The following blog post was recovered from the ServerMinds Blog Archive.|

Man, am I hyperanalyzing this or just trolling for new articles?

Well, in all seriousness, I see these kinds of posts on WHT, as though it truly was a mystery what it’s like or what’s involved in colocating. It’s all very simple really.

Say it’s the day of your install. You come prepared with your hardware, power cables, an OS install CD (just in case–generally you have your OS installed and configured with an assigned IP address beforehand), a power screwdriver, your rack rails or shelf, a 5′-7′ CAT5 patch cable, a buddy to help you lift your box in place if it’s that heavy (a 2U box with 6 drives and redundant power can get pretty heavy), and probably a laptop. Leave the donuts and soda outside as few data centers (none?) permit eating and drinking inside the DC itself. Make sure your security and access to the data center is determined beforehand as you may have to step through that process the first time you arrive.

If you have your hardware delivered to the DC there is probably a space where you can bring it and stage the hardware, connect it to the network, etc. Most DCs are good about providing space to customers to get hardware ready before loading it into a rack/cabinet.

What about tools? Some people are pretty fanatical about having a big toolkit for testing the network, making cables, etc. I personally have a nice RJ-45 crimp tool, wire strippers, and usually RJ-45 ends. I have screwdrivers and try to always remember to bring my DeWalt 9V power driver. When you’re holding up a firewall, switch, router, or smaller server with one hand trying to get it screwed in and mounted having a power driver could save your bacon and your hardware.

What about rails, screws and mounting hardware? Most DCs I’ve been in have a pool of screws and square mounting lugs. You generally don’t have to provide that. You do need rails suitable for the environment. For example Dell hardware has two kinds of rails, Rapid Rails and Versa Rails. Versa rails are designed to fit into any cabinet whereas Rapid Rails are designed specifically for Dell Racks but they also generally work with EIA-310 compliant cabinets (e.g., APC Netshelter, Wright-Line, Rittal, Chatsworth, etc.). Rapid Rails are nicer because you just click the rails in place in the square mounts and do not have to screw them in. You should not buy static rails (i.e., fixed-length rails) as they may not fit in a shared cabinet where there’s existing equipment and it’s impossible or near-impossible to readjust the front or back mounting plates. If it’s your own cabinet or rack you can do what you want but in an existing shared environment you may be stuck if you have static rails.

What if you don’t have or can’t find rails for your 1U+ server or you have a tower? Expect to bring a shelf or try the generic Gruber rails which you can find cheaply on eBay. You can go to a local Fry’s Electronics (my favorite place this side of heaven) to find rack shelves or order online from any number of sources. In short, don’t expect your DC or provider to have the shelves or rails unless you specifically ask and pay for it. Rack solutions is also an excellent resource if you want or need to center-mount a 1 or 2U server in a 2-post rack or just can’t find the right kind of rails for a 4-post setup. They are not cheap but I’ve used their stuff before and it’s quality hardware. Also, avoid getting some monster shelf to house a 1U server because you could end up wasting 1 or more Us with just the shelf and might be charged accordingly. Some server vendors sell center-mount rail kits but they are pretty rare. In general even the smallest shelves (except the Gruber shelves) will use 2Us so be aware of that when planning a space and buying shelves. Take into consideration the weight requirements of what you’re putting on the shelf as many cheap aluminum shelves are only rated to about 50#. I would mention the 100#+ loaded Catalyst 6509 I once put on a tiny aluminum shelf, but let’s not go there shall we?

I prefer mounting hardware with as much internal hardware as possible removed; i.e., I’ll pull all the hard drives and power supplies. HP/Compaq DL series Proliant servers for example have (for some reason) very heavy drive trays so I pull them all out and stack them in the order I took them out–and of course I have to remember that order otherwise I’m dead meat. Dell PowerEdge has sturdy but lighter drive trays so it may not be worth the trouble to pull the drives. Power supplies can be quite heavy and by the time you’ve pulled as much hot-swap hardware as possible the system might be manageable for one person or more manageable for two people. Why give yourself a hernia or hurt your back if you don’t have to?

After you’ve got all your gear mounted — and you’d be surprised how much time you can spend just in the racking process — then the real work begins: making sure it all works. If you come in with a couple servers and a firewall you may spend some hours getting it all working. On the other hand preconfigured hardware may just require racking and plugging in a few Ethernet connections and you’re good to go. Most sensible admins though will do a fair amount of testing to verify they can access their hardware remotely so they’re not stuck once they leave the DC.

That leads to another topic: Remote access. Of course the operating system itself will generally either have shell/SSH access (Linux, xBSD, Solaris, and other UNIX or UNIX-like systems), RDP (Windows), and/or Web-based management tools like cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin and so on that have became extremely popular with dedicated server and hosting/VPS providers. But what about so-called “out of band” management when your box is physically unable to boot properly or you’re stuck on a prompt and can’t get into the actual operating system? In that case there are a few ways to handle remote access:

1. Serial console. Dell, HP, Sun, and other vendors support serial console redirection from the BIOS. This means you can use a serial console device (see Cyclades (now Avocent), Digi) to get into the BIOS and see what’s happening during a boot failure. A serial console has the advantage of being cheaper than an IP-KVM but the disadvantage of not supporting VGA or higher video. Basically if it’s not pure 80×25 ASCII text you won’t see it on a serial console. Many Linux/UNIX/Solaris shops will use serial consoles because it’s much easier to manage those operating systems in a serial console vs. Windows. Sun SPARC hardware for example–and perhaps their x86/x64 hardware–has very good serial console support to the extent that you can easily install, manage, and troubleshoot the entire OS from a serial line. Generic x86 hardware though generally does not support serial console from the BIOS but most OSes will support serial lines from the boot loader (e.g., LILO, GRUB) into the kernel itself so a lot of times you can see a kernel boot failure / problem even if the BIOS doesn’t support serial console redirection.

2. Internal management cards and devices. HP has iLO and rLO, Dell has DRAC, Sun has LOM, all internal management devices that permit remote out-of-band management over a network line, in most cases even when the server is having serious problems short of a total power supply problem or failure. IBM xSeries no doubt has a solution as well but I don’t know what that is.

3. IPMI. IPMI is designed to be a full generic vendor neutral remote OOB (out-of-band – in other words your server is toast and you need to get a console) protocol. It supports management like a serial console over a network line so you don’t necessarily need both a serial console and a “lights-out” remote management board at the same time. Most server vendors now support IPMI off one of more internal network cards in their servers. I’ve never actually used IPMI though I have servers that support it but I’ve heard it has problems especially with the early implementations (but isn’t that always the case?). More generic barebone server vendors like Supermicro, ASUS, Tyan, and MSI are likely to support IPMI instead of developing their own remote management board solutions.

4. KVM-over-IP. Last by not least is KVMoIP. Simple enough – get your KVM console over a network connection, not respective of any remote management boards, remote management protocols, etc. In my experience KVMoIP is nice but has its issues such as lousy console interfaces–nearly all are written in Java which is usually slow and clunky–and awful mouse synchronization for Windows-type environments. Actual keyboard and mouse support can also be tricky but it’s always been that way with KVMs. I once had a Belkin Omnipro that to be physically rebooted every time I added a device. This was a 16-device KVM so that meant I had to unplug every single connection (because the KVM also derived its power from any keyboard or video that might be connected) then reconnect it every time I plugged in a new server or device. Long story, but what a nightmare and I’ll never use Belkin KVMs because of that experience. There are fully integrated KVM-over-IP devices (see Avocent again or look at other vnedors like Minicom, Dell’s rebranded and usually cheaper Avocent solutions, and rebranded HP, IBM, etc. KVMoIP products) or KVM-over-IP head devices that plug into an existing KVM (see Aten CN-6000 , the Avocent DSR1024, or the Startech SV1110IPEXT)  which are relatively cheap ways to get IP KVM access using existing KVMs without breaking the bank on a big Avocent solution.   Ridiculously expensive rebadged vendors like Black Box are probably options here but I don’t like to mention them.

Or… you could just use a rolling monitor and keyboard cart that most DC providers place throughout their facilities (usually).   You could be in a world of hurt at 3AM though if you have to crawl out of bed and fix the hardware.  Remote management is of course essential in 24/7/365 environments where hardware could be halfway across the world.  Even it’s 30 minutes away it’s usually easier, better, and faster to have a remote management solution that you can operate from a PC at home.   The bit of extra money you spend up front for the better hardware that supports remote management will almost definitely save you time and therefore money down the line.

Need Guidance?

Over the years ServerMinds has evolved from being a regional Sacramento based Colocation and Managed Services provider to a nation-wide supplier of Colocation and Managed Services.
We are now able to provide you with High Quality and affordable Colocation in almost any state in the United States and the biggest Datacenters in Europe.

Contact us today for a personalized advise and quotation of your needs!

The following blog post was recovered from the ServerMinds Blog Archive.

Colocation generally means putting your server(s), storage equipment, and possibly network hardware in a large-ish air conditioned raised floor data center facility that has lots of power backup (batteries for power conditioning, UPSes for short-term power blip and for the automatic transfer switch to kick on the genset, and generator sets to provide long-term power in the event of power failure), in-building fiber optic services so you can scale to massive bandwidth if you need it (e.g., you become a Youtube over night), in-building tier1-3 Internet providers (e.g., Level(3), Qwest, Verizon, AT&T, Global Crossing, etc.), and general physical security so it’s not terribly easy for creepnoids to smash through a door or window and make off with lots of spendy hardware.

Once you choose your provider, you sign a contract and/or service agreement, toss your pile of servers in the back of your car (ok, maybe not toss, maybe set gently), drive over to the data center, get your security access setup and taken care of (this means getting a badge frequently with an associated PIN and biometric certification so a hand print or retina scan will certify you are who you say you are), then take your hardware to the cabinet(s) inside the data center itself and get your equipment up and running on a direct or filtered/firewalled Internet connection.

Why we’re were we are (or can I come up with a more confusing sentence?)

You see what happened when the dot-coms flamed out in originally in 2000-2001 is you had just tons and tons and tons of this very expensive built-out data center infrastructure all over the country. There were numerous “dark” buildings all over the map even in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, LA, and New York. AboveNet, MFN, Colo.com, C&W, Digital Island, Global Crossing, etc. all went bankrupt and left not just billions in debts but these beautiful, sometimes grossly overbuilt data center buildings that had megs of gensets, massive fiber, rows and rows of racks and cabinets and ladders, thousands of batteries to condition power and so on. I mean it was beautiful stuff and landlords were saddled with these very expensive but then-unsaleable/unleaseable data centers.

What happened though is that in spite of the capsizing economy the web hosting business just kept on growing and growing and growing then the dedicated server business came along probably seriously in force in 2001-2003 and the hosting industry has never been the same. Some very smart investors and REITs saw what was happening, knew about this massive infrastructure that was sitting idle all over the country and got it often for pennies on the dollar out of bankruptcy courts. And then the vanguard like Equinix came along and started swallowing up these cheap facilities as fast as they could, building up a portfolio of elite facilities all over the country. So–even though 9/11 happened and the economy flew off a cliff for many of us the hosting and Internet access business still grew like crazy.

Where we are now

The end result is that customers now have a lot of options for colocation and hosting and Internet access in most major metro areas–and even in smaller cities. But demand is making it harder to make the business work in larger metro areas where space availability is pretty limited.
The nice thing about colocation for most customers is that they can put a few servers in a rack and their hardware can have a fast connection to Internet quickly and easily (no more 45-90 days turnaround times waiting for a lowly T1 to come in when you can have 100Mbps+ access in the matter of a few days!). In many cases if they don’t have the technical expertise their provider has it or someone in the building they’re in has it so they don’t have to go far to get the support they need. It’s a good value proposition for the customer whether they need 1U of rack space or they need their own cage space for several racks or cabinets.

Need Guidance?

Over the years ServerMinds has evolved from being a regional Sacramento based Colocation and Managed Services provider to a nation-wide supplier of Colocation and Managed Services.
We are now able to provide you with High Quality and affordable Colocation in almost any state in the United States and the biggest Datacenters in Europe.

Contact us today for a personalized advise and quotation of your needs!