Quote from CPTrader:
Could experienced users recommend me ultra reliable providers for dedicated servers to run an unattended ATS - preferably in the Chicago area due to exchange proximity.
I need 100% uptime, low latency, reliable & secure servers, etc.
How do others handle securing data, proprietary information, files on these dedicated servers?
What are estimated costs for this?
What are pros/cons of a dedicated server?
What are pros/cons of a dedicated server vs a VPS?
Thank you.
Does not exist. Point.
* 100% uptime is something noone has. They strive for it, but even with redundant power, redundant plinks OMETIMES things go wrong. I had that case last month for 15 minutes. 2 separate power intakes into the center, 3 diesel backups, 71gbit ethernet bandwith, fully redundant router infrastructure... and a routing processor went so awrry the backup did not kick it out. Result was 15 minutes bad connectivity / lost connectivity. Happens. Live with it. Any professional data center should be good enough. Although sometimes I think the standards in the US are quite low compared to some european major sites.
* Note:: 100% uptime with a server is impossible. You need a miniimum of 2, better 3 servers. Called redundancy. Servers fail, too.
* Exchange proximty is MOSTLY irrelevant for you. Unless you really trade extremely fast, having a 10ms or 30ms delay will not make a real difference. You can put your servers into pretty much every major data center and the latency is good enough. Ask your tech provider for a special data center for better data streams (like Rithmic - you host with a special cetner and you can get the complete exchange feed via local multicast), but a 10ms time difference will not make or break you unless you try trading sub-second. And then you are in a totally different ball game. I would mostly go with a good center that you can access (for repairs). This may be more important than taking out another 5ms latency.
* Security is overrated. Seriously. Trust the data center. Make sure you have a good one with decent protocols. Do not rent a server, but a rack - or a part of it that an be independently locked. My server(s) are in a half rack in an access controlled data center. Could the staff there look into the servers? Possibly (not without me realizing, though), but there are 100.000 servers there and the staff is monitored.
Now, comparing:
Server vs. VPS - a VPS is a shared server (virtualized), the machne is "made up" in the computer from a smaller part of the large server. This CAN be good - all my workhorses are virtual, although I own the hardware. Physical servers can do more, virutal are just guests in the physical form - if the physical form sucks, the VPS will do so, too. Further, as the VPS is shared, you can not use the complere power of the host. The rest depends on price. For example, I am OK with VPS, but I own the hardware and make sure I do not overload anything (CPU maxed out etc.). I could not go with a normal VPS host, because my main server has like space for 24 discs (database work needs discs) and no "normal" VPS hoster offers me the physical capacity I need.
VPS can be better as when a server fails, the VPS can restart on another server (automatically, if the host has a professional cluster setup).
Pricing REALLY depends. Like REALLY. 1 rack unit server hosting was quoted to me with 1500 USD "close to exchange", 100 in a normal data center. This is a VERY wide distributed price curve.
