Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Designing a website for a non-profit org, looking for a host

[Haoming]

Hello,

I need some help with choosing a host
I'm basically volunteering to make a site for a non-profit perinatal organization

First off, my client wants to have something called Microsoft exchange and outlook calender for email
Is this only availble on windows servers or is it on linux servers as well?

Also, I'm wondering if shared hosting will be sufficient to supply this company with good uptime and decent specs? I'm not really sure if the clients ready to step it up to a dedicated server yet

Anyone have recommendations? I'm looking for these specs right now:
99.99% Uptime <- this is the most important
Microsoft exchange and Outlook calender <- equally important
Alot of email accounts
Enough mysql databases, addon domains, parked domains
A larger hosting company thats been in business for a couple of years, I'm personally pretty good at webdesign but we want a friendly and active live support team to help the people that take my position down the road
A decent amount of space, and quite a bit of bandwidth

I know these figures arent exact, but please let me know if you have these things for offer

Leave the specs and we can work out details once I find out if I'm going w/ shared or dedicated

We're looking to spend under $20 for a shared atm. Depending on if windows server is a requirement for the microsoft exchange thing, our spendings might change so I'll need to know that thing first

Thanks

[OscarW-RN]

www.t35.com 's Personal Hosting meets all that and its only 50 bucks a year!

Personal Hosting: http://www.t35.com/personalhosting.shtml

(I'm not too sure about Microsoft exchange and Outloook, you'd have to check on that)

[maccrazy]

99.99%

If a host claims 99.99% uptime, ask for proof as there are heaps of school kids out there running hosts that will write whatever looks good on their site with no intention of sticking to it. I would say 99.9% would probably be a better expectation as most hosts in your budget should be able to achieve that.

[Haoming]

anyone have an answer to the microsoft exchange question?

[markjut]

I would say that you probably need windows for the microsoft exchange, it might be able to be edone on linux, but it would probably run better if the server is running windows

[Spyro]

I don't have a list with me, but I know of a few premium hosts that will offer hosting for free to non-profit institutions. I'm not sure how many would tack on ms exchange hosting (which is windows only), but there are some free hosts for non-profits out there if you look hard enough.

By the way, 99.99% uptime is somewhat unrealistic. Even if we leave scheduled maintenance out of the picture (every host has it every once in a while), it is still difficult for a host to achieve only 4 minutes of downtime in a month or less. 99.9% or 40 minutes is a bit more plausible. Really though, that 36 minute difference can't be that important to you can it?

[mjfroggy]

you should ask whats their reason for stating they need a hosted MS Exchange solutions? with any standard webhosting account they can use ms outlook to send/recieve email. Also as far as a claendar their are many free scripts out their that can be setup to be a shared calendar for all volunteers/employees. If they are a non-for-profit then I would assume their budget is very tight. Anything Microsoft is going to be costly and their are not that many hosts that offer hosted MS Exchange. especially for what you want to pay (of course you are a non-for-profit so maybe someone would cut you a break) but still I would suggest to you to speak to your client about the world of Lunix which is the ideal operating enviornment especially for a not for profit.

Anyway some Hosted MS Exchange hosts are:
www.esnet.com they have a very stable network
www.exchangemymail.com I used them for a while but their tech support is not very friendly although they very often work out prices for special groups

hope that helps

[portalplanet]

Try relio.com for exchange hosting.

Justin

[xachen]

Last time I checked Voxxit was doing a Non Profit 50% off deal. Not sure if he does Microsoft Exchange but worth an ask.

-Justin

[Voxxit]

I have a lot of non-profit companies asking me about Microsoft Exchange, and I usually point them in the direction of Zimbra: http://www.zimbra.com/

They seem to like it, and it's a great AJAX-enabled web app, which acts and thinks better than Outlook. Give it a try, and let me know if you have any questions about it!

[Haoming]

I got what I needed

Thanks for all those who replied