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  1. #1
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    Unmanaged Web Hosting

    Please feel free to move this if it's in the wrong area - sorry.


    I'm looking to set myself up selling shared hosting to clients. I want to do this unmanaged as I'm not really able to commit enough time to managing the actual services myself - just enough to comfortably handle orders and service setup tasks.

    Because of this, I have started to wonder to myself what the boundaries between managed and unmanaged providers are; where does on stop and the other begin? I understand that because I'm not doing very much for the customer other than providing the service my prices would be lower but I want to understand more about what is expected of an unmanaged hosting provider.

    tl;dr - What tasks do you expect an unmanaged hosting provider to do?

    Dean.

  2. #2
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    well unmanaged service makes it easier for the provider.

    If you have a large budget you can straight away buy your servers and offer the work to a server management firm.
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  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Manjusha4serveradmin View Post
    well unmanaged service makes it easier for the provider.

    If you have a large budget you can straight away buy your servers and offer the work to a server management firm.
    Sorry, I think you've misunderstood my question

    I'm looking to simply sell the unmanaged services to the end user. I do not want to offer managed services at this moment in time, just want to get an idea of what people expect an unmanaged server provider to do for them..

  4. #4
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    It's rarely that we do see Shared Hosting being unmanaged. There's basically nothing much to do for a shared hosting account client. Installation and etc of a shared hosting account is usually all automated and if you really made a HUGE mistake, you can always ask the host to erm... delete stuff off and etc.

    As for servers, that might be a totally different thing. When you're talking about Unmanaged Servers, then it would be that everything is basically handled by yourself. What you get is basically a Linux Box with root access. That's about it. The rest is up to you to manage. You wanna give people access, you wanna destroy the box or corrupt the software, you're welcome to do so. That's your own decision. Your provider could care less for what happens then unless it makes such a mess that they have to clean it up that they will most probably bill you for it.

    When it comes to managed services, most of the time your provider will help take care of the basic stuff for you but there are multiple levels of managed services. If it's just a basic managed service, then things like server security, installation and configuration of basic stuff like CSF, Control Panel, MySQL, PHP and etc is done by your provider. You basically do not have to worry about all the basics. They will handle it for you.

    That's what I could tell you about Managed and Unmanaged. As you go into more detail, you will need to pay more for the management but the provider will do more for you as well. Depends on which level of management are you at.
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  5. #5
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    That depends on the provider. I expect an unmanaged provider to help in case of lost access, maybe mitigation of DDoS attacks, and not much else. However it depends on the provider.
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  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by aodat2 View Post
    It's rarely that we do see Shared Hosting being unmanaged. There's basically nothing much to do for a shared hosting account client. Installation and etc of a shared hosting account is usually all automated and if you really made a HUGE mistake, you can always ask the host to erm... delete stuff off and etc.
    So you're effectively saying that I'm unlikely to have to do anything once the service has been created if I were to offer managed hosting?

    Quote Originally Posted by lakridserne View Post
    That depends on the provider. I expect an unmanaged provider to help in case of lost access, maybe mitigation of DDoS attacks, and not much else. However it depends on the provider.
    Yeah, that's generally what I was thinking would be required. Account recovery etc.

  7. #7
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    The only real thing which I could see you doing is to teach them how to use the Control Panel. That's usually what they have problems at.

    Other than that, you might have to also teach them if they don't already know how to use MySQL and etc. But then again, if you're under cPanel or DirectAdmin its fairly simple and straight forward. Nothing much to teach anyways. The only problem I could see you having to deal with is perhaps erm... "Why can't I email out?" or "Why can't I receive emails?" which basically you'll need to troubleshoot quite easily. If everything is OK, then you should reply to them accordingly but if something is really wrong, then send a ticket into your host and you're basically all done on your part, just waiting for the host to resolve it and you to relay the message back to the client.

    That's all I see you having to do.

    Almost forgot... maybe it'll be wise to do some backups as well. LOL.
    Aaron Ong
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  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by DeanHarper View Post
    So you're effectively saying that I'm unlikely to have to do anything once the service has been created if I were to offer managed hosting?
    To this i would like to add "It depends on the clients you get" Some clients have a lot of knowledge about hosting, building websites and finding answers in your knowledge base. Other clients don't have a lot of knowledge yet and will seek answers from your support.
    Offering managed hosting you also have to decide, what kind of support do you want to give your clients.
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  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by aodat2 View Post
    Almost forgot... maybe it'll be wise to do some backups as well. LOL.
    Ohh yeah, and this one too!!!!
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  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by DeanHarper View Post
    So you're effectively saying that I'm unlikely to have to do anything once the service has been created if I were to offer managed hosting?
    Remember that with shared hosting you still need to manage the server itself, unless you are reselling a service where someone else is managing it for you. You can offer shared hosting with a low level of support to your customers if you have a clear understanding with your customers of what services you do and don't provide, but you or someone you contract with has to keep the server up to date and maintained.
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