Hi yan, I would be inclined to keep-away from ISPs who do not have good and *extensively* proven experience with JSP and only go with those who are specifically recommended to you for JSP. I fell-out with a UK-based ISP (servers hosted in the US/Canada) in the last 6 months after failure-after-failure with Tomcat - although they apparently supported tomcat. They felt I was being "unreasonable" if I complained that TC was down frequently as they claimed their servers were still "up" and serving static content - so this was fine in their mind - the simple website in question was finally offline for at least 2 weeks.
We were being blamed for apparent errors in the pages although the website had not been changed and had worked flawlessly for 3 months prior to this outtage ... and also worked without changes on a fresh download of Tomcat and on every configuration of ours: Windows and Debian Linux with IBM, BEA and Sun's JDKs 1.3-1.4 and under a JSM and without a JSM! We did attempt to get a refund as we'd paid for 12 months hosting in advance - but they refused and unless we wanted to get legal they would not pay up - in the end we transferred to another ISP (easy to do as our DNS is located elsewhere and enabled us to do this). A *costly* lesson. The lessons we learned are: 1) Always keep control of DNS records - and allows easily and quickly moving from a poorly-performing ISP. Ours are with "register.com" - not cheap but their DNS appears to be very solid and all DNS can be configured online and DNS costs are included in the domain registration costs. There are plenty of other options for other DNS providers, though. 2) Never go with an ISP for technologies they "seem" to support - only ever go with a technology from an ISP if they specialise in this and really know what they're doing. Recommendations seem to be the key, here - recommendations for kgbinternet seem to crop-up a lot - I haven't personally read a bad word about them yet. 3) For JSP specifically - always consider what _could_ go wrong with hosting and what implications sharing with other sites could have. For instance a private JVM is a really good idea - from a security, performance and reliability viewpoint. Also, consider what effect other services running on the same server could have - for instance we lost tomcat once as, unknown to us - the server was also being used for users just playing about with tomcat - another user had deleted their "jserv" directory and this caused tomcat to fail to start - taking our site with it. We also had problems wanting to change some settings for the JSM - in order to run Struts/Tiles - this was finally done - but grudgingly only by the above ISP. 4) Consider what version of Tomcat (or other container) you'd like to be running and ask whether this is the version they run and how proactive are they at installing security updates and fixes. When we first investigated the version running with our ISP it was Tomcat 3.2 beta 4(!) - even though 3.3a Final and 4.1.x was also suitable for production. From the Tomcat bug database there appeared to be some very serious security problems with the version they were running: source disclosure, web.xml disclosure etc.! Our Choice ********** After trying 4 different shared hosting providers we now use http://www.memset.com/ - who supply a very competitively-priced complete virtual Linux server - with unlimited bandwidth and full root access and control panel to remotely reboot the server, if necessary. There are more options here: http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/uses.html and http://usermodelinux.org/modules.php?name=News&file=categories&op=newindex&c atid=12 The option we have provides Debian (they also do RH) Linux, 2 IP Addresses, shared but unlimited 1.5Mbps connection. Ok, admittedly the downside is that if you're not familiar with Linux then you may have a stiff learning curve - but they have excellent and very helpful tech support staff and if you're running Debian "apt-get install tomcat" gets you a fully-running Tomcat 3.x installation - JVM, JSM (Java Security Manager enabled) all correctly setup! The real advantage is that this allows hosting of multiple domains; full root access; ability to host email if you need it; ability to choose JVM; ability to run apache to front tomcat if you want; ability to run own SSL-enabled service if needed; basically pretty much anything that you can figure-out how to do it! The obvious real downside is that with power comes responsibility and the responsibility is with you to ensure you don't leave the server wide-open to attack; leave an open mail relay; leave a host that can be commandeered in an attack etc. etc. But starting with modest objectives and building from there can get you the service you need without great cost and with full control - and if you're unsure there are plenty of resources from where help can be sought. Hope the above helps, Hue. > -----Original Message----- > From: yan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 08 August 2003 00:21 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Apache Tomcat web servers > > > Hi, > > I am trying to find a Web host for my JSP applications, but I am > finding it very difficult locating a suitable host. > > Anyone know of any good Web hosting vendors who support MySQl, > Apache server and the Apache Tomcat servlet container? I prefer > a UK based host as this is where I reside. > > I have had a response to an enquiry from a hosting company called > 'Houxou '. This is what they have replied: > > "Assuming Tomcat is "well-behaved", I would have no problem > running on our servers, but would need to investigate how happy > it is to co-exist with two competitors on the same machine: > > Apache server pages; and > Sun's Chilisoft ASP" > > I am not sure what they mean > > Any advice would be gratefully received > > yan > > KickStartESolutions - Intelligent Web Services > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > --- > Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.507 / Virus Database: 304 - Release Date: 04/08/2003 > --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). 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