My Datacenter Evicted Me

Summary

After its hosting provider proposed a roughly 40% increase to an already five-figure monthly bill, Linus Media Group began moving services from rented cloud infrastructure to its own hardware in a colocation facility: Cologix’s Van3 data center in Vancouver. The tour shows the initial rack build and explains the networking, redundancy, and remote-management choices behind it.

Colocation and infrastructure

The team rents a small amount of rack space while the facility provides redundant power, high-speed network access, and security—services that would be costly to build and operate independently.

A multi-blade server and additional nodes are being set up with XCP-ng to pool compute resources for virtual machines. One node is reserved for redundancy, while another will handle backups. The highlighted servers each have dual AMD CPUs and 1.5 TB of RAM.

Networking, redundancy, and remote access

Two 100Gb switches are installed as top-of-rack switches, though their routing limitations may lead to upgrades later. Separate color-coded power and network paths help distinguish connections. Dual power supplies and the facility’s separate power feeds are intended to keep equipment running if one side fails.

An out-of-band network is intended to let staff monitor and repair equipment even if the primary network fails. It uses a separate internet path, a UniFi Dream Machine Pro with WireGuard, and a planned 5G connection. The team also uses Cloudflare Zero Trust for mesh access.

Office connection and peering

Initially, the data center and office will connect by VPN. The longer-term plan is to rent a fiber wavelength for a direct Layer 2 link, starting at up to 10Gbps with the possibility of 100Gbps.

The team is also connecting to the local Vanex exchange to peer directly with network partners, including Cloudflare, rather than sending that traffic over the public internet.

Migration plans and capacity

The infrastructure is expected to support around 1,000 containers, databases, and other internal services currently hosted elsewhere. Moving to more powerful hosts, better drives, and 100Gbps server links—up from 25Gbps—could improve performance and leave room for growth.

Cologix monitors rack power use and incoming and outgoing temperatures, allowing it to adjust cooling to match demand.

Product mention

The sponsor segment features the Snapmaker U1, a multicolor 3D printer with four separate tool heads for different colors or materials. The ad says the heads can switch in about five seconds, avoiding shared-nozzle color purges and reducing wasted material. It also mentions Snapmaker Space as a source of printable projects.

Guide or review

This is a data-center setup walkthrough, not a formal product review or step-by-step tutorial. It explains the team’s infrastructure decisions and shows an initial installation, with further configuration and cleanup planned.

Main speakers and sources

• Linus Sebastian — host and interviewer.
• AJ and Dan — LMG technical staff explaining the installation and network design.
• Snapmaker sponsor segment — product information about the U1.