Gypsy hosting status: October 2005
Evaluating colocation facilities, part deux
At Matt's suggestion, I'm also looking into Wholesale Internet since they're actually in Kansas City, only a 30 minute drive away.
If anyone's interested, you can check out the questionnaire I'm using when I call these colo facilities. Since searching for "colocation" brings up a (metric) ton of spam I've found it very hard to see what criteria other people are using to evaluate colocation services. So, hopefully this will raise the signal-to-noise ratio ever so slightly.
Evaluating colocation facilities
The last big decision I've got to make is what colocation facility I'll be using. These are the facilities I'm evaluating:
Right now I'm leaning towards Empyrean hosting as they seem to be offering the greatest bang for the buck, but I'm going to call all three and ask some qustions.
If anyone knows anything about these facilities or has suggestions of other ones, please let me know.
Getting Started
Things are moving along, albeit slowly.
In the software department, I've created this blog so that there's a single place to keep track of what's going on. I've also started work on a simple support request framework (in Django, of course) to handle customers. Once it's done it'll be released as open source; hopefully it'll become the base for a Django hosting panel.
As for hardware, the hardware has been ordered and I'm waiting on credit approval. It looks like there's about a two week build time after which I'll need to configure the box at my home before shipping it to a colocation facility. Based on that and building in some time for inevitable delays, I'm planning a go-live date of December 1st. Those who have already paid will get access to their accounts as soon as the server is online, but I'm not planning to have any of the support material ready before that date.
Speaking of payments, I'm about ready to start accepting them. I'll announce it here when I'm ready, and anyone who's sure they want an account can make half their first payment immediately to secure a spot. Of course, those who would rather wait until everything is live are welcome to, but I won't be gurenteeing hosting to anyone who's not pre-paid.