I am thinking about how big companies host their sites. They have their own servers in their companies or they host sites on a dedicated server from datacenter like rackshack?

The big companies are like msn, dhl, fedex, yahoo....

The big companies have their own internal IT department and use their own servers, getting their bandwidth from providers directly.

For example, Microsoft has their own servers and they use Level(3).

Alot of company's have there own servers and don't really need to buy from RS or anyhting like us lol.

I hope microsoft buy my shared hosting. lol , I will terminate their account if they send me more microsoft spam emails.

Some big companies have relatively small websites and a small web presence. The issue at hand, I believe, is the amount of traffic that the company gets and the amount of control they want over their products.

A large part of these company's web presence is market objectives as well and that needs to be taken into consideration. Imagine the hullabaloo if it were discovered that Microsoft was running off a shared linux server. Clearly that's not possible but you see the point.

I don't know if a datacenter would want Yahoo or Microsoft to move in. You'd have to cut so deep on the bandwidth and space rental to be competitive that you'd be making almost nothing on the deal anyway. If level 3 wants to provide bandwidth to Microsoft, I say...let 'em.

Microsoft only has one bandwidth provider? I guess they have the redundancy thing figured out....

Too bad they don't want to mirror a site with me, I would give them unlimited bandwidth too..... lol :D

Originally posted by WH-Coach
Imagine the hullabaloo if it were discovered that Microsoft was running off a shared linux server. Clearly that's not possible but you see the point.

The Hotmail server used to run on FreeBSD until recently. :D

Originally posted by Coach
The big companies have their own internal IT department and use their own servers, getting their bandwidth from providers directly.

For example, Microsoft has their own servers and they use Level(3).

Microsoft locates most of their servers in a RackSpace's Datacenter.

Originally posted by DaHOST
Microsoft only has one bandwidth provider?
Far from it, directly quoted from Todd Weeks, Operations Manager for Microsoft.com -
For its Internet connectivity the center uses seven OC12s (including four backups), an OC48, and 16 OC3s for peering, each with a separate telecom provider.
Originally posted by BetaHost
The Hotmail server used to run on FreeBSD until recently. :D
Yes, but it only ran off FreeBSD because Microsoft haven't always owned hotmail, not because of choice.

Hotmail was fully migrated over to a Windows based platform in early 2001 I believe. The main change they made was to move the main Hotmail application away from using CGI and over to ISAPI.
Originally posted by VH-Robert
Microsoft locates most of their servers in a RackSpace's Datacenter.
Actually, the bulk of Microsoft's servers are located in a custom built facility about 50 miles from their Redmond, WA headquarters. They do however outsource some of their download services to NaviSite (formerly Conxion).