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Advice please...too many to decide.
| Posted by gracehost, 03-25-2007, 10:35 AM |
| Hi, I have been spending this past month researching web hosting/resellers and reading pages upon pages I have spent time on some resellers forums and carefully read the plans as best I can. There is a bit of a story to tell before I ask my question(s) and I hope you can stay with me
please
Rochen forums have been very helpful and HTTPme going above and beyond, both have impressed me. I used Siteground for my Joomla set-up to test them and they have been fine, though I found their hiding the feature of sending a ticked under piles of FAQ was a bit annoying. The Siteground way of resellers accounts though was unusual. I came across Zoom-Resellers a few days ago and the Live online help/video tutorials and the location of UK and USA based servers looked close to what I was after but then I read a few negative comments in the forum and Im not sure. Though I have no doubt that even the best (probably all) resellers have blips time for me
Now to my question on who I should go for and some of the front burner issues that I think they need to have for me (IMHO anyhow) But first some important preliminaries that might help inform your choices and help for me.
I have been involved in UK/USA charity work over the past 10 years and have built up many friends in Internet /ministries. I have a base now of approximately 20 friends/clients for hosting immediately. All though nothing is particular it would be reasonable on my research to have a client base in to the early 100s within a 12-18 month period. Part of the reason for this will be that a substantial percentage of all hosting fees (15-25%?) will be used to build Baby Homes/orphanages in Thailand. M wife and I have already funded and built one Baby Home/orphanage in Northern Thailand last year for between 20-40 children. We also adopted our son (he is a wonderful little bundle of joy) from Thailand 4 years ago so this is a personally driven life mission for us. But nevertheless our hosting site will be, God willing, run in a very professional way, with quality product and an integrity driven and customer satisfaction ethos. I took time to tell a little of my story/reason above as these values impact our needs. Because in a sense we will have a niche charity (thought of course open to everyone) area of service, some clients/friends will come for the hosting and service but also to help in the orphanage endeavor. This adds a weighty responsibility on us to treat and reward all with an excellent service. We dont want to gain clients because of our building charity work to the determent of providing solid value for money.
What I think I need from a reseller (but all advice appreciated!!)
Average client usage (over 3 different hosting plans) 1GB Space/10GB Traffic (what do you think, see my question below on this)
Enough space etc initially to cover 20 clients @ the above usage.
MS and Unix hosting
E-commerce enabled
User friendly admin for users (cpanel etc?
No overselling. I dont want to store up trouble for myself or clients in the future.
Live online help in UK and USA directly supplied by reseller so clients in different time zones can be covered.
Quality visual tutorials
Quality video tutorials
Free website builder
Personalized Name Servers and Privately branded for a professional look.
Ticket system to complement FAQ
Reseller that can provide for both UK and USA selling (since my networking contacts come for both)
There is much more that virtually all the resellers provide like mysql, free script like Joomla, php forums etc but the quality customer care and reliable up time on both the MS and Unix is paramount.
Also I need advice on sizing my plans so Im not looking as if I am offering huge space/traffic that in reality will never be used. I want to be transparent and realistic. For instance Siteground web hosting offer 40,000MB space and 900 GB traffic at 4.99 per month this sounds way too generous to be realistic
..is this a fair comment by me or have I misunderstood something?
Ultimately I realize if I want to provide a quality service, I know I need to pay for that same service to me, so price while important would definitely not be the sole decider.
Hey
this is way toooooooooooooo long and for all who had bravely made it to here
..thank you!!
I look forward to learning and being corrected by you all.
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| Posted by okihost, 03-25-2007, 10:43 AM |
| Sounds like you have really done some work as to figuring out exactly what you want an need. What I would suggest doing next is make a short list of potential hosts and then contact each of them and see what type of response you get from them, then communicate back and forth with them a few times to get an idea of how they run.
I would also do a search of the hosts here on WHT and on the net, chances are there are quite a few people who have used your potential hosts and you can get some feedback on them to see what type of feedback people are leaving. You also have to remember all hosts have 'issues' now and then, it is just part of the business. Hardware dies, telco lines go down and other acts of God can create all kinds of mayhem on web hosts, the important thing is to try and find out how they handle there situations. Do they come out and keep good communications with customers during a crisis or do they hide until the issue is resolved before telling anyone what is going on.
As hosting providers both on our level and at the reseller level we are providing a service for our customers, you need to do the best you can to make sure your provider (regardless of what 'level' of hosting you provide) is going to be there when something goes wrong.
Best of luck
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| Posted by rv_irl, 03-25-2007, 12:00 PM |
| It seems you want an all-in-one solution. Not many providers out there that can provide an all-in-one solution, but there are some that can give you a good bulk of what you need..
I recommend however that you take a more hands on approach as well.. A great way to learn and evolve your knowledge..
Do you have a monthly budget?
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| Posted by Jedito, 03-25-2007, 12:39 PM |
| Do you need both?
If yes, then, your list is going to be shorter, search for hosts offering Hsphere and both OS (not all the hosts offering Hsphere do offer Linux and MS).
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| Posted by gracehost, 03-25-2007, 03:13 PM |
| Advice well taken. It is more out of fear of letting my clients down with support issues that I want to cover the 24/7 and live online support side of things. But stealthdevil I really am interesting and like in the whole hostings world and will be actively learning and getting my hands dirty with a hands on approcah as much as these 1.5 brain cells can handle:-)
Budget wise: At this early stage I'm thinking of between $40/70 per month and then growing in $ and space/traffic as needed.
Jedito, you saiid:
Do you need both?
If yes, then, your list is going to be shorter, search for hosts offering Hsphere and both OS (not all the hosts offering Hsphere do offer Linux and MS).
Mmmmh good question Jedito and I don't have a good answer other than the 5 charities websites I worked with with in the UK were all built in ASP and so on MS hosting. So I thought it perhaps wise to give the options, but maybe I'm just wrong here and should stick to the Unix.....what do you all think?
On a more general point as I've trawled the hosting links today online I came across a Indonesia reseller giving exactly the details verbatim UK reselling included as ZoomResellers just more expensive!! How do you make sure that a reseller is not just piggybacking on another reseller. What I mean is how do you get back to source the hosting guys who actually own the space/traffic on a actual server.
There is a new data centre opened in the UK since 2005/6 called Bluesquare data-center in England this is who Zoom use in the UK. I guess as I will be so small to begin with its not even worth thinking about buying space directly there myself? Just a "throw it out there" type of question:-)
Anyhow thanks all for helping me to think more clearly and narrow my focus.
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| Posted by Jedito, 03-25-2007, 03:29 PM |
| Maybe you can narrow your search for one of those? I mean, for linux OR MS, if you don't need ASP, then, probably Linux is your best option (PHP run far more stable in Apache and also, stability in linux server is better than in Windows (BTW, for those who offer MS Hosting, I don't want to enter in a debate about each OS stability if you disagree with me)
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| Posted by IHSL, 03-25-2007, 03:50 PM |
| That's wrong. I know you said you don't want a debate, but that's a cop-out after making a supposed statement of fact. Don't make blanket statements you can't back up.
gracehost: If you or your customers are comfortable and familiar with a Windows Server environment, and code in ASP, then stick with that. There's no need to change, especially from a stability standpoint. Both Linux and Windows can be stable and secure. The difference between the two is how providers manage them. Windows and Linux can be unstable and insecure in the hands of the wrong company. Then again, so can a frisbee
Simon
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| Posted by Jedito, 03-25-2007, 11:38 PM |
| You're right Simon, so, I will make my last comment about that (because I don't want to turn this thread in a discussion Windows Vs. Unix based OS.
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html
Just take a look to the TOP 5 there, all them run FreeBSD, then, on the TOP 10 only 1 run Windows, and 2 on the TOP 20.
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| Posted by ldcdc, 03-26-2007, 04:30 AM |
| That might have a bit to do with Windows' popularity for servers. Fewer boxes running it, fewer chances of a strong representation in that "top". It can also be a sign of a (relative) lack of talented admins. If some managed to get a high ranking, then high uptime levels are certainly doable.
Sounds like a (clever) technique to increase the chances of customers checking the FAQs prior to opening a ticket. It helps to minimise their prices, which given their target market, is indeed a must.
Some HSphere providers are on this page http://www.psoft.net/resellers.php, but it's not exhaustive. Doing proper research on all providers you're considering, is of the utmost importance.
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| Posted by Jedito, 03-26-2007, 04:37 AM |
| Can't backup what I'm going to say now (because I'm too lazy to search), but a few months ago I read that there are more webservers running Windows than Unix Based OS at this moment
However, yes, it could be a lot more of factors, like the fact that you have to reboot windows almost every time that you do an software upgrade or install a driver.
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| Posted by ldcdc, 03-27-2007, 05:49 AM |
| http://news.netcraft.com/archives/we...er_survey.html seems to disagree (if we assume that only a small minority of Microsoft servers use Apache).
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| Posted by Jedito, 03-27-2007, 06:10 AM |
| You're right, I read it but never checked if that information were true.
Still, although Windows is used on the 30% only is represented on the 10% of the 20 top uptimes.
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| Posted by soflo, 03-28-2007, 09:12 PM |
| Back on topic, this method has always work well for me when down to the wire.
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