Re: [tlug] [OT] Web hosting recommendations?

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On Sat, 14 Jul 2007, Darren Cook wrote:

> What is frustrating is that I'd like to move to virtual private server
> for the additional security, but so far all the VPS solutions I've
> looked at are aimed at people who have the skill and time to maintain a
> unix server and keep it secure.
>
> Are there any *fully-managed* VPS solutions for under about $30/month? I
> don't need or want root access, and I don't want to choose the OS to
> install. Instead I want an easy life!

"I want a Unix sysadmin for $30/month." Ha ha! :-)

> Is managing a server full of virtual private servers (where users don't
> have root access, so are limited in what they screw up) really any
> harder for the ISP than managing a server full of shared hosts?

Speaking off the top of my head, in some ways, yes. You'd have to have
some pretty impressive deployment tools to be able to deal with this.

But more importantly, as you increase the level of sophistication
of your web site (basically, as you move further beyond a pile o'
static content), you're going to pay one way or another for the extra
maintenance, debugging, and so on. Even simple security upgrades can
break a web site, which is why you want the guy who maintains the site
around when the upgrade is done. (If it's not, and it breaks, you
may be down or malfunctioning for a while until someone calls in the
maintainer.)

As an example, at Starling we do hosting of the "we will keep this
application running for you" variety, and we generally charge 50,000 yen
or more per month for this. When we do this, our biggest expense by far
is the sysadmin time.

But you're probably willing to live without some of the stuff we do
(24-hour response to emergencies, failover to servers at multiple
sites on multiple ISPs, special tricks for dealing with very high
bandwidth sites and still keeping latency low, staging servers, using
our application framework, application support, etc.) in order to do
things quite a bit cheaper than that, and I think that this list is the
right place to figure that out.

What I would try to do is get together with one or a few other people
and share the work of running the server. Especially if you're willing
to pay the hosting charges and perhaps throw in some programming
support, you might be able to find someone, or a few people, who are
willing to take on a bunch of the sysadmin work in trade for the
hosting.

Does anybody have any other ideas?

cjs
--
Curt Sampson       <cjs@example.com>        +81 90 7737 2974
Mobile sites and software consulting: http://www.starling-software.com