Some questions

[Spartanfrog]

I would like to start a GSP some time. No where close to now though, because I am still learning the ins and outs of srcds and I am no where close to finishing. I just had a few questions for people who own a gsp. Would you recommend starting out renting a server or buying and colocating. I know a great place for renting exept the port speed highly limits it. So does anyone know of a cheap place to rent? Anyone know a good place for webhosting? If it is better to buy a server is there a certain brand thats good? I have been looking at dell servers and they impress me but I would want to make sure Im getting the best brand. Finally, what control panel would you use? TCadmin seems great exept Linux is cheaper then windows servers and TCadmin is only in beta stage for linux. I am testing a beta control panel right now but i just want to get a feel on how people run GSPs? Thanks for answering my questions.
-Spartanfrog

[skeletor]

I don't run a gsp now, but I used to have a small one. and I currently work for one. We run all of our own servers, but we didn't start out like that.

If I was going to do it right though I would buy and co-locate. If nothing else then if the business flops you can sell the servers and make some money back. I personally would build the servers over buy. Some good 1 or 2u cases with top notch equipment. I think the servers we run ours on cost about 3 grand a piece.

All our game servers run on windows 2k3, we use tcadmin.

Really a lot depends on how much you want to throw down initially. You could save some money and rent servers, but you have to know this will raise the overhead so less revenue. Which makes it harder to grow. If you do decide to rent. may i throw a little plug out there, the company i work for now will rent out dedicated boxes. I don't know if they are the cheapest out there, but I know they are good quality.

http://www.darkstarllc.com/services/other/dedicated-servers/ Personally if you could afford it, co-locating is the way to go.

[Spartanfrog]

Thanks Skeletor. I was looking on newegg today and I was thinking definitly i should (if i dont rent) build my own server. Im not sure if intel or amd. Amd is very overclockable but their L2 caches are very small I think. Intel is more expensive but i think may be better for srcds. Do you have any suggestions? Tcadmin seems cool and im testing a pretty nice control panel that is also for windows. Also there is a great data center located 30 mins from my home so Im looking into that. Thanks skeletor.

[skeletor]

All our servers are intel, either core2duo or xeon quads. I wouldn't overclock a server.. ever. Theres a huge debate between intel and amd, but i know intel has never let me down.

If there is a datacenter close then thats the way to go. Because regardless if something is wrong with your servers, worse case scenario you run out their yourself. At least until you grow enough to have on-site techs

[Spartanfrog]

Yeah lol. Thanks for helping the possible but small upcoming compitetion . So you guys do you TCadmin? Can you recommend a billing system? Like modernbill or anyones built into TCAdmin?

[skeletor]

heh we actually use modern bill. it works out pretty nicely. tcadmin will actually integrate directly with modernbill, but we haven't done that. because we started with just ventrilo and webhosting and took on game servers later. and they say that when you integrate it together something about how you could lose the customer database. and when we already have 30000+ customers that just isn't an option. I don't know the details as I don't work on that end. Either way though it would be a pretty sweet setup. We also use clientexec, but thats more for our sister company ubiquity.

As for helping competition. I suppose I am not supposed to give out the company secrets, but really all I have said you could find out on our site. Other then that its all pretty simple and just common sense.

[Spartanfrog]

Thank you for helping .

[Spartanfrog]

Hey two quick questions,
How many slots can a Opteron CPU run?
Also what are the legal aspects of running a gsp? Like do you have to get Valve's permission to use "Counter-Strike: Source" and other games? Also do you need their permission for using pictures of those games? Thanks.

[Drocona]

1. There are many opterons, which one?
2. You don't need permission as far as I know as long as you keep the copyright to valve

[Spartanfrog]

1. uhh i meant like one core, 2.00 Ghz processor. I just need to know to compare slots/power compared to Xeon.
2. Like you mean that the bottom of the page have "the C thing" and "Valve"?

[Drocona]

Well on average it would hold 40 slots, but I never used AMD myself so I can't be real precise here.

Yeah that's exactly what I mean, like "All pictures/Logo's related to Counter-Strike: Source, DoD:S and HL2 are copyright/trademarks of VALVe. The rest Copyright © <yourname>"

Something like that, we have it on the main website too.

[Spartanfrog]

Ok thanks.