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The Service
$250 Setup Fee. Non-refundable. Pays for a small portion of shared
equipment such as our UPSs (battery backups), equipment racks, monitor,
emergency generator, ethernet wiring, and ethernet switch ports.
$150 Monthly Fee. Basic Colocation Service cost for one server This
covers Internet bandwidth, electrical costs, rent, and our staff of
Internet professionals who keep the Internet and MIS running smoothly
and don't mess with your server.
Or have a cabinet of your own. This will include a key and alarm code for
private 24x7 access. Pricing for a cabinet is generally custom and is based
on electrical/air conditioning demand and bandwidth needs.
Options
"Remote Control Power Switch". Turn your equipment's power
off and on via telnet. (time-saver and convenience). This is a $200
one-time fee.
Automated Network Backups. Your server can do a backup over the network
to our massive backup server at an off-site location. Protects your
data from accidents, fire, theft, and Murphy's law. This is also a
time-saver and convenience. This is between $20/month and $50/month
depending on how much data needs to be backed up.
Physical Access
Physical Access during business hours is fine. Just call before you
visit. After-hours or weekend access is available when accompanied
by a MIS employee. Certain MIS labor charges may apply in an off-hours
situation. You will be given a pager number for contacting an MIS
employee should the need for emergency access be required.
If you have four or more servers, we can provide a key, alarm code, and locked
cage or cabinet for your servers. This will provide 24 hour access and further
security.
Bandwidth Regulations
You have access to multiple T3, and faster backbones for Internet access, but so do other
machines on our network. We watch, control, and manage bandwidth for
the best performance for everybody. The $150/month service provides
200kbps average usage (excluding network backups) Keep it under 200kbps
80% of the day. We will provide traffic graphs. To help understand
this, a particularly busy website of a customer at MIS gets 600,000
accesses a month or 20,000 visits to the homepage of it's popular
and complicated website. Peak usage is at 2pm EST and is about 30kbps
average for that hour. (far far below the 200kbps average). We chose
this 200kbps 80% of the time threshold because it is high enough average
utilization that is will not a concern for most customers. If you
have higher continuous bandwidth demands, we can gladly provide a customized
proposal which you will likely find agreeable.
Electrical Power
MIS uses the same type and brand of UPSs for its colocation services
as it does for our own servers. We hook a small number of servers
to a large APC Smartups. This provides power during brownouts and
short duration (less than 30 minute) power failures.The MIS datacenter
has a auto-starting diesel generator which is used for extended outages.
Networking
MIS will provide upto two ethernet jacks per server on our ethernet
switch. An ethernet switch provides better security than a hub, and
provide the ability for MIS to make traffic graphs for you.
The Server Machine
What should a customer use for a server which is to be colocated at
MIS? The server should be reliable. Quality components should be used
in its construction (good cooling fans, good hard drives, etc.) Linux
or another Unix would be a good choice of operating system. MacOS
or Windows2000/2003 might be decent if remote control software is installed.
(PC anywhere is a popular choice for Windows) What OS you use depends
on the specific needs and tasks of the server. Your server machine
has an important job which requires reliability and shouldn't be unnecessarily
tinkered with. MIS prefers rackmount cases. A desktop or minitower
case is also fine. Large tower cases might incur a larger setup fee.
Fine Print
MIS does not permit unauthorized resale of our Colocation Service.
Authorization may be obtained in writing from MIS for certain purposes.
MIS does not host or provide colocation "adult" websites.
MIS does not guarantee the data or Internet security of customer owned
servers used for colocation. (This is the job of the person who maintains
your server machine). MIS reserves the right to shutdown your computer
or network connection in the event of serious technical trouble or
other emergency or non-payment.
For more information please contact us: colo@midcoast.com
