My company is planning on implementing a new strategy for our web
application deployment. My goal is to choose a datacenter/collocation
provider who has facilities in the NY and Chicago regions, so that I can
have a Primary and DR site connect by at least a 100M line. So far I
have identified Qwest, Cogent and Equinix as possible providers. As I
have only dealt with Equinix in the past, I would welcome any advice or
experiences other nanog members may have with regards to these
providers, as well as any suggestions about other providers that may fit
the bill.
Thank you in advance for your input.
Jeffrey Negro, Network Engineer
Billtrust - Improving Your Billing, Improving Your Business
With a carrier neutral facility like Equinix you'll have a greater
wealth of data services available to you from a wide range of carriers
at on-net prices. And alternatives available when one of those
services doesn't pan out quite what the salesman claimed.
With a particular carrier's facility such as Verizon, Qwest, Level3 or
Cogent, you're more limited. Other carriers occasionally vend some
services there but the variety is generally very limited and they tend
to be much more expensive than the incumbent.
And God help you when you want to leave... The DNC moved out of the
Verizon Business data center in Ashburn VA in 2006 and tried to buy a
Verizon Business line at another data center in order to keep the IP
addresses. Verizon Business refused to move the IP address blocks to a
VB line outside of the data center. With a carrier neutral facility,
the carriers have no vested interest in keeping you in that particular
data center.
Completely agreed; in many situations even if one of those carrier locked data centers allow another carrier in, they may severely limit the portfolio of services that are allowed to be offered by them.
For example, one of the vendors listed below only allows "lit" crossconnects from 3rd party carriers and only from a demarc that they specify, generally not within the same data center that you're housed. It means that any type of circuit that you drop into there is effectively type 2. It's ugly.