Before you even compare rack prices, two questions matter. Will your IP addresses follow you? What does your server room really cost you today? We answer both, with figures and their sources.
1Will your IP addresses follow you?
If your addresses belong to your operator and it isn't present in the datacenter you have in mind, everything has to be redone: every machine renumbered, every partner warned, your mail reputation rebuilt. Give us an address and we'll look.
We query the public address registries, then cross-check against our record of which operators are present in each building. Nothing is stored.
2What it costs, at your place and elsewhere
Eleven questions. What you don't know, we estimate — and we tell you where the estimate comes from.
Physical machines, not virtual ones.
What would have to be moved. This is what sets the project's duration.
A generator never tested isn't backup, it's a bet.
Power, cooling or network. This is your figure, not ours.
Wages paid for nothing, production stopped, orders that can't go through.
Beyond that, the business really suffers.
This is what decides the cost of cloud, and comparisons nearly always leave it out.
Past 5 years, a server doesn't always boot again after a move.
To refine — six answers that genuinely change the result
Each one replaces an assumption of ours. Leave blank what you don't know: we'll estimate it, and tell you how.
400 to 600 W for a standard server, 800 to 1,200 W for dense compute, 2,000 W and up for GPU. Multiplied by your machine count, that gives the power figure everything else hangs on.
Your UPS display shows it, or your power strips. This is the single heaviest figure here: it drives power, cooling and the number of racks.
It's on your bill. Without it we use your country's average, and the real spread runs from one to two.
Power, cooling, maintenance, fire detection, access control, floor space. Leave out your team's time, we handle that separately. If you give this figure, yours is the one that counts: we compare our estimate to it and show the gap.
A 1 U server is 4.4 cm tall. Together with switches, patching and cable managers, this is what sets the number of racks when your machines draw little power.
Leave at zero if each server has its own disks. We don't guess it: inventing a storage array would throw the whole calculation off.
What your breaker holds, or what the target datacenter offers. A breaker isn't negotiable: if it's lower than what the cooling can remove, it's the breaker that decides.
Used to say when you'll cross into another rack. Without it we project nothing: an invented saturation date is worthless.
3Take this file with you
Nothing is stored: close this page and you lose what you just got. Leave an address and we'll send it over, item by item, with where each figure comes from and what's missing. It's a document you can pass on to your board.
The ranking of scenarios is not for sale. No datacenter operator can pay to move up in your results, and the calculation method is published. If the conclusion is « keep your servers in-house », that's what the file will say. When an introduction leads to a deal, DataColoc takes a commission from the provider, never from you: it doesn't enter the ranking, and you read it here.
Already holding a quote? A second read is worth something before you sign, not after. Write to us then.
Published method. Your room's cost is worked out from your own equipment and your country's electricity price. The colocation price comes from our market estimate, whose formula is public. The cloud cost comes from providers' public rate cards, with a wide range we stand by. None of this is a commercial offer: these are markers to tell you whether asking for a quote is worth it.