I'm getting the feeling that the underlying issues around "buy local" are still at work, but due to the unique nature of hosting, in a different way. To me at least buy local means support the local economy, and lower externalized and hidden costs.
If you have a remote (say california, texas, etc) colo it's not local, but they have economy of scale, lower externalized costs than local (say being close to power, major peering points, etc), and if you go through a local reseller, you are keeping at least some of your dollars local, plus, it keeps the massive power generation (and it's associated negatives) centralized. I've take a few interesting bits from this discussion (some of which I already knew) 1) localized hosting is a dead end business idea unless you have a unique value added proposition, or major number of customers! (already knew) 2) There is little to no interest in local hosting in the area. Economies of scale, and the benefits they bring are just too tantalizing (guessed, but had no clear data) 3) Using something like slice host through a resller, works fairly well as a hybrid between buy local and getting the best bang for your buck! So, who are the local resllers? :) Mike --- On Sun, 3/22/09, Rene Churchill <r...@wherezit.com> wrote: > From: Rene Churchill <r...@wherezit.com> > Subject: Re: Vermont Hosting Providers > To: VAGUE@LIST.UVM.EDU > Date: Sunday, March 22, 2009, 5:07 PM > While physical location of the hosting is of little > relevance to > the hosting customers, it is important to the hosting > services > themselves. Microsoft and Google are both buying land to > build > data centers in the Columbia River valley up near Portland > because > of the availability of cheap, dependable hydro power. > > Access to cheap power is another thing that improves with > scale > and is a barrier to local/co-op hosting businesses. > > Rene > > > Dan Coutu wrote: > > To make Mike's idea work you'd need to secure > hundreds of customers (or more) and have a significant sized > facility with generator backup, redundant high bandwidth > connections, and a crew of at least 9 operations personnel > to provide round the clock monitoring and support. > That's a very significant investment. I don't know > if it could be made to work since, as Mike points out, there > is strong competition from non-local providers and to a > large extent the physical location of hosting servers is > becoming less relevant as time goes on. > > -- > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > René Churchill r...@wherezit.com > Geek Two 802-244-7880 x527 > Your Source for Local Information > http://www.wherezit.com
