Did I spell ethically right? :)

If hypothetically, one were to have 5GB of space and 50GB of Bandwidth per month on a single shared server, how many accounts could you ethically sell at say 100mb Storage and 1gb bandwidth per mo? Could you sell the whole 50 on one box?

I would expect the average account to have one, maybe two MySQL databases and useage of the full gig per on bandwidth and the server will be hosted at the planet.

Is there some formula for how much you can sell? Can you just simply sell up to your limit without fear of server strain?

I understand the concept of "overselling", I guess my question is, is there such a thing as "underselling" in order to maximize the customer experience? or does that go out the window in a "Shared Reseller" environment and one should sell to the max and yell at the host if the box is overloaded?

All advice welcome....

Thanks,

James

Well in my expirenece, "smart" companys dont oversell, they undersell, so there client gets the most out of there hosting. However, with 5GB space, and 50GB BW, thats a LOT to use up. Theres no real formula to calculate how much, but if you wanted to know, if its your server, you could take all your plans, and add them up and figure on many of each you can put on a server before overselling the server. However, if your plans are requring to much space, you may have to up the price, so you can fit them on the server and not be stuck paying the bill yourself, with no room for other clients.

Hope that helps

Well one of the good points about being a reseller is to let the host worry about the server. Most host have a limit in the TOS on how much server resources an account can use, if you do not have a site that exceeds that resource limit then there is no reason you cannot fill your reseller account.

There are many types of overselling and the most dangerous is the overselling of the servers ability to handle the resource demands placed on it. For instance someone has a celeron 1.7 ghz 512 ram and 80 gig hard drive with 1200 gig of transfer. Now in reality there is very instances where you could fill that server and use all the bandwidth without killing that server.
But you will see host do just that, because in their mind they are not overselling. If you have a good host that knows and understands the limits of their servers and as long as the host has planned his resource alocation correctly and knows what he is doing there is no reason for you as a reseller to worry about it.

As a reseller, you don't need to worry about overall server strain. That's something your web host should be planning for. If overselling is enabled on your account, then you should oversell at rate of 15% or whatever seems fit to you, making sure you won't reach your account limit.

Keep in mind that most accounts do not use there alloted space/bandwidth...

You should somewhat worry about this, but from the perspective of what will serve your customers well.

I would advise you to check the server specs of the server you will be on. Make sure that it is high spec. and doesn't have too many large disks...

For example, a 2.4 Ghz Celeron with 4x250GB disks and 512MB RAM will definitely struggle if the host fills it all up - whereas a 2.8Gig Dual Xeon with 120GB hard disk and 2GB RAM most likely won't struggle... In the first case, I would stay away :-) In the latter case, I don't think you should worry about filling it up...

That's all encouraging advice. I think I have found a good reseller host. Just wanted to bounce that question off the community to set my mind at ease.

Thank you.

James

The per server domains depends on the server hardware configurations and to some extent the type of control panel.

Even the policy of the Company too ;) Some look at the convenience of the clients, some look at their pocket.

;)

Originally posted by arxor
Well in my expirenece, "smart" companys dont oversell, they undersell


Well from your assumption companies like ThePlanet, EV1, GNAX and a whole bunch of other huge web hosting providers and data centers.. aren't smart.. they are "stupid" companys... hehe oh... "companies

There is no formula, each server is different, each client is different. Also, NEVER base your business plan on overselling, make sure you can turn a profit without overselling at all, then treat income from overselling as a bonus.

u2mike that is a pretty good point... I must agree with that 100%.

Yeah, that's great advice u2mike.

Lets not play games. The major providers oversell and they make big dollars doing it. The trick is to oversell but, always ensure you can provide what you are selling if worse comes to worse.

If you have 5GB and 50GB but, sell 50GB and 500GB as long as you provide the 50GB/500GB if the time comes you are fine.

That is ethics only.

In reality overselling is going to depend on your clientbase. I would only say oversell by a maximum of 25-35% and that is pushing it if your clients tend to use towards the high side of their quotas.

Be smart and don't cheat your customers. ;)