Build your own data center

SonWebHost said:
Do you think it is possible to build a data center at home one server at a time. How would you start
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It would be amazingly cool to own your own datacenter. Good luck in your endeavor, and sorry that I can't give you advice on how to do it.

Keep in mind, some of these new datacenters that have investor capitol behind them have been failing. Be sure you can get customers before you put a lot of money in.
 
HostLeet said:
You could get one of these. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=Hp3QxlSK9Kc

http://youtu.be/SeWiRTG1gH4
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I took a look at your links and the "Black Box" by SUN is a great idea :agree:

Know anyone who's tried it?

The cheapest one I could find is the Dell Pan Datacenter-In-A-Box at $99,000.
http://business.itbusinessnet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=839954

Here's a good comparison of these as of 2009: http://www.datacentermap.com/blog/datacenter-container-55.html
 
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i looked at the SUN 'Black Box' last year and the cost of the Blackbox was OK for what you get, but what put me off was the actual utility costs being in the UK. the cost of the water needed for the cooling per minute was well OTT
 
Edgareatis said:
I'm starting with shared until I can afford VP servers then Dedicateds then i have my company where i want it :)
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Thats the best way 11yrs ago i started with a reseller and then master reseller to build up a strong clientbase and then moved onto a VPS, now i have 3 managed VPS which are with strong providers with excellent support, so at the moment i am in no hurry to jump to a dedicated server.
 
Take things one step at a time, thats the right way. Sooner or later, you will get to where you want to be. About running a server from the home, I dont recommend it. Not to host sites that are not yours
 
The data center my spouse wants built would be the ultimate anniversary/birthday/anyday gift but he knows that is not going to happen anytime soon. I can tell you it would never be done out of the house though, the only addons we are doing anytime soon is a pool. ;)
 
As said it could be done for your "Own" sites. And in terms yes it can be done but it won't work.

1. You need a good built server.
2. You need to know how to maintain it, if the HDD fails can you quickly replace it with back ups? Fix CPUs, etc..

3. Are you willing to keep the server on 24/7? This would result in a lot of power being used and a nice electric bill. And of course keeping it cool.

4. How good is your internet connection? Do you have any downtime with your currently provider? Chances are a home line is not perfect for uploading to. You can get about 100MEG now in the UK to download etc.. where upload is still rubbish. A home line is not built for hosting huge traffic income. Do you have a back up line if yours fails?

Data centres are built with back up plans. If power fails they have generators to kick in. They have more then one internet connection and their lines are built for web hosting. They have a crack team of techs to act fast if something happens and have spares and parts lying around. Do you?

Theres a lot to think about in fairness.
 
First you're not generally going to be able to get the permits for the electrical, the AC will drive your neighbors batty, most companies will not even consider running anything but a basic residential lines without huge bucks being paid up front.

Datacenters are no joke. I work in a billion dollar datacenter and trust me, a lot of work and effort goes into making these things tick properly.
 
It would be a bad idea to build a data center in your home or run servers out of your home, there are things you need to worry about like fees from your ISP or from your Power provider. You need to set up cooling & make sure you have enough room , then on top of that if you have a DC in your basement for example or a room in your house you'll need to worry about all those fans running making noise.
 
I would love to start our own datacenter. The costs are just too high. $1 million just to buy a building (in vancouver).
 
1. You need the support of your ISP, because they will need to 'Lease' you IP's for your connection for each of your servers and you need to be able to order them as you need from your ISP without any hassle.

2. You need to custom build some good boxes (servers) with come good processors and good stable hardware in them.

3. You need to keep a cache of parts on side, such as memory, hard drives, NICs, etc, in case your clients have issues or need upgrades.

4. You need to keep pre-configured spare routers / switches on-site, just in case one of your switches or routers fail, you can quickly swap it out.

5. You will need support staff to work around the clock monitoring servers and also monitoring for reboot requests, etc.

6. You will need a few thousand dollars to start with, even if it's just starting your own VERY small 5-10 server data center from your home / home-office. This is how MOST start and as your business grows, move your location to a store front / office building or buy a large storage shed or something that is weatherproof and protected from elements of the Earth.

I hope this helps give you some insight. Good luck! If you need support staff, give me a shout!
 
LBGA said:
1. You need the support of your ISP, because they will need to 'Lease' you IP's for your connection for each of your servers and you need to be able to order them as you need from your ISP without any hassle.
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Sorry but no, not true - any decent data centre will gets it's allocation of IPs directly from RIPE/ARIN/APNIC etc, only the very smallest DCs would get their IPs from their networking providers.

2. You need to custom build some good boxes (servers) with come good processors and good stable hardware in them.
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Some do indeed custom build, most buy from Dell/HP/Supermicro vendors, a few build the servers themselves, mostly from Supermicro.

3. You need to keep a cache of parts on side, such as memory, hard drives, NICs, etc, in case your clients have issues or need upgrades.

4. You need to keep pre-configured spare routers / switches on-site, just in case one of your switches or routers fail, you can quickly swap it out.

5. You will need support staff to work around the clock monitoring servers and also monitoring for reboot requests, etc.
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Yup. all true - if you are providing servers. Only 4&5 true for a pure co-location DC with the customer providing their own spares.

6. You will need a few thousand dollars to start with, even if it's just starting your own VERY small 5-10 server data center from your home / home-office. This is how MOST start and as your business grows, move your location to a store front / office building or buy a large storage shed or something that is weatherproof and protected from elements of the Earth.
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This is absolutely NOT how most data centres start! Most start with large amounts of capital investment behind them either from an existing large data centre business, or from investors (often property investors rather than anything technical). And you are not talking thousands, it's millions. Data centres are all about scale - the costs do not scale linearly so the larger one will always be cheaper if you can fill it. It's also a business with lots of very good effective companies in it offering dependable service to corporates, which is where most of the business is. To such corprorates, their IT is their business, no IT, no business and their data centre provider needs to be established, well-known and trusted.
 
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