Hosts, if you do not own/operate your own data center (yet still sell dedicated servers), what are the advantages of leasing dedicated servers from your company, when I could just go directly to the DC and cut out the middle man?

EDIT: Sorry for the confusion. I'm talking about leasing dedicated servers, specifically when a hosting provider resells leased dedicated servers.

Perhaps they offer managed services the data center doesn't.

Buy or lease?

Are we talking about someone who 'resells' leased servers or someone like us who owns all our equipment in there?

Either way, don't forget about volume pricing... If you leased a server from us (we don't have any available at the moment so this isn't a sales pitch), you would be a part of our bandwidth commitments, and we put out the capital for the equipment and are taking on the maintenance risks.

Someone who simply supplies a resold leased server their getting and hopefully selling a 'value added' service to you. For example, if they're taking on administration like Steve said, or end-user support, or adding software like control panels into the mix.

BTW, I clicked on the thread because 'buying dedicated servers' caught my eye... thought some d.c. was offering to sell me servers - as in buy not lease.

Well, some hosting companies can provide server with better discounts, managed servers, free stuff, and what ever else the host has to offer. As for some datacenters, you would have to show a commitment and purchase more than you want, or spend more than you want just to cut out the middle man.


Anyways, the middle man is not always bad.

Colocating would be cheaper in the long run, but leasing is more cost-effective initially.

The reason you should opt for a Dedicated Server from a Professional Web Hosting provider is the fact that you will receive 24x7 Support and a Fully Managed Server (Depends on the Hosting provider you select). Also, 24x7 Support will be essential for you if you have Mission Critical websites on the Server as you will always need those websites to be online.

Hence, it is recommended that you choose a Server from a Professional Hosting provider.

Yes i agree with Carlowen the support, the additional facilities ( add on) they offer is the reason why you have to go for professional webhosting company if you cannot run a DC in your own.

There's many advantages to going with the middle man rather than the ending company, USUALLY it comes down to service. You're treated as a person, and not just another dedicated server.

For us, we lease almost all our equipment these days, and from our end it makes sense as we don't have to worry about extra hardware on hand or having to play with things.

From the customer end (someone buying from us), there's value added services such as monitoring, backups, automated reboots, management and probably the most important part, HELP. Many people with dedicated servers need to know what the heck they're doing. How to use WHM or cPanel. How to configure firewalls or troubleshoot issues. Most data centers will charge you an arm and a leg ($165+/hour for a system admin), whereas going through a middle man, usually you can get these sorts of services cheaper.

For us, our biggest selling point is support. Most hosting companies don't offer "one on one" support in lay-man terms. Usually it's an engineer explaining something to someone who barely knows how to initiate a PING request

I have to agree with that, it usually is the service that makes the difference. You also have knowledgeable people you can refer to in case of problem ... the data center will usually not help you or charge crazy fees to help.

Most quality datacenter providers don't even do dedicated servers. If you asked Equinix for a dedicated server, they would probably tell you to shove it. Some colo providers also do dedicated servers to a large degree, but many, including the one I colocate with, are pure colo.

Some colo providers also do tiny amounts of dedicated server stuff at the request of specific customers. Occasionally you'll have a colo guy who has some servers he seized from a non-paying client, and he might try and sell dedicated hosting on them.

In these cases, you're talking a fairly bare-bones offering, with no control panels et cetera; just an IP address that you ssh.

How does whether a data center sells dedicated servers factor into their quality of service? I don't see the connection.

I'm not familiar with Equinix, but I really doubt their sales department would tell any prospect to shove it. If certain colo providers do not offer dedicated servers, then that's simply their market strategy. Would that make them a better colo provider? NO. How they respond to and resolve issues is the mark of their quality. Apparently, your colo vendor is providing you with excellent service, so kudos to them.

Well, I can assure you that Equinix would, without hesitation, brush off a large number of requests. Equinix has been known to evict paying customers from its datacenters for not buying enough cross-connects. People put up with it because they're Equinix (and if you've ever been in an IBX, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about).

Here's an interesting analysis of Equinix

Interesting that a report from April 2008 would still hold validity in April 2009. They're still growing, they're still powerful and oddly their stocks which were trading at $74/share in April 2008 are trading at $71 TODAY 5/27/2009

While I've never had personal dealings with Equinix, I've had conversations with hosting companies that sublease from their datacenters and they have nothing but good to say. They ARE strict about their payment methods being on time, and advance payments and are at higher rates, but most of those that I've talked with are more than happy with their services and wouldn't opt to move elsewhere.

If you can get into Equinix, there's nothing better. Their datacenters are *luxurious*. I'm blessed to have handscan access to one (my colo has their routers up there and I maintain them).

I say "blessed" because it features a lounge area with an X Box, a Playstation, cafe tables, vending machines, et cetera.

There's even a shower in the restroom!

It doesn't hurt that the power never goes out either... :-P