How Can I Evaluate The Services Of My Hosting Provider
May 12, 2008
I have a managed dedicated server in England, but I have no idea about the quality of services I get from the person that does the management of my server.
Unfortunately I do not have the technical knowledge to evaluate it by myself. The server looks fast but I am not sure whether it is optimised for security, protection from spammers, etc.
Is there a way to find out if everything has been setup in the best possible way? Can this be done without giving access to the server?
I see tons of offers with a wide range of prices. I really only need a basic vps for mostly static, low-traffic sites.
Could someone please let me know what questions I could ask of potential VPS hosts to evaluate their reliability? Everyone seems to have a "test our speed here link" and a "guaranteed 99% uptime".
I know that I can search reviews (which I have done), and I can also sign up for a few months to see for myself, but I'm wondering if there's a way to "see through" all the marketing hype to really learn if the company is going to be reliable.
Lets say you're a customer looking for web hosting, but do have technical experience - you know, you develop your own websites, you've had experience in this sort of thing before.
What if you came across a provider who seemed to offer a good service, they're high quality, they can host your website on their brilliant setup etc... but they do not provide any e-mail accounts with your hosting?
We're developing our own shared hosting setup, our own control panel too. Regardless of the control panel though, we wouldn't feel comfortable hosting peoples e-mail. We have plenty of experience in every other aspect of general shared hosting - but not looking after e-mail accounts nor the associated software.
To be honest I don't think that many shared hosting providers truely handle e-mail properly, and that job should really be left to the professionals.
We could of course guide customers or potential customers on why we won't offer e-mail accounts (i.e. not wanting to offer something we know we can't provide to a high enough standard) and instruct them on how to setup e-mail with another provider (such as Google, who will do this for free with limitations).
The alternative to the above is that we mask in a third party to look after e-mail, i.e. resell someone elses e-mail services as part of our hosting packages. The third party would require API access to setup/remove accounts..
What do you think? Are we just acting stupid trying to provide web hosting without e-mail hosting included? I noticed a while back Dreamhost encouraged their customers to use an alternative e-mail provider!
Has anyone looked into hosting on Amazon Web Services EC2? It seems to me that a Elastic Compute Cloud node would be a far better solution than a VPS or a dedicated server.
I bought a hosting package from Yahoo Small Business India.
Initially i was happy because the package was cheap and had good features. Database was easily set up I installed php admin tool also with one click install. No other packages are available. One has to manually upload and install.
I tried to upload phpbb but i wasn't able to upload some files. I emailed them and asked why the server gives an error while uploading .htaccess files, the reply was we don't support it. I uploaded it without .htaccess and installed it. I installed wordpess and wanted to have clean URLs but yahoo does not support mod rewrite. I don’t know much about php and databases.
9th July 2008: While I was learning I modified some tables due to which my database administrator permissions were lost. I was able to login using phpadmin but unable to create new databases and modify previously created databases and tables. I emailed customer care regarding the problem and got a useless reply on 10th July that I should change the password of the database administrator.
I changed the password but the problem was not resolved. On 11th I again emailed the problem in detail with screenshots to the customer care. On 12th, I got a reply “we have forwarded this issue to the technical team and we will inform you once this issue is resolved.”
On 12th I emailed to ask when the problem will be resolved but got no reply from them. Till date (15th July) the problem is not resolved. No one even wants to reply to emails.
See below my emails and replies given by yahoo customer care:
******************************************************** My email to yahoo customer care on 9th July:
I have some problem with database. By mistake i modified my original user name which i created while setting up the database. Now i can't access the tables that were created with previous user name. When i log in using phpadmin and try to see any tables i get the message. Access denied. Moreover, I also cannot create any new tables. I have NOT modified the yroot user;. Can it be recovered. Please help.
Reply to the above query from Yahoo India on 10th July
From: Yahoo! India Small Business <in-cs-ysb@cc.yahoo-inc.com> Subject: Re: Troubleshooting (KMM90534089V76144L0KM) To: "Vinay Chhabra" Date: Thursday, July 10, 2008, 1:19 PM Hello, Thank you for writing to Yahoo! India Customer Care. With regards to your query, follow the below steps to assign a new user name and password to access your database: 1.Logon to your "web hosting control panel". 2.Go to "create and update" tab. 3.Select "MySql databases". 4.Select "database administrator" and assign your user name and password and click "submit". For further assistance please write to us. Thank you again for writing to Yahoo! India Customer Care. Regards, Pruthvi Senior Customer Care Specialist Yahoo! Customer Care
Dear Sir, Thanks for your reply. I have already done that from database administrator link but the problem is not resolved. This problem has started since yesterday because of my mistake. I modified the original database administrator "user name" from the database "mysql". After modification all my permissions have lost. I have not modified the yroot user. So can you grant the administrator permissions to new user The problem is that after logging in using phpadmin i don't have permission to create a new database. The databases and tables that I created earlier are also not available to me. I am also attaching the screenshot (.gif) of what error i am getting. When i click any database in phpadmin i get the following message:
SQL query: SHOW TABLE STATUS FROM `wpress` ; MySQL said:#1044 - Access denied for user to database 'wpress'
If there is no solution then please reset the database, so that MySQL database can be set up again. Regards, (Vinay Chhabra)
Reply to the above query from Yahoo India on 11th July
From: Yahoo! India Small Business <in-cs-ysb@cc.yahoo-inc.com> Subject: Re: Troubleshooting (KMM90547155V54693L0KM) To: "Vinay Chhabra" < > Date: Friday, July 11, 2008, 11:09 AM Hello Vinay Chhabra,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! India Customer Care. With regards to your mail, we have forwarded this issue to the technical team and we will inform you once this issue is resolved. Thank you again for writing to Yahoo! India Customer Care.
Regards, Pruthvi Senior Customer Care Specialist Yahoo! Customer Care
Dear Sir, When can i expect the problem to be resolved. I reported the problem on 9th. Today is 12th. If there is problem in resolving then please reset the database. I think it will be much more faster. Regards, Vinay Chhabra
I shifted my website universalteacher.com from yahoo to Medialayer in July 2008 because yahoo has a very bad customer support. You can read my review about yahoo here: [url]
The support provided by medialayer is excellent. Whenever I contact them, they reply within 1 hour. Mostly I have got reply within 15 minutes. The executives are knowledgeable and very helpful.
I am located in India and Medialayer is in US. I always contact them in odd hours. Please see the following query that I asked when I was testing wordpress MU on one of my sites at 6:13 AM and i got the reply at 6:26 AM. The second query i asked at 12:40 PM and got reply at 12:48 PM ....
I've had a VPS from vpsland.com for a while now, but for the past week the services I've recieved are absolutely abysmal.
My server just went *off* - no clue, no trace. Then after repeated requests the server comes online, and just BARELY. All my websites, and the control panel (plesk) are offline. In fact even the virtuozzo control panel (on port 4643) is offline.
No credit, no apologies, nothing. Quite ridiculous.
I'll be shifting elsewhere. Any suggestions? I need a VPS around $50 a month - excellent services necessary.
Currently I am hosting my web site myself on my PC at home (Jboss+ mysql). Using a dedicated server with the highest spec can cost me a fortune knowing that I've just started my online recruitment business.
Should I just hire good hosting services to do things more professionally or should I keep hosting myself and learn how avoid many downtimes
hosting company that will allow me to expand as much as I like in terms of RAM, Storage and Bandwidth without having to move from a dedicated server to another dedicated server each time.
I guess the answer is something like Amazons Web Services (AWS). However, I haven't heard great things about them, but I wanted to know what everyone thought of them and any other similar cloud services that is more affordable and reliable.
There are plenty of people searching the hosting provider. Below article for them.
At the time of selection of hosting provider, you need to consider some of the points like below:
1) Server speed is the best or not? For that you can ask to hosting provider that they can able to give demo account and if yes then check your requirement with that and then purchase.
2) How much space do you require and how much money are you spending. For this you need to search the cheapest and reliable hosting provide.
3) How much bandwidth, database, Email account, ftp account, Support are considerable.
4) If developer need to use joomla and other tool then you need to clarify your specific requirement for the same
Let us know if you like to know more about hosting provider.
I own a semi-popular downloads website which I host on one server while the actual files/downloads are hosted on another server. This downloads server is very low-end ( AMD Sempron 3000, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB HD, CentOS with lighttpd, no control panel, etc.) and is connected via a 100Mbit shared line with a 3300GB bandwidth limit. Originally, I had it on a 10Mbit dedicated unmetered line but I hoped that by upgrading to the 100Mbit, I'd get better burst speeds, faster transfers/downloads, and a bit more bandwidth in general. Well, this doesn't seem to be the case so I'm looking for a new server or file hosting service hopefully on a better and faster network.
Right now, I'm considering the following companies/services:
* Profithost.net - Decent Dedicated server with nice bandwidth * Redhostservers.com - OK Dedicated server with awesome bandwidth * Server4you.com - Great Dedicated server with good bandwidth
* File-services.com - Decently priced pure file hosting with OK features * MegaUpload Business account with Hotlink Quota - Decently priced pure file hosting with nice features
What would be the most discussed/popular (and in turn reliable?) host on WHT. Is SoftSys a reliable one, I keep seeing them popping up everywhere, but doesn't seem to make an impression with $1 plans!
A while ago I decided to move to VPS. I did an extensive research and I concluded to EuroVPS. From my experience so far these guys are PROFESSIONALS and really know their job. Their service and technical support are second to none.
I'm about to put my site online, firstly so that I can post links which will quickly summarize problems that I'm having, and secondly so that, of course, people will visit the site
What hosting providers can you recommend?
I'm looking for a service provider that is robust (will not go down), scalable (will handle large amounts of bandwidth), supports shttp, and will provide authenticity certificates.
Our Web hosting provider withholds access to Cpanel and requires us to pay for each instance we request new FTP accounts, etc. He claims that it is his responsibility to host the site on the server and make sure people don’t have unauthorized access. Is this a valid and industry-standard position?
We've been reading this site for awhile a colleague, who is a member, suggested we post a request here. We are looking for a NETHERLANDS-based dedicated server hosting company (which, obviously means a Netherlands datacenter) for our single dedicated server. We're not interested in hosting companies based in other countries but offering NL servers; just those that are NL based.
Our business is perfectly legal (as explained below) and we have neither the time nor inclination to debate the merits of our needs and would appreciate respect for that position (as we have read some of the reactions to such requests by US members for non-US servers and many have been less than respectful).
That said, here are three NL providers we're NOT interested in:
Leaseweb. That is based largely on a recent post in which they indicated they shut down servers with little notice if they get even one, even unsubstantiated, complaint about a TOS violation but also because we've read nightmare stories about how they treat small businesses and individual customers. Apparently, they've become too big for small accounts and our business server is as mission-critical to us as their big business clients. We need a provider that respects small business.
Server Boost. We have a VPS with them (we won't say under which domain name or IP address) but are still trying to work out the kinks in that rather new relationship so won't use them for our dedi at this time. That VPS will be the slave to our dedi.
i3D.net. They are our current dedi provider with whom we have a Rackserver but it isn't working out for a variety of reasons, the most important being we have no remote access control panel or power management. Right now, we are required to pay for OS reinstalls and just about anything else we need that's not a simple reboot. We don't necessarily believe they are a bad provider and don't want to malign them but our experience with them makes us disinclined to upgrade to a Dell server (and we are "anti-Dell" because of our personal experiences with Dell, anyway). We don't believe most customers feel this way about since their offerings are certainly suitable for most needs.
Therefore, we're looking for different alternatives from Leaseweb, i3D and Server Boost that are reputable, provide high-quality servers and solid, English-speaking, tech support at a reasonable monthly price. (We liked, for example, what OVH was offering but their NL site is in Dutch, only, and we don't want a UK server.)
What we now have:
* Intel Quadcore 2.4 Ghz CPU * 2 GB DDR2 RAM * 500 GB HDD (non-RAID) * max 1000 mbit connection * 2000 GB traffic * 10+ IP addresses * Full root access * SSH access * Netherlands company/NL datacenter * Unmanaged * No hosting control panel * Upgradeable RAM, B/W, IP addresses, etc. * Full hardware SLA
What we MUST have:
* Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.4+ Ghz CPU * 4 GB DDR2 RAM (upgradeable to 8 GB, if nec.) * 160+ GB HDD (RAID isn't necessary if single HD) * max 1000 mbit connection * 250-500 GB traffic p/m * 15 IP addresses * Full root/ SSH access * IMPERATIVE: Remote access control panel with power control and ability to complete repair and maintenance tasks and OS reinstalls remotely WITHOUT having to contact Tech Support or pay for such services** * Netherlands company/NL datacenter ONLY * CentOS 5.3 x86_64 Linux (minimal) installed * Full virtualization capability * Unmanaged * NO hosting control panel * Upgradeable RAM, B/W, IP addresses, etc. as well as to a newer/larger dedi in first 30-days of contract without paying setup fees * Full hardware SLA * Responsive, English-speaking tech support, preferably 24/7** by email or phone and response within several hours * TOS/Privacy Policies/Legal Policies available in English without the "Dutch only" terms valid caveat * Server/order details available in English * Fully itemized invoices available upon request * Server provisioned and ready-to-use within 24-48 hours after payment clears (must be guaranteed in writing) * MONTHLY contract (with NO 30-day advanced notice cancellation clause**) and PayPal as payment option
(**Lack of these important features is why we're switching providers.)
Prospective providers should be clear that this server is for our completely legal, US-based businesses that represent high-profile individuals engaged in legal business activities themselves. We will host several websites and blogs that are business-oriented and targeted to them, C-suite decision-makers who contract for our services and their audiences.
Our sites will contain NO adult content (legal or otherwise, whether it's called porn, erotica, or whatever), warez, torrents, copyrighted material for which we don't have permission to post/use, or overtly controversial materials like anti-government, hate speech, etc. We won't be spamming, phishing or doing IRC. We will not market to or represent clients who engage in such activities, even if legal in their jurisdiction.
We are not going to be hosting others' websites and our sites/blogs aren't expected to generate excessively high traffic. We use IP addresses for NS purposes and other purposes for which separate IP addresses are needed. So, we won't need DDoS or similar protection.
Our budget is €125.
Please give us your hosting-provider (only) suggestions. We'd prefer only recommendations of NL-based providers you've used. SERIOUS responses only; due to time constraints, we're forced to ignore any responses that don't adhere to our request for provider recommendations or attempt to debate the merits or our needs.
I'm trying to find a bulletproof support hosting provider that will alowe me to install phplist and send high number of newsletters to customers. I have my dedicated SMTP servers... i just need some place to host my web sites and park my other domains....
and the hosting provider must not suspends my account for any complain form the 3rd party....
my company's current hosting contract expires in May and I'm in need to find another one that will hopefully suit me better and cause much less headache.
I'll try to list some basic needs I got:
10gb bandwidth 10gb space Mass email marketing ability! This is important!
I have a member list of about 30,000 who I email twice a week! These people are opt-in recipients of these emails.
On top of that I'd like to start mining and sending out opt-in requests of about 50-100,000 a month to NEW emails that I don't have direct permission to email.
I obviously have software to manage, clean, send out in batches, and do whatever else you have to for proper email marketing.
From some research I got the idea that I would be better off with some offshore VPS/dedicated host that won't shut us down for emailing. We will do our best to keep the bounces at minimum as well as keep up-to-date blacklists/unsubscribers.
