looking for host advice (no host people)

[Alphawolf]

Originally posted by whitey
Alpha:

National-net, which GG mentioned is excellent for mission critical stuff. One of the highest service providers around.

But I am curious as to why you would run a window server for free site service (just curious as you usually need more server power, and cost, to accomplish many of the thing unix boxes will do). Maybe you can substitute or do without some of those .NET apps? Just a thought.

I did consider it early on...but no- cannot move away from the platform. I use Storefront 6 for Ecommerce and a superb classic ASP forum that is slowly becoming .NET. There is now a superb photo gallery feature which will just get better over time. All pics are dynamically resized as I upload for thumbs and slideshow viewing. Many features abound and it has excellent support.

Those xxxadulthost prices seem damn good which is important for a free site. It appears that they are a colocated provider with above.net as their primary connectivity (above.net is good). The servers are in NY and have good ping times from both the westcoast and Europe...

Yeah.

Really...I just won't know the needs of the site until it launches. Instinct tells me to go with that second plan so I don't need to worry too much. To make up for LL lag time I'll be initiating an Overture and AdWords campaign as smartly as I can.

The goal is to get some branding out there and feedback from my user base as it establishes itself. I'll essentially allow the users to pick the content until I can go with custom shoots.

Since users can comment on and rate individual pictures...I will have a clear idea of what people want in a very specific manner.

As the user base grows and provides feedback I should get any kinks worked out...while it is free. Hopefully I pick good sponsors and get some cash coming in by 2nd month. By end of month 3 I should have a good idea whether I can transition to a paid side of my site. Perhaps, it will be better to leave as a free site after all I read...but at least I'll know for sure by that time. No guessing involved.

Also keep in mind that their prices on dedicated appear to be unmanaged as they only mention server monitoring on their site (those prices are compatible with a wide variety of unmanaged providers). If you feel comfortable with sever and dns admin, you may also want to check out servermatrix.com. We are colocated at their facility - thePlanet - and that facility has some of the most premier bw providers around coming into it. The ping times to Europe will beat most East Coast dcs and to Asia most west coast dcs.

Thanks...I did have servermatix in my fav's. I like their $199 Server - SuperRAID plan.

I'll most likely have SQL Server on another host that is on the west coast and an all Windows 2003 network.

I sorta lean toward xxxadulthost and webair initially because I can be there in a few minutes to 'make things happen'.

Also, if you go unmanaged, make certain that you are familiar with the webserver management routines or there is a WHM interface such as Windows Server or cpanel for unix - I don't see these things mentioned in the xxxadulthost.com materials.

Yep- I have a little check list I'm making. Back in the day...I was NT4, Networking Essentials and Win95 certified. Had a fair amount of hands-on experience, but have forgotten most of the basics.


Actually looking forward on bringing those skills up to snuff.

I have kick ass server hardware and a well tweaked environment on the mind. East Coast, West Coast, Asia and perhaps the U.K. on a DNS Managed system with SQL Clustering.

But...one baby step at a time as it can just plain fail.

We have unix and apache skills on staff (allowing us to operate a shell server) so we may give xxxadulthost.com a try as the prices for a 3.75 Mbs line are good and we have a new project coming up.

Have a time frame on that? Would be nice to chat with someone who has been with them. It'll take me about a month before I am ready to launch.

As far as unmetered vs. a fixed pipeline, it all depends on managing your bw. I prefer 10Mbs pipelines burstable to 100Mbs. I am sure that xxxadulthost.com operates similarly (which means similarly to webair's definition of unmetered), so you should check the bw overage costs.

Hmm.

http://www.xxxadulthost.com/dedicated_select.asp?plan=1

Does this not mean they throttle the bandwidth to those server's at 3.75Mbps?

Being in that their plans go 3.75, 7, then 10Mbps it would seem they cap the servers, no?

I also consider- if I went with the 7Mbps plan then it would be stupid to stick with an IDE drive and really RAID 1 would be a no brainer. Why up the amount of BW if the HD cannot handle it?

BTW, have you ever looked into a caching solution?

Yeah- sure need to look into Overage charges.

We are slowly moving away from shared pipe plans to fixed pipe arrangements as there is more control over the business and costs. But you have to manage carefully as you do not want your site to be slow or unreachable. [/b]

Yep- but the control over your own environment especially if you have competent people on staff is a huge piece of mind.