Colocation in Scotland and Edinburgh

Server Co-location (colo) used to cost more than twice as much in Scotland as it does in London. At the start of 2006 the London providers have started charging much more for electricity which makes Edinburgh etc suddenly more attractive. (However Scolocate are saying that they will start to implement additional power charges in the centre soon.)

Many of the providers host in Scolocate, Gyle, West Edinburgh but others have hosting facilities near Glasgow, Aberdeen or elsewhere around Edinburgh.

Many of the providers do not list prices on their websites and insist on phoning you to give a quote.

A nice man from Colloquium explained why they don't list prices on their website. Apparantly they get too many tyre-kickers, people needing a quick quote for their boss without understanding their own needs. Then they go with whichever quote sounds best on paper (e.g. quickbuck hosting says you get a 40GB data transfer, Honest Hosting say you get 30GB transfer but one means 95% percentile other is absolute). Listing standard packages mean they loose sales when they don't fit the exact requirements of the buyer and the standard packages on another website happen to even though they could have offered a better deal had the client just asked.

Please contact me if you think something should be added or changed.

Colo in Scotland

adamantean

adamantean enquiries@adamante an.com
"by making people call we get the chance to explain that we sign minimum uptime agreements with our clients and you can visit our centres whenever you wish and so on"
£120 per month for 1U and 20GB transfer (£5 per GB thereafter)
£60 per month per additional Unit
Daily Rotation of Backup tapes available at £60 per month
£60 one off install fee per server
2 Edinburgh based sites - Town Centre and Scolocate
TCP and UDP port monitoring with text message alerts as standard.
No additional fees for power consumption or IP addresses

Below Zero

http://belowzero.biz/ enquiry@belowz ero.biz Chris Binnie
Competant and able to reply by e-mail
£99 per month for 1U and 20GB transfer (£1 per GB thereafter).
£40 one off install fee per server
Also offer a £55 per month package using half depth servers which cost £15 to rent a month or £430 to buy.
They use a facilities company in central Edinburgh (and now with a second site at Scolocate).
TCP and UDP port monitoring with text message alerts as standard. Security vulnerability test for each server included.
Below Zero are a Co-located Server Hosting specialist, offering only rackspace and bandwidth. This is apparantly quite unique in Scotland.

Update from Chris, November 2006:

Scolocate network was finished at the end of November and is about 1/3 faster from key UK points than our already lightning-fast City Centre site's network. We have a staggering six bandwidth providers too

For our larger customers this secondary site offers the complete solution for additional redundancy; in the unlikely event of outages within the existing site it offers the ability to failover critical services to alternative bandwidth providers within an unrelated physical environment.

For our other customers the hosting of one server offsite for key services, such as mail and DNS, is an extremely cost-effective way of recovering from unexpected events. "

Calico

http://www.cali.co.uk/colo.htm, info@cali.co.uk
Pricing is determined by the amount of bandwidth your server uses, and starts £475 + VAT per quarter for 10Gb of monthly traffic.
In Cromarty, Ross-shire, North of Inverness
Connection through BT and is a 4Mbps bidirectional uncontended fibre pipe.

Colloquium

http://www.colloquium.co.uk/services/webhosting_colocation.htm enquiries@colloquium.co.uk
"providing Internet services in Scotland longer than anyone else (January 1995)"
"Absorbed most of the co-location business of CyanIT who went into liquidation, so we can cope with sudden change reasonably well"
Hosted at their site next to Glasgow airport, visits welcome.
No price list on website but costs from £100 a month (for a client supplied 1U box which doesn't need much in the way of bandwidth or intervention), quotes over e-mail or phone.

EQSN

http://www.eqsn.net/services/colocation.htm info@eqsn.net
Host at Scolocate and BT's datacentre in Glasgow (inside the same IP range for easy swap on fail).
No prices on website and incapable of sending prices over e-mail they will insists on phoning you and sending PDF files with large images but little content in them.

Internet for Business

http://www.ifb.net/dedicatedserverhosting.cfm info@ifb.net
Must phone for quote which will be sent as MS Word e-mail attachment (indicative prices on website says start from £2200 per annum for up to 4U rackspace and 1IP address).
"Scotland's largest independent ISP"
"1 x Domain name registration" suggests unnecessary restrictions
Have their own co-location facility at their Aberdeen Headquarters
"Please ensure that you do not post any information on IFB's products or services without prior approval from IFB." oh dear

IO Mart

IO Mart now has a data centre in Middlesex Street in Glasgow
Also sells under two other brands Internetters and Nicnames
No price list on website.
Nice guy called Perry e-mailed to say "Very tidy and professional setup in the DC itself, redundant diesel, ups and dual backbone links on global crossing with a 3rd link on a 2nd provider coming in the next month, one hop to London with upto GB is impressive."

Lumison (formerly EdNet)

http://www.lumison.net/services/colocation/ sales@lumison.net
Prices on website, from £75 for 1U, 20GB/month PDF brochure with prices
Have their own data centre in Newbridge past Edinburgh airport, I have photos but they sent me moody e-mails when I published them online (which is normal practice for these places, terrorists: just look for the unmarked building by the fire station).
Payment is quarterly in advance, 12 month minimum, setup fees of between £50 and £1000.
1/4 rack and above have swipe cards with free un-escorted access, otherwise access is 2 business hours per month access included plus £150 per hour out of business hours

Onyx Internet

http://www.onyx.net/colocation.asp sales@onyx.net
£135 per month with a £250 set-up. Minimum 12 month contract for 1U, 20Gb/month, 1 network port and 1 reset switch.
No prices on website but they are at least capable of replying by e-mail.

Verizon Business

http://www.verizonbusiness.com/us/itsolutions/datacenter/colocation/ morgan.duffy@uk.veri zonbusiness.com (or use e-mail form on webpage).
Own datacentre next door to Scolocate at the Gyle (Clocktower), and also in Glasgow (Pentagon centre Washington St).
1KW minumum standard 19" Rack on a 12 month term would be circa £700 install £500 per month rental.
2Mb (E1) based IP service in the colo on a 12 month term would cost around £1200 install, £400 monthly rental (depends on type fixed, tiered, burstable).
No prices on website, prefer to quote on a case by case basis but able to reply by e-mail (above prices are just an example).

Xtraordinary Hosting

http://www.xtrahost.co.uk/colocation/ sales@xtrahost.co.uk Andy Tillbrook 0800 781 6061
£100 for first 1U then £25 per additional 1U. £50 setup fee per server.
10 GB transfer/month £1+VAT per GB thereafter
I havn't contacted them because, uniquely, they have all the information you need on their web page. Office is in ScoLocate.

Possibles

http://www.nitrohosting.net/ say they'll do colo in Edinburgh soon (and have been saying so for quite a while).

Others who don't provide simple colo in Scotland

Colo is hard to make money in, these companies make money by selling in bulk or charging to look after your machines for you.

Campbell Lee Internet Solutions

http://www.cl-is.com/Web/Site/ManagedServices/Colocation.asp, info@cl-is.com
"a business continuity and managed IT services provider" flash tour
They don't do basic rackspace colo (no profit margin) on a small scale, only for people who need high reliability, or "lights on" hosting (meaning they look after the machines)
Prices seem to be from £250 per month per server
Have their own data centre, east of Glasgow in Cowlairs Industrial Estate
They include "solutions" in their company name. Tsk.

Scolocate

http://www.scolocate.com/colocation/index.php enquiries@scolocate.com
You can go direct with Scolocate, "As well as racks and managed services we can supply quarter and half racks of colocation with bandwidth agregated from a number of suppliers, we normally need a three year term for these."

Scotland Online

http://www.scotlandonline.co.uk/hosting/hosting.htm, sales@scotlandonline.co.uk
"Scotland On Line provide fully managed hosting services only, and unfortunately we do not provide co-location services."
(2006-03) I contacted them again but got an automatic response from their sales@ address saying they're on holiday until next week.

XCalibre

www.xcalibre.co.uk, Livingston, sales@xcalibre.co.uk
"At present we only host at one location, London Docklands." "At present we are not offering colocation services in Scotland and we have no immediate plans to start offering this."