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[design987]

We have built a social comunity website like myspace, hi5, facebook etc. Can you please suggest what kind of hosting plan should we host on. We have developed the site using Windows Technoligies. We dont have much knowledge on hosting so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.
Joe

[AlexBlom]

You may want to check out a VPS if you intend on growth. It is a bit of an over-kill for now, but means there will be no downtime should you get a large membership database.

[Will-AH]

Hi Joe,
If you're not sure about resource utilization of your application when you're getting a decent amount of hits, I would recommend the following:


When starting off, I would recommend a shared hosting account. Depending on how quickly your application takes off, you may need to move to a VPS or Dedicated Server very quickly. When choosing a shared hosting account, make sure you choose a plan that gives you a dedicated application pool.


The next step up would be a VPS or Dedicated Server. The VPS will give you access to more system resources and allow you to install custom components for less money than a dedicated server. If you choose a VPS to go with next, make sure the company you go with offers the ability to add on a shared database hosted elsewhere, as the performance of SQL Server in a VPS is pretty much terrible.


After that, you'll grow into a dedicated servers, most likely multiple dedicated servers. MySpace and Facebook server clusters are in the thousands to

power those sites. If your application succeeds, this is where you're guaranteed to end up.



Also important, you should choose a host that has the capacity to host your site every step of the way, from shared hosting to tens or hundreds/thousands of servers. Starting a relationship with a hosting company that can do everything for you would be very advantageous, as you can utilize them as an information source to help your application scale. I would recommend a MS Certified Host with MCSE's on staff 24/7 to make sure they can support you well. Having their own data center is a huge plus as well. There's several companies around that fit the bill.



Good luck!

[Josh-A]

Instead of shared hosting I'd recommend you to directly go for VPS b'coz with vps hosting you will able to manage your dedicated environment directly through SSH. You will have complete control of your environment and you can run your own applications.

[Seb007]

If you are think of shared hosting, there are some free windows hosting available. shop around.

[Josh-A]

Free hosting may be good for personal websites but strictly not for business websites.

[midnightsoftware]

Agreed - stay away from free hosts, they will be crammed onto one server in their thousands!

For this, i would say go for a low-end windows vps. You can install what you need on it, and then as you grow - you can upgrade the vps, at least until the point where you are going to need to move to a dedicated server. Your host will (should!) talk you through all your options.

[appliedi]

I'm going to agree with my buddy Will from ActiveHost (hey Will!) it's always good to start small. Everyone has dreams of grandeur "build it and they will come" unfortunately they usually don't come. (yeah, it's probably not bigger than the whopper )

Start small, if you can get away with shared hosting great, if not then VPS but just don't over purchase or you'll find yourself in 3 months questioning an otherwise great idea when the bills start rolling in for that managed dual processor quad core xeon cluster of servers.

Jess

[kinuku]

There are hosts that are specialized in providing hosting for social network websites. Make a google to find that. For example the famous free dating script dolphin recommends few hosting which completely supports dolphin script. Like that find out hosting providers specialized in those.