at the end of the year? The company I work for offers employee discounts on our product (brand A graphics cards), with a limit of six per year. Since I've yet to use my employee discount for my use, I have no problem using it for friends and acquaintances. I make the offer first in casual conversation. If someone asked me without my first offering, it would be awkward, and my reaction would depend on how well I knew them/etc. John From jimd at starshine.org Sun May 8 13:56:26 2005 From: jimd at starshine.org (Jim Dennis) Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 13:56:26 -0700 Subject: A Question About Apple Employee Discounts In-Reply-To: <20050508161521.GA29197@panix.com> References: <20050506032908.GA15526@puppy.inorganic.org> <20050508161521.GA29197@panix.com> Message-ID: <20050508205626.GA5209@starshine.org> On Sun, May 08, 2005 at 09:15:21AM -0700, John Clear wrote: > On Thu, May 05, 2005 at 08:29:08PM -0700, Roy S. Rapoport wrote: >> How big of a deal is it to ask an acquaintance to use their Apple Employee >> Discount for your purchase of a computer? Is it a case of "you're mortally >> insulting them unless you've known them for 20 years and was the godfather >> of their child," or more of a "well, as long as they don't respond 'roy >> who?' it's OK"? > This is one of those 'it depends' type things. How well do you > know the person? How many purchases can they make per year? How > many purchases do they have left over at the end of the year? My gut response is thus: If you have to ask us (at BayLISA) rather than broaching the topic with your aquaintance ... then you're probably not close enough. Just how you ask someone is a matter of consideration; particularly of being considerate of their values and feelings in the matter. Generally if I'm asking for a favor, from anyone, I take some effort to make it clear that it is a favor and that they shouldn't feel any qualms about turning me down. I don't actually know the official Apple policy; it could range from "this is a firing offense" to "friends and family? whatever!" You might start by inquiring about that. (In the process you'll learn how big a favor *they* would consider it). -- Jim Dennis From john at ragingkegger.com Sun May 8 18:18:45 2005 From: john at ragingkegger.com (John Brunn) Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 18:18:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: A Question About Apple Employee Discounts In-Reply-To: <20050506032908.GA15526@puppy.inorganic.org> References: <20050506032908.GA15526@puppy.inorganic.org> Message-ID: I've purchased a laptop for my sister through the apple employee discount program... and the apple employee was a friend of mine. Here is what i know. 1) they get a few different discounts per year, some at 15%, some at 25%, etc. These are probably harder to obtain becuase they are in high demand. 2) Employees get 'quarterly promo' emails each quarter, basically equipment (brand new) that they're trying to move with certain setups at a great price. This is open to (basically) all; if i remember correctly, she filled out some form and sent me an email. I went online and purchased, using MY credit card, sent to MY address. There was no 'funny business' on apple's side; it was a completely legitamate purchase. I got a great deal on a 12" powerbook (came to around 19% off if i remember correctly). Note: This was 2 quarters ago; last quarter there was no promo sent out (probably because of all the new merch they were introducing). I'm not quite sure how the yearly purchases work; my friend told me that i could check with her and if she or someone in her family wasn't using it in a given year, I could use it. I'm pretty sure that it is the same deal (I get to buy it in my name, no issues with apple), but i can't verify. So, what i would say is: it doesn't hurt to ask. Your acquaintance knows the deal. Plus, i would think apple would encourage this.. it really is the best way to get more market share. I would approach this person and say "Hey, i really want to purchase XXX, if you don't think you're going to use all of your discounts this year, it could really help me out". No harm / no foul. Or, just ask them about the quarterly promos and maybe they'll offer the 15% to you. On a side note.. I do know that gap employees get a 10% discount at the apple store in SF (its possible that only SF employees get this, but my wife gets it).. and i also just got a $100 off gift cert(purchases over $1k) from citibank in the mail. So I think apple is really pushing their products. Hope this helps (I'm trying to get a G5 myself..) -John Brunn On Thu, 5 May 2005, Roy S. Rapoport wrote: > How big of a deal is it to ask an acquaintance to use their Apple Employee > Discount for your purchase of a computer? Is it a case of "you're mortally > insulting them unless you've known them for 20 years and was the godfather > of their child," or more of a "well, as long as they don't respond 'roy > who?' it's OK"? > > -roy > From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Sun May 8 19:07:19 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 19:07:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: sidenote - Re: A Question About Apple Employee Discounts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: hi ya On Sun, 8 May 2005, John Brunn wrote: -- it'd never hurts to ask for discounts and favors if you know them well enough .. > Hope this helps (I'm trying to get a G5 myself..) and if one is looking for a deal on a dual-athlon-1600+ made by penguincomputing, you can get the Altus 1Us with the mb & cpu at halted for $275 or so ( no bidding non-sense :-) - that seems to me to be a good deal to me, but i donno what is good to some that is not good enough for others - the also had a bunch o nice tyan motherboards, stuff i bought before .. good for your spare parts collection or testing when your production servers decide to go on instant holiday after working for 2-4 yrs non-stop c ya alvin - and fries had a seagate 160GB w/ 8MB buffer w/ 5yr warranty for $55 range after rebate From sigje at sigje.org Wed May 11 13:16:59 2005 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 13:16:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: May 19, 2005: LiveJournal's Architecture .., Brad Fitzpatrick (BayLISA Monthly) Message-ID: Date: Thursday, 19 May 2005 Where: Apple Computer, Town Hall Building, upstairs meeting room http://www.baylisa.org/locations/current.html 7:30 pm Introductions and announcements 8:00 pm Formal presentation 9:45 pm After-meeting dinner/social outing (BJ's, next door) Brad Fitzpatrick, of LiveJournal, will present "LiveJournal's Architecture and Scaling History" Full abstract online: http://www.baylisa.org/events/ From vraptor at employees.org Thu May 12 07:07:25 2005 From: vraptor at employees.org (vraptor at employees.org) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 07:07:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: A Question About Apple Employee Discounts In-Reply-To: References: <20050506032908.GA15526@puppy.inorganic.org> Message-ID: <20050512070410.W81000@willers.employees.org> On Sun, 8 May 2005, John Brunn wrote: > given year, I could use it. I'm pretty sure that it is the same deal (I get > to buy it in my name, no issues with apple), but i can't verify. As long as you have the receipt, the warranty transfers to whomever has possession of the computer. The very computer I am typing this on was purchased through the employee discount. It's no different than J. Q. Public popping down to the Apple store, buying an iPod and giving it to their cousin for Christmas or whatever. So the recipient of a employee discounted computer has the receipt, they fill out the warranty registration, done. No funny business at all. > On a side note.. I do know that gap employees get a 10% discount at > the apple store in SF (its possible that only SF employees get this, > but my wife gets it).. There is a discount for all students, all current educators (teachers, administrators), all members of Apple User Groups, as well as all federal employees and contractors. If you write software, and can afford the $500 for "full blown" ADC member- ship, you'll get a couple of good hardware discounts per year. (If you are going for a high end machine with all the peripherals, it's worth the $500.) Dunno if state employees get discounts. Many corporations have discounts as well--check with your HR folks. In all of the above cases, except ADC and possibly some corporate discounts, it's 10%. As an aside, I believe all UG's have to go through the UG Apple store to exercise their discount. I recommend A32 for the Bay Area--though it's really a "virtual group more than anything these days--online only, AFAIK. I'm not sure the other Apple UG that was in the South Bay is even still around --they were having some issues after a re-org. There is also a strong one up in Marin County. http://www.apple.com/usergroups/ Regards-- =Nadine= --who is very happy for the resurgence of Macs From strata at virtual.net Tue May 17 11:23:26 2005 From: strata at virtual.net (Strata R. Chalup) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 11:23:26 -0700 Subject: recommendation wanted for data recovery service Message-ID: <428A369E.5020405@virtual.net> A client of mine has had a foreign field office server toast itself, and wants to recover the drive and ship it back. Windows server with 3Ware RAID card. They're getting quotes from $15K - $33K, which is about an order of magnitude more than they're interested in paying. It's not a 'critical data' thing, it's a 'we're understaffed and don't have the expertise to mess with it ourselves' thing. Recommendations for data recovery vendors, especially local to the South Bay, would be welcomed. thanks, Strata PS- Yes, the whole point of RAID is to keep this from happening. Fortunately I am on the *nix side of the shop, and don't know what in the world they were doing to end up in this situation. -- ======================================================================== Strata Rose Chalup [KF6NBZ] strata "@" virtual.net VirtualNet Consulting http://www.virtual.net/ ** Project Management & Architecture for ISP/ASP Systems Integration ** ========================================================================= From marco at escape.org Tue May 17 14:10:10 2005 From: marco at escape.org (Marco Nicosia) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 14:10:10 -0700 Subject: recommendation wanted for data recovery service In-Reply-To: <428A369E.5020405@virtual.net>; from strata@virtual.net on Tue, May 17, 2005 at 11:23:26AM -0700 References: <428A369E.5020405@virtual.net> Message-ID: <20050517141009.T88691@escape.org> I recommend Lazarus Data Recovery in SF, if you're located in the Bay Area. Based on my one experience with them, I have three reasons to recommend them: 1] They're local; no shipping your disks logistic hassle. (Perhaps not apropos to your circumstance, unless you're willing to proxy for your foreign field office?) 2] Their service is considerably better priced than some of the "big" names out there. 3] Despite the fact they weren't able to get data from my cooked platters, they worked so hard to try, I felt that I'd gotten my money's worth. Don't be thrown off by their diminutive location. In this dicey science, a company that can clearly show value without yielding successful results has got to be good! -- Marco Strata R. Chalup (strata at virtual.net) wrote: > > A client of mine has had a foreign field office server toast itself, > and wants to recover the drive and ship it back. Windows server > with 3Ware RAID card. They're getting quotes from $15K - $33K, > which is about an order of magnitude more than they're interested > in paying. It's not a 'critical data' thing, it's a 'we're > understaffed and don't have the expertise to mess with it ourselves' > thing. > > Recommendations for data recovery vendors, especially local to the > South Bay, would be welcomed. > > thanks, > Strata > > PS- Yes, the whole point of RAID is to keep this from happening. > Fortunately I am on the *nix side of the shop, and don't know what > in the world they were doing to end up in this situation. > > > -- > ======================================================================== > Strata Rose Chalup [KF6NBZ] strata "@" virtual.net > VirtualNet Consulting http://www.virtual.net/ > ** Project Management & Architecture for ISP/ASP Systems Integration ** > ========================================================================= _______________________________________________________________________ Marco E. Nicosia | http://www.escape.org/~marco/ | marco at escape.org From sigje at sigje.org Wed May 18 14:08:33 2005 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 14:08:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: May 19, 2005: LiveJournal's Architecture .., Brad Fitzpatrick (BayLISA Monthly) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: TOMORROW! Date: Thursday, 19 May 2005 Where: Apple Computer, Town Hall Building, upstairs meeting room http://www.baylisa.org/locations/current.html 7:30 pm Introductions and announcements 8:00 pm Formal presentation 9:45 pm After-meeting dinner/social outing (BJ's, next door) Brad Fitzpatrick, of LiveJournal, will present "LiveJournal's Architecture and Scaling History" Full abstract online: http://www.baylisa.org/events/ From sigje at sigje.org Thu May 19 16:55:14 2005 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 16:55:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Last Notice! BayLISA Monthly Meeting TONIGHT Message-ID: Come have donuts (Mmmm. Krispy Kreme!) and cola and listen to Brad Fitzpatrick talk about the architecture and scaling history of the immensely popular LiveJournal website (www.livejournal.com). BayLISA General Meetings: The 3rd Thursday of every month 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm Apple Campus Garage 1 in Building 4 Inside Building 4, it's upstairs and follow the sound of voices to the room Garage 1 http://www.baylisa.org/locations/current.shtml From bill at thecrookes.com Fri May 20 10:49:11 2005 From: bill at thecrookes.com (Bill Crooke) Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 10:49:11 -0700 Subject: Peninsula Linux Users' Group, Thursday, May 26, 2005 Message-ID: <428E2317.6010902@thecrookes.com> Peninsula Linux Users' Group, Thursday, May 26, 2005 We have a meeting of the Peninsula Linux Users' Group (PenLUG) next week! Here are the details about next meeting. For more information or directions go to http://www.penlug.org/ Our website is a TWiki; please feel free to create a user account and modify the website if you have something to contribute. Date: Thursday, May 26, 2005 Time: 7:00 - 9:00 PM Location: 100 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 Room 104 Agenda: ======= 7:00 - 8:30 PM: Presentation by Casey Schaufler: "Directions in Advanced Linux Security" 8:30 - 9:00 PM: Members' Minutes 8:45 - 9:00 PM: Adjourn to IHOP (Belmont) for social & food time Presentation by Casey Schaufler: "Directions in Advanced Linux Security" ====================================================== Casey Schaufler is a long time leader in the development of operating systems and system security technology. Most recently, he was Director of Software at Penguin Computing. Prior to that, he spent a good long time doing system security at SGI. Casey's talk "Directions in Advanced Linux Security" will focus on some of the system level projects that are active today, including Linux Audit, Linux Security Modules, and SELinux. It will also include insights regarding the acceptance of open source in the Military community. Members' Minutes ================ Members will have an opportunity to take a few minutes to... * Describe their latest Linux discovery * Ask questions and get help from other members * Discuss Linux projects You can just stand up and talk, or give a short demo or presentation. If you need audio/visual support for your Members' Minute, please contact me in advance to arrange for your needs. We have a limited number of books courtesy of Prentice-Hall and O'Reilly to give away as an added inducement to participate in this portion of the meeting. :-) RSVP ==== Although it is NOT required, we like to have an idea of how many people to expect, so if possible please email rsvp at penlug.org if you are planning to attend. Bill Crooke PenLUG Speaker Coordinator From michael at halligan.org Mon May 23 15:56:14 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 15:56:14 -0700 Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed In-Reply-To: <315F2446-55D2-4C51-96A9-88065B314957@extragalactic.net> References: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> <315F2446-55D2-4C51-96A9-88065B314957@extragalactic.net> Message-ID: <42925F8E.9000100@halligan.org> I would avoid 200paul. Their security is a joke. You get an HID badge, and that's it, you have full access to the entire building. They don't have a 247 noc, just one security guy. The grounds are also unsecured because they share a parking lot with a newspaper delivery depot. They're UPS based.. I can say that in the past 10 years, all but one of the 35 datacenter outages I've gone through have been because of faulty batteries causing cascading failures. Go and tour their facilities.. You'll have this nagging feeling going through your head as you walk around. That feeling is "Amateur", it describes their operations. They're also a spam friendly hosting provider. Cogent is still their most popular bw provider, followed by wiltel. One of their salespeople told me point blank that most of their business came from porn and spam. Beyond that, if you just need a cheap datacenter in SF, and aren't too concerned with high reliability (like for a failover datacenter) you could do a lot worse. They're very cheap, have a few good bandwidth providers in there, etc. I'd consider them if I needed a place to replicate a large NAS or something. Guy B. Purcell wrote: > > On May 3, 2005, at 13:17, Ulf Zimmermann wrote: > >> My company needs to expand their colocation and I am looking for >> suggestions where to check. Our requirements are something like >> this: > > > [...requirements...] > > I'm not sure if this site meets all your requirements or not (eg. > it's not a "pretty" facility--or at least it wasn't in 2001 when I > worked for a company co-located there), but I really liked Exchange > Colocation [1]. That company I worked for got in pretty early, back > when it looked like AboveNet was going to go under like Exodus had, > and I got a good look as this place was building out their > infrastructure. It was very good--clean, tight, redundant. I don't > think you'll find a better choice of network providers, either; this > place sites at a crossroads of several fiber runs on the Peninsula. > And, at least back then, they were backed by non-tech-sector money > (owned by some British shipping company), so they weren't likely to > go under in a tech-sector crash. > > -Guy > > [1] > > From michael at halligan.org Mon May 23 15:52:19 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 15:52:19 -0700 Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed In-Reply-To: <4277DF6F.3080903@baywinds.org> References: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> <4277DF6F.3080903@baywinds.org> Message-ID: <42925EA3.30201@halligan.org> JMA wired is a joke. They're nice guys, but come on. Have you been in their datacenter? I ran the infrastructure for a small company that had about 1 racks worth of gear for 2 years in there. One night, at about 2am, I was out drinking with the customer's CTO, and we get a call that everything was down. We made our way over to JMA to find out that they had ripped out all of the wiring in the datacenter, without telling customers, and everything.. I mean EVERYTHING was down for 6 hours. If you want a REAL colocation provider, go to the opposite side of that block, and look at 365 Main. 365 is a great datacenter. Above.net's flagship $130M datacenter, that the building owner bought for a song ($2M) in the bankruptcy sale. I run about 8 racks worth of gear for various customers (including my own consulting company) there, and it's the only place besides equinix in the bay area that deserves my business. Call them up, and ask for Kevin Shanahan (tell him I sent you!) Their facilities are awesome, plus they have about 20 bandwidth providers in there now. The only problems I've had with 365 was that they had a power failure, due to a faulty relay shutoff valve in the cooling system. I've never had an ISP be as professional as they were. Within 10 minutes of the outage they had called us, told us what the situation was. By the time we got down there they were letting people into the building, and helped us do a controlled power-up. The shutoff valve has since been taken out of their infrastructure. Since the dot-com bust there have been a lot of half-assed mom&pop colo providers jumping up, sniping on the dirt-cheap facilities, but you get what you pay for. Bruce Ferrell wrote: > You might want to talk to JMA wired in San Francisco. Their building > hosts ColoServ. There are a number of bandwidth providers in the > building. > > I'm just a satisfied customer. > > Ulf Zimmermann wrote: > >> Hello everyone. >> >> My company needs to expand their colocation and I am looking for >> suggestions where to check. Our requirements are something like >> this: >> >> 20'x14' cage to be able to put up to 6 HP 10000 cabinets 47U high. >> Initial we would put 4 in but want space to be able to add 2 more. >> For each cabinet we would need 2 circuits 40A or 50A at 208V hard >> wired. >> Carrier neutral would be nice but doesn't necessary have to be. >> It needs to be a presentable colocation as our customer include >> companies like Ford and Chase and they sometimes come by to look >> at things. >> >> Our company itself sits in Menlo Park so something close would be >> good, but we are pretty much open elsewhere in the area (our current >> colocation is in Fremont). >> >> We also have a 10Mbit/sec Ethernet link to our Phoenix failover site, >> so experiences with colos who have providers in house to provide >> simular links would be good also. >> >> Looking forward for any hints :-) >> -- ------------------- BitPusher, LLC http://www.bitpusher.com/ 1.888.9PUSHER (415) 724.7998 - Mobile From bferrell at baywinds.org Mon May 23 16:32:51 2005 From: bferrell at baywinds.org (Bruce Ferrell) Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 16:32:51 -0700 Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed In-Reply-To: <42925EA3.30201@halligan.org> References: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> <4277DF6F.3080903@baywinds.org> <42925EA3.30201@halligan.org> Message-ID: <42926823.8090206@baywinds.org> Ummm... I've been in a lot of data centers in my 26 year career. Some are bad, some are worse. Maybe you look for an ISP... I dunno. I don't. I look for good power (did 20 hours in a data center a few years back due to their idiot power contractor pulling the plug to change a breaker) and good air conditioning. I don't care if they have a NOC or not. because they ain't gonna touch my gear anyway. I refuse to deal with "politicians" like abovenet. I buy my bandwidth separately from my real estate. I like it like that. I run 3 racks in JMA. Been in there for a couple of years now. Michael T. Halligan wrote: > JMA wired is a joke. They're nice guys, but come on. Have you been in > their datacenter? I ran the infrastructure > for a small company that had about 1 racks worth of gear for 2 years in > there. One night, at about 2am, I was > out drinking with the customer's CTO, and we get a call that everything > was down. We made our way over to > JMA to find out that they had ripped out all of the wiring in the > datacenter, without telling customers, and everything.. > I mean EVERYTHING was down for 6 hours. > > If you want a REAL colocation provider, go to the opposite side of that > block, and look at 365 Main. > > 365 is a great datacenter. Above.net's flagship $130M datacenter, that > the building owner bought for a song ($2M) in > the bankruptcy sale. I run about 8 racks worth of gear for various > customers (including my own consulting company) > there, and it's the only place besides equinix in the bay area that > deserves my business. > > Call them up, and ask for Kevin Shanahan (tell him I sent you!) > > Their facilities are awesome, plus they have about 20 bandwidth > providers in there now. > > The only problems I've had with 365 was that they had a power failure, > due to a faulty relay shutoff valve in the > cooling system. I've never had an ISP be as professional as they were. > Within 10 minutes of the outage they had > called us, told us what the situation was. By the time we got down there > they were letting people into the building, > and helped us do a controlled power-up. The shutoff valve has since been > taken out of their infrastructure. > > Since the dot-com bust there have been a lot of half-assed mom&pop colo > providers jumping up, sniping on the > dirt-cheap facilities, but you get what you pay for. > > > > > Bruce Ferrell wrote: > >> You might want to talk to JMA wired in San Francisco. Their building >> hosts ColoServ. There are a number of bandwidth providers in the >> building. >> >> I'm just a satisfied customer. >> >> Ulf Zimmermann wrote: >> >>> Hello everyone. >>> >>> My company needs to expand their colocation and I am looking for >>> suggestions where to check. Our requirements are something like >>> this: >>> >>> 20'x14' cage to be able to put up to 6 HP 10000 cabinets 47U high. >>> Initial we would put 4 in but want space to be able to add 2 more. >>> For each cabinet we would need 2 circuits 40A or 50A at 208V hard >>> wired. >>> Carrier neutral would be nice but doesn't necessary have to be. >>> It needs to be a presentable colocation as our customer include >>> companies like Ford and Chase and they sometimes come by to look >>> at things. >>> >>> Our company itself sits in Menlo Park so something close would be >>> good, but we are pretty much open elsewhere in the area (our current >>> colocation is in Fremont). >>> >>> We also have a 10Mbit/sec Ethernet link to our Phoenix failover site, >>> so experiences with colos who have providers in house to provide >>> simular links would be good also. >>> >>> Looking forward for any hints :-) >>> > > From michael at halligan.org Mon May 23 18:00:35 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 18:00:35 -0700 Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed In-Reply-To: <42926823.8090206@baywinds.org> References: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> <4277DF6F.3080903@baywinds.org> <42925EA3.30201@halligan.org> <42926823.8090206@baywinds.org> Message-ID: <42927CB3.2050103@halligan.org> I can't consider JMA more useful than a couple of guys with a garage and some extra power. The last 7 years in the bay area have seen some excellent datacenters built, and with so much extra capacity, some incredible pricing. 3 years ago JMA decided to rewire their downstairs datacenter, ethernet and some power, without telling their customers (they forgot we were there), taking us all down. No apologies, no forewarnings, no reasons afterwards. We only found out what caused it, because we happened to be up at that time and able to investigate ourselves. To this day, I could walk into that building, wave at the security guy, and have full access to all of the cabinets downstairs. I doubt upstairs is any more secure. Their concept of a NOC is some guy that lives on the other side of the city, who takes an hour to get there. And the "upstairs" DC , coloserve/servepath, whatever they're calling themselves today, again, a budget mom&pop shop at best. I toured their old datacenter in the sega building, brought a thermometer, it was 90 degrees, no AC, wires hanging all over the place, the salesman could not understand why I was laughing hysterically. I'm not sure either, maybe I was just trying to breath. JMA was built as a carrier exchange, not a hosting company. Hosting for them was an afterthought when they realized they couldn't fill all of that space by having telcos & isps connect to each other. And 365 != abovenet. Abovenet is almost dead at this point, 365 is it's own corporation. It's a carrier-neutral colo facility, and the only carrier-neutral, first-class datacenter in san francisco. The only other options are the mom&pops (6th & mission, 650 townsend, jma), and level3. I fully agree that above.net's politics were not such that you could conduct business with them, even if their network was great. > Ummm... I've been in a lot of data centers in my 26 year career. Some > are bad, some are worse. Maybe you look for an ISP... I dunno. I don't. > > I look for good power (did 20 hours in a data center a few years back > due to their idiot power contractor pulling the plug to change a > breaker) and good air conditioning. I don't care if they have a NOC or > not. because they ain't gonna touch my gear anyway. > > I refuse to deal with "politicians" like abovenet. I buy my bandwidth > separately from my real estate. I like it like that. > > I run 3 racks in JMA. Been in there for a couple of years now. > > > > > > Michael T. Halligan wrote: > >> JMA wired is a joke. They're nice guys, but come on. Have you been in >> their datacenter? I ran the infrastructure >> for a small company that had about 1 racks worth of gear for 2 years >> in there. One night, at about 2am, I was >> out drinking with the customer's CTO, and we get a call that >> everything was down. We made our way over to >> JMA to find out that they had ripped out all of the wiring in the >> datacenter, without telling customers, and everything.. >> I mean EVERYTHING was down for 6 hours. >> >> If you want a REAL colocation provider, go to the opposite side of >> that block, and look at 365 Main. >> >> 365 is a great datacenter. Above.net's flagship $130M datacenter, >> that the building owner bought for a song ($2M) in >> the bankruptcy sale. I run about 8 racks worth of gear for various >> customers (including my own consulting company) >> there, and it's the only place besides equinix in the bay area that >> deserves my business. >> >> Call them up, and ask for Kevin Shanahan (tell him I sent you!) >> >> Their facilities are awesome, plus they have about 20 bandwidth >> providers in there now. >> >> The only problems I've had with 365 was that they had a power >> failure, due to a faulty relay shutoff valve in the >> cooling system. I've never had an ISP be as professional as they >> were. Within 10 minutes of the outage they had >> called us, told us what the situation was. By the time we got down >> there they were letting people into the building, >> and helped us do a controlled power-up. The shutoff valve has since >> been taken out of their infrastructure. >> >> Since the dot-com bust there have been a lot of half-assed mom&pop >> colo providers jumping up, sniping on the >> dirt-cheap facilities, but you get what you pay for. >> >> >> >> >> Bruce Ferrell wrote: >> >>> You might want to talk to JMA wired in San Francisco. Their building >>> hosts ColoServ. There are a number of bandwidth providers in the >>> building. >>> >>> I'm just a satisfied customer. >>> >>> Ulf Zimmermann wrote: >>> >>>> Hello everyone. >>>> >>>> My company needs to expand their colocation and I am looking for >>>> suggestions where to check. Our requirements are something like >>>> this: >>>> >>>> 20'x14' cage to be able to put up to 6 HP 10000 cabinets 47U high. >>>> Initial we would put 4 in but want space to be able to add 2 more. >>>> For each cabinet we would need 2 circuits 40A or 50A at 208V hard >>>> wired. >>>> Carrier neutral would be nice but doesn't necessary have to be. >>>> It needs to be a presentable colocation as our customer include >>>> companies like Ford and Chase and they sometimes come by to look >>>> at things. >>>> >>>> Our company itself sits in Menlo Park so something close would be >>>> good, but we are pretty much open elsewhere in the area (our current >>>> colocation is in Fremont). >>>> >>>> We also have a 10Mbit/sec Ethernet link to our Phoenix failover site, >>>> so experiences with colos who have providers in house to provide >>>> simular links would be good also. >>>> >>>> Looking forward for any hints :-) >>>> >> >> -- ------------------- BitPusher, LLC http://www.bitpusher.com/ 1.888.9PUSHER (415) 724.7998 - Mobile From pozar at lns.com Tue May 24 00:16:12 2005 From: pozar at lns.com (Tim Pozar) Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 00:16:12 -0700 Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed In-Reply-To: <42925F8E.9000100@halligan.org> References: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> <315F2446-55D2-4C51-96A9-88065B314957@extragalactic.net> <42925F8E.9000100@halligan.org> Message-ID: <4292D4BC.10409@lns.com> I got to comment on this... Michael T. Halligan wrote: > I would avoid 200paul. Their security is a joke. You get an HID badge, > and that's it, you have full access to the > entire building. You have access to some of the floors, not all and only the common areas. You do not have "full access to the entire building". > They don't have a 247 noc, They claim to have a 24x7 NOC. I have only seen it during the day as that is when I was there. > just one security guy. They have 24x7 security and typically during the day there are two on staff. > The > grounds are also unsecured because they > share a parking lot with a newspaper delivery depot. After hours you have to use your badge to open the gate. The grounds are monitored with cameras. I have even seen the guards check on the lot as they like to ticket if you are parked in the no-parking areas. > They're UPS based.. I can say that in the past 10 years, all but one of > the 35 datacenter outages I've gone through > have been because of faulty batteries causing cascading failures. I have seen more problems with APC UPSes in the bottom of racks. They are designed to barely work when needed. > Go and tour their facilities.. You'll have this nagging feeling going > through your head as you walk around. That > feeling is "Amateur", it describes their operations. They're also a spam > friendly hosting provider. Cogent is still > their most popular bw provider, followed by wiltel. One of their > salespeople told me point blank that most of their > business came from porn and spam. Do you have a clue that DRT/200P/eXchange is only one of many colo providers there? There is XO, UnitedLayer and others in this building? They all have their own infrastructure? Also there are 40 IP providers at this location? DRT/200P/eXchange is a *real estate* company where their main biz it to provide a building. And they do a pretty good job at that. I would be happy to give you a tour of the facilities some time. You can determine if it is a A or C facility yourself. Tim -- 1978 45th Ave / San Francisco CA 94116 / USA // POTS: +1 415 665 3790 GPG Fingerprint: 4821 CFDA 06E7 49F3 BF05 3F02 11E3 390F 8338 5B04 "Be who you are and say what you feel because the people who mind don't matter and the people who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: pozar.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 209 bytes Desc: not available URL: From michael at halligan.org Tue May 24 09:13:41 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 09:13:41 -0700 Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed In-Reply-To: <4292D4BC.10409@lns.com> References: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> <315F2446-55D2-4C51-96A9-88065B314957@extragalactic.net> <42925F8E.9000100@halligan.org> <4292D4BC.10409@lns.com> Message-ID: <429352B5.8050004@halligan.org> >> I would avoid 200paul. Their security is a joke. You get an HID >> badge, and that's it, you have full access to the >> entire building. > > > You have access to some of the floors, not all and only the common > areas. You do not have "full access to the entire building". Perhaps now this has been fixed, but when my customer hosted there, my badge gave me access to everything. >> They don't have a 247 noc, > > > They claim to have a 24x7 NOC. I have only seen it during the day as > that is when I was there. > If they do have a noc, this is a new development. When I had regular access to the building, I had a customer there as of 18 months ago, and the only person on site at night was the one security guard. >> just one security guy. > > > They have 24x7 security and typically during the day there are two on > staff. If they have two, this is also a new development. In a year, I never saw more than one at any given time. >> The grounds are also unsecured because they >> share a parking lot with a newspaper delivery depot. > > > After hours you have to use your badge to open the gate. The grounds > are monitored with cameras. I have even seen the guards check on the > lot as they like to ticket if you are parked in the no-parking areas. Between 3 and 7am, the gate is wide open because of all the delivery trucks going in and out. I've also seen the gate fail on half a dozen instances, due to the high winds that go through that strange hilly alleyway. I had my car vandalized once there. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but 200 Paul is in the ghetto. >> They're UPS based.. I can say that in the past 10 years, all but one >> of the 35 datacenter outages I've gone through >> have been because of faulty batteries causing cascading failures. > > > I have seen more problems with APC UPSes in the bottom of racks. They > are designed to barely work when needed. I prefer to have my servers at a datacenter, like 365, that generates their own, clean power, rather than rely on pg&e and poorly maintained ups's. You do remember that 3-hour outage they had 2 years ago when their ups infrastructure fell over itself in a cascading failure? >> Go and tour their facilities.. You'll have this nagging feeling going >> through your head as you walk around. That >> feeling is "Amateur", it describes their operations. They're also a >> spam friendly hosting provider. Cogent is still >> their most popular bw provider, followed by wiltel. One of their >> salespeople told me point blank that most of their >> business came from porn and spam. > > > Do you have a clue that DRT/200P/eXchange is only one of many colo > providers there? There is XO, UnitedLayer and others in this > building? They all have their own infrastructure? Also there are 40 > IP providers at this location? DRT/200P/eXchange is a *real estate* > company where their main biz it to provide a building. And they do a > pretty good job at that. I would be happy to give you a tour of the > facilities some time. You can determine if it is a A or C facility > yourself. > > Tim 40 IP providers? You mean 6 on-site bandwidth providers, and 34 low-end aggregators.. Though I always thought their wall of providers on the third floor was cute, It was interesting to count the # of them who were out of business (I remember 2), and then to count the # who didn't have a router in the datacenter, but instead would arrange for some kind of local-loop. I expect to be able to ask for, and receive, an ethernet or fibre drop to my cage at a datacenter with no more than about a week's provisioning time at a carrier-neutral datacenter, since I'd typically expect for carriers to keep access points onsite. Again, a customer of mine hosted there for about a year. The staff was pleasant, but overworked. They did not have well established processes. It was hard enough to get a line strung, or add somebody to their access list. They are really a no-frills rack/power/ac provider, and I think are a good for hosting a non-critical service. Not even the salespeople there would try to sell me on that place being a world class datacenter. -- ------------------- BitPusher, LLC http://www.bitpusher.com/ 1.888.9PUSHER (415) 724.7998 - Mobile From pozar at lns.com Tue May 24 10:39:28 2005 From: pozar at lns.com (Tim Pozar) Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 10:39:28 -0700 Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed In-Reply-To: <429352B5.8050004@halligan.org> References: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> <315F2446-55D2-4C51-96A9-88065B314957@extragalactic.net> <42925F8E.9000100@halligan.org> <4292D4BC.10409@lns.com> <429352B5.8050004@halligan.org> Message-ID: <429366D0.4080404@lns.com> Michael T. Halligan wrote: >>> I would avoid 200paul. Their security is a joke. You get an HID >>> badge, and that's it, you have full access to the >>> entire building. >> >> You have access to some of the floors, not all and only the common >> areas. You do not have "full access to the entire building". > > Perhaps now this has been fixed, but when my customer hosted there, my > badge gave me access to everything. Hmm... I personally have been there for over two years. I have not found this to be the case while I've been there. >>> They don't have a 247 noc, >> >> They claim to have a 24x7 NOC. I have only seen it during the day as >> that is when I was there. >> > If they do have a noc, this is a new development. When I had regular > access to the building, I had a customer there as of 18 months ago, > and the only person on site at night was the one security guard. It is. Digital Reality Trust has taken over there and has implemented many changes. >>> just one security guy. >> >> They have 24x7 security and typically during the day there are two on >> staff. > > If they have two, this is also a new development. In a year, I never saw > more than one at any given time. Again DRT. >>> The grounds are also unsecured because they >>> share a parking lot with a newspaper delivery depot. >> >> After hours you have to use your badge to open the gate. The grounds >> are monitored with cameras. I have even seen the guards check on the >> lot as they like to ticket if you are parked in the no-parking areas. > > Between 3 and 7am, the gate is wide open because of all the delivery > trucks going in and out. I've also seen the gate fail on half a dozen > instances, due to the high winds that > go through that strange hilly alleyway. I had my car vandalized once > there. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but 200 Paul is in the ghetto. It is. I agree. As above, I have not had your experience with vandalism. >>> They're UPS based.. I can say that in the past 10 years, all but one >>> of the 35 datacenter outages I've gone through >>> have been because of faulty batteries causing cascading failures. >> >> I have seen more problems with APC UPSes in the bottom of racks. They >> are designed to barely work when needed. > > I prefer to have my servers at a datacenter, like 365, that generates > their own, clean power, rather than rely on pg&e and poorly > maintained ups's. You do remember that 3-hour outage they had 2 years > ago when their ups infrastructure fell over itself > in a cascading failure? I think this may be a religious war here. I have seen Abovenet gensets fail too at 365 main (but this is when Abovenet was running the place). I actually prefer 48 volts DC. :-) >>> Go and tour their facilities.. You'll have this nagging feeling going >>> through your head as you walk around. That >>> feeling is "Amateur", it describes their operations. They're also a >>> spam friendly hosting provider. Cogent is still >>> their most popular bw provider, followed by wiltel. One of their >>> salespeople told me point blank that most of their >>> business came from porn and spam.\ >> >> Do you have a clue that DRT/200P/eXchange is only one of many colo >> providers there? There is XO, UnitedLayer and others in this >> building? They all have their own infrastructure? Also there are 40 >> IP providers at this location? DRT/200P/eXchange is a *real estate* >> company where their main biz it to provide a building. And they do a >> pretty good job at that. I would be happy to give you a tour of the >> facilities some time. You can determine if it is a A or C facility >> yourself. > > 40 IP providers? > > You mean 6 on-site bandwidth providers, and 34 low-end aggregators.. I can send you the spread sheet. And, of course it depends on what you call an IP provider. Do you define an ISP as only one that has a nation-wide back-bone? One that does a certain percentage of peering? Etc? For instance, at UL we do have a nation wide backbone touching down at 7 locations around the country. We have more than 20% of our total bandwidth going through peering. Does this qualify? I know a number of ISPs that do the same as us at 200P. 365 only has a fraction of the providers there. Try to get a $10 to $20 a Mb/s per month deal from anyone there (besides Cogent) with a 500Mb/s commit. There just isn't the competition there. > Though I always thought their wall of providers on the third floor was > cute, It was interesting to > count the # of them who were out of business (I remember 2), and then to > count the # who didn't have a router in the datacenter, but instead > would arrange for some kind > of local-loop. I expect to be able to ask for, and receive, an ethernet > or fibre drop to my cage at a datacenter with no more than about a > week's provisioning time at > a carrier-neutral datacenter, since I'd typically expect for carriers to > keep access points onsite. Things have grown since then. > Again, a customer of mine hosted there for about a year. The staff was > pleasant, but overworked. They did > not have well established processes. It was hard enough to get a line > strung, or add somebody to their access list. They are really a > no-frills rack/power/ac provider, and I think > are a good for hosting a non-critical service. Not even the salespeople > there would try to sell me on that place being a world class datacenter. Interesting you say that Open wave just took most of the 1st floor for their operations. They are doing a-bunch-o outsourced services such as mail and sms for phone companies. City of SF is routing most of their fiber through 200P for outside connections to pick up Internet 1 and Internet 2 access. There is a lengthy list of customers of 200P that are high profile that expect serious up time from 200P. To that, the new owners, DRT has been putting considerable bucks into the infrastructure in the building. A/C, power, security, support, etc. I really would take another look at it. Again, I would be happy to give you the tour. BTW, I am a bit biased as we have our colo there and consider it a major peering and transit hub. We have had pretty good experience there for the past 3 years that we have been there and see the new owners doing much to strengthen the service. Also, I am not trying to sell it as we are sold out there and can't take customers at the location. :-) Tim -- 1978 45th Ave / San Francisco CA 94116 / USA // POTS: +1 415 665 3790 GPG Fingerprint: 4821 CFDA 06E7 49F3 BF05 3F02 11E3 390F 8338 5B04 "Be who you are and say what you feel because the people who mind don't matter and the people who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: pozar.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 209 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pozar at lns.com Tue May 24 10:54:09 2005 From: pozar at lns.com (Tim Pozar) Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 10:54:09 -0700 Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed In-Reply-To: <429352B5.8050004@halligan.org> References: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> <315F2446-55D2-4C51-96A9-88065B314957@extragalactic.net> <42925F8E.9000100@halligan.org> <4292D4BC.10409@lns.com> <429352B5.8050004@halligan.org> Message-ID: <42936A41.7080003@lns.com> BTW... For those looking for a colo... Take Michael and my comments with a grain of salt. Each has their own experience and there can be so many links that can break to support your gear. I do have a short list of questions I use when going into a colo for a quick due-dilligence. They are attached... Tim -- SLA - Please submit your Service Level Agreement. What is your "mean time to repair" (MTTR) commitment? What is your guarantee uptime? What is your "Failure to Meet" commitment? Facilities - Description of the racks... ie. 2 / 4 post? Inside Depth 23 and 19 inch? What is in a typical rack? ie. Patch bays Power plug strips Lighting Grounding Do you provide workspace? Tools KVM crash cart Bench Power and Grounding - Utility or "Shore" Power: Are there two or more services from the power company? Are they routed from different directions and come in different entrances? Generators Please describe the generators at the site. Include Make/model of the generators. Is there a provision for outside power connections for generator rentals (also known as a "lug landing")? If so, specify wire size that can be accommodated and/or lug/bolt size. Do you have contracts for emergency rental of generators? How much fuel do you have on site? (Hours of generator run time at full load.) Do you have contracts for fuel for the generators? What maintenance and testing do you do with fuel and oil? How often do you test generators and the UPS with out and with loads? UPS Is the UPS always on line or switched to? How long will the UPS run with a complete outage? Please provide Make and model. Do you provide 48VDC? How is it distributed? How many hours of battery at full design load (no primary power)? Grounding: How is it distributed? Are the rack rails painted? How are the racks grounded? Describe the common ground point for the site How is power switched between services, UPS (if so) and generator. Ie. Manual, automatic. How many cycles does it take? Are circuits for each rack separate from other customers. Ie. Can some other customer overload my breaker? How are is the power panel secured? If my breaker trips, how do I reset it? Do others have access to my breaker? Is power monitored by a Ground Fault Interrupter? Fire - What is the fire suppression system? Gas (ie Haylon), water, etc If water: Is the system gas-filled and will shut down power? Is it zoned? How is water removed when it goes off? If gas: What warning do you have before it goes off? Are there O2 masks that can be retrieved if folks can't exit the space? Does the A/C shut down during a fire? Do you using computer flooring? Are you required and have a fire system under the computer flooring? Environmental Control - Is the A/C backed up with other units? Are they on standby or run at the same time? If on standby, how are they started? What level of air filtering do you have for this site? Do you supply a positive air pressure for the area? Earthquake - Does the building, racks and support equipment meet Uniform Building Code Seismic Zone 4 requirements? See: "Bellcore NEBS document TR-000063, Issue 4, 1992" or "Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore) GR-63-CORE" How are the racks braced? Describe building bracing? Please list make model of racks How is wiring routed to take any building and equipment movement? Security and access - Can we access our equipment 24x7? Describe the physical access for the equipment and cabling to the cage. Do you use biometrics, magnetic or RF badges? What monitoring do you do? ie. cameras, doors, etc. Is there a challenge/response process for hands on work. Who else has access to our rack/cage? What is the process for removing / installing equipment? Do you escort clients in common areas? Internet Transit providers - Please list all the transit providers at the location now. Backbone providers - Please list all the backbone providers at the location now. Are they routed from different directions and come in different entrances? Staffing - Do you have 24x7 personal? Do you have hands on availability? -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: pozar.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 209 bytes Desc: not available URL: From michael at halligan.org Tue May 24 11:43:57 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 11:43:57 -0700 Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed In-Reply-To: <42936A41.7080003@lns.com> References: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> <315F2446-55D2-4C51-96A9-88065B314957@extragalactic.net> <42925F8E.9000100@halligan.org> <4292D4BC.10409@lns.com> <429352B5.8050004@halligan.org> <42936A41.7080003@lns.com> Message-ID: <429375ED.6050102@halligan.org> Excellent list! Just a few questions I would add : Capacity : - Will you have space when I need to expand in X (months|weeks|years) Backbone : - What are your peering options (some datacenters will let you drop a router into a peering room for free) Facilities : - What is your utility rating, how long will it take for you to get "turned back on" in case of a natural disaster. - Do you provide conference rooms? (datacenters can be great sales tools) Power : - How many amps do you allow on your circuit (Abovenet used to trip 20 amp circuits when you hit 13 amps) - Can you deliver multiple circuits into a rack/cabinet/cage from multiple PDUS - Do you have a web interface for customers to monitor their power usage graphs (you'd be surprised how few places offer this) - Do you monitor customer's power circuits, and alert them or investigate when there is frequent variation? Noc/staffing : - How much do noc services cost, and how are they billed (some places give an all you can eat NOC model, some, like equinix, bill in 30 minute chunks at $250/hour) Hardware : - Do you provide shelves, screws, patch cables, and general rack equipment (screw holes for square-holed posts), and provide a price-sheet for them. (this one I find important. at 2am it's nice to know you can knock on the noc window, and buy a crossover cable) Tim Pozar wrote: > BTW... For those looking for a colo... Take Michael and my comments > with a grain of salt. Each has their own experience and there can be > so many links that can break to support your gear. I do have a short > list of questions I use when going into a colo for a quick > due-dilligence. They are attached... > > Tim > -- > SLA - > > Please submit your Service Level Agreement. > > What is your "mean time to repair" (MTTR) commitment? > > What is your guarantee uptime? > > What is your "Failure to Meet" commitment? > > Facilities - > > Description of the racks... > > ie. > 2 / 4 post? > Inside Depth > 23 and 19 inch? > > What is in a typical rack? > > ie. > Patch bays > Power plug strips > Lighting > Grounding > > Do you provide workspace? > > Tools > KVM crash cart > Bench > > Power and Grounding - > > Utility or "Shore" Power: > > Are there two or more services from the power > company? > > Are they routed from different directions and come > in different entrances? > > Generators > > Please describe the generators at the site. Include > Make/model of the generators. > > Is there a provision for outside power connections > for generator rentals (also known as a "lug landing")? > > If so, specify wire size that can be > accommodated and/or lug/bolt size. > > Do you have contracts for emergency rental of > generators? > > How much fuel do you have on site? (Hours of > generator run time at full load.) > > Do you have contracts for fuel for the generators? > > What maintenance and testing do you do with fuel and > oil? > > How often do you test generators and the UPS with > out and with loads? > > UPS > > Is the UPS always on line or switched to? > > How long will the UPS run with a complete outage? > > Please provide Make and model. > > Do you provide 48VDC? > > How is it distributed? > > How many hours of battery at full design load (no > primary power)? > > Grounding: > > How is it distributed? > > Are the rack rails painted? > > How are the racks grounded? > > Describe the common ground point for the site > > How is power switched between services, UPS (if so) and > generator. Ie. Manual, automatic. How many cycles does > it take? > > Are circuits for each rack separate from other customers. > Ie. Can some other customer overload my breaker? > > How are is the power panel secured? If my breaker trips, > how do I reset it? Do others have access to my breaker? > > Is power monitored by a Ground Fault Interrupter? > > Fire - > > What is the fire suppression system? > > Gas (ie Haylon), water, etc > > If water: > > Is the system gas-filled and will shut down power? > Is it zoned? > How is water removed when it goes off? > > If gas: > > What warning do you have before it goes off? > > Are there O2 masks that can be retrieved if folks > can't exit the space? > > Does the A/C shut down during a fire? > > Do you using computer flooring? > > Are you required and have a fire system under the > computer flooring? > > Environmental Control - > > Is the A/C backed up with other units? > > Are they on standby or run at the same time? > > If on standby, how are they started? > > What level of air filtering do you have for this site? > > Do you supply a positive air pressure for the area? > > Earthquake - > > Does the building, racks and support equipment meet Uniform > Building Code Seismic Zone 4 requirements? > > See: "Bellcore NEBS document TR-000063, Issue 4, > 1992" or "Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore) > GR-63-CORE" > > How are the racks braced? > > Describe building bracing? > > Please list make model of racks > > How is wiring routed to take any building and equipment > movement? > > Security and access - > > Can we access our equipment 24x7? > > Describe the physical access for the equipment and cabling > to the cage. > > Do you use biometrics, magnetic or RF badges? > > What monitoring do you do? > > ie. cameras, doors, etc. > > Is there a challenge/response process for hands on work. > > Who else has access to our rack/cage? > > What is the process for removing / installing equipment? > > Do you escort clients in common areas? > > Internet Transit providers - > > Please list all the transit providers at the location now. > > Backbone providers - > > Please list all the backbone providers at the location now. > > Are they routed from different directions and come in > different entrances? > > Staffing - > > Do you have 24x7 personal? > > Do you have hands on availability? -- ------------------- BitPusher, LLC http://www.bitpusher.com/ 1.888.9PUSHER (415) 724.7998 - Mobile From jxh at jxh.com Tue May 24 12:18:33 2005 From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein) Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 14:18:33 -0500 Subject: Suggestions for colocation needed In-Reply-To: <429375ED.6050102@halligan.org> References: <20050503201735.GG24555@seven.alameda.net> <315F2446-55D2-4C51-96A9-88065B314957@extragalactic.net> <42925F8E.9000100@halligan.org> <4292D4BC.10409@lns.com> <429352B5.8050004@halligan.org> <42936A41.7080003@lns.com> <429375ED.6050102@halligan.org> Message-ID: > Excellent list! Seconded. > Just a few questions I would add : > Power : What is your rotating outage block number, or are you exempt? (Some users, such as hospitals and police/fire stations, are wired specially, and other nearby users can sometimes get a spillover benefit. OTOH, do you have a voluntary load-shedding agreement with your power utility? Under what conditions might they exercise it? (There is no such thing as a "rolling blackout". It's a "rotating outage" as anyone who gets a PG&E bill knows. I wish CNN et al would have figured that out. Harrumph. :-) From michael at halligan.org Fri May 27 17:28:25 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 17:28:25 -0700 Subject: Mailing list archives? Message-ID: <4297BB29.6020003@halligan.org> Perhaps I'm just overlooking sometthing, but I can't seem to find the mailing list archives. Could somebody point me to them? Thanks! -- ------------------- BitPusher, LLC http://www.bitpusher.com/ 1.888.9PUSHER (415) 724.7998 - Mobile From david at catwhisker.org Fri May 27 17:47:17 2005 From: david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill) Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 17:47:17 -0700 Subject: Mailing list archives? In-Reply-To: <4297BB29.6020003@halligan.org> References: <4297BB29.6020003@halligan.org> Message-ID: <20050528004717.GK60995@bunrab.catwhisker.org> On Fri, May 27, 2005 at 05:28:25PM -0700, Michael T. Halligan wrote: > Perhaps I'm just overlooking sometthing, but I can't seem to find the > mailing list archives. Could somebody > point me to them? They're in www.baylisa.org:/export/home/majordomo/archive. However, we do not currently have a way to access them other than via logging in to the machine. Now, if someone wants to volunteer to help put together a mechanism to provide (say) Web access to the archives, please send mail to blw at baylisa.org -- or services-tf at baylisa.org. Peace, david (current hat: postmaster at baylisa.org) -- David H. Wolfskill david at catwhisker.org Any given sequence of letters is a misspelling of a great many English words. See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for public key. From Brent at greatcircle.com Fri May 27 23:15:13 2005 From: Brent at greatcircle.com (Brent Chapman) Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 23:15:13 -0700 Subject: Mailing list archives? In-Reply-To: <20050528004717.GK60995@bunrab.catwhisker.org> References: <4297BB29.6020003@halligan.org> <20050528004717.GK60995@bunrab.catwhisker.org> Message-ID: At 5:47 PM -0700 5/27/05, David Wolfskill wrote: >On Fri, May 27, 2005 at 05:28:25PM -0700, Michael T. Halligan wrote: >> Perhaps I'm just overlooking sometthing, but I can't seem to find the >> mailing list archives. Could somebody >> point me to them? > >They're in www.baylisa.org:/export/home/majordomo/archive. > >However, we do not currently have a way to access them other than via >logging in to the machine. > >Now, if someone wants to volunteer to help put together a mechanism to >provide (say) Web access to the archives, please send mail to >blw at baylisa.org -- or services-tf at baylisa.org. I use MHonArc (http://www.mhonarc.org/) for the lists that we host here (see, for example, http://www.greatcircle.com/lists/majordomo-users/archive.html), with some heavily customized config file to get the "look & feel" of the archives you see. Our config file and associated shell scripts ("mhonarc.daily" is designed to be run as a daily cron job; it invokes "mkarchive", which does a bunch of stuff and then in turn invokes mhonarc with the custom config file) are available from ftp://ftp.greatcircle.com/hidden/mhonarc-stuff.tar.gz There are 3 files in that tarball: mhonarc.rc is the config file for MHonArc. I'm using version 2.5.2 of MHonArc; there are later versions available, and I expect that these config files will probably work with a later versions. mhonarc.daily is a shell script that is run once a day as a cron job, to run MHonArc to generate the HTML pages from the original plain-text mail archives. mkarchive is a Perl script, which is invoked by mhonarc.daily, and which does the actual work of running MHonArc and then generating appropriate top-level index pages and such. Good luck! -Brent -- Brent Chapman -- Great Circle Associates, Inc. Specializing in network infrastructure for Silicon Valley since 1989 For info about us and our services, please see http://www.greatcircle.com/ Network Automation blog: http://www.greatcircle.com/blog/network_automation From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Tue May 31 15:48:07 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 15:48:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: network thruput Message-ID: hi ya - i suppose some of this can be flamebait, but lets see what others think ... - goal: i'm looking for ways to increase network thruput ( 2x - 5x ) with the same (switch, nic, cat-5e wires ) hardware - current upper management premise ... - keep windoze and backup machines on the same lan because it doesn't clutter the wire even thou 80% of the packets is udp and netbios :-) duuhhh... - i claim, think, prefer, that, in order to maximize network performance, i would: - put all windoze machines on its own WindowLAN ( 192.168.x.y ) - i would put all cluster machines on its own 192.168.clusterIP - i would put all daily backup traffic on its own 192.18.backupIP - i'd increase wsize and rsize for mount - we're stuck with the intel gigE nics and nortel switches and cat-5e but the stacked nortels is stacked as a single switch, which i think is a bad thing - they're getting a measly/pultry 5-10MByte/sec at best on a gigE system .. which is why i'm "arguing" with those that have the power to say "bi-bi" to me :-) - i think its a fun problem to solve.. but.. and i already have scripts that show we can go 4x or 5x faster with simple separate LANs but sometimes, i think the itty-bitty dual-2.x CPUs just run out of memory that the private network not always faster - average traffic load is about 200GB - 500GB per day within the gigE nortel switches - at the switch end ... - i'd have a top-level switch from each of the private LAN going into the "top level" switch to connect all the individual lans - if there is an expert nortel switch config guru reading this... please gimme a howler offline and you can do the convincing to upper management for a fee c ya alvin From eric at deadhookers.org Tue May 31 20:52:44 2005 From: eric at deadhookers.org (Eric Wagar) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 20:52:44 -0700 Subject: network thruput In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1117597964.971.235367775@webmail.messagingengine.com> > - current upper management premise ... > - keep windoze and backup machines on the same lan > because it doesn't clutter the wire > even thou 80% of the packets is udp and netbios :-) duuhhh... Did you draw pretty pictures to dissuade them? That usually works for me...the more colors the better. > - i claim, think, prefer, that, in order to maximize network performance, > i would: > - put all windoze machines on its own WindowLAN ( 192.168.x.y ) > > - i would put all cluster machines on its own 192.168.clusterIP > > - i would put all daily backup traffic on its own 192.18.backupIP So, all machines have a minimum of two NICs? That how we have our network setup. At a minimum each Unix server has a production NIC and a backup NIC. During the construction and planning phase of the datacenter, they even planned for a monitoring/admin NIC for a total of three NICs per host. These third NICs/networks were never utilized. The more segregation the better, and quieter, the network will be. With your above idea, why not have the backup server on both LANs? You'd be able to segregate even further. > - we're stuck with the intel gigE nics and nortel switches > and cat-5e but the stacked nortels is stacked as a single switch, > which i think is a bad thing > > - they're getting a measly/pultry 5-10MByte/sec at best > on a gigE system .. which is why i'm "arguing" with > those that have the power to say "bi-bi" to me :-) > > - i think its a fun problem to solve.. but.. > and i already have scripts that show we can go > 4x or 5x faster with simple separate LANs > but sometimes, i think the itty-bitty dual-2.x CPUs > just run out of memory that the private network not > always faster I've never had a problem with any of our Dell's that have the prod/backup NIC setup. > - i'd have a top-level switch from each of the private LAN > going into the "top level" switch to connect all the individual > lans This is also how we have our network setup. Each switch has two upstream switches/routers (depending at which point the switch/router resides) for redundancy. From there they go to a router (if the BFR/BFS can't route). eric