What does that mean? Basically, you’re plugging all of your brand new servers, networking equipment, and other devices into a power strip that is no more advanced and provides about the same features as the electrical sockets in your house. You spend a lot of your time configuring your servers, setting up monitoring, and closely analyzing the up time, performance, and overall health of your equipment, yet your hosting company cannot tell you anything about the power that they are providing you and you are consuming. It’s time to insist on metered power, otherwise you are using old technology and you’re paying a premium for it too.

What does Metered Power have to offer?

1. 1) In order to provide metered power, your hosting company must have intelligent circuit monitoring equipment in place. This means that they can tell exactly how much power you’re using and can make sure that you are alerted if your current usage is approaching a point of tripping your breaker.
2. 2) With this monitoring equipment in place, you should be provided with a real time look at both the current level in your circuit and overall power consumption. This can be as simple as just a point in time snapshot of the values, or a graph over time, which is what we provide at EarthLink. Here is an example of what those graphs might typically look like:
3. 3) Probably the most important feature of metered power is that you only pay for what you use. Without metered power, companies will charge a flat rate for a circuit. It doesn’t matter if you plug in one server or fill up every U in an entire cabinet, you will pay the same amount for that circuit. The prices are typically high enough to more than cover the cost if the entire circuit is maxed out. In the end you are overpaying either a little or a lot. With a metered power circuit you only pay for what you use. When first starting out you can save a lot of money. You can also influence your costs by controlling the efficiency of your equipment or how you deploy that equipment. Don’t just take my word for it. Below I’ve compiled some example data. I grabbed the per circuit price from two national hosting brands who only offer fixed power pricing (and who will remain nameless for their own benefit) and compared that to a customer of ours who is using metered power.
   

   	National Host #1	National Host #2	EarthLink
   Voltage	120	120	120
   Amps	15	15	20
   Fixed Price – 1 circuit	$275/mo	$325/mo	—
   Metered Price – 1 circuit	n/a	n/a	$150.45*

   * Example customer: 2/3 of cabinet full and 2-20A circuits. Price is for one of the circuits.

Our metered power option can offer significant savings throughout your entire hosting engagement with us. Not only will you have a lower initial cost, but as you grow and need to add an additional circuit to your cabinet, there is no extra charge from us, just pay for your actual usage. Whereas the fixed price providers, will charge you the full flat rate even when you might just need one extra outlet to start.

I hope it’s clear what some of the benefits of Metered Power can be. It’s time to expect your colocation provider who is offering the latest technologies in their network infrastructure to upgrade their power systems to the same century.

Pricing for colocating a 1U server at our Rochester, NY facility starts at $89/mo with 1Mbps Dedicated Bandwidth.  Some Frequently Asked Questions about Rochester Colocation:

Can I get a tour of the Datacenter Facility?

Yes, We love nothing more but to show off our Datacenter to prospective clients.  Please call us at 1-800-957-4872 or Contact us here to schedule an appointment.  You can also get information and images of what the Rochester, NY Datacenter looks like here.

Can I ship my Server to EarthLink?

Yes, you can mail the server to EarthLink, 1100 Pittsford Victor Rd., Pittsford, NY 14534.  Send a Support ticket to us with the Tracking Number.  Once the Server arrives at our Facility, it will be racked immediately. Please send us the Power Cables and Required Rails.  Any other information such as Manuals and Extra parts will not be stored by EarthLink.

What information do I need to configure my server? 

Upon Payment you will receive a welcome e-mail with the 4 Dedicated IP addresses, and all necessary DNS, Gateway/Subnet Information.

Where do I order online?

Visit our Server Colocation Page, and Click Get Started.  Need more server space, bandwidth or managed services?  Contact a Sales Engineer today!