Thinking of starting my own hosting company

[guest2013-1]

Would any of you be interested?

Servers would be located where demand would be, but I'd first start hosting in the UK (SA to UK links are quite good, not as laggy as hosting in the US)

I won't be reselling hosting via Hostgator or Web Africa etc So I'd be in control of my own server(s). Thus 100% me and no other "yahoo" needing to contact an "engineer" that would then take days to sort out a problem.

I'm also thinking of taking on only a handful of clients, to personalize the experience. This won't ever go up. That way I can literally be your only call you have to make *if* you experience problems.

The server I currently have is a racked Dell 2950, Quad Core Xeon @ 2ghz (capable of adding another CPU). 2gig RAM (capable of A LOT more) and 3x 272gig SCSI drives in RAID 5 configuration (I think, might be RAID10, I setup this server last year so some details are foggy). It's got dual power supplies on separate power circuits on separate UPS banks on separate Diesel generators and separate power companies supply...

No charge for incoming bandwidth. Outgoing will be charged for if going over a specific limit (currently 250gig in total)

Backups would be automatic, however I only have 40gig to play with, their unlimited backup costs a bit extra, but might consider it depending on the data.

The server is capable of running both .NET and PHP. I'm not running PHP through IIS so you have full access to mod_rewrite and .htaccess files (running Apache and IIS on the same machine)

Access to SQL2005 and MySQL 5.

I built this server for maximum redundancy. If a drive (or any other hardware) fails it should still be up and running without any downtime. If something catastrophic happens with the CPU or RAM there's a 60min turnaround time to replace the hardware which is usually (on average) around 35min to do.

Drives are hot-swappable so unless 2 out of the 3 drives die we're still fine... (I'm thinking I might have 5 drives in there and not 3 but I can't remember specifically)

The network has a 100% up-time guarantee. For every 10 minutes they're down I get a refund on my hosting money and would be glad to share that refund with you.

I don't have CPanel or HELM for administration purposes as I've not yet determined if there would be a need for it (I don't have any clients )

SmarterMail 5.5 is also available as a mail server.

What would you guys need in terms of bandwidth/disk space/databases/custom DLLs etc? Static IP addresses? SSL Certificates?

That and would anyone really be interested? lol

 

[RSkeens]

Some advice if you wish:

Get the control panel for the clients - it cuts down support (they can set up things they wish on their own instead of you doing it).

That RAID is probably RAID-5 if it is 3 disks (RAID-10 requires 4).

Good going with the own administration - that's what sets companies apart in web hosting. Whether or not they can actually manage a server efficiently themselves or not - you would be surprised at the number of providers that are not technical at all.

Remember to get a decent billing system.

 

[guest2013-1]

Some advice if you wish:

Get the control panel for the clients - it cuts down support (they can set up things they wish on their own instead of you doing it).

That RAID is probably RAID-5 if it is 3 disks (RAID-10 requires 4).

Good going with the own administration - that's what sets companies apart in web hosting. Whether or not they can actually manage a server efficiently themselves or not - you would be surprised at the number of providers that are not technical at all.

Remember to get a decent billing system.

Thanks, yes I can't remember if I have 3 or 4 disks in there, that's the problem And I don't know much about RAID tbh so don't know if there's somewhere on the machine I can check.

However I do know a ****load about administering web/database/mail servers so I'm confident I can make it work and keep it working with minimal *real* work other than checking that backups were done or not

The control panel I would definitely look at of course, but if there's like 1 guy interested I don't think it would justify me giving out money, especially considering that the amount people would be willing to pay would be minimal. Exactly why I'm a bit reluctant, don't know whether there would be demand and what would justify which etc.

And I'm the least worried about billing systems It seems a lot of companies get that **** wrong in the first place. I reckon if I keep my clients to (for example) 5. Then there won't be much admin work related to that now would there?

Thanks for the advice!

 

[guest2013-1]

Oh and "registration" won't be public. It would kind of be on an invite only basis (if that makes sense?). You'll contact me and I'll go, "Okay lets evaluate" and then from there decide if I'd like you to be a client of mine

Obviously a guy with 80 domains would have more support issues than a guy with 1, but then I don't want a guy with only 1 domain. That end-user kind of stuff I'm not interested in.

And I'm not trying to make big bucks out of this.

I can also help support any issues your web apps may have BTW, so if that's an additional requirement from your side we'll talk

 

[RSkeens]

Well I wish you the best of luck, it's not an easy business.

 

[SilverNodashi]

Go for it, and good luck

A few "tips" though:

1. Don't use RAID5 - it's waste of time, especially when you need to rebuild or recover from data corruption. Use RAID 10 instead, if you can.

2. Don't bother with HELM either, it's a pain in the neck to setup. Take a look @ DotNetPanel, or HostingController. Plesk is a bit limited as well, which is fine for entry level websites, but rather limited for power-type-websites.

3. Get a decent billing script, WHMCS works for Uniforum and some local merchant accounts as well.

Don't go too big, too quick, you'll get burnt.

 

[realbigdreamer]

Acidrazor, how much do you think of charging? I might be interested.

 

[Lino]

Interested in it buddy! Lemmie know!

 

[guest2013-1]

Go for it, and good luck

A few "tips" though:

1. Don't use RAID5 - it's waste of time, especially when you need to rebuild or recover from data corruption. Use RAID 10 instead, if you can.

2. Don't bother with HELM either, it's a pain in the neck to setup. Take a look @ DotNetPanel, or HostingController. Plesk is a bit limited as well, which is fine for entry level websites, but rather limited for power-type-websites.

3. Get a decent billing script, WHMCS works for Uniforum and some local merchant accounts as well.

Don't go too big, too quick, you'll get burnt.

Thanks, any ideas if a RAID5 can be switched to RAID10 without any impact on the current data on there? I'm pretty sure I only have 3 drives in there though, so need to add another one... RAID5 was when I was young and stupid.. I know RAID10 is easy-peasy

Acidrazor, how much do you think of charging? I might be interested.

Interested in it buddy! Lemmie know!

That's just the problem. Was hoping to get some input from you guys as to what your requirements are, what you currently pay and what you're willing to pay for a service that literally has only a handful of clients for the purpose of keeping service levels up.

Honestly not looking for 1 person = 1 domain type scenarios, but badgers can't be choosers

 

[Pixual]

I do this too, but I have a properly managed server in the US that I pay a bit extra for. I have WHMCS in place which works pretty well. I don't bother with RAID and all that stuff as I have R1Soft in place.

I provide hosting for photographers, designers and other people who need more disk space and who make use of a lot of open source content management systems like WordPress, Joomla, etc.

You can't do this effectively without cPanel.

 

[RSkeens]

I don't bother with RAID and all that stuff as I have R1Soft in place.

RAID is not a form of backup - when you have a damaged disk, R1Soft CDP will not buy you any time to swap out the disk and resync. It also won't help with performance. Having both is the way to go but if I had to only choose one, I would actually go with RAID, reason being we recently also implemented R1Soft's solutions but were using a custom setup fine before that.

Each to their own, though.

 

[Lino]

Acid dude, we would need some type of guarantee even trial before making up our minds.

 

[guest2013-1]

I can guarantee **** would work

 

[SilverNodashi]

Thanks, any ideas if a RAID5 can be switched to RAID10 without any impact on the current data on there? I'm pretty sure I only have 3 drives in there though, so need to add another one... RAID5 was when I was young and stupid.. I know RAID10 is easy-peasy

Although some more expensive NAS & SAN servers can do this, I don't know how reliable it actually is. Best bet to is backup everything first. You can also setup RAID 10, in degraded mode, with only 3 HDD's

 

[tco21]

What sort of prices would we be looking at?

 

[Adenoid Hynkel]

Can you get Cpanel on that Box? If yes I might be interested.

This is the 3rd time I hear latency to the UK is lower than to the US, but, is it really noticable?
What would you charge for a reseller account? +- 100 domains/20-30GB space/atleast 50GB traffic.
I would prefer a vps though with cpanel to manage all extra settings etc..

 

[guest2013-1]

What sort of prices would we be looking at?

That's just the thing. I don't know

Basically I'm going to evaluate it based on what your needs are, for example:

OS: Which platform do you mainly use? (ASP/.NET/PHP etc)
Domains: How many domains do you plan on hosting?
Email: Would all the domains require email hosting as well?
Bandwidth: What is your current (and estimated) bandwidth usage/needs?
Disk space: How much diskspace would you require? (future and current)
Custom DLL's: Do you require any custom DLL's or ISAPI filters on the server itself?
Statistics: I currently have AWStats on the server, is this good enough or do you need something else?
Static IP addresses: Do you require any Static IP addresses?

I don't think I'll charge for Static IP addresses, but depending on the demand my provider might start charging me for it.

Like I said, this is going to be for 5 users only. I'm not specifically looking at selling 1xdomain hosting for R25/month (or whatever) to Joe Soap who can like to spell websites...

But have seen recently a couple of resellers having to jump ship/go somewhere else with their hosting needs when support levels dropped dramatically...

Any advice regarding that would be appreciated.

 

[Pixual]

RAID is not a form of backup - when you have a damaged disk, R1Soft CDP will not buy you any time to swap out the disk and resync. It also won't help with performance. Having both is the way to go but if I had to only choose one, I would actually go with RAID, reason being we recently also implemented R1Soft's solutions but were using a custom setup fine before that.

Each to their own, though.

But then what's the point in having RAID anyway? Avoidance of downtime? Can you still run the server while the faulty drive is being restored?

 

[RSkeens]

But then what's the point in having RAID anyway? Avoidance of downtime? Can you still run the server while the faulty drive is being restored?

It is to avoid downtime from one or more broken drives. It also boosts performance (especially in RAID-10). Yes, you can still run the system in most cases.

 

[guest2013-1]

Can you get Cpanel on that Box? If yes I might be interested.

This is the 3rd time I hear latency to the UK is lower than to the US, but, is it really noticable?
What would you charge for a reseller account? +- 100 domains/20-30GB space/atleast 50GB traffic.
I would prefer a vps though with cpanel to manage all extra settings etc..

The latency is definitely noticeable, to me at least (I have a 384k line) and it obviously depends on how you've designed the website, but on a crappy-ish design that wasn't streamlined it still loads faster.

Most links go via London according to what I've noticed, especially now with Seacom as well.

Thanks for providing the information, could you perhaps give me an example of the VPS solution that you prefer? Obviously I wouldn't want anyone to fiddle with settings on the machine via RDP or something like that because it might impact on the other sites...

I've only really worked with HELM/Plesk and CPanel from an end user perspective (having setup several HELM systems from admin perspective).

This is a "catered for" / "boutique" solution for a very select few so it's quite open to change based on what you'd want to see.

What price are you currently paying for such a solution? (You can PM me if you don't want to disclose any information). Thanks again for any input.