I'd also very strongly recommend checking out site on WebHostingTalk.com
- it's a hangout for industry insiders and those who do a lot of web
hosting.
Take it easy,
David Berube
Berube Consulting
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(603)-485-9622
http://www.berubeconsulting.com/
Python wrote:
You are already getting replies, but here's more.
On Wed, 2007-02-07 at 11:44 -0500, Ted Roche wrote:
A client with a database-backed LAMP application is considering
moving to a new hosting provider for their system. Surfing the web,
they find all of these $6.95/month deals and can't figure out why
anyone would pay more.
Try to find a phone number for those folks. Usually support is only
available through email. If the site is used to post pictures of the
grand-kids, that's probably good enough. If something goes wrong and
you want it fixed in hours, you probably need a phone number.
I know there are a number of folks on the list
who provide such services for themselves or their customers, and
would welcome feedback, from what questions should be asked to what
features we should be looking at. (I should explain "we" - I am the
developer of the app, and an adequate sysadmin, and will likely end
up installing, configuring and maintaining the system)
Back in my days of being an ISP, I neglected the web hosting side of the
business because I thought it was too hard to compete against the cheap
hosting outfits. That was a mistake. Your local ISP will provide
hosting at reasonable monthly rates ($20 - $50) and provide real
support. (A local ISP who is still in business succeeds because of the
support provided to customers.)
You need to realize that $7/month is not going to include much beyond
static web pages.
The main downsides to your relying on you local ISP is likely to be
somewhat limited bandwidth and limited backup power. The upside will be
having a vendor who actually values your business and who has the
expertise to help you succeed. MV would be a good place to start.
Bandwidth: minimal. The system is a custom query application used by
a small number of customers. Data is plain 'ol HTML with a few token
branding graphics.
Basic software requirements:
Linux
Apache 2.x
SSL
PHP 4.3 or better with the ability to add PEAR modules
MySQL 4.1.19 or later or 5.1
ssh/scp access, preferably on a non-standard port
rsync support
ability to add custom cron jobs
outgoing email, a few a day.
Storage: data is dinky, a couple of megabytes, HTML, CSS and .js
files a few hundred K
Reliability: of course, clients expect web presence to work like
dialtone: five 9's at no extra cost. A flaky ISP who blinks on and
off is obviously undesirable, but the client is not going to pay for
their own standby diesel generator, either. What's a realistic
expectation, and how closely is it tied to "you get what you pay
for?" In terms of mission-criticality, uptime is good, but going
black during a natural disaster is not a deal-breaker, as long as the
machine does a good shutdown and recovery.
Security: Client requires https communications, so a certificate is
mandatory. Only one httrps per IPaddress/port combination, so an ISP
would be charging extra for that, too.
The data is confidential business information, so there would be a
concern with sharing an instance of MySQL and Apache. What are
opinions of the current technologies of VMs and VPSes and UMLs?
So, what are folks doing, and why?
It sounds to me like data security could be a driving factor. I would
not use virtual-web-site based hosting to distribute data that *must* be
tightly controlled. In general, the virtual sites are publishing data
to the world and read-permission security is not critical. You don't
want to be the only web site on the server with top-secret data.
A virtual server gives you near total control of the system. You should
be able to configure any necessary security controls. If you are more
paranoid, you would get your own dedicated hardware. I'm using
tummy.com for my production virtual-server.
Ted Roche
Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
http://www.tedroche.com
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