[floren]

Hot spares and remote hands will get you a lot.

And when you get down to it, AWS isn't actually that reliable. I thought EBS volumes had magic redundancy foo but it turns out they can fail and they fail in a less obvious way than a regular disk. AWS networking is constantly bouncing and the virtual network adapters just sometimes stop working. They're also runnung old CPUs.

Depending on your workload you may be able pay off your new hardware with just a couple months' savings.

[dilyevsky]

This. With AFRs as they are today and warranty options and remote hands it’s hardly as bad as most people seem to think especially if their past recollection of working with colocation is from 20 years ago

[Axsuul]

Got any recommended providers?

[dilyevsky]

Equinix and Digital Realty are gold standard especially if you need comprehensive remote hands but $$$. CoreSite is also good and cheaper if you're in the US.