Ask HN: Leasing servers w/AWS Direct Connect? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Leasing servers w/AWS Direct Connect?

7 pointsjaylevitt6 comments

Last year, Amazon rolled out AWS Direct Connect, which lets you connect your physical servers via a low-latency network pipe directly to AWS. This seems a perfect solution for building a hybrid cloud - e.g. if your database server needs more horsepower than Postgres-on-EC2 can yield. But the Direct Connect marketing is (naturally) geared toward enterprises with a presence at Equinix, Level 3, etc.

It seems to me that there must be resellers with existing cages at these data centers where I could rent a single unmanaged server. But, of course, resellers don't tend to advertise which data center they're colo'd in.

How can I go about finding Direct Connect-capable, unmanaged server resellers? I'm looking specifically at US-East in Northern VA.

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http://aws.amazon.com/directconnect/

"Complete the AWS Direct Connect interest form indicating your choices. If you don’t already have infrastructure at your selected AWS Direct Connect location, you may optionally indicate on the form that you would like to be contacted by an AWS Direct Connect Solution Provider."

The key point here is "If you don’t already have infrastructure" and "contacted by an AWS Direct Connect Solution Provider". Now it's true that some of these companies may not want to work with someone who is only going to be hosting a server or two. In my experience, when dealing with these larger companies, you can get a referral to a reseller/affiliate if they can't (or won't) help you directly.

Hello,

I am with the AWS Direct Connect service team and I can help you with your request. To start, please fill out the form on the product page: http://aws.amazon.com/directconnect/. Please include an email and phone number I can reach you at. I will call to discuss your options and refer you to the appropriate provider.

Regards, Krishna

I do not believe you will find what you want.

Here's why:

In order to connect via AWS Direct Connect, a provider needs to have a permanent connection between themselves and Amazon. These are provided by the companies listed in "AWS Direct Connect Solution Providers" ("ADSCP") for Northern VA, e.g. IX Reach, Abovenet, Equinix, etc.

So the 'middlemen' between you and AWS are:

You - Hosting Provider - ADSCP - AWS

Your Hosting Provider would have to have enough business, or potential business, to justify having a direct connection to ADSCP to reach AWS instances.

In order for them to multiplex the service for you, they would either have to strike a deal with AWS to allow them to dynamically connect your instance to their pipe (AWS doesn't do one-offs, and this is not a product, yet), or they'd have to dedicate the cross-connect to a connection with AWS in your name that would do this.

The cost of a cross connect from most providers is on the order of $250/mo.

So you would have to bear the cost of the cross connect to the ADSCP, in addition to your monthly hosting costs.

Most managed hosting proviers are going to figure that customers spending $250-$1k per month, are not going to be so excited to spend an extra 25-100% to connect to Amazon.

I can see why you'd want to do this, and I think we'll be able to someday.

If you want to, you can rent a cabinet for $1k/mo, put power in for $500/mo, and get a gig-e to the internet for $2k/mo and an AWS connection via an ADSCP for ~$250/mo. Then you can put your server in there for free and connect up.

Point is, for as "little" as $1750/mo, you could do this yourself by colocating with the ADSCP.

Alternatively, one could offer a multiplexed connection to AWS via an ADSCP, then route the traffic from within Amazon.

Bottom line, the fixed costs for doing this probably higher than justified for most people with a single server.

This analysis does not include the per-hour AWS Direct Connet costs, which are marginally fixed per usage without regards to infrastructure scale.

-alan

Call them and ask.

All due respect, that's missing the problem. He's trying to figure out who he should call.

Find 10-30 hosting providers; call each one and ask a) where they colo and b) if they can offer direct connect.

Don't want to waste your time? Hire it out to TaskRabbit or IamExec. Most places are not going to advertise it as a feature, as the market isn't that large for people who want dedicated equipment with a provider not Amazon, but still want direct access to Amazon AWS services from that dedicated hardware.

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