After my second fairly sizable price increase (without warning, might I add) at the data center my web servers were in, I decided to search for a new ISP or data center to house my servers. I rarely need access to them, so my priorities were mostly along the lines of market pricing, quality of service and network, etc. With that in mind, I started researching for new colocation.
Most data centers wanted me to purchase a minimum amount of space, usually a 1/2 rack or a 1/2 locked cabinet, which is slightly overkill for my 8 1U servers and management switch. A few places did offer pricing to what I was looking for, with various degrees of "extras" - some offered remote reboot switches and/or ups units, others offered 24x7 or 8x5 access, etc. I decided on 3 locations to visit, based on pricing and how I felt when calling in for info - 1 center in Providence never even returned my call.
After visiting I decided on Meganet's data center in Providence, which is about 30 minutes away on the highway for me, a distance I don't have much of a problem with. The facility was smaller than some that I visited, but was clean and easily navigated. After discussing space and bandwidth (I only need 5M with occasional bursts, which they were able to accomodate) they assured me they would have my space ready within a few days, and they met that expectation without a problem. I provided them with the amount of IPs I'd need along with the power requirements for my servers and they had everything wired in and ready to go, and had a tech meet me onsite to help out (the center is unmanned, but again not a concern due to how little I need physical access). I also received an alarm token so I can enter any time to check in on my equipment, and the tech pointed out the IP cameras provided for security at all hours and explained their monitoring procedures and policies.
All in all, so far I've been very happy - I can access my servers at any time with no hassle, I can see how much traffic I'm pushing in real time, and Meganet has contacted me already a few times just as follow ups to make sure I was all set. I could have gone to a cheaper data center (not by much, but every $ counts) but I'm impressed with Meganet's response and their network performance. I'm also happy they had no problem agreeing to a term contract so my pricing won't spontaneously jump up, which was my primary reason for leaving my current datacenter.
**UPDATE** As of January 2011, I can say I'm still very happy with their service and support. I can't think of any downtime I've had that wasn't related to my servers, and their support staff has always been reachable and helpful even when the issue was on my end. read more