Loukost hosting dedicated servers in Russia. Is it possible to?

In the last article with a similar title, we told and even proved that low-cost virtual server hosting (VPS) in Russia is possible. But what about the rental of dedicated servers ? Is it possible in Russia to rent servers at Hetzner prices, providing customers with gigabit channels?

We decided to conduct a little analytics and try to give an answer to the post title. We also created a low-cost configurator for dedicated servers based on the equipment we have. What came of it - you will now find out.

Stage zero. Fixed costs

Since our MAROSNET data center is located in Moscow, one of the main costly resources is electricity! 1 kilowatt costs ~ 5 rubles. On average, a dual-processor server with a 350 watt power supply “eats up” about 1 tr. per month, with an average consumption of 250-300 watts . This is a lot. But there are still costs for air conditioners and active network equipment!
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Next comes the internet. Each gigabit costs the data center ~ 64 tr. As traffic increases, the price for 1 gigabit will fall, of course. At the moment, our data center has 7 links to different providers and traffic exchange networks, with a total bandwidth of 65 gigabits.



But how so? How can we provide VDS customers at 100 megabits, if they cost us about 6,400 p. And how can you think about low-cost servers with a channel of 1 gigabit at such rates?

We wrote the answer to this question in the last article. But now we can back it up with real numbers. The fact is that 5,000 virtual servers do not use the channel 100% simultaneously. And the majority - and do "smoke bamboo". Currently, average consumption is 0.6 megabits per virtual server. Of course, among the client virtual machines, there are those who use the channel 100%. But in general it becomes imperceptible. 0.6 megabits per virtual server, this is not 6400 p., But only 38 p. Thanks to the same "math" you are now, perhaps, downloading torrents at a speed of 100 megabits.

But what about the dedicated servers? After all, the average consumption of dedicated servers is probably more, since in most cases they are rented for high-load projects, video content distribution, streaming, etc. For example, our dedicated servers use the channel at an average speed of 10 to 18 megabits . So the cost of the Internet range from 640 p. up to 1152 p. to the server.

Total, average (as it seems to us, but we can be wrong) costs per server are at least 1640 p. I remember, at the old euro rate, Hetzner could rent a server in the minimum configuration for the same amount.
At the zero stage, we have already felt that a good low-cost - will not work.

Stage one. Purchase of "iron"

It's all bad here. Professional servers are expensive, especially with the current exchange rate. You can go two ways. The first is to buy desktops, as Hetzner does. But for us it would be a problem. First, our data center is not equipped with racks for storing such servers, and we would have to redo much. Secondly, desktops are inconvenient to maintain. Novice low cost hoster expensive to keep a large staff of engineers in the data center. Third, we want high-quality low-cost, so it would be great to see memory and reliable disks in ECC client servers.

The second way - to take from the shelves in stock what is already there! And we just had about 1000 Supermicro servers with dual-processor motherboards and Intel Xeon E5530 and E5620 processors (2.4 Ghz, 4 cores, 8 threads). And best of all - it was all bought at old prices. Far from new, but they are perfect for low-cost!

DDR3 ECC memory on these servers can operate in three-channel mode. And if you have 2 processors, you can stick 4-gigabyte strips of memory for 48 gigabytes, or 8-gigabyte memory - as much as 96 gigabytes.

But we did not have disks! We ourselves use Samsung 850 EVO SSD disks, they are on the nodes with client virtual servers. For client dedicated servers, it was decided to purchase HDDs with volumes from 500 Gb to 6000 Gb and SSDs with volumes from 250 Gb to 1000 Gb.

SSD drives - Samsung 850 EVO tested by us for the year. Large HDDs are WD Red, as they are most often taken under NAS or for long-term storage of big data. HDDs ranging in size from 500 to 4000 gigabytes - randomly, tried to choose the most fault-tolerant models according to reviews and reviews.

Stage Two. Depreciation calculation

The fastest wear server resource is the disk. The speed of its wear depends on the tasks for which the server is used, how many calls are made to the disk subsystem (thanks, Cap!). On one of our client nodes, for example, 4 SSD drives were 80% worn out in 5 months. And there are those where wear is 1% per year, but this is more likely a rarity. Average wear on nodes with virtual servers would be incorrect to compare average wear of disks on dedicated servers. Most likely, on dedicated servers, it will be lower on average for an obvious reason: fewer users = fewer disk accesses. But this is an abstract argument, unconfirmed by statistics.

At the moment, SSD drives fail in our data center. For 2 years, 1 SSD disk “broke” and 4 pieces were replaced (the ones with great wear).

It was important to calculate what should be the payback period of the hard disk. If it is made too long, the disks will die before this period, too short - the price for the server tenant will be unprofitable.

But there is one more parameter! Obsolete discs. Disk models and volumes that are relevant today, in 1-2 years will no longer be so relevant. So the demand and price for them will be much lower.

Based on the foregoing, we were able to calculate by scientific method that the safe payback period for a disk is 6 to 12 months. That is, the rental price must be commensurate with the period and the purchase price.

Stage Three. Cunning and flexibility

The trick is to provide the client with a 1 gigabit port, but with a packet of traffic, as Hetzner does. But there are benefits on the client side. At first it may seem that 100 Mbit Unlimited = 1000 Mbit x 30 Tb. But in fact, not quite. The amount of traffic transmitted often depends on the time of day. The 1000 Mbit x 30 Tb version easily compensates for daytime bursts of> 100 Mbit due to nighttime dips. Therefore, for many customers this option is more optimal. But what if 30 Tb are consumed? Disable the port and require additional payments from the client for additional terabytes? It is right. And at the same time somehow disloyal. That's right - it is to switch the port to 100 Mbit, and the extra charge for terabytes should be taken only if the client needs to return the gigabit port. Moreover, it is desirable that the price for 1 terabyte is the same, or lower than that of a German competitor, since this is a low-cost one . In our case, we decided to set the price at 75 rubles. for 1 terabyte. It is cheaper than Hetzner.

Another trick is to remove the installation fee. Taking a setup fee of two months from a client is somehow dishonest, it seemed to us. What if the server needs a client for six months or less? Our first client rented a server for a startup. And even asked to introduce daily payment, since it is not known whether his project will take off or not, and there has not been any extra money for an advance payment.

Flexibility in our case is the ability to select any server configuration. Why pay for 32 GB of pre-installed RAM if you need only 12? A year ago, we had a rental service for dedicated servers with fixed configurations. We thought it was not very effective. Since we are already struggling at low-cost, even if the user can choose the server configuration himself, reducing the cost of extra resources. It was decided to make a configurator. This is a plus and a minus. Plus in flexibility, and a minus in that it is necessary to wait, while the DPC engineer-and collects the server.

So is low-cost hosting of dedicated servers possible in Russia?

It seems to us that yes. We achieved certain results in this direction. But still, we are not very happy with them.

If you look at offers in Russia, the price-quality ratio of our dedicated servers turned out to be quite good. But I would like better. We plan to work on optimizing this direction. At the moment, I would like to recruit a small customer base in order to have statistics. For VDS hosting , we already have statistics that give an insight into how low we can keep prices.

You can rate our configurator:



Until the end of the year, you can order a dedicated server with a 25% discount on the promotional code HAPPYNEWYEAR2016 . Just enter it in the comments to the order.

By the way, the same promo code is valid for VDS servers.

Conclusion

We hope you enjoy our next post.
The user Habr leonid239 flew to Moscow not so long ago and was a guest in our data center. In the near future, he will post an interview + amateur review of our data center MAROSNET.