North American Network Operators Group

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Colocation RFQ?

  • From: Graham Freeman
  • Date: Wed Apr 05 02:58:27 2006



Hi, folks,

I run a small colocation cooperative in Northern California. Our numbers are growing rapidly, and we're looking to expand from a half- cab to a full-cab in the next few months. We'll probably also expand from our current [email protected]% to at least [email protected]%, but we're also considering a [email protected]% commit if the pricing is right. (For example, there's at least one similar group who'll join us if we can sell them [email protected]% and 1U for $100/mo or less.)

We've been very happy at Sonic.net in Santa Rosa, CA for the last couple of years, and it's entirely possible that we'll stay. However, we're shopping around to make sure we make the best decision when our current contract comes to term in a few months.

We want to end up with a reputable, honest, proactive, spam-hostile, well-connected, well-run colo service provider in a well-engineered, well-run carrier-neutral facility in the San Francisco Bay Area. We're not looking for bargain-basement pricing - we'd like to retain a high quality of service - but neither can we afford to pay exorbitant rates. It'd be ideal if our primary vendor was big enough to make things happen but small enough so that we'd represent a significant revenue stream.

I've seen recent traffic on this list about RFPs in the context of purchasing transit. Would anyone mind sharing a sample colocation RFQ, or advice for creating such a document? For example, what should I specify about network characteristics such as provider diversity and performance without A) missing something important and B) excluding potentially worthwhile vendors? My overall goal is to collect as much relevant information as possible in a way that makes it easy to normalize for apples-to-apples comparisons. I'd appreciate any help you could provide.

Thanks!

Graham Freeman
Cernio Technology Cooperative
http://cernio.com/colocation/
[email protected]
(No sales phone calls, please.)

(Re-sent because I was initially subscribed to nanog with a different address than the one I used on nanog-post. Apologies if this shows up twice!)