I have four servers that the school where I work gave to me. (I am the computer tech.) We was running Windows NT for the school on eight of them. I am intrested in running my own web hosting and ISP service. What are the best softwares for this?

First off, I'm a bit confused-you have four servers at your school and you're running Windows NT on eight of them? :eek:

Well, that's beside the point. My question is: When you ask what is the best software, are you talking about operating systems?

I am sorry for the confusion. I have four servers at my home that the school gave to me. I want to do web hosting and ISP services on a very small basis. What is best OS and other software for this plan of action?

You would probally need a good stable platform so I reccomend Redhat Linux :)

About software you will need a control panel if you plan to market to end users. Such as cPanel or Plesk or another control panel. You may also need a ticket system, and a billing program.

Yes, you'll need an operating system, some sort of management software (for setting up accounts, etc, unless you want to do this manually), and some billing software (if you'll have customers.)

There are myriads of products out there -- all with fairly equal standing. It just depends on what you need, so definately shop around.

I have never used Linux. I do have access to windows 2000 server could it work?

windows 2000 could work for you yes.. I personally hate windows server products because of their poor hardware utilization, but you could make it work.

raw290, i suggest you spend a lot of time learning before taking on paying clients .. im not having a go but it seems you dont know where to start,

stick around here, read a little... experiment with a test box.. then once you have it running stable with a little knowledge in your head - got for it in the webhosting world.

If you do end up trying out a flavour of linux, feel free to message me for any help ya might need :)

What about internet connections? running costs? where are you going to put the servers? you need to think about this.

Here is what I would like to share with the forum so I can get better assistance. I am going to set five server in my home and run a small ISP/web hosting business. I am looking for advice from individuals who have set up such an operations. I am looking to hear from them their experiences, i.e.

1. Sample business plan
2. DSL or Cable
3. Billing and accounting software
4. Internet Feed

If their are other things that you would like to share please feel free.

1. Sample business plan
2. DSL or Cable
3. Billing and accounting software
4. Internet Feed


Hi,

I'm in the alpha phase of my own hosting company now. 360pro.com. I thought about explaining the business plan as brief as I could but even briefly I would be hear all night.

Bottom line is you need to provide stable service with great customer support and automated interfaces and billing.

DSL or Cable is probably not an option for full-blown webhosting but will suffice for alpha stages. You will be severely limited with upstream bandwidth and the amount of ip addresses assigned to your account.

Billing and accounting software:
Research companies such as…Ensim, Sphera, Plesk and BillMax.

Internet Feed
Minimum for full blown hosting will be a burstable T-1 with a C block of ip address.

I personally have opted to co-locate with a big data center / network using Ensim.

If you are really serious about webhosting I would learn Linux/Apache. Might as well go with RedHat because of it’s popularity which will ease the learning curve a little and help unify and consolidate the documentation.

You may be better off partnering up with someone knows how to setup a Linux webserver with all the essentials such as DNS, Sendmail, Apache/php, ssh and ftp.

I don’t recommend using Microsoft servers because of the fees $$$ and instability problems.

Microsoft is for desktops and very light server applications, not webhosting. Of course Bill would disagree but take my word and heed my fair warning.

Good Luck.

Small point, but a Class C is a blatant waste of IP addresses to start with unless you're going to have lots of sets of name servers or hundreds of clients with SSL to start with.

I agree, but a C class is usually what is assigned to a T-1 account.