space/racks/cabinets¶
- do you get cabinets, or racks?
- if you get cabinets, are they locking (front and back?)
- are there cages?
- can you get a half-rack? what are the expandability options?
- what size rack? 19 or 26inch?
- what kind of holes do the racks use? are they the 36inch sun-style? Square?
- what is the rack brand?
power¶
- Is the power redundant, and if so how? Battery backed, generator backed?
- How does the redundant power work, is there a seamless cut-over or is there an interruption that will cause an outage?
- is there UPS backup for the entire facility? How long? Backup generator?
- Are there redundant feeds from the utility?
- If multiple power circuits are coming into your rack, and you need them to be redundant, at what point do they merge upstream, at the breaker panel?
- Is there a way to monitor power usage?
- what is provided with the rack and how much to add extra?
- how is the power provided to the rack?
networking¶
- what are the cross-connect policies, process, costs, and providers available? how long does it take to get a cross-connect?
- what is the minimum commit?
- is the supply redundant?
- what level of redundancy in the upstream interconnect devices? redundant power supplies, redundant switches, etc
- is the wan connectivity redundant and how does it fail over?
- if you are getting network from the colo, how is it delivered? is it an ethernet drop to your rack? what is the media type, upstream interconnect
device, find out if you will need a media converter. - what is the AS and adjacent AS’?
- is a netblock supplied and what size? can they SWIP it to you? who was the previous owner (research this netblock for abuse before accepting it)
- can you do your own bgp or can they do bgp for you if you own your own block
- ipv6?
- what is the bandwidth metered at? how does the billing work, are there billing options? flat-rate bandwidth? flat-rate transfer amount? 95%?
- is there a way to get accurate, up-to-the-minute bandwidth usage and overage information?
- pipe size, burst, quota, commit?
- what is the upstream router interface speed?
- is the upstream bandwidth capped below the interface speed?
- do they do any smoothing (COS/QOS stuff or anything else) with traffic passing their routers? any prioritization? any throttling
- any limitations on types of traffic?
- how much to they oversell their bandwidth? (if at all)
- who are are their upstream peers (what tier 1 providers are they connected to at what bandwidth?), what are the peers?
- what can they provide as assistance during a DDoS attack?
environmental¶
- how is the room temperature controlled? (it would be good to know their strategy, like “cold air is blown from the CRAC under the raised floor, comes from the cold tiles in the floor in front of the racks on the cold rows, goes through the machines, and hot air rises out the back of the machines on the hot rows and then returns to the air intake on the top of the CRAC” vs “we just blow a bunch of cold air around the room”)
- is it raised floor, or other?
- how are the racks arranged
- are there hot and cold rows (ie. how is the mixing done?)
- do you experience downtime when upgrading cooling and power?
security¶
- how is physical access handled? room, cages, etc.
- what is the policy on badges/keycards (how many, procedure for getting more, replacing, costs etc.)
- access policies (hours, do people coming in need to be bonded?)
- will we be allowed to install a camera to monitor our racks/cages?
contract¶
- how will you be contacted for changes (power, network, physical)
- how do you contact them?
- what are the terms of the contract, and when the contract expires, how do we ensure we aren’t hit with a 200% raise in prices? maybe negotiate a max raise % per contract renewal period
- what are the cancellation fees, policies?
- what is the SLA and policies for renumeration in the event of network problems or dissatisfaction?
