OSPF and BMG Usage in Networking
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@Dashrender said:
So with that in mind, my associate left employ of that company about 7 years ago, so I guess he got out just about the time this would have been filtering down to his level.
Seven years ago was 2008. He was a decision maker around hosting but wasn't aware of the benefits of data centers?
I was not a decision maker, just an entry level guy looking for a junior position, almost exactly a decade earlier and got this training from one source or another. Maybe I was unique, but that's a full generation or more in IT terms and different levels.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
So you believe and don't believe at the same time? Why will it cost more? I know companies that have saved money doing it.
So there are two parts here.
The simple hosting of the server in the DC with power/HVAC/etc would probably be less. But only when comparing a sorta like (it's nearly impossible to get the same levels in house as it is in a DC) setup in house, which nearly no one does or tries to do.
That's a big assumption. Why would it not be at least possible that having high end datacenter services is cheaper than doing it poorly in house? It is cheap for Ford to build me a car compared to me building my own, even though they will do a far better job. Sometimes scale and expertise is cheaper.
Also, you don't have to compare enterprise DC to casual in house. You can compare lower end DC in that case. Might not be apples to apples but will be closer. Not all DCs are the same and if you are happy to cut corners in house, you can cut them in a DC too.
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@scottalanmiller said:
That's a big assumption. Why would it not be at least possible that having high end datacenter services is cheaper than doing it poorly in house? It is cheap for Ford to build me a car compared to me building my own, even though they will do a far better job. Sometimes scale and expertise is cheaper.
Also, you don't have to compare enterprise DC to casual in house. You can compare lower end DC in that case. Might not be apples to apples but will be closer. Not all DCs are the same and if you are happy to cut corners in house, you can cut them in a DC too.
It's truly inconceivable to me that that it would be possible to host a server in a DC less than you can in house. Of course this makes a few assumptions.
- in-house I don't pay a fee for the server location
- I don't need specialized heating/cooling
- Not concerned with redundant ISP links
- Not concerned with generator backup power
etc
Things that make it more expensive
- DC is trying to make money on the floor rental space
- no shared services, mainly, the ISP used for an in-house server can be shared with the rest of the business, but the same goes for HVAC.
Hosting a server onsite where I'm mainly ensuring I have a UPS that lasts long enough to shut the server down in case of a power outage is pretty darned cheap.
The issue here is spending - many SMBs just won't spend what is really needed to provide best practices. There is no defense for that. You're right - I guess I was making excuses (though I wasn't trying to), but that's what it really boils down to. Most SMBs are willing to gamble their businesses and spend less than they should to protect their IT infrastructure.
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@Dashrender said:
It's truly inconceivable to me that that it would be possible to host a server in a DC less than you can in house. Of course this makes a few assumptions.
- in-house I don't pay a fee for the server location
- I don't need specialized heating/cooling
- Not concerned with redundant ISP links
- Not concerned with generator backup power
All of those assumptions DO make it harder for a DC to compete. How many of those apply to people hosting externally facing services, like we are discussing here, though? Somewhere, someone certainly. But very, very rarely.
And even in that circumstance, datacenters can be competitive.
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@Dashrender said:
- DC is trying to make money on the floor rental space
Keep in mind each server only uses a few square inches. They stack 42U high in like eight square feet.
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@Dashrender said:
- no shared services, mainly, the ISP used for an in-house server can be shared with the rest of the business, but the same goes for HVAC.
But they are shared equally in both cases. So you just shift where the sharing happens - typically from a low value situation to a high volume one. So the sharing, on average, improves.
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@Dashrender said:
Hosting a server onsite where I'm mainly ensuring I have a UPS that lasts long enough to shut the server down in case of a power outage is pretty darned cheap.
The UPS cost per server is normally very high in house. You need a lot of batter per machine. A DC has UPS at scale and only needs enough battery to carry the gap between power outage and the generator coming online which is normally under a minute. Generators are cheaper than UPS, so this is a case where you often get more for less, because of the leveraging of the scale.
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@Dashrender said:
The issue here is spending - many SMBs just won't spend what is really needed to provide best practices. There is no defense for that. You're right - I guess I was making excuses (though I wasn't trying to), but that's what it really boils down to. Most SMBs are willing to gamble their businesses and spend less than they should to protect their IT infrastructure.
The difference is I'm not claiming that they are not spending enough, but that they are spending it poorly. Maybe they need to spend more, often I find they should be spending less.
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I think one thing that affects at least some SMBs that I know is the availability of only one internet provider. Around here if you aren't in the city or suburban area, you may only have one option. If you have a hosted database or storage of some type (not email type services) and you lose internet, you can't access anything until it's up. Email type services are different obviously because if you don't have internet, you can't send emails no matter what, I'm just talking data.
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@johnhooks said:
I think one thing that affects at least some SMBs that I know is the availability of only one internet provider. Around here if you aren't in the city or suburban area, you may only have one option. If you have a hosted database or storage of some type (not email type services) and you lose internet, you can't access anything until it's up. Email type services are different obviously because if you don't have internet, you can't send emails no matter what, I'm just talking data.
Remember the discussion here, though, is about hosting externally facing applications, not ones used in house. So the lack of redundant ISPs would basically guarantee that hosted in a datacenter is the only rational option for those companies rather than making it less likely.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@johnhooks said:
I think one thing that affects at least some SMBs that I know is the availability of only one internet provider. Around here if you aren't in the city or suburban area, you may only have one option. If you have a hosted database or storage of some type (not email type services) and you lose internet, you can't access anything until it's up. Email type services are different obviously because if you don't have internet, you can't send emails no matter what, I'm just talking data.
Remember the discussion here, though, is about hosting externally facing applications, not ones used in house. So the lack of redundant ISPs would basically guarantee that hosted in a datacenter is the only rational option for those companies rather than making it less likely.
I'll go sit in the corner, somehow I missed that
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@johnhooks said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@johnhooks said:
I think one thing that affects at least some SMBs that I know is the availability of only one internet provider. Around here if you aren't in the city or suburban area, you may only have one option. If you have a hosted database or storage of some type (not email type services) and you lose internet, you can't access anything until it's up. Email type services are different obviously because if you don't have internet, you can't send emails no matter what, I'm just talking data.
Remember the discussion here, though, is about hosting externally facing applications, not ones used in house. So the lack of redundant ISPs would basically guarantee that hosted in a datacenter is the only rational option for those companies rather than making it less likely.
I'll go sit in the corner, somehow I missed that
It wasn't in the OP but where the discussion went. I totally get why people do in house services for internal consumption in house when there are limited Internet options. That makes total sense. The datacenter discussion that came in here, though, was around a need for hosting services to the outside.
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@Dashrender said:
It's truly inconceivable to me that that it would be possible to host a server in a DC less than you can in house. Of course this makes a few assumptions.
- in-house I don't pay a fee for the server location
- I don't need specialized heating/cooling
- Not concerned with redundant ISP links
- Not concerned with generator backup power
etc
Do I need to pull out the old Out of the Closet and into the datacenter document? You ain't doing it right in the closet.
Yeah, if you skimp on most things and ignore everything, odds are it's gonna be "cheaper" to host inhouse. Most of the time if you get more than two "servers", using a cloud based box instead would come out cheaper in the long run.
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@PSX_Defector said:
@Dashrender said:
It's truly inconceivable to me that that it would be possible to host a server in a DC less than you can in house. Of course this makes a few assumptions.
- in-house I don't pay a fee for the server location
- I don't need specialized heating/cooling
- Not concerned with redundant ISP links
- Not concerned with generator backup power
etc
Do I need to pull out the old Out of the Closet and into the datacenter document? You ain't doing it right in the closet.
Yeah, if you skimp on most things and ignore everything, odds are it's gonna be "cheaper" to host inhouse. Most of the time if you get more than two "servers", using a cloud based box instead would come out cheaper in the long run.
When it comes to hosting a critical service that you are providing to the rest of the internet, I completely agree. But when you bring up internal things like @johnhooks did, it's time to consider more items - but yeah, even then it can totally be worth hosting everything in a DC.
