What do you look for in a Hosting Company?
I currently act as a "make-shift" Hosting Company for people that require special needs. For instance, I have 3 customers that only need around 100mb storage but require 250gb/month traffic. I found that setup rather hard to find, so I offered it to them.
I'm researching starting a full Hosting Company and I would just like some input on what you would either like to see or what your specific needs would be. I would like to setup about 6-8 sample plans, along with the option of fully customized plans as I offer now.
Thanks!
Brad Arnold
andy206uk posted this at 17:08 — 5th February 2004.
He has: 1,758 posts
Joined: Jul 2002
In all honesty, I want a hosting company that has technical support that you don't have to wait hours for. 24 hour access to some kind of status message so I know of any problems, and they must be an established company so I can be sure they won't go bust tomorrow.
Andy
Lunch-box posted this at 13:57 — 6th February 2004.
He has: 34 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
I'm actually looking for the beginner webmaster market, so to speak. 24/7 support is still being planned (this hosting company is only an idea at the moment). It will be available if we start the company though.
I agree with you 100% on looking for an established company, since I look for that myself. However we won't be established, being brand new of course, thus one of the reasons we will probably only offer month to month contracts, not yearly.
One service we will have available is Fully Managed Off-Site Backups. We are looking at selling the service around $2 per gigabyte or so. The service offers daily off-site backups to two seperate locations. What system to use to activate a restore is still on the design board.
Sound like a usefull service?
Brad Arnold
druagord posted this at 14:35 — 6th February 2004.
He has: 335 posts
Joined: May 2003
Here are some good service easy to managed and usefull to many. Some where already mentioned.
-slave DNS
-offsite backup
-mirrors
those are small for the paranoid service but i have notice that to get this and hosting from a single provider cost a lot since they include a lot (like ups, line redoundancy). if someone could supply a solution that would help webmasters to stay up without the enormous price tag i'm sure a lot would be interrested.
IF , ELSE , WHILE isn't that what life is all about
andy206uk posted this at 14:40 — 6th February 2004.
He has: 1,758 posts
Joined: Jul 2002
In all honesty, i don't think I would ever require a backup service. As a webdesigner I make local backups regually and rarely work live on the server (and I always keep a copy local just in case). So for me to require a service like that, your data would need to be wiped out within a few hours of mine. I think the only thing that would be able to do that, would be a world wide EMP blast and somehow I think after that, restoring a few websites would be bottom of my priority list
The only people that I could see benefiting from that would be people that run data driven websites, however its common sense to keep your own backups. I'm sure it would be useful for some daft people though, that don't make their own backups.
Personally I don't think I would ever trust another company 100% to manage backups for me... Afterall... how could I be completly sure that they are really doing it? I'd always ensure I had my own backups as well.
Andy
teammatt3 posted this at 23:53 — 6th February 2004.
He has: 2,102 posts
Joined: Sep 2003
I like webhosts that are simple to use, that offer some type of cpanel, and have good support
Lunch-box posted this at 13:33 — 7th February 2004.
He has: 34 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
This is what we are looking at right now:
cPanel/WHM
Off-Site Backup Service
Mail Server Administration by the Customer
Support Ticket System
Live Support via Online Chat
Website Stats (Free)
Dedicated IP Available
Plans ranging from $2.50 to $15.00 per month, and fully custom plans
We are looking into a feasable way to offer 24/7 phone support from the start, and the Fantastico system, giving customers many pre-installed options from within cPanel. Also on the list is file hosting, such as game server redirects and download mirrors.
Hopefully all this will be coming together by March 1st.
Brad Arnold
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