Are there unlimited bandwidth dedicated servers in Chicago?
Yes, if by "unlimited bandwidth" you mean no restrictions on incoming and outgoing Internet traffic and no charges for data transfer used. Each dedicated server in Chicago comes with a certain virtual or physical capacity of the Internet connection port, chosen by the server user. It varies from 250 Mbps to 100 Gbps. There are no limitations or restrictions on the used bandwidth used or data transfer quotas, up to the capacity of the Internet connection port, selected by our clients.
Unless otherwise specified, all dedicated servers in Chicago offered by HostColor feature "unlimited bandwidth up to the capacity of the Internet connection port". This is also called "unmetered bandwidth", which is actually a more appropriate term to use.
"Unmetered Bandwidth" or "dedicated server with unmetered bandwidth" means that the hosting provider does not measure the bandwidth used by the server. In Chicago and most of its other Edge data center locations HostColor allows its customers to use the full capacity of the physical Internet bandwidth port of their dedicated servers.
Is my Chicago dedicated server safe from DDoS attacks?
Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks typically result in service unavailability and thousands of dollars in data transfer service fees, especially if you host your IT infrastructure with one of the major hyperscale cloud providers.
HostColor's DDoS-protected dedicated servers in Chicago minimize the risk of service unavailability and virtually eliminate the risk of you incurring data transfer costs as a result of artificial, bot-generated traffic to your server instances.
When you use our Chicago dedicated servers, your applications run behind sophisticated DDoS protection firewalls, maximizing application availability. Our natural, enterprise-grade, DDoS-protected networks safeguard your Dallas dedicated server from unexpected network downtime, preventing loss of business and revenue. Our DDoS-protected network services filter out malicious traffic and ensure that legitimate traffic requests reach your servers and applications. Specifically, our DDoS protection includes the following capabilities:
- Real-time mitigation of malicious attacks
- Human-generated traffic that reaches your Chicagro dedicated server
- Native protection against network attacks of any size
- No additional fees or charges for DoS and DDoS potected servers and infrastructure
- No fees for bot-generated and malicious traffic on all unmetered dedicated clouds and dedicated servers in Chicago
- No increased latency and long round-trip delays in application delivery in the event of a network attack
- All IPv4 and IPv6 settings are protected from DDoS attacks
Is my Chicago Edge Server protected against failure?
Yes! Each Edge server hosted in the 2101 Roberts Drive data center has four (4x) 25-gigabit network interfaces configured for redundancy on 2 separate NIC cards. All four interfaces are placed into a single link access group (LAG) and utilize LACP (Link Aggregation Control Protocol ) for individual link monitoring. Your Edge Dedicated Server is connected to two network switches with two (2x) 25-gigabit connection links to the first switch and two (2x) 25-gigabit to the second switch. Each network switch has multiple 100-gigabit fiber connections to the data center's network architecture that feature failover protection. The overall networking architecture sustains full data transfer capacity with the failure of any single networking appliance or link. The data transfer from the Edge data centers to either the public Internet or the MPLS IP VPN network is secured by two diverse routers for each network. The routers are connected to a pair of network switches. The data transfer can be forwarded through both routers and will switch over automatically upon failure of any networking device.
Can I have a dedicated cloud infrastructure in Chicago?
You can use your preferred cloud computing virtualization technology to create and deploy a dedicated cloud infrastructure on a single bare metal server or a cluster of servers. If you want to use two dedicated bare metal servers, they can be directly interconnected using 1GE, 10GE, 20GE or larger NIC cards. If you need HostColor's help to create a cloud computing architecture, we can help you design one, deploy it, and manage it as needed.
Edge bare-metal servers hosted at our Chicago's 2101 Roberts Drive data center can use the Ubuntu operating system with Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) virtualization technology in Ubuntu 20 (or Ubuntu 22) OS..
All other HC dedicated servers in Chicago can run Proxmox VE, VMware ESXi, Linux Containers, VirtualBox, OpenVZ, Microsoft Hyper-V, Kubernetes, Docker, or other virtualization platforms.
Is there technical support available for my Chicago server?
All HostColor dedicated servers in Chicago come with "Free Infrastructure Support". HostColor never charges you for access to infrastructure technical support. Unlike the large hyperscale clouds like AWS, Azure and others, that charge their customers for access to technical support for their bare-metal or cloud infrastructure.
Our infrastructure technical support covers everything related to network interfaces and the core functionality of the physical components of your Chicago bare-metal dedicated server such as CPU, RAM, and storage drives. With our free infrastructure support, you can save money and have access to the technical support you need for the core components and network functions of your Chicago server.
Please note that the "Free Infrastructure Support" does not include support for the operating system (OS), any custom configurations created and maintained by the customer, and the installed software applications.
In addition to the "Free Infrastructure Support" HostColor takes the dedicated hosting services it provides to a new level of reliability with its "Semi-Managed Dedicated Servers" support.
What does a Semi-Managed Dedicated Server mean?
While most dedicated hosting providers offer "Unmanaged" or "Managed" hosting services, HostColor does "Semi-Managed" and "Managed" Dedicated Servers.
"Unmanaged" means that the client is solely responsible for the management of the bare-metal dedicated server they have. The provider's responsibility is to make sure that the server network connection works properly and in case of a hardware failure, to fix the failed components, or to replace the whole physical server.
"Managed" means that the provider is responsible for managing the network, the physical server, the installed operating system, and the software environment. The provider does operating system updates, software updates, and other management and configuration tasks on the physical server. In other words unmanaged dedicated servers do not feature server-side support and therefore the clients pay for the base infrastructure service. The 'Managed Dedicated Servers' feature full server-side infrastructure, OS, and software environment support and therefore are more expensive, as the provider's experts commit time and work hours to deliver technical and system administration.
HostColor fills the gap by offering "Semi-Managed" Dedicated Servers in Chicago. "Semi-Managed" means that our administrators install your preferred OS on the physical server or your preferred virtualization platform to transform the physical server into a Cloud infrastructure. We create a custom technology environment per your requirements and keep on record a description with the 'base desired state' of your server in Chicago. As a part of the "Semi-Managed" support contract, HostColor reinstalls the server OS per the request and helps the client fix issues and troubleshoot in case of any operating system, networking, or software configuration issues. All "Semi-Managed" Chicago dedicated servers feature up to 30 minutes per month of technical and system administration. Any time spent by HC experts on managing the server OS, software environments, or troubleshooting will be charged at HostColor's standard managed service rates.
How does HostColor bill my Chicago Dedicated Server?
Once payment is made, the billing month for your Semi-Managed Chicago Dedicated Server starts from the moment we send you the login credentials. By default, all Chicago dedicated hosting services are set to month-to-month contracts to provide maximum flexibility.
You can choose between month-to-month, 3-month, 6-month, and annual contracts. If you opt for an annual contract, you will receive a lower monthly service fee. However, you will need to prepay the full contract (all 12 service fees). Please note that your Chicago Server on a month-to-month contract must be canceled properly and terminated before we stop billing you. The Chicago-based Edge servers, like other dedicated hosting services, require a 30-day cancellation notice. In some cases, we may allow early cancellations. To qualify for an early cancellation, you must submit a cancellation request from your Account 5 business days before the beginning of the new billing cycle.