Do you provide hosting?

[tifosi]

Just a general question to guage feedback. After my latest and umpeenth linux/unix server migration in 15years I got to thinking why I don't provide some form of hosting myself.

So just putting this out there...

Do you provide hosting services? What level? basic, reseller, vps, dedi, colo, ISP?
How did you start? Any tips on starting up and information resources?
How did you cope with not living right next to the datacentre if things go wrong?

The last question has always put me off, but recent experience working with the technical people who actually deal with the equipment and their SLA's has allayed that somewhat, especially if providing basic/reseller hosting.

The area I eventually want to get involved with is VPS's. There's initial options to resell other companies vps's. Though starting a bit more basic is an option.

I'll have a potter through the web hosting forums as well to get a better idea. Just thought I'd get a few views from fellow domain industry colleagues.

Thanks

 

[monaghan]

We offer standard accounts & reseller accounts on our servers and resell VPS.

We started a long time ago as the reseller market at the time was rubbish and it was much better for our customers if we could have our own offering rather than relying on someone else.

It is a tough market to crack as people seem to be prepared to change hosts to save a few pence and then tell the world, so I'd suggest finding another angle. Most of my hosting customers have come via referral or via other business dealings.

As for distance to the DC, if you have mirror disks or RAID 5 and a few spares at the DC you can get the DC tech to get you back up quite quickly if it fails, remote KVM (or server management card) will get you console access if needed. Alternatively rent servers.

I'd suggest renting a server or 2 to get you going, then when you get to quarter of a rack you will be getting to the point where it is the time to consider buying your own servers and going for colo.

 

[namealot]

Be it buy, rent, lease etc defiantly do lots of research before committing Identify and sound out target clients see what they require what makes them happy? What bugs them what they expect and for how much etc …. You will need some sort of angle to get them in.

UK datacenters it does tend to be further north you go the cheaper? (I’ve even found leasing uk based space from American companies to be cheaper than approaching the uk center’s themselves sometimes )

Be it your own server, rented, leased etc see what techies at the center’s (if there are any ?) are like what they do, don’t do, when there or not, check out other companies using them get as much feedback as you can.

Check how easy they are to contact or to get into actually visit or call them weekends, eve etc If buying your own parts warranties offered etc are crucial you may save yourself £££ buying one make than another but waiting days for an engineer, parts etc can be very costly, maintenance ans upkeep some keep you informed others have a feed you shit keep you in the dark approach …?

If starting with just basic hosting offering a number of free templates etc can help cut down problems also offers that bit more (a lot of people don’t really require that much) simple common Q and A, illustrations simpler the better to answer all there problems. think of all the things that Pisses you of about services you’ve had over the years and try not to do it..? Although you can be the best and most efficient but someone offers them hosting .5p a year cheaper and they all move?

 

[rob]

Don't.

Support for idiots isn't fun. It's the online version of a mugs game, hammered down in value perception by kids on reseller plans.

 

[tifosi]

Don't.

Support for idiots isn't fun. It's the online version of a mugs game, hammered down in value perception by kids on reseller plans.

Thanks for the replies.

Is that the voice of experience Rob? I know what supporting numpies is like!! It's often a thankless task if the kind of questions I get supporting the WP plugin I've done is anything to go by.

Funnily enough it's still something I've wanted to do for a while. Then again I've been managing my own linux servers since '98 so it's been stewing for a while.

Starting small is a definite and I'll do a lot more research before I commit to anything, including lurking on the webhostinktalk forum. Have a couple of server hosts I've worked with for a while - not any mainstream companies - where I know their capabilities and service levels for the low level server contact and I would rent a server off them to start.

There's also a couple of niches I'll be looking to specialise in - one of which is optimised WP hosting. As I said. Early days.

 

[rob]

Yes sadly!

If you can sort support out then the techie stuff is straightforward. Its a very very saturated market out there, with overselling being the norm.

For about a tenner anyone can setup a 'webhosting company'.

I would do high end stuff with prices to match - but then you need to provide the service to match

 

[FutureDomain]

We provide hosting, but just for our design/development clients, it gets expensive in the way of support though so you need to factor that in too.

We do sell hosting for a while but because we ended up doing design and dev more we sold on the clients to a company who could be more hands on with a high number so we can look after a few in a more dedicated sense.

 

[PoshTiger]

I've just sold a support company - I would never go into that game again...

You can never really switch off the phone - on holidays, Christmas etc.. and that was B2B only.

You can add extras like weekly backups and security patches but overall - it isn't worth the little profit you can make from it, there are easier ways to make money.