Joburg vs Cape Town for managed hosting

[The_Centre]

Hi,

Just interested to know from some of you out there what general opinion would be..

If you were buying managed hosting services (not colocation) for your company
e.g. some managed cloud/virtual servers with a managed firewall for your ecommerce website.

How much would the location of the data centre and providers' offices influence your decision?
If you are a Joburg based company would you be averse to buying from a provider that hosts in a Cape Town data centre (or vice versa).

Assume that the quality of the data centres is very good and the same quality in both cities.

Thanks!

[NetSpike]

I'll take the data center closer to where I live.

[shogun]

Wouldn't go with either. I'd get a dedicated box with Hetzner in Germany. Where the box is located... is pretty much irrelevant to me, as long as I can access it, or get a support person to access it if the hardware has failed. You would have a secondary up and running with the data replicated, so it really doesn't matter if one goes down. It's the support that counts.

So, if the service is assumed the same... it really doesn't matter where the box is. I wouldn't drive out to the machine if it failed anyhow.

[T-Man]

The MTN Gallo Manor Centre where Hetzner (and MyBB) hosts in JHB has it fair share of outages - maybe not the best choice.

[shogun]

The MTN Gallo Manor Centre where Hetzner (and MyBB) hosts in JHB has it fair share of outages - maybe not the best choice.


Hetzner Germany and Hetzner SA are two VERY different entities. Haven't experienced any issues with Hetzner Germany as of yet. My answer was somewhat off topic though (apologies OP), but was there to illustrate, that of the two options available, it wouldn't matter which one I chose, as I would even host internationally. Location is mostly irrelevant unless you are doing huge volumes. Most people don't notice the difference in latency.

[Ipwn 4]

Hetzner Germany and Hetzner SA are two VERY different entities. Haven't experienced any issues with Hetzner Germany as of yet. My answer was somewhat off topic though (apologies OP), but was there to illustrate, that of the two options available, it wouldn't matter which one I chose, as I would even host internationally. Location is mostly irrelevant unless you are doing huge volumes. Most people don't notice the difference in latency.

Stupid question but can you post a link please? Not sure if I was on the right site

[koffiejunkie]

If it's something sensitive to latency, I'll take the datacenter nearest to where my customers are. If not, I'll probaby agree with shogun and not host in ZA at all.

[shogun]

Stupid question but can you post a link please? Not sure if I was on the right site

http://www.hetzner.de/

You'd want to click on the little British flag to switch to english.

/exits thread before derailing further than expected.

[Ipwn 4]

http://www.hetzner.de/

You'd want to click on the little British flag to switch to english.

/exits thread before derailing further than expected.
Thanks...

/leaves thread

[The_Centre]

Wouldn't go with either. I'd get a dedicated box with Hetzner in Germany. Where the box is located... is pretty much irrelevant to me, as long as I can access it, or get a support person to access it if the hardware has failed. You would have a secondary up and running with the data replicated, so it really doesn't matter if one goes down. It's the support that counts.

So, if the service is assumed the same... it really doesn't matter where the box is. I wouldn't drive out to the machine if it failed anyhow.

OK noted.
But, lets say the data cannot be hosted internationally for latency & regulatory reasons.
Hetzner DE, although good value for money for a dedicated server, is not really the sort of provider I was thinking about. Think more along the lines of Rackspace type service.

On a side note (OT):
Hetzner SA, do they build multi-tier/client specific hosting environments? Or do they just put everyone on a single dedicated server? i.e. web/app/db all in one - which of course we all know that does exactly scale for high volume services and is bad security practice.

[shogun]

OK noted.
But, lets say the data cannot be hosted internationally for latency & regulatory reasons.
Hetzner DE, although good value for money for a dedicated server, is not really the sort of provider I was thinking about. Think more along the lines of Rackspace type service.

Regulatory wise, you'd have a valid reason to host here then. Latency wise... unless you are running a gaming server, I'm not sure I see the logic. So many websites we purchase from are hosted internationally, and that doesn't prevent us from using them.



On a side note (OT):
Hetzner SA, do they build multi-tier/client specific hosting environments? Or do they just put everyone on a single dedicated server? i.e. web/app/db all in one - which of course we all know that does exactly scale for high volume services and is bad security practice.

Doesn't that depend on you? You aren't going to be using shared hosting surely, so you'd be setting up your own dedicated servers. If I was setting up an e-commerce site, I'd go with a few dedicated servers, and set up my own db cluster and web cluster... depending of course on how much volume I'd be looking to push. It wouldn't matter who I'd host with as long as the servers were secure and I trusted the ISP.

If you are going with a shared server option, then I'd be very suspect about who else has access to the servers (ISP staff etc). With a dedicated machine, you can for the most part lock the machine down. The only way that anyone would get in would be to remove the HDD and place it in another machine... which you'd notice pretty quickly.

[isp-insider]

My response on your initial request would be to host with the provider who's data center is geographically closest to your offices. If you are spending money on managed hosting then you want to be closest to the isp to ensure that there was and is that face to face value of knowing who works on your servers, and those who work on your servers know you.

my 2c worth

[The_Centre]

My response on your initial request would be to host with the provider who's data center is geographically closest to your offices. If you are spending money on managed hosting then you want to be closest to the isp to ensure that there was and is that face to face value of knowing who works on your servers, and those who work on your servers know you.

my 2c worth

Very good point you have there.
There is certainly something to be said for having more than a faceless telephone relationship with someone who you deal with often and can count on to fix issues when bad things happen.

I was thinking more in terms of the latency and any perceived disadvantages between hosting in CPT or JHB, but this does add food for thought.

Thanks for your 2c!

[isp-insider]

Very good point you have there.
There is certainly something to be said for having more than a faceless telephone relationship with someone who you deal with often and can count on to fix issues when bad things happen.

I was thinking more in terms of the latency and any perceived disadvantages between hosting in CPT or JHB, but this does add food for thought.

Thanks for your 2c!
Only a pleasure. With regards to latency... If your offices are in JHB then go for the JHB data center. Whilst response times may be slightly higher for a CPT based server it just makes sense to host your servers closest to where you are.

Let me know if you need help with finding a host