Server co-location

Co-location is a cost-effective way of hosting a server on the Internet. (The word is often spelled co-location, co-lo, colo or even collocation. They're all the same.) Put simply, you take the server to the bandwidth, not the other way round -- you pay us to keep your server in our rack, connected to our network. You retain full control over your own hardware, but take advantage of our excellent connectivity and hosting facilities.

If you're new to co-location, have a look at our server co-location guide.

Co-location done properly

Mythic Beasts provides high-quality co-location facilities at very competitive prices. As long term co-location customers ourselves, we know what makes decent co-lo:

Server racks, not server ovens. Unlike other providers, we don't pack 47U of hardware into a 47U rack, or stack servers back-to-back on top of each other. All servers are supported by rails with plenty of gaps for air circulation. We want to host your server, not cook it.
Instant power cycles. Why get a human involved in something as simple as flipping a switch? All our co-lo packages come with Masterswitch access as standard, allowing you to power-cycle your computer on demand.
Serial console. "Remote hands" are useful, but they're never as good as sitting at the console yourself. A serial console gives you access to your machine, even if its network isn't running. A serial console is better than a shared KVMoIP switch, it's always available instantly and there are no per usage fees.[1].
Real data centres We offer colocation in three seperate facilities, two in Docklands at the heart of the UK internet TelecityRedbus Harbour Exchange and Sovereign House. Our third facility is Redstone Cambridge where we have a private circuit linking us back to Sovereign House.

Services

We offer four standard co-location packages; if neither of these suits your needs, we are always happy to discuss custom arrangements. Due to a significant rise in the cost of data centre power, our prices are now heavily dependent on the amount of power your server consumes. We may be able to offer some advice on this.

	Low bandwidth (Cambridge)	Standard (Cambridge)	High bandwidth (London)	Very High bandwidth (London)
Monthly bandwidth allowance	10GB	100GB	500GB	3000GB
Rackspace	1U	1U	2U	2U
Power	0.5A	0.5A	0.5A	0.5A
Masterswitch instant reboot	included
Setup fee	£100
Serial Console	included
Monitoring	included
Traffic between multiple servers	unlimited
Monthly price	£40	£80	£120	£250
Yearly price	£400	£800	£1200	£2500
Cost per additional 0.5A/1U	£350 per year or £35 per month		£850 per year or £85 per month
Cost for excess bandwidth	£0.75/GB	£0.50/GB	£0.20/GB	£0.10/GB
Up and Running service	from £25 one off
Managed Hosting service	from £50 per month or £500 per year

Co-location prices are quoted exclusive of VAT.

Unfortunately due to rising power costs colocation of your own hardware is an increasingly expensive business. As a guide, unless you specially buy a low power / energy smart server you should expect your power consumption to be 0.5-1A for 1CPU + 2 disks, adding an extra 0.5A for every extra CPU or four disks in your server. There are various online calculators from the major server vendors which will assist you in gauging the power consumption of your server. We will measure the peak power draw of your server during startup to gauge billing.

We offer much cheaper colocation and dedicated server rates on Apple Mac Mini & AppleTV hardware due to their exceptionally low power consumption. For the extremely cost concious an AppleTV dedicated server is unbeatable, and for maximum price performance the Mac Mini dedicated server or Mac Mini colocated server is very hard to beat. The Apple machines are based on laptop CPUs and use one sixth of the power of the average 1U colocated server.

Bandwidth allowances apply to the larger of incoming and outgoing bandwidth used in each month, and we bill only for traffic which leaves our network, internal transfers are free.

IP addresses

By default, your server will be allocated one external IP address, although you can have as many as you can justify under RIPE guidelines. There will be a £40 administrative fee for allocations of more than five IP addresses.

Paid support

Setting up software, firewalls, user accounts or anything else you want on your co-located server is completely up to you (though we can usually offer helpful advice if you need it). But we can generally perform any of these systems administration tasks you need, at a cost of £40/hour (minimum charge £15). Drop an email to support@mythic-beasts.com telling us what you need, and one of our team will get in touch with you right away to discuss your requirements.

Interested?

If you're interested in hosting a server with us, please drop us an email at sales@mythic-beasts.com. If you're new to co-location, we have a guide outlining the steps involved in getting your server hosted with us.

If you don't want the hassle of maintaining your hardware, but still want the freedom to choose it, you may be interested in our Managed hosting. We manage the RAID arrays, the hardware, the OS install and the key security patches for you, and if your server goes offline we get notified and bring it back up for you.

Notes

It is your responsibility to ensure that your hardware is configured to make use of a serial console, although we can certainly give advice on doing this under Linux. If you're buying new hardware, it's worth trying to get a motherboard with a BIOS that can be accessed via a serial port.
All machines must be supported by customer-supplied sliding rails. This is to ensure adequate air circulation, and so that machines can be removed and replaced without disturbing other servers.