August 22, 2011 at 10:45 AM

Ten years ago, colocation clients were predomininantly Internet pure-plays and businesses that had high demand for their public, Internet-facing personas. But today, businesses of every size and type recognize the benefits that colocation provides in securing their mission-critical servers, whether they use them for public-facing services or not. Today you have a broader mix; the Internet-based businesses are still there in force, but they are now sharing more space with the full spectrum of small business, from cosmetic surgeons doctors to feed stores. Increasingly, regulatory requirements and simpler problems like efficient use of energy and space often dictate that these businesses house their servers in an environment that addresses these needs, and the economies of scale found in retail collocation facilities reduces expense for customer and eliminates the management challenges of "build your own" environments.  

But small businesses and startups, particularly those that are “non-technical,” still face daunting challenges when preparing to use colocation, and as with any set of challenges, approaching them the right way is the first step in reaching a successful outcome. If you frame the problem like another problem that you’re more familiar with, you can focus on good fundamentals and not get as bogged down in the technical details you may not initially understand. For example, let’s see what happens if we approach finding a colocation provider as we would finding a good pair of shoes. While the problem domains are entirely different, the trivial comparison can lead to some interesting common ground that again will do one important job: focus you on the fundamentals of good decision-making.  

If you're anything like me, when you go to buy shoes, you generally go through three simple steps: find the right style, find the right size, and find the right fit. 

Finding the right style is the first, most important step. You can pick a great feeling shoe, but if the style doesn't suit you, you're not going to be happy with it. In choosing colocation, the "style" refers to the culture and personality of the colocation operator. If your corporate culture is trendy and informal, you may want to choose an operator with a similar culture, for example. The common ground you share with your chosen vendor's culture will play out in the relationships that your staff maintains with your vendor's staff. That doesn't mean you have to sacrifice quality in the desired result (being in a well-run data center with an exemplary uptime record)--you'll find operators in every style from that trendy/informal to the regimented/paramilitary with similar disciplines around policies and procedures, and similar uptime records. Like shoes, there's little correlation between quality and style. But style is important, because if your corporate culture is that trendy/informal style, and you sign up with an operator that's regimented/paramilitary, you're going to find that someday your goals and their processes, for example, clash. 

Once you've identified the right style, you're ready to consider size. You would never walk out of a shoe store with a style you like that's the wrong size for your feet. Likewise, hand-in-hand with style, you need to understand your needs before you go out looking for solutions. Figure out what you need in as much detail as possible. In today's market, it's important to know not just how many servers you are collocating, but what equipment will be located with them, and how you will lay out your equipment in the rack(s). It's also vital that you understand how much power you need. Reading the nameplate ratings off the power supplies doesn't cut it here, because no machine really runs (or should run) at the fully-rated value of the power supply (or supplies). Measure your actual requirements using a current meter, or even a simple consumer device like the Kill-A-Watt, and don't forget to measure both at CPU idle and CPU maxed-out states. Current requirements can vary a lot based on CPU and RAM usage, which not only directly drives current draw, but can also drive it indirectly by increasing fan speeds and disk activity. The alternative could mean that you buy too big--you walk out of the store with a loose-fitting shoe. In the shoe world, that's an inconvenience, but generally speaking a size 8 shoe and a size 13 shoe in the same style cost about the same. Not true in colocation. If you overestimate your power use, you'll pay for power you're not actually using. If you underestimate, you could be subject to overage fees or ordering additional capacity, which can be budget-blowers. 

The final dimension is fit. Again, beating our shoe analogy to death, a shoe in an attractive style that's the right size can still not feel right, or be downright painful to wear. Fit encompasses all of the details of the shoe beyond style and size, and are the final set of metrics for determining comfort and long-term satisfaction with your choice. Likewise, in colocation, look across the suite of services that are available to you, and how they are delivered, to determine if the operator has all of the other little things you need to make them a good fit for your requirements. This covers a broad range of details, from things like security and network access, to additional services that you perhaps hadn't considered in using colocation, like handling backups and providing a firewall. Some of these details, you will find, feed back directly into your choice of style. Large wholesale colocation facilities tend to be carrier-neutral, for example, meaning that you have to source your own bandwidth from one or more carriers available in the facility, and know how to create a reliable, redundant bandwidth solution for yourself. This means not only additional contracts with those additional vendors, but in almost all cases is means additional fees to the colocation provider, because they take their vig in the form of a "cross-connect fee" to give you the privilege of being able to actually physically connect to your chosen bandwidth provider. It also means that you'll be buying and maintaining your own router, and figuring out how to give yourself the network redundancy your business needs. Smaller colocation operations, in contrast, often have a network product of their own, and you can benefit from their economies of scale and purchase the amount of redundant bandwidth you need, no more no less, for a reasonable price that's usually far less than you could accomplish in a carrier-neutral environment. And naturally, price overall is part of fit: the price has to fit your budget. 

Now, when buying a shoe, you might also consider other criteria, like brand. This can, however, work against you, as getting hung up on a particular brand can limit your choice of style, and needlessly drive up your price. It can also cause you to sacrifice fit, and while everybody has bought a pair of shoes just for brand cache and ended up with over-priced foot-torture devices, we also learn pretty quickly that a well-styled shoe that fits comfortably is a pleasure to wear and a lasting investment. Similarly, a great colocation operator for your business may not be a national or marquee brand, but can nonetheless provide everything your business needs, and more, at a fair price. 

I've beaten this analogy nicely into the ground, but I hope you get my point. You can also sum it up this way: (1) your best business relationships will be in doing business with businesses that are most like yours; (2) understand your requirements in detail so you can buy the right products and right amount of them; and (3) make sure your chosen vendor addresses all of your requirements, and can potentially offer other products that can help you solve other challenges you have or may have in future.