I was wondering if anyone could help me. I need to figure out the requirements for starting a web hosting company. If I expect 500 customers soon after I start the company how many servers do I need? What would be the hardware and software requirments and why? What kind of man power would I need? What else would I need?

If anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it.
Brian

And to think back when I was in school I had to do my own homework!

OK, I'm kidding mostly but really those are pretty general questions and a little research to narrow things down might not be a bad idea. I mean, "what are the hardware and software requirements and why?" Look around a little and you'll find that hosting companies are being run on all kinds of hardware and several variations of software. How many servers do you need for 500 customers? Depends. You could in theory put them all on one. Do you want to keep your costs down, or do you want to provide exemplary performance? Hey, either way it depends on what kind of hardware and software you decided to use!

What markets are you targeting? Hobbyists? E-commerce? Enterprise-scale hosting? ASP?

What are the company's goals? Long-term profitablity? Or do you have a quick exit strategy; build it up and sell out? The best thing about doing a project like this is that you, unlike us, don't have any real-world money tied up and at risk, so you can envision fun stuff even if the odds of it really flying in reality might be slim. So put together a creative business plan and maybe you can get some help filling in details.


Or just send me about 20 sheets of laser paper and I'll write it up for you, but then really the "A" should be mine!

Brian - Is this just a theortical research paper you have to write for a class? Or do you actually have to setup the business?

Jaiem- We do not have to start the business just find everything we would need. like the number of servers and the type of internet connection.

I think your teacher/professor wants to start up his own web hosting company and too lazy to do his own research. J/K. =P Hahah.. I had a teacher that did that.. He made us do his research for a book he was writing.

Originally posted by acetate
I think your teacher/professor wants to start up his own web hosting company and too lazy to do his own research. J/K. =P Hahah.. I had a teacher that did that.. He made us do his research for a book he was writing.

That could be right!

In college I had a professor who used his classes to test his software! And it was full of bugs! But we had to use it and our grades were based on it!