Questions About Renting A Colocation Data Center

[WCKicksAss]

Hello,

I've got a few questions on renting a datacenter or a colocation. I might be a noob but please do the best at answering the following:

1) What is a Rack? Is a Rack already setup into dedicated servers with OS? How Much?
2) Can I ask people working there assuming there would be if I rented it and didn't have to pay the staff extra if they can add additonal equipment that you wouldn't find in a data center like a capture card and hook it up?
3) Could I order cable within the data center?
b) Could I gte one box (cable) per server?
4) Best offshore host?

Thanks, hopefully you can answer these question and there not too out of this world.
I'd be looking to pay $500-1200/mo for this plan in the near future.​

 

[wedge1001]

1)
this is a rack:

more or less a cabinet stuffed with servers.
no. A rack only means, you will get a space in this rack.
Depending on the offer, you will get a whole one (like the picture above) or a small one (20Units) or a shared rack - which means you will get some Units in this big one.
There is no normally hardware set up. You have to bring you own hardware - thus OS is irrelevant - just install the one you want.
But LAN and Power-Equipement normally is present.

2)
using the technical staff normally costs lots of money, but they will install equipement if you pay them.
but you will get permision to go in the Datacenter and add the card on your own.

3)
what do you mean?
Normally you will get a few IP-Adresses with traffic asigned per Rack as well as power
Sometimes you have to pay your power, too - so check the offer

3b)
I suppose you mean Network-Cable.
Normally that's not a problem. But you have to check, that you won't need more Network-Slots as they will provide you - otherwise you have to buy a switch, which normally is a bit pricy.
But a small Cabinet normally has 4-6 RJ45 Slots available.

4)
500-1200$ per month will get you a decent rackspace nearly in every datacenter.
The best one would be if you have you dc within you reach.
But since you want to host offshore - please define offshore.
You can always look at the datacentermap. Nearly every datacenter will sell you rackspace.
But for most of them, you need to have a company.
-> Data Center Map - Colocation, Cloud, Managed Hosting etc.