

Ask HN: What do you want out of a datacenter? - phlux

All,<p>I am exploring different datacenter models and as the HN community is effectively the DC target market, I'd like to find out what you would want out of a datacenter.<p>Obviously, many startups are heavily reliant on hosted I/PaaS offerings, so for arguments sake - lets leave out comparisons to AWS for the moment.<p>I am exploring a new full datacenter build out in San Francisco - and would like to find out what the community would most value:<p>There are effectively three data center models;<p>Colocation - where you get rack/floor space and you bring in your own equipment and rack it into the DC provided space.<p>Hosting - Where you timeslice/rent dedicated hardware or resources.<p>Modular - which can be a combination of the other two, and also offer an option to bring in your own modules. These are more rare as there are few modular datacenters at this point.<p>I am developing a hybrid model for DC design though, where I try to employ a number of design innovations which would integrate/incorporate things like modular containers with certain aspects of ideas found in the Open Compute platform.<p>The issues with purpose built systems such as Facebook's open compute platform, is that it is beneficial at scale, but difficult to leverage in a shared hosting model.<p>I am interested in deploying open compute style systems (racks, UPS, mobo-slot machines, integrated cabling) into container modules.<p>This would be sold as hosting - or you could choose to buy a number of nodes and have your own cluster. The benefit is ideally that you have a great PUE for a set number of nodes.<p>Additionally, the site may have traditional colo space as well - either in a separate building - or as rack space in containers.<p>My question to the HN community, assuming you're buying hosting and not simply leveraging AWS - what model is your preference.<p>If you could buy open compute-style nodes/infrastructure - would you? Or do you want to buy fully enclosed machines and rack them up in a more traditional fashion?<p>Any feedback would be appreciated.
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dstein
As an application developer the VPS/cloud model is very appealing. So much so,
I think you'd be nuts not to build a datacenter that doesn't target this
market. I'm not interested in floor space, dedicated servers, or supplying my
own hardware. I'm really interested in how easily I can launch, update, and
manage my applications -- everything else can be abstracted.

