Some servers do not belong in a closet, and not every workload belongs in the public cloud. For the systems in between, we operate a secure data center in the Minneapolis area where your servers can live under proper power, cooling and monitoring, with the same local team that supports the rest of your technology. We offer colocation for equipment you own, dedicated servers we provide, and private cloud capacity for businesses that want out of the hardware business altogether, all a short drive from your office. If you are still deciding which workloads need a server at all, our guide to moving a server to the cloud sorts them one by one.
A server in a Twin Cities data center gets three things an office closet cannot give it: power that does not fail when the building’s does, cooling that is designed rather than improvised, and someone watching it around the clock. It also gets something a data center three states away cannot give it: engineers who can walk to the rack. When a drive fails or a controller needs a firmware update, a local team swaps the part the same day instead of opening a ticket with a remote-hands queue.
Hosting locally also keeps latency low for the office, keeps data inside Minnesota for clients who care where it sits, and lets your own staff visit the equipment when they want to. For most small and mid-sized businesses running steady workloads, an accounting system, a line-of-business database, a file server, a legacy application, it is also considerably cheaper than the equivalent public-cloud bill, and far more predictable.
Colocation. Bring your own servers, storage and network gear and we rack, power, connect and monitor them. From a single server to a full cabinet, with room to grow as you add equipment.
Dedicated servers. If you would rather not own hardware, we provide the server, keep it under warranty and replace it on a schedule, so you get a physical machine of your own without the capital cost.
Private cloud. Virtual servers on infrastructure we run, for businesses that want the flexibility of the cloud with a known location, a known price and a phone number that reaches an engineer. See our cloud support services for the wider picture.
Hybrid. Many clients keep a database or legacy application with us, run email and files in Microsoft 365, and use public cloud for what suits it. We design and support the whole arrangement, including the connections between the pieces.
Our data center runs on redundant power with UPS and generator backup, so a utility outage never reaches your equipment. Cooling is N+1, meaning a failed unit is covered by a spare rather than a rising temperature. Systems are monitored 24 hours a day, and our engineers are paged when something needs attention, usually before it becomes a problem you would notice.
OAC Technology is audited every year under SOC 2, which covers how we control access to client systems, including the ones that live in our facility. If your customers or insurers ask how your servers are protected, the answer is documented and independently checked.
Hosting is only half of the service. Under a managed plan, the same team that runs our help desk keeps your hosted servers patched, backed up and monitored, and handles the routine work: reboots, disk swaps, memory upgrades, cable moves, console access when a system will not answer. Because the equipment is in our building, “remote hands” means our hands, in minutes, not a request in someone else’s queue. Our server support page covers what ongoing server management includes.
Whether you are leaving a closet, another facility or a provider that is closing its hosting business, a move is mostly planning. We inventory the hardware, IP assignments, DNS records and dependencies; reserve your space; lower DNS time-to-live values ahead of time; verify that backups are complete and restorable before anything is unplugged; transport the equipment; then rack, power, test every service and switch DNS at a quiet hour. The first business day is watched closely, and the old service is closed out cleanly. Our engineers have relocated businesses from other facilities many times, and the details that make or break a move, IP renumbering, cutover timing, transport logistics, testing before go-live, are the details we plan first.
If you are one of the businesses affected by the end of US Internet’s hosting, our guide to alternatives to US Internet for server hosting walks through the decision, and we offer a free migration assessment.
A hosted server is still a server, and it still needs a backup that lives somewhere else. Every hosted system can be backed up to a separate location on a daily schedule, with restores tested rather than assumed, and a recovery plan that says how quickly each system comes back and in what order. See our cloud backups and business continuity planning pages, and use the backup pricing calculator for a monthly figure.
The hyperscale clouds are excellent at workloads that change shape: seasonal peaks, new products, global reach. They are expensive at workloads that do not, and their bills are notoriously hard to predict once bandwidth and storage egress are counted. A server that runs the same accounting system every day at the same load is usually cheaper on dedicated hardware in a regional data center, sometimes dramatically so. Our advice is to put each workload where it fits: steady, latency-sensitive or licence-bound systems here; elastic and global ones in the public cloud; email and files in Microsoft 365. We support all three and will tell you plainly which is which. See our cloud migration services when a move in either direction is on the table.
Colocation is priced by the space and power your equipment uses, from a single rack unit to a full cabinet, on a flat monthly rate with bandwidth and monitoring included. Dedicated and private cloud servers are priced per server. Every quote follows a short assessment of what you have and what it needs, and we recommend hardware without commission. Ask for a quote or a free migration assessment, and see how the rest of our managed IT services are priced.
We host servers for accounting firms, manufacturers, contractors, clinics, software companies and nonprofits across Minneapolis, St. Paul and the surrounding suburbs, and support the offices that connect to them. OAC Technology has supported Twin Cities businesses since 2000 and is audited every year under SOC 2.
In the Minneapolis area, at our own facility in New Hope, a short drive from most Twin Cities offices. Clients can visit their equipment by arrangement.
Yes. Colocation is for equipment you own, from one server to a full cabinet. If you would rather not own hardware, we provide dedicated servers or private cloud capacity instead.
Monitoring pages our engineers, who are on call around the clock and can be at the rack in minutes. Under a managed plan the fix, the part and the restore from backup are all handled by us.
Yes. We plan and carry out the migration: inventory, IP and DNS changes, transport, testing and cutover at a quiet hour. Businesses leaving US Internet’s hosting can ask for a free migration assessment.
Yes, and most clients do. A database or legacy application stays with us, email and files run in Microsoft 365, and elastic workloads use AWS or Azure. We support and connect the whole arrangement.
Hosting is priced separately, by the space and power your equipment uses or per server. The management of the hosted servers, patching, monitoring and backups, is part of a managed plan or can be quoted on its own.
If your server room is running out of power, your hosting provider is closing, or your cloud bill has stopped making sense, call 952-548-5558 or contact us for a free assessment. We will look at what you run, tell you plainly where each system belongs, and quote a flat monthly rate.
