Yo, hello! I've got a long info session below on server hosting.
Mathias Stearn wrote:
My general advice is that unless you have a VERY good reason to host
it your self, don't. If you are trying to make files available to
other people you have a whole host(pun intended) of issues to worry
about. Also a lot of ISPs place a limit on outbound traffic and
discourage you from from running your own servers. for a nominal fee
you can get professionally hosted webspace and not have to worry about
any of this.
Your own DSL, cable or campus connection is not the right way to host a
webserver, for anyone or any purpose. The internet is a web, but as the
consumer horde we are the outter reaches of that web- a fact
necessitated by our sheer numbers. We reside at the outter edges of
that web. Actual hosting providers remain close to the core of the
internet and provide responsive quick service.
After having ran my webserver off high grade DSL for a number of years,
I'm swithcing to a real webserve myself. I'm heavily considering using
Linode or Unixshell.
These systems provide what I presume to be known as Virtual Provider
Servers, or, factually merely VPS systems. They use server
virtualization technologies to allow many people to all share a single
system, while giving each person the impression that they have root
access to their very own linux system. There's three different
technologies used, Virtuozzo, UML and Xen. Virtuozzo is proprietary
software which runs one kernel, subdivides the system and performs other
hackery to make each user think they own the system. UML and Xen
actually run multiple kernels on the system. UML just runs each copy
inside of a central linux system-- costly since everything has to go
through the core kernel, whereas Xen allows each kernel free romp within
its memory segments-- aka almost no overhead. The effect is the same
for all three, everyone thinks they have their own system even though
there are a number of linux/bsd installations all sharing the same box.
So big hosts buy powerful computers and dump a bunch of users onto it.
Everyone gets their equal share of the machine, than any leftofers are
divided up in like. Odds are almost everyone is barely using the CPU so
you basically get some big iron to play around on for pennies on the
dollar. Plenty of bandwidth is included on very large pipes.
A lot of it depends on who you go with. Some people stuff 50 people on
a dualie with way underpowered I/o and everyone dies because the disc
access is locked up. Xen addresses this horrible problem immensely by
quota'ing I/o operations as well (whereas people with 2% system
allocation can shut down the whole box on Virtuozzo or UML by axing the
hard disc), but if there's too many people on a box, there's just too
many people. Whether you suffer death by not having enough internet
connection, disk io or cpu, its still death.
Unixshell has some hot shit. They're running Xen, its definately the
fastest of the three technologies, on dual opteron systems. Their plans
offer amazing monthly bandwidth limits, more than you could ever use.
"The 192" plan is amazing, definately the best buy. Its seconded
closely by "The 96" plan. The other's arent as good of a deal, but
they're still better than almost eveyrone elses deals. Plans start at
$8/mo, which is more than sufficient if you're just hosting static web
content. Unixshell has reportedly fantastic performance. However their
tech support is pretty minimal, and they do sometimes suffer down times,
announced and unannounced. The big limiting factor with them as with
most people is how much ram you are allocated. Trying to run java
enterprise apps will get a little hairy with 192 mb ram.
If you want your own high performance linux system for the internet, go
VPS or go colocated.
Matt
