Hi all - appreciate some insights from you if possible. We're looking at moving from a dedicated environment back to a shared environment. The reason is mostly cost motivated. We have only a dozen or so very small websites and we're paying about $220/month for a server (managed). I'd like to bring this down to about $50 if possible. Our needs are mostly just email, one light commerce site (w/ SQL Server), and just serving up the pages. Our largest site on a peak day does only about 8-12k pageviews and usually far less.

Unfortunately we have some complexity that is so far making it tough for me to find an alternative. The biggest issue is our one site mentioned above is a commerce site using linkpoint for credit card processing and specifically OpenSSL as part of the cc processing engine.

We also have a wildcard SSL cert that allows us to do https://*.domain.com.

Beyond that we are pretty vanilla and easy I think. We do use and like smartermail for our sites and we're not married to a specific control panel. Win2k8 is nice to have and .NET 3.5.

I've filled out a request for "find a host" this morning but no responses yet. I'm hopeful that you all might have some pointers, recommendations, and/or advice.

Thanks!!

I believe you need to install some dll files to use linkpoint payment gatewate?
Make sure you confirm with host that they allow custom dll.

Are you on a set $50 budget, or is this flexible?

Hi all - appreciate some insights from you if possible. We're looking at moving from a dedicated environment back to a shared environment. The reason is mostly cost motivated. We have only a dozen or so very small websites and we're paying about $220/month for a server (managed). I'd like to bring this down to about $50 if possible. Our needs are mostly just email, one light commerce site (w/ SQL Server), and just serving up the pages. Our largest site on a peak day does only about 8-12k pageviews and usually far less.

Unfortunately we have some complexity that is so far making it tough for me to find an alternative. The biggest issue is our one site mentioned above is a commerce site using linkpoint for credit card processing and specifically OpenSSL as part of the cc processing engine.

We also have a wildcard SSL cert that allows us to do https://*.domain.com.

Beyond that we are pretty vanilla and easy I think. We do use and like smartermail for our sites and we're not married to a specific control panel. Win2k8 is nice to have and .NET 3.5.

I've filled out a request for "find a host" this morning but no responses yet. I'm hopeful that you all might have some pointers, recommendations, and/or advice.

Thanks!!

Have you also considered a VPS solution? Generally speaking shared hosting should be OK for your requirements - however, VPS will provide you with more control over your hosting environment and should be within your budget as well. If you go this way, I'd recommend getting a Hyper-V based VPS which works similar to dedicated server with dedicated RAM and isolation.

bout $50 if possible.
one light commerce site (w/ SQL Server)
We also have a wildcard SSL cert
Win2k8 is nice to have and .NET 3.5.


If you need "proper" ms-sql, then your budget is probably a bit too tight - and @ $220/month, they weren't providing you a licenced copy ...

If cut-down sql-express is ok, then a reseller account with a dotnetpanel supplier who'll give you a fixed IP for the cert (which *may* not be transferrable and needs to be reissued) should be fine.

You'll need to contact them first to determine if they'll install the gateway's dll's onto the machine - so your general 1-man-band is not going to be any use.

And the people suggesting a VPS obviously didnt read your post :D

I've worked with several Windows providers that support linkpoint and openssl in their shared hosting environments.

Keep in mind if you go the vps route they are usually unmanaged so you will need to factor in the cost of your server management solution.

Yes we are budget flexible, $50 was a nice easy number to throw out. Maybe it's not realistic, and if not, that's fine. I've talked to a couple shared host companies and have yet to find one that provides openssl support.

The commerce site sits on top of SQL Express 2005.

Per the suggestion in this thread I'm looking into VPS which, at first blush, does appear to be a possible solution. So I am digging into that a bit more. If I am reading it right, though, these are basically unmanaged virtual servers which probably means that once I add things like security and backup the costs are right back up again.

Thanks to all for the feedback so far. We're still very much struggling to get this determined and decided and I appreciate all the insights.

Any Windows hosting provider worth their salt should be able to provide you with OpenSSL and a Linkpoint viable environment. You don't need a VPS environment for this, so I'd continue to email suppliers if I was you, :).

If you search the offers forum here for "SQL Server" and then email the providers shown in regards to OpenSSL, you may have more luck :).

If I am reading it right, though, these are basically unmanaged virtual servers which probably means that once I add things like security and backup the costs are right back up again.

Yes, so you simply pay either the web hosting company for management or a third party provider if you do not have the skills to manage the VPS yourself.

If you select a solid VPS provider, backups of the entire VPS should be included and handled by them. Of course, always create your own backups and do not rely on the host.