Which do you think is better? Right now my choices are moving my main site (forum, client area, help desk, etc...) to either another VPS on our own server or to a reputable shared hosting company offsite. I'm trying weigh the pros and cons of each and here's what I've come up with:

VPS
Pros:
Security is controlled by us.
Accessable only by internal staff.
Full control over setup and resources.
Stays online if client VPS goes down.
Hardware is owned by us (read: Free).


Cons:
Single point of failure.


Shared Hosting
Pros:
Offsite so chances of downtime for main and client sites are minimal.

Cons:
Security is out of our hands.
Client data is accessable to host company staff.
Restricted to host's settings/configurations.

It is a tricky one. I think where ever possible your website should be stored on a different physical server to you clients.

Is it viable to buy a VPS on another (well respected) provider just for your main site?

Not really, my budget is about $5/month. :(

It could be that you have your main website on your server.

Then have a cheap shared hosting account with someone else that just has a page saying "sorry we are having some technical difficulties with out website if you need urgent support please email us on this address.

And when ever your server is down make it automatically direct traffic to your shared hosting package?


Just a thought!

Never never never never never host your website/billing/etc etc on a shared hosting account or your own server(s)!

Putting it on a shared hosting account is just a TERRIBLE idea. You are at the mercy of the hosting provider having everything properly secured, and even then you still risk data compromise very easily on a shared server.

Putting it on your own servers is also a bad idea.

We have found a seperate offsite host, I pay a bit more for quality service and so that if something goes down, were still up and available.

It's best to have your main website and billing system hosted on it's own environment. A small VPS would do fine. Shared hosting isn't recommended.

Never never never never never host your website/billing/etc etc on a shared hosting account or your own server(s)!

Putting it on a shared hosting account is just a TERRIBLE idea. You are at the mercy of the hosting provider having everything properly secured, and even then you still risk data compromise very easily on a shared server.

Putting it on your own servers is also a bad idea.

Sounds like you should just close up shop.

a small VPS will do the job .. and if the business is going good and the small VPS can't handle it any more just upgrade without having any downtime !

We have a separate server for our main site and support/billing area. We are looking at moving to to a more cost effective solution though, and hosting it with another reputable host that has very little downtime looks like it might be the answer.

It costs a good amount of money to run one server for your main website, and most companies can't afford to do that.

I'm going to go with Hydro Host's idea. I'll setup my main site on a seperate VPS on the same server and then set it up to point to another page if that site goes down. I'm thinking of creating a Twitter account and just redirecting it there so I can tweet updates from my phone if needed. :D

Sounds like you should just close up shop.

I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean, but the reason you should NOT place it on your own servers is simple:

Outages do occur, yes it is unfortunate and unpredictable. By keeping it off of your own hardware you can ensure that your clients can still maintain contact with you in the event of said outage.

In my opinion, by keeping the communication channels open you actually look more professional and can better handle said outage.

I host my main websites off of the servers I own. I used to have them together years ago but ran into downtime for the main server. Since then I've kept them separate and its worked wonders.

You don't need anything powerful either if your website is very small in terms of usage. You can easily get back with a non-cPanel VPS with small quotas. Saves you tons but also allows you to ensure your website will be up if your main server isn't.

I'm going to go with Hydro Host's idea. I'll setup my main site on a seperate VPS on the same server and then set it up to point to another page if that site goes down. I'm thinking of creating a Twitter account and just redirecting it there so I can tweet updates from my phone if needed. :D


There you go! Twitter is free. It's saved you your $5/mo budget.

That being said. I don't think it is ideal. I think once you have enough regular income from your hosting you should use a paid solution.

There you go! Twitter is free. It's saved you your $5/mo budget.

That being said. I don't think it is ideal. I think once you have enough regular income from your hosting you should use a paid solution.

I agree! Twitter is definitely a great resource for this. It's come in handy for a bunch of times for me (not necessarily downtime related.)

You can always utilize wordpress.com too. Years ago I made an account with them just for this soul purpose. I've yet to use it in the 3 years its been enabled, but hey, if all of my servers magically poof into thin air, at least I have something that can be referenced.

It also helps that I manage the DNS so I can always fwd the domain to the wordpress.com account so users don't have to flail around trying to find out where to get information.

I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean, but the reason you should NOT place it on your own servers is simple:

Outages do occur, yes it is unfortunate and unpredictable. By keeping it off of your own hardware you can ensure that your clients can still maintain contact with you in the event of said outage.

In my opinion, by keeping the communication channels open you actually look more professional and can better handle said outage.

You are 100% right. I was just being a smart ass.

Oh, I should have also mentioned that I run a free hosting company so income is minimal so the cheapest route is the one I'm taking. :D

I was just wondering...in terms of domain and stuff....How do you actually go about setting up another server using WHMCS. I want my clients to be on one server while my site is on another. Could anyone help with this???? :S

Setup WHMCS to point to the other server for new accounts while keeping it on the server with the main site.

how could i set it up to point to more than one server at the same time so i may chose server 1 on monday, then server 2 on tuesday while using server 3 on wednesday

Changing the DNS each day. I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to accomplish with changing servers each day but I would suggest sticking to one server or you'll be losing a lot of customers due to DNS caching restraints (they'll be trying to sign-up on server 1 on Tuesday because their ISP hasn't updated their DNS cache since Monday but if you're going by the data on server 2 on Tuesday you've missed out on that order).

ummm...that is not what i was asking. I found the answer already. Its more or less about allowing whmcs to interact with two web servers

Changing the DNS each day. I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to accomplish with changing servers each day but I would suggest sticking to one server or you'll be losing a lot of customers due to DNS caching restraints (they'll be trying to sign-up on server 1 on Tuesday because their ISP hasn't updated their DNS cache since Monday but if you're going by the data on server 2 on Tuesday you've missed out on that order).

I think what cpoalmighty was meaning was how do you configure WHMCS to work with multiple servers so signups are balanced between servers and not just always being set up on the same server.

I'm not sure how to do this on WHMCS but in AWBS there is a Server Load Balancing setting for multi server sign-ups.

:)

I vote for a low-end VPS. It should be enough so that you can run important functions (a basic site and a mail list to keep customers informed) but it doesn't need to be large and expensive. Obviously being a free host and not having a lot of income means it's tougher for you but it's an option later.

At least with a VPS you can run forums/mail list/etc. to keep in contact with customers if something drastic happens rather than just a "we're down" message.

I used to mass e-mail my clients with announcements, but every single time I had to jump through hoops to get my IPs removed from various blacklists because my clients mark my e-mail as spam so I no longer send e-mails because it's not worth the time and paperwork. :(

I used to mass e-mail my clients with announcements, but every single time I had to jump through hoops to get my IPs removed from various blacklists because my clients mark my e-mail as spam so I no longer send e-mails because it's not worth the time and paperwork. :(

Ouch. How often did you send them, though? I can imagine if you were sending them daily or weekly without opt-out procedures you would get blacklisted but surely the occassional email wouldn't cause an issue?

I sent a total of 3 mass e-mails and each one was atleast 2 months apart (1 was for downtime, 1 was for a contest, and 1 was for a migration).

I actually have a DreamHost account, and I'm seriously contemplating just installing my main website and all it's fixins on there. In my opinion, as long as the website works there should be no reason to question where it's hosted. I have never had any prolonged downtime with DreamHost, so why not.

The only problem I see with that is if you run your own servers and somebody does a whois on your domain and they see a shared IP on DreamHost they'll think you're just running a reseller so you'll need to provide some details to prove you're not lying to them. Just keep that in mind if you decide to use shared hosting.

If I were you, I would have different host to host different sub-domains, or even 3 servers (or VPS) from the same provider with multiple DCs at different locations (e.g. SoftLayer, FDC)

For example:
Website: Host A
Forum: Host B
Helpdesk / Client Area: Host C

That's way beyond my budget. :(

The only problem I see with that is if you run your own servers and somebody does a whois on your domain and they see a shared IP on DreamHost they'll think you're just running a reseller so you'll need to provide some details to prove you're not lying to them. Just keep that in mind if you decide to use shared hosting.

Yea, if I did something like that I would have a page that stated we don't host our main site on our server and then tell why. Then explain that hosting them on shared server space allows us to cut costs and pass on the savings to the customer.

What I do is I list my servers and the IPs along with a short description of each and I have a simple PHP service monitor so next to the servers it shows HTTP, FTP, and POP/IMAP with a red or green light (online or offline).