Hello,

My name is John Jaskolski. I am starting a Web hosting company and I am seriously thinking about using Alabanza as my wholesale source. The product I'm looking at leasing from Alabanza is what they refer to as their Configuration 2 - Raid Server. It's a Dual PIII 733 with 1GB RAM and 18GB HD Space and 100 GB/Month in traffic. The sales rep that I spoke to at Alabanza indicated that we can host 1000 virtual accounts on this server. When you do the math on this it averages out to 18MB of disk space per account and 100MB/Month per account in traffic. After that, the cost of overages is $10/GB for traffic over and above the 100 GB/Month that's allocated. When I go out to other Web hosts I read things like Most web sites don't exceed 1GB to 2GB per month in traffic. That's like saying 1000 sites won't exceed 1000 GB to 2000 GB per month. Alabanza is only allocating 100 GB per month for 1000 sites. Here's my question:

What kind of bandwidth does the average site use in GB/Mo? If we put 1000 customers on a single server will 100 GB/Mo be enough or will we be paying $100's and perhaps $1000's extra per month for Bandwidth Overages? What have other people’s experiences been in this regard? When using Alabanza do you find that you are paying extra for overages? Alternatively, if you are using Alabanza but are nowhere near 1000 accounts, is your average customer’s usage such that if you did hit 1000 accounts you would be paying through the nose for Bandwidth Overages?

Also, I frequently read in posts on WebHostingTalk.com about people complaining about Alabanza's prices. They seem to feel that Alabanza nickels and dimes them to death. Can anyone give me details regarding what your experience has been? Do you get hit with unexpected charges? If so, what are they?

The way I figure it, once a server is maxed out, the cost is $1695 (Cost of Server) + $1000 (Cost of 1000 Control Panels) - $35 (First 35 Control Panels free) = $2660. If you have 1000 clients on that server, this comes out to $2.66 per hosted account ($2660/1000). In addition you have credit card charges of say 2.5% Plus 40 Cents per Transaction: On a $20 per month account that's .90 Cents (.025*20+.4=.9). Thus the total cost is $3.56 per $20 Account (Plus the cost of Technical Support, etc.). But, if you assume that Support costs $1.5 per Account, you're still making $15 per Sub X 1000 = $15,000 in profit per Full Server.

Alabanza tells me that Jumpline has 20,000 customers on 20 of their servers (1000 Subs per Server). Based on the numbers outlined above, I figure that they should be making $300,000 per month minus Administration costs. That's good money! What is everyone complaining about? Am I missing some costs here?

Are there other factors that I am failing to take into account?


Do you have any other advice for me, and whether or not I should use Alabanza, as I begin this venture?


Sincerely,


Dr. John V. Jaskolski

P.S. Other wholesale sources I’m looking at are Hostopia, InQuent, and VDI. Hostopia just came out with a new product called their VM Server for which the average hosted account costs $2.60 per sub (with some pretty severe limitations on things like number of Emails, etc.). One drawback to Hostopia is that they offer NO automated mechanism for setting up accounts on their VM Server. I haven’t heard back from InQuent yet and I don’t want to use VDI (or consider them) until they come out with Version 4 of their Control Panel.

Jumpline may have 1000 customers per server, but have you seen how slow they are? I have a site there and it is as slow as treacle going up hill on a cold day. The only reason I keep it there is for emergency email etc in case of network problems.

I agree with the above. Unless all of your clients are hosting a few pages and limited graphics, you do not want to bog down a machine with 1000 sites. This is not going to work in my experience. Once you get some sites on your server running scripts or other programs (like a bulletin board :-) ) then you will see processor and memory usage go up. Also keep in mind that your first server will be running your DSM and the Nameservice for all of your domains.
Sort of like a van, it may say it can carry 8 passengers, but if you have 8 fat guys, well, you can guess it may have a little trouble going up a hill.
Consider the limit they put on the number of control panels you can have on the machine, their limit, not the server's limit. Depending on the type of sites your clients have, you may get over 500, but like KDA said, if you push it, the clients could be unhappy campers.

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't recommend sticking 1000 accounts on any type of server. I don't put more than 256 on a single server though I'm sure it could handle up to 500.

As far as bandwidth goes, you'll find that most sites won't use more than a gigabyte. But you'll also see sites who use a gigabyte per day. You'll host sites that do both.

Cross posted. Please see:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=8087

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