What do you think?

Not every host oversells, but the majority do :) It's just the way of running and competiting now in the industry. In many senses it is an effective way to do business if you know what your doing. Managing the amount of overselling is key.

I don't believe all do. And I think that those who do shouldn't...

I don’t think you can say “every host” does with any authority. However, it is true that the majority of web hosting companies do oversell – especially some of the larger companies such as 1and1.com, Yahoo, etc. :)

Not all hosts oversell. The majority do, at least somewhat, and usually transfer amounts rather than drive space as it is easier to stretch that the more finite physical limitations of hard drives.

Does every host oversells?Even if the answer would be Yes, it wouldn't be a bad thing. IMO a vast majority of hosts do oversell, or rather try to pack their servers as much as possible -- while maintaining a reasonable server performance. However, everything is relative including "reasonable server performance".

There's also overselling on multiple levels: bandwidth, data transfer, space, support, server resources. Have you ever heard of support being slow during a crisis? That's when the overselling model isn't working anymore. However, no sane manager would hire say 3 times as many employees, just to have them there in case of a crisis that only occurs once in a blue moon. :)

Does every bank engage in an overselling-like practice?Yes. It's part of their business model. But can you imagine capitalism without banks? :)

Most hosts oversell, technically speaking. And there is no problem with that as long as it is done with some responsibility.
I had a poll about this a while ago, actually, where I asked the question in a different way:

What do you see as *irresponsible* overselling?

-- I think that is a more interesting question.... :)

However, no sane manager would hire say 3 times as many employees, just to have them there in case of a crisis that only occurs once in a blue moon.
Right, Dan - I couldn't have said it better myself. :)

And then of course there are companies that have more staff, and don't oversell much on hardware either so much, which naturally forces them to have higher prices --- but then people whine that they are "too expensive"! :D

I don't believe all do. And I think that those who do shouldn't...


Overselling some of our hardware is something we do, and as long as it is done with some responsibility, overselling is a key point of a business growing and succeeding. While we oversell our hardware, we don't take any more extra money and bank it in our pocket. We put this money back into the company to expand it, hire more staff, designers, ect. Although some of our servers are, “oversold”. All servers are monitored 24/7 and if a customer started using there resources at a faster rate then that specific server can handle, we would simply move them to a different server. What’s so hard about that, hosts that don’t do something like this is what has given “Overselling” a bad name. I frown upon you.

Congrats to host who don’t oversell, this doesn’t count for all of them, but most of them just turn out to be some small 1 man company ran by ones self’s as a hobby and they will never amount to anything. How is it feasible to be on call 24/7 and not oversell? Argue higher prices? I guess, but thats not the market we as a host target. Not overselling is not a choice for us, and its not for many other companys around the world wide web.


When you oversell so much as giving a server a serverload of say 10, and its a dual xeon 2.8, 2 gigs ram (cough site5), but don't do anything about it (they did so its cool!), then you as a host I hope die.



The answer to your poll, Does every host oversells?: No


:peace:

Absolutely not!

Phone companies oversell, banks oversell infact a lot of the major supplier of vital services oversell. Even roads are "oversold". If everyone went out at once it wall all fall apart. Same with the power infrastructure if everything was turned on at once it would collapse.

Its all about how much it is oversold however ( and somethings shouldn't be oversold and its when those our it goes wrong )

Rus

Even if the answer would be Yes, it wouldn't be a bad thing. IMO a vast majority of hosts do oversell, or rather try to pack their servers as much as possible -- while maintaining a reasonable server performance. However, everything is relative including "reasonable server performance".

There's also overselling on multiple levels: bandwidth, data transfer, space, support, server resources. Have you ever heard of support being slow during a crisis? That's when the overselling model isn't working anymore. However, no sane manager would hire say 3 times as many employees, just to have them there in case of a crisis that only occurs once in a blue moon. :)

Yes. It's part of their business model. But can you imagine capitalism without banks? :)
Totally Agree with you.

not all of them but most of them

What do you think?

Judging from the messages on this forum, many hosts do and many customers do not like it. However, these same customers are looking for the "best deals" and would not pay for "non-oversold" serverspace.

I would be interresting to know how many of the more expensive hosts do overselling. I would guess "not many", but who knows...

I won't get into it because I have been told many times we really do because the datacenter does, the backbones do, etc. so technically there is no way not to oversell. So to them it's impossible and I've been told so many times.
I have been told how stupid I am for the way we do things and I must admit sometimes I look at the usage totals for the end of a month and they are right, I could put a bunch more accounts on a box and if they all used the same proportions as the current users everything would still work.
But all I can do is the best effort I can make to do what I think is right. I cannot control the backbone providers or the datacenters, only the servers & how I choose to load them. And I choose not to play the huge promises for $2 or $3 "game" just so I can say I have "X" number of clients. To me after the processing fees etc. it's not even worth the hassle to play the $1 or $2 "game" even if the resources were not an issue. Just my grumpy .02 for the holidays...bah humbug :argue: