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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Louisville, Ky
    Posts
    168

    Your honest answers please

    I must say, long time reader..first time poster and great board here.

    I am a web designer looking to get into hosting for the sites Ive designed.. I have visited the board many times to read up on hosting and looked through the search functions, but still unclear about the whole techinical process.

    I have found a host that I like alot, I dont want to mention it here since i see Robert Marsh is the contact for this site and I wouldnt want to take anything away from Rackshack... but I found a hosting compant I really enjoy and now I need to know a few finally things.

    One, to have a "hosting company" such as im doing (under 100 clients at most for a local area) do I have to have a dedicated server or can I run it off a vertial server with my main host?

    I guess I am not clear about the control panel issue and tech part of setting it up.

    I dont know what panel to use yet, but thought about going with Hsphere until i heard alot of tech issues with it.. I need something somewhat easy to install and set up... and something that can handle almost of the processes by itself so that i have time to design and not have to mess with adding clients, checking the bills, adding FTP permissions, etc... it basically needs to run itself. Does the control panel do all of this or do i need more components? I wouldnt mind going with a free/open source panel either, as I need to save as much money as possible, but I would pay for a better panel/program.

    So, i have a host that I want to deal with, but now want.. do i go dedicated or virtual with them, and what components do i need exactly to make it a smooth process?

    I thought if I go free, I would go with simplecp, or phpmanager... any thoughts on these?

    Thanks guys.. hope I can contribute one day
    Jason

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2001
    Location
    Atlanta. Georgia
    Posts
    252
    Why not just partner up with a host? You refer your customers to the hosting company, they refer their customers to you for design work
    Peachtree WebWorks, LLC
    http://www.peachtreewebworks.com

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Louisville, Ky
    Posts
    168
    true, nice idea.. any body you know that does this already?.... plus i really wanted to do this myself as I have my own sites I wanna host as well along with some of my clients... they are not needy people.. out of the 70 i do have now, i get maybe two emails tops a week on problems... very simple and easy money it seems to me to collect hosting dues from them since they trust me already cause i designed their sites...

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2001
    Posts
    1,319
    Hi. SimpleCP doesnt include billing software
    Avi B

  5. #5
    I think you'll find that a lot of non-reseller web hosting companies actually avoid web design because they don't want to be perceived as competing with their resellers. So, it should be fairly easy to find a company to partner up with.
    Sincerely,
    Andrew Kinney
    CTO, Advantagecom Networks
    http://www.SimplyWebHosting.com

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jul 2001
    Location
    Troy, Missouri USA
    Posts
    1,299
    Originally posted by jmb1881
    out of the 70 i do have now, i get maybe two emails tops a week on problems... very simple and easy money it seems to me to collect hosting dues from them since they trust me already cause i designed their sites...
    Where are these 70 domains hosted at now? If everyone is happy there you might want to make a deal with whom ever they are.

    I think that cPanel and a managed hosting provider would be best for you. Cpanel is best for new users in my opinion, it have the best features and the lowest learning curve.
    Sitekeeper
    Google

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Louisville, Ky
    Posts
    168
    well, the 70 are spread out with different companies.. i wasnt too smart when i started as I was only looking to make money from designing the sites... I didnt look forward enough to try to set up a reseller account so alot of these guys already had hosting when i was designing their sites.

    I know I can get almost all of them to switch as they are paying above average payments and most are actually unhappy with their hosting service (downtime, slow responses) I seem to get the emails alot of times as they think the designer can magically help them.. all I do is forward the email on to the server to try to help. I think my thoughts are valuable to alot of them as I am always there for them but if I am handeling so many "server issues" questions I thought I could basically open my own hosting company just for my clients and cut them a great deal on payment and handel alot of their little issues when my partner. I need room for myself and my own growing sites and while I was looking for a host of my own, i came up with this idea to switch my clients over with me and host them myself.. if this sounds crazy just tell me, i was hoping it would work out to my benefit as i needed the larger server anyway for myself and the dues I would collect would pretty much cover the new host and make a little profit.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Louisville, Ky
    Posts
    168
    the only main issues that i get emails are about downtime and slow tech responses... I know downtime can be caused by many things maybe unrelated to the host (like bandwidth carrier) but some of the host companies I think are too slow or have bad servers as a few of them have stated 'emergency server upgrades" for most of downtime, and then they are unable to respond to the many complants and emails sent to them in time.
    I was hoping to provide better customer service as my standpoint

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jun 2002
    Location
    Arabia
    Posts
    678
    www.VenturesOnline.com - their forum also has many web designers who host their own customers, those designers can answer your questions better than I can - but you know how designers are

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jul 2001
    Location
    Troy, Missouri USA
    Posts
    1,299
    I would take a little time and do some homework on your 70 clients and see how much disk space and data transfer you will need. Once you add all that up, post again with that info and we can help to determine if you are going to need more then one server and some options on whom to use.

    Also figure the amount of (profit) you are making just from hosting. You also nee to decide it you want to take the time to learn to be an Administrator or is it worth the extra $200 or so a month to leave that to someone else.
    Sitekeeper
    Google

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Louisville, Ky
    Posts
    168
    as far as servers go?

    Could it be techinically done on a vert. server account or do I need to get dedicated/managed?

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jul 2001
    Location
    Troy, Missouri USA
    Posts
    1,299
    It would depend on what how much disk space and data transfer you will need. There are many good hosts that will get you your own server for a reseller account with 70 users already.
    Sitekeeper
    Google

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