Ok so I am absolutly new to this. I need some advice.

We are a design company that creates web sites in flash and html. We have many clients but previously we have just set up our clients web space/domain registrations etc with our isp: Plus Net. But Plus Net don't really offer Hosting and reseller packages.

I think we could make some reasonable profit by setting up a reseller account. Does anyone have any hints/tips/advice on UK based Hosting/Rates. We would need to have availability for basic web sites right up to dedicated servers with win2000 and sql depending on the client.

Why UK? We are UK based, and the vast majority of our hosts are international.

If you want the best deal, and maximum flexibility, you can't draw lines on maps.

If you broaden your scope you will find plenty of options. You might want to consider a VPS to start with.

Also many UK hosts don't actually have the servers located in the UK, but in US. You'd have to ask to make sure where they are.

thanks for the replies. Your review is very useful JenniH - currently looking at packages with some of the recommended hosts.

I suppose you are right too about UK based - there is no reason for this, apart from some loyalty to UK businesses. However we will go with a non UK host if the package is right so also looking at some of these.

I've found that our customers are not concerned with the location of the server, they want a decent service at a decent price.

For the small business like us, then the cost savings from getting a US based server allows us to provide the service our customers want at a price they can afford.

When everyone has their own 2Gb or greater broadband connection, then I guess the need to have servers in the UK will increase, but that's a good few years off I guess.

>> I've found that our customers are not concerned with the location of the server <<

How many customers actually KNOW where their sites located? Not many, for sure!

I'd certainly go with a VPS based on your description, Flux, but check upgrade paths first. A couple of the new, mainly unreviewed, ones on my list are actually performing very nicely.

Originally posted by JenniH
>> I've found that our customers are not concerned with the location of the server <<

How many customers actually KNOW where their sites located? Not many, for sure!

Mine do ! I tell them what they get for their money

Our clients (UK) certainly like the fact we are able to go to the racks with our servers in and actually have access.

Recently a new client who deals in very high resolution pictures required a large amount of information to be 'uploaded' to the new file dump they have with us, he was able to post us several DVD's full of images saving about a month's upload time on his usual connection ;)

Of course this is a one off, but you get the picture ;)

Regards,
Rob Taylor.

I think we're probably in different markets then, most of my customers use less than 10Mb of disk space each.

We have a fair share of clients using low resources as well, however I was more illustrating how being a UK company with UK located systems can help.

Bringing the topic back to the original post; it does depend how 'hands on' you wish to be, or may wish to be in the future. I would initally recommend a reseller account and develop a relationship with your reseller provider and take it from there...

Regards,
Rob Taylor.

The question of a UK host hosting in the US is often misunderstood. We are UK based and have systems in the USA. Do not believe the hype.....there is no performance issue with hosting far from home. Our USA based servers respond to ping requests in about 120 milli-seconds, the UK based systems respond in about 80 milli-seconds. The 40 milli-second difference is not humanly noticeable.

Customers do prefer local servers, but when fully discussed they admit they are not sure why. None have ever changed their decision to host with us based on this.

There is one important aspect and one very important aspect. The former is datacenter support, for co-location, you need a suitable INTELLIGENT HANDS Service Level Agreement which will deal with rapid replacement of failed components should the worst happen. If you are leasing then it needs to be clear that the datacenter is responsible for keeping the hardware running.

The single most important aspect is the UK Data Protection Act. You need to be up front with clients regarding the location of their data. We have had large medical concerns insist on UK based hosting simply due to the fact that this is written into their ISO procedures.

Not disclosing the above will land you in serious trouble, if you want to be smart, make sure it is clearly defined in a contract or clearly referenced terms of service.

A provider who gives you the page download speed bunk 'and many do', will be attempting to sell you an expensive service.

I totally agree with the reseller approach, I did this and learned a great deal about my provider.

Whilst we must respect the views of others, the above is based on fact, add it to your data to analyse.

Hope this helps

Update - Just checked out some package prices. We co-locate a system at colo4dallas (www.colo4dallas.com) you get 100 gigs per month for $60 (Max 2u or a tower) the full spec of service is available from the site.

In 2 years downtime is zero, they are firewalled and very very flexible. There is another for you to consider.

Hope this also helps

Do not believe the hype.....there is no performance issue with hosting far from home. Our USA based servers respond to ping requests in about 120 milli-seconds, the UK based systems respond in about 80 milli-seconds.

Not hype. Fact.

There is a difference between browsing UK based websites and US based sites (I'm not just talking about ping times... I'm talking about actual speed of websites loading). The difference is small but certainly noticable to me. We find that around 25% of our UK based clients choose a US server which is fine because some don't mind the slight delay in page loading speed but to say there is "no performance issue" is wrong.

I wish what you said was correct.... it would certainly be cheaper for us with UK based servers if performance was 100% identical in the US :)

The difference in loading will be more noticable to higher end broadband customers than those on dialup. As more migrate to broadband, then I guess more of us with US based servers will start having to migrate to UK based ones. Hopefully by that time the UK bandwidth charges will have come down :)

The speed of websites loading is directly relative to the ping time. You will find that your slower US hosts do not have a good ping response time or a response time that varys significantly over multiple ping cycles.

The only factor significantly influencing the outcome is incorrect data packet size. We have found that if a client computer is not setup for its ADSL connection, the 8 byte overhead causes oversize data packets in both TX and RX and subsequent speed loss due to the necessity of error correction and resends. This effect is more evident over a greater number of server hops.

Other than that I strongly disagree, but respect your opinion.

Thanks for your perspective.

I agree with Jim, and it's not only the UK that sees the server faster but most of europe.

Originally posted by EBH-UK
The 40 milli-second difference is not humanly noticeable.

Really?

A provider who gives you the page download speed bunk 'and many do', will be attempting to sell you an expensive service.

Whilst we must respect the views of others, the above is based on fact, add it to your data to analyse.


'hard facts' you may claim, but with anything like this why not do a simple test with your own eyes.

Gordon from hostroute got sick of such arguements and knocked up http://www.hostroute.co.uk/compare/ .

It does what it says on the tin, top frame is UK and bottom is USA. Click go to start the load time for each.

You can see, even on broadband connections a noticeable lag between the two.

The above is based on fact, ones you have proved yourself ;)

Cheers,
Rob Taylor.

I think we all agree there's a technical difference in speed between UK & US servers. I'm sure we can all prove "my server is better than yours :)"

Whether the customer notices or is concerned will depend from customer to customer, however the main issue is whether the customer's prepared to pay the premium for UK hosting. UK network connectivity is still more expensive than the same connectivity in the US and hence refelected in the end cost to the customer.

I guess those who know and care will opt for UK, the rest will opt for US (or not even bother to ask where they are hosted :))

My personal guess is that this will become more of an issue as more customers get broadband connections and start to notice the difference.

We are a UK reseller using servers based in Dallas, the server response is faster than the previous UK based host we were using and the cost is 2/3's cheaper. So we can offer competative pricing on packages and still deliver fast reliable service and make a profit. If you are dealing with small business and home users the only issue you will have with servers based in the US is the server time difference imho, ie date stamping in scripts ect.

More demanding users and corporates would raise issues with US hosting i reckon, although I have no experience in that field.

All of my clients know they are hosted in the US and are very happy with the speed, most are on 512k, the rest on 56k.

US based hosting will be slower than UK and the costs are lower

Hope that helps with your decision.

I think we have moved away from the all encompassing comments which I think for my part, at the beginning of the thread was wrong. You guys have your views and they are well founded by the evidence you have to support. You are focussing on the bottom line impact which as you rightly say is seemingly slow sites.

What I am trying to impart on our enquiring friend is some science on which to base his decision and do justice to all areas. I would like to move away from bland comments and endeavour to provide understanding. Whilst I cannot substitute 9 years of education and experience in a paragraph lets look at why you have your experiences, yet our friend could host a server in the USA with no humanly recognisable deterioration.

To answer the intermediate question, 40 milli-seconds is 40 thousandths of a second, if you can see this as a delay then you have altered clinical science.

The USA is lets say 5000 miles away, Redbus to most of us is within 300 miles. Fibre optics convey our data at the speed of light - 299,722, 458 metres / second. The 50 miles or 5000 miles the time difference equates to instant response. So this is not the issue!

Server Hops in many cases are not actually servers, they are routers, hubs and switches. Modern devices such as those utilised in the transatlantic backbone, switch at speeds in the order of micro-seconds (millionths of a second) so despite the fact we may see more server hops the delay created by these is not significant.

Delays typically occur direcly due to the data transmission protocols. The example above illustrates how poorly optimised ADSL connections slow you down through e.g. wrong MTU settings. This can occur at various points in the route, hence in deciding on a hosting location you need to know the data route to your target audience.

Internet Connectivity is so cheap in the USA, that everyone is doing it. Your host may in actual fact be a 2nd, 3rd or 4th tier provider, here the quality of the routing at each tier is a significant influence.

The key is in knowing where your server is going to sit in the global scheme of things. The datacentre I mentioned previously has multiple high speed connections to an internet backbone, has a Cisco powered network which runs at 40% redundancy. This means that there are no delays in getting your data onto the internet.

Just a point to consider. Given that datacentre and network traffic does influence page delivery speed, bear in mind the time difference. A UK server in a USA datacentre will have five hours (the majority of the working day) with local internet traffic tucked up in bed. This is like driving round the M25 at 3-00am, net effect no traffic jams. Even when the USA wakes up and logs on, a datacentre running at 40% redundancy will not see a significant effect. Once the data is out and straight onto the internet backbone there are no inhibitors.

So why do you see poorly performing USA based sites in Europe?
- have we looked at the same sites when hosted in the UK?
- are they Fireworks based?
- what is the server spec.?
- do the sites pull content in from databases?
- are these sites in a 1st tier datacentre?
- what connectivity does the datacentre have?
- is there redundancy in the datacentre network?

Finally, the answer:

If you choose the datacentre based on the above and can live with support being available 5 hours into the working UK day and have no issues with storing customer data outside the UK and EU, then you may be hosted in the USA and no-one will see a difference unless they have something wrong with their connectivity, but even then UK will also be slow, if not to the same degree.

With a server hosted in the USA as above, the UK and Europe will not see the difference. When we are browsing at 100megs and we are ahead of the datacentre and transatlantic backbone speeds, then we will be waiting for the datacentre, but this will be the same as the UK.

Hope this helps our enquirer and has truly shown respect to everyones views.

Now where's the smilies - ;) :)