**Where do you host your business website?**

sTag-Dan · #1 07-16-2008, 06:46 PM

I'm looking to move our business website out of our current network. Reason being should we run into any problems with our network, the website wouldn't be affected.

Please advise.

tuffmuffins · #2 07-16-2008, 07:03 PM

If location isn't everything I think you should be fine with any host really, but this is dependant on your budget

David · #3 07-16-2008, 07:12 PM

It doesn't hurt to have a server you could use for failover purposes on another network -- really, any external one would work. In your case I'd recommend just picking up a cheap system at iweb to handle it given it's probably going to be a rarity.

gate2vn · #4 07-16-2008, 08:42 PM

We have managed servers in multiple datacenters. Our main site is located in one, and our forums is located in another. So, in case network in one datacenter having trouble, customers can be still updated.

An external server will be always a good choice.

newgenservices · #5 07-17-2008, 04:43 PM

You can host it on a Failover or on a server on High Availability network.

ThomasB-ATLDC · #6 07-17-2008, 05:53 PM

One: don't 'Host' your site outside your network. If you don't trust it, why do you think your customers' should. Would you trust your business to someone who's tracer route is in someone else's network?

Two: having a 'failover' or 'mirrored' site is sensible, and more people should consider it.

Don't spend a-lot, hopefully you'll never have to use it.

Kody · #7 07-17-2008, 07:29 PM

We host our business site on.... Our servers.

But as well, we have an off-site status page.

Tina J · #8 07-19-2008, 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThomasB-ATLDC

One: don't 'Host' your site outside your network. If you don't trust it, why do you think your customers' should.

That's just silly logic. There's not a network that hasn't experienced an outage at one time or another.

I don't care how good a host is, the customers are absolutely going to appreciate being able to contact them in the event of a catastrophic outage.

--Tina

network82 · #9 07-19-2008, 07:45 PM

We split our various websites and webservices running our framework in multiple datacentres to reduce the changes of our own downtime during an outage or failure.

For example, main website in DC 1, Support website in DC 2.

When we first started out, we didn't actually host our own sites on our own kit, we used one of the big players.. But as our network grew and invested in a more flexable/stable network and our websites become more integrated to our network and required to be hosted internally.

maflynn · #10 07-20-2008, 07:10 AM

Seems kind of an odd request, you want to attract customers to your hosting plan but you don't have enough faith in it to run your own business.

Doesn't sound like a good business move to me.

network82 · #11 07-20-2008, 07:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maflynn

Seems kind of an odd request, you want to attract customers to your hosting plan but you don't have enough faith in it to run your own business.

Doesn't sound like a good business move to me.

If you don't have the inforstructure in place, it makes perfect sence to me..
Its not about faith in your own business, its about making sure your customers see that your un-effected by outages.. If your a small WebHost, you may only have one server. If that goes down and your customer needs to get hold of you and they cant you've most likely lost that customer, where as if your customer was able to contact when their site was down and you responsed to their query, you have more of a chance of keeping them.

Ofcourse the bigger you get, the better your inforstructure and the more resilliant and load balanced your web services.

**layer0** · #12 07-20-2008, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maflynn

Seems kind of an odd request, you want to attract customers to your hosting plan but you don't have enough faith in it to run your own business.

Doesn't sound like a good business move to me.

Let's put it this way. So, you have a very reliable/redundant network and hosting architecture. Good. Now, let's say you have an issue that's out of your control (e.g. facility experiences power outage, generator fails to start). You're down for a few hours and of course your clients have no way to reach you during that time. Sounds like a pretty bad business move to me... The point is that no matter how much control you have over your infrastructure, no matter how redundant, etc. there's going to be point where you experience an issue. When that time comes, you'd be wishing you had an off-site system.

For instance look at ThePlanet's outage in H1 - imagine if you had your company site as well as your customers hosted there?

I do see your point, but in my opinion the people who can design the best hosting infrastructure are also the ones who realize inevitably their setup is going to fail at same point.

sTag-Dan · #13 07-20-2008, 05:34 PM

Outages are inevitable and has happened to EVERY facility ; even the best and most trusted providers out there. The reason for the move is to diversify but most importantly for clients to be able to get a hold of us if our current facility is experiencing an outage.

This will be a *company* server which will hold our customer data + site so we're not looking for just any place to host it at.

David's point will work. I may just pick up a server locally at another facility, perhaps iWeb is an option.

Thanks everyone for your input!