Hello

I have started my hosting experience very long ago (perhaps 3 years ago for my employer) but I have started my own hosting business about 8 months ago. Before that I have managed windows dedicated servers for about a year. (I do this for another company yet)

Since then I have experienced several ISPs. I am not interested in counting their names here but I have searched and studied for a long time about each of them.

Every of them have been famous for something. One for lower cost to performance, another for good support, another for good behavior with customers etc. but finally I have came across so much problem that I am forced to leave.

From those experiences I have reached a pattern that I think it can be useful for new resellers.

*Number One!* : If you are going to build your business do not create it on another one man business. This kind of company does not have enough resources to support you when you or they themselves are in trouble.

*Number Two!* : If you are going with a medium to large company be sure to study their support behavior. Ask for people’s experience with that host. Most of medium and big businesses suffer from weak support for their customers. There are a few relatively big companies which are not in this category. I have two UNIX (Linux) hosting companies in my mind but I prefer not to bring names here.

*Number Three*: Do not decide quickly. Wait for a while. Some hosts are good for 2 months (good support, good uptime and server speed,) but when the time arrives easily their server is down for 24 hours!!!

This shows that something is wrong with them. Isn't it?

*Number Four*: It will be a positive point if your host personnel do have physical access to their servers otherwise they must have a very good support from their datacenter.

Please and please do not come here and say good things about a host with just a week of being with them. Do not do this please! Newbie come here and read your comments! and decide on your comments. And this becomes the reason of their incorrect decision.

Let me stop and let others to count remaining points. Just my last experience!

Recently I decided to choose a windows reseller host and I went with a host with good! reputation here on this forums (I'm sure those who wrote those comments have not been with them for a long time)

Early today I found that windows server does not respond and I submitted a ticket and received an interesting reply in the form of an announcement!

---
Dear Valued Customers,

Our upstream provider has recently lost capacity, and we are pressed to make these changes as soon as possible.

Today, we have to put the server down in one hour and it will come up with new IP Address. This is an urgent and we are sorry for any inconvenience occurred.

We will try to keep you updated.
---

You will agree that this kind of events must be scheduled at least two days ago and must be announced to users otherwise it means that something is wrong! And this is more than 15 hours that server is down and I don't know what I am to say to my customers! You may guess that changing IP addresses needs changing my name server IPs and it will take more than 48 hours for name servers to propagate. (At least)

And those valued customers are on the air! And let me mention that the company is a one or two! man show business (I guess)

I will decide on moving my sites but this time I will pay more attention to my own comments!

Mac

100% agreed.
For my main current upstream provider my research took two month, a choice I have never regreted so far. Sometimes I see really good offers, mostly price-wise, and sometimes I thought about a change - instead, I waited some time, the new kid on the block got swamped with orders, problems arose,..... and I was lucky not to jump.

sarmadys

Thats a lucid, well thought out post. Thanks. Wish I read this a while back. Hack..glad am reading it now. :)

But, I do not believe this was a scheduled event. I may be wrong. However, I think On Ramp Access had to make a sudden change...do not know how far in advance they knew or when they informed sitebysize. I suggest, if you can not reach sitebysize to find out the details, try On Ramp. You may find their support email and phone numbers (and, yes, they are available on Sunday) on their web site at onr.com.

Even though you are not their direct customer, they may be able to clarify the situation for you. They were down earlier today, but are up and functioning. Their IP appears to have been changed. If you reach them, we would all be interested in what you find out.

Good luck.

As a matter of record, I have no business relationship (current or past) with either OnRamp or Sitebysize.

Originally posted by Incognito
... when they informed sitebysize. I suggest, if you can not reach sitebysize to find out the details, try On Ramp.
...
As a matter of record, I have no business relationship (current or past) with either OnRamp or Sitebysize.


Incognito

I am not with sitebysize. In fact their servers are up and running.

And I was not going to find a solution to my problem in this thread! I just wanted to clarify what I mentioned in my thread title.

I wish this thread does not go toward solving my problem!

Mac

Thought from the message posted you were with either sitebysize or a reseller of theirs as that is the exact message they were sending.

As to their site being back up....not from here.

And with my apologies, I will be careful not to try to provide you any assistance in the future by accident.

Originally posted by Incognito
And with my apologies, I will be careful not to try to provide you any assistance in the future by accident.
Oh, You accept my apologies

But I just wanted to discuss around choosing the correct provider. I will be happy if I can use your help now, and in future.

Again, thank you :)

Some good words of advice. :D

Originally posted by sarmadys
Hello

I have started my hosting experience very long ago (perhaps 3 years ago for my employer) but I have started my own hosting business about 8 months ago. Before that I have managed windows dedicated servers for about a year. (I do this for another company yet)

Since then I have experienced several ISPs. I am not interested in counting their names here but I have searched and studied for a long time about each of them.

Every of them have been famous for something. One for lower cost to performance, another for good support, another for good behavior with customers etc. but finally I have came across so much problem that I am forced to leave.

From those experiences I have reached a pattern that I think it can be useful for new resellers.

*Number One!* : If you are going to build your business do not create it on another one man business. This kind of company does not have enough resources to support you when you or they themselves are in trouble.

*Number Two!* : If you are going with a medium to large company be sure to study their support behavior. Ask for people’s experience with that host. Most of medium and big businesses suffer from weak support for their customers. There are a few relatively big companies which are not in this category. I have two UNIX (Linux) hosting companies in my mind but I prefer not to bring names here.

*Number Three*: Do not decide quickly. Wait for a while. Some hosts are good for 2 months (good support, good uptime and server speed,) but when the time arrives easily their server is down for 24 hours!!!

This shows that something is wrong with them. Isn't it?

*Number Four*: It will be a positive point if your host personnel do have physical access to their servers otherwise they must have a very good support from their datacenter.

Please and please do not come here and say good things about a host with just a week of being with them. Do not do this please! Newbie come here and read your comments! and decide on your comments. And this becomes the reason of their incorrect decision.

Let me stop and let others to count remaining points. Just my last experience!

Recently I decided to choose a windows reseller host and I went with a host with good! reputation here on this forums (I'm sure those who wrote those comments have not been with them for a long time)

Early today I found that windows server does not respond and I submitted a ticket and received an interesting reply in the form of an announcement!

---
Dear Valued Customers,

Our upstream provider has recently lost capacity, and we are pressed to make these changes as soon as possible.

Today, we have to put the server down in one hour and it will come up with new IP Address. This is an urgent and we are sorry for any inconvenience occurred.

We will try to keep you updated.
---

You will agree that this kind of events must be scheduled at least two days ago and must be announced to users otherwise it means that something is wrong! And this is more than 15 hours that server is down and I don't know what I am to say to my customers! You may guess that changing IP addresses needs changing my name server IPs and it will take more than 48 hours for name servers to propagate. (At least)

And those valued customers are on the air! And let me mention that the company is a one or two! man show business (I guess)

I will decide on moving my sites but this time I will pay more attention to my own comments!

Mac

an excellent post

In the internet age, we have come to expect things quickly and have started to make our decisions much more quickly, but this should never be the case when it comes to one's business


"haste makes waste"

I agree with all the points you have made.

I'm with Donhost (www.donhost.com) and they have been reliable for about the last 4 months, but recently in the last month they have gone offline about 4 times for approximately 1/2 hour each time.

They do usually give several days notice of maintenance works etc, so I'm quite happy with them.

On the downside, the CP is a bit restricted, because there is no filemanager, and transfer is limited to 50GB per month.