Good Datacenter Providers & Cloud Providers in SA? Maybe a thread?

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NoServersInTheCloud

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Hey guys
Lately Ive been looking into a lot of server-related stuff for work. But it got me to realize, and ask the question, what good DC providers are there?

The ones I know of and have used are Xneelo (great but not a lot to offer product-wise) and HostAfrica.

Now Xneelo is pretty well priced in my opinion, but their hardware is a bit dated it seems. They also dont offer many cloud-related services like VPS's.

HostAfrica seems to have great pricing, but their support I can never get through to. The server pricing is also decent, and the VPS' are also well priced. But something just feels like it could be better?

I say this because when looking overseas at Hetzner itself (since Xneelo used to be Hetzner), Knownhost, Linode, Vultr, and and and and... there are a LOT of options, so they are super competitive. I mean you can get a 1vCPU 2GB RAM VPS with Hetzner for like R70. Whereas the cheapest in SA I can find (ignoring big cloud like AWS) is HostAfrica with 1vCPU and 1GB RAM for R100. I know things tend to be a bit more pricey here, but are there other options I'm missing?

Honestly, any chatter anyone wants to have is great, hoping some people might have some hidden gems they are willing to share :)
 
just go with Azure or AWS , and be done with it.Everything else is a "poor mans setup".All those providers you mentioned are "just" only abit better then running your own prem environment.
 
NoServersInTheCloud said:
Hey guys
Lately Ive been looking into a lot of server-related stuff for work. But it got me to realize, and ask the question, what good DC providers are there?

The ones I know of and have used are Xneelo (great but not a lot to offer product-wise) and HostAfrica.

Now Xneelo is pretty well priced in my opinion, but their hardware is a bit dated it seems. They also dont offer many cloud-related services like VPS's.

HostAfrica seems to have great pricing, but their support I can never get through to. The server pricing is also decent, and the VPS' are also well priced. But something just feels like it could be better?

I say this because when looking overseas at Hetzner itself (since Xneelo used to be Hetzner), Knownhost, Linode, Vultr, and and and and... there are a LOT of options, so they are super competitive. I mean you can get a 1vCPU 2GB RAM VPS with Hetzner for like R70. Whereas the cheapest in SA I can find (ignoring big cloud like AWS) is HostAfrica with 1vCPU and 1GB RAM for R100. I know things tend to be a bit more pricey here, but are there other options I'm missing?

Honestly, any chatter anyone wants to have is great, hoping some people might have some hidden gems they are willing to share :)
Click to expand...

remmember nothing is free in life.Cheap and Nasty go together for a reason.Again use a proper cloud provider.The key to keeping AWS and Azure costs down is use all the tools that these cloud providers give you.If you dont use the tools and or apply best practices then you costs will go through the roof.
 
NoServersInTheCloud said:
Hey guys
Lately Ive been looking into a lot of server-related stuff for work. But it got me to realize, and ask the question, what good DC providers are there?

The ones I know of and have used are Xneelo (great but not a lot to offer product-wise) and HostAfrica.

Now Xneelo is pretty well priced in my opinion, but their hardware is a bit dated it seems. They also dont offer many cloud-related services like VPS's.

HostAfrica seems to have great pricing, but their support I can never get through to. The server pricing is also decent, and the VPS' are also well priced. But something just feels like it could be better?

I say this because when looking overseas at Hetzner itself (since Xneelo used to be Hetzner), Knownhost, Linode, Vultr, and and and and... there are a LOT of options, so they are super competitive. I mean you can get a 1vCPU 2GB RAM VPS with Hetzner for like R70. Whereas the cheapest in SA I can find (ignoring big cloud like AWS) is HostAfrica with 1vCPU and 1GB RAM for R100. I know things tend to be a bit more pricey here, but are there other options I'm missing?

Honestly, any chatter anyone wants to have is great, hoping some people might have some hidden gems they are willing to share :)
Click to expand...

remmember nothing is free in life.Cheap and Nasty go together for a reason.Again use a proper cloud provider.The key to keeping AWS and Azure costs down is use all the tools that these cloud providers give you.If you dont use the tools and or apply best practices then you costs will go through the roof.
 
Whats up with the cloud fan boys?
Agreed if you dont like your money go waste it, but if you're a small fish looking for good kit on a budget, AWS or Azure isn't it.

My list of options for you, people with their own decent setup:
1. Afrihost: Cloud, Dedicated, or Colo - Their own DCs (sorta)
2. Absolute Hosting: Cloud - Hosted with IS Soon to be Africa Data Centre, Samrand
3. Xneelo: Dedicated, Colo - Their own (beautiful) DC
4. Domains.co.za: Cloud - Teraco or something
5. Datakeepers: Cloud and Dedicated (apparently, no idea where)
6. IS/Ignite direct: Colo, maybe cloud, but they'll delete it by mistake.
7. Oracle/AWS/Azure all have their own POPs around here: Cloud.

Bang for buck, Domains.co.za is pretty great. Afrihost is okay, but their prices aren't as good as they once were, and MTN likes to reboot their main DC yearly. Absolute seem to be active around here and have good guys working for them, and good kit, but I've no experience. When they had issues here recently, they were active on MyBB, which gives them +999 internet points in my books.

I'm forgetting many, but those are top of mind.

(To clarify, AWS and big cloud is the way forward for many, and they have great offerings for big business looking for reliability and scale. But for the little guy, who is very focused on cost and maybe doesn't want to get a lovely bandwidth bill monthly, they're not the right answer. Unless you're already well versed in their ecosystem and know how to apply their best-practices and commit to their ecosystem.)
 
Last edited:
Depends when your needs are. Was looking for a Windows Server and Azure actually made sense, proper affordable. AWS for Linux builds.

Also have a server or 3 with AbsoluteHosting to POC small stuff and would definitely recommend them
 
Packet-Kollector said:
Whats up with the cloud fan boys?
Agreed if you dont like your money go waste it, but if you're a small fish looking for good kit on a budget, AWS or Azure isn't it.

My list of options for you, people with their own decent setup:
1. Afrihost: Cloud, Dedicated, or Colo - Their own DCs (sorta)
2. Absolute Hosting: Cloud - Hosted with IS
3. Xneelo: Dedicated, Colo - Their own (beautiful) DC
4. Domains.co.za: Cloud - Teraco or something
5. Datakeepers: Cloud and Dedicated (apparently, no idea where)
6. IS/Ignite direct: Colo, maybe cloud, but they'll delete it by mistake.
7. Oracle/AWS/Azure all have their own POPs around here: Cloud.

Bang for buck, Domains.co.za is pretty great. Afrihost is okay, but their prices aren't as good as they once were, and MTN likes to reboot their main DC yearly. Absolute seem to be active around here and have good guys working for them, and good kit, but I've no experience. When they had issues here recently, they were active on MyBB, which gives them +999 internet points in my books.

I'm forgetting many, but those are top of mind.

(To clarify, AWS and big cloud is the way forward for many, and they have great offerings for big business looking for reliability and scale. But for the little guy, who is very focused on cost and maybe doesn't want to get a lovely bandwidth bill monthly, they're not the right answer. Unless you're already well versed in their ecosystem and know how to apply their best-practices and commit to their ecosystem.)
Click to expand...
@Packet-Kollector, thanks for the mention, small update

4. Domains.co.za: Cloud - Teraco Isando or something
 
Packet-Kollector said:
Whats up with the cloud fan boys?
Agreed if you dont like your money go waste it, but if you're a small fish looking for good kit on a budget, AWS or Azure isn't it.

My list of options for you, people with their own decent setup:
1. Afrihost: Cloud, Dedicated, or Colo - Their own DCs (sorta)
2. Absolute Hosting: Cloud - Hosted with IS
3. Xneelo: Dedicated, Colo - Their own (beautiful) DC
4. Domains.co.za: Cloud - Teraco or something
5. Datakeepers: Cloud and Dedicated (apparently, no idea where)
6. IS/Ignite direct: Colo, maybe cloud, but they'll delete it by mistake.
7. Oracle/AWS/Azure all have their own POPs around here: Cloud.

Bang for buck, Domains.co.za is pretty great. Afrihost is okay, but their prices aren't as good as they once were, and MTN likes to reboot their main DC yearly. Absolute seem to be active around here and have good guys working for them, and good kit, but I've no experience. When they had issues here recently, they were active on MyBB, which gives them +999 internet points in my books.

I'm forgetting many, but those are top of mind.

(To clarify, AWS and big cloud is the way forward for many, and they have great offerings for big business looking for reliability and scale. But for the little guy, who is very focused on cost and maybe doesn't want to get a lovely bandwidth bill monthly, they're not the right answer. Unless you're already well versed in their ecosystem and know how to apply their best-practices and commit to their ecosystem.)
Click to expand...
I make use of AWS a decent amount for some of my private clients with mobile apps, and some other things. I like it, but if you arent using it as a fairly stable production environment that "just gets pushed to" I find it a huge pain in the ass.

Afrihost I had a horrible experience with that crossed them off my list for anything. A previous employer had some reseller hosting with them. At 8pm on a saturday the reseller servers apache crashed, causing it to go down. We called every single one of their phones they had listed, emailed, logged tickets, and went to social media. Only got rebooted the following day at like lunch time.

Who is IS? (You said Absolute Hosting uses IS Ive never heard of them?)
 
NoServersInTheCloud said:
I make use of AWS a decent amount for some of my private clients with mobile apps, and some other things. I like it, but if you arent using it as a fairly stable production environment that "just gets pushed to" I find it a huge pain in the ass.

Afrihost I had a horrible experience with that crossed them off my list for anything. A previous employer had some reseller hosting with them. At 8pm on a saturday the reseller servers apache crashed, causing it to go down. We called every single one of their phones they had listed, emailed, logged tickets, and went to social media. Only got rebooted the following day at like lunch time.

Who is IS? (You said Absolute Hosting uses IS Ive never heard of them?)
Click to expand...
Maybe refers to Internet Solutions, now Dimension Data?
 
Depending on your budget, AWS and Azure are the way to go. You need to really consider your data being retained in the event of a serious hardware failure (remember what happened with IS a couple of years ago with complete data loss for clients).
You can start small and grow. Either in the number of your VMs or even the sizes of the VMs. Support will be based on what you want too, and it's good. DR, if required, will be in a separate city.
 
Packet-Kollector said:
Whats up with the cloud fan boys?
Agreed if you dont like your money go waste it, but if you're a small fish looking for good kit on a budget, AWS or Azure isn't it.

My list of options for you, people with their own decent setup:
1. Afrihost: Cloud, Dedicated, or Colo - Their own DCs (sorta)
2. Absolute Hosting: Cloud - Hosted with IS
3. Xneelo: Dedicated, Colo - Their own (beautiful) DC
4. Domains.co.za: Cloud - Teraco or something
5. Datakeepers: Cloud and Dedicated (apparently, no idea where)
6. IS/Ignite direct: Colo, maybe cloud, but they'll delete it by mistake.
7. Oracle/AWS/Azure all have their own POPs around here: Cloud.

Bang for buck, Domains.co.za is pretty great. Afrihost is okay, but their prices aren't as good as they once were, and MTN likes to reboot their main DC yearly. Absolute seem to be active around here and have good guys working for them, and good kit, but I've no experience. When they had issues here recently, they were active on MyBB, which gives them +999 internet points in my books.

I'm forgetting many, but those are top of mind.

(To clarify, AWS and big cloud is the way forward for many, and they have great offerings for big business looking for reliability and scale. But for the little guy, who is very focused on cost and maybe doesn't want to get a lovely bandwidth bill monthly, they're not the right answer. Unless you're already well versed in their ecosystem and know how to apply their best-practices and commit to their ecosystem.)
Click to expand...
2. Absolute Hosting: Cloud - Currently Hosted with IS - Soon to be Africa Data Centre Samrand
 
Absolute Hosting is very good in my opinion.

re AWS, remember to set your billing limits. I've encountered a few people this year that were hit with an unexpected R30000 to R70000 bill.
 
Have a look at Oracle, They have a JHB Datacenter and offer VERY generous free tier to spin up your own servers especially if you can use ARM CPU's.

I use this quite a bit to spin up a server to either test something with but also have servers running products that I use on a daily basis:

 
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