Thinking of starting my own hosting company

[Pixual]

OK. Fortunately I haven't had to cross that suspension bridge just yet...

 

[guest2013-1]

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.

To add onto this, I never really knew how much of a "boost" RAID gave until I saw it with my own two eyes. I had a Pastel Accounting data extraction run every night, which took +- 50min to complete. This is with a regular 10000rpm SCSI drive and with optimized code to the brim.

They then installed a 5 drive/RAID 5 solution and the run time (after the RAID battery was fully charged or whatever?) of that app was less than a minute! *Really* fast.

 

[RSkeens]

OK. Fortunately I haven't had to cross that suspension bridge just yet...

It's great sleeping at night knowing that you are in most cases covered At least you have R1Soft CDP though, that can save on restore time.

 

[guest2013-1]

It's great sleeping at night knowing that you are in most cases covered At least you have R1Soft CDP though, that can save on restore time.

Server I knew crashed and there was no redundancy (normal 1U, like a desktop PC) and people shat themselves. They promptly got another one (almost basically the same) and when they started getting problems again wondered why....

So eventually they're also now on a proper racked solution with redundancy and FTP backups etc

 

[guest2013-1]

Oh and re: the VPS solution, I doubt I'd be able to do that because I'm running Windows Server 2003 with IIS/Apache? So it's not like linux where I can give you root access or what not to a server specific to you?

If I'm misunderstanding this let me know

 

[RSkeens]

So eventually they're also now on a proper racked solution with redundancy and FTP backups etc

Just make sure they set up the backups in the right pull order (there's no point in server -> backup server connections for common protocols like FTP).

 

[bullfrog]

Oh and re: the VPS solution, I doubt I'd be able to do that because I'm running Windows Server 2003 with IIS/Apache? So it's not like linux where I can give you root access or what not to a server specific to you?

If I'm misunderstanding this let me know

There are windows virtual private server solutions, but in most cases you have to install a special/specific operating system. Then you need to set up a vps with its own OS.

The process is slightly different for each solution, but it will probably require more than just installing software on your server. It will likely require an OS reload and then it's best not to run a shared web server on the host OS but rather on a vps. So to set this up, you'll have to load the host OS, then set up a vps for yourself for the shared hosting. Then set up vpses for clients that require it. So it can be done, but it with a bit of effort.

I don't know if there are easy windows solutions because I deal mainly with linux. I believe this can be done with xen, which would require you load a linux OS for the host. You can then load a windows vps if your hardware supports virtualization technology.

 

[guest2013-1]

Just make sure they set up the backups in the right pull order (there's no point in server -> backup server connections for common protocols like FTP).

Not my problem anymore. They do as they please and I said "fine, I'll go manage my own servers..." lol

There are windows virtual private server solutions, but in most cases you have to install a special/specific operating system. Then you need to set up a vps with its own OS.

The process is slightly different for each solution, but it will probably require more than just installing software on your server. It will likely require an OS reload and then it's best not to run a shared web server on the host OS but rather on a vps. So to set this up, you'll have to load the host OS, then set up a vps for yourself for the shared hosting. Then set up vpses for clients that require it. So it can be done, but it with a bit of effort.

I don't know if there are easy windows solutions because I deal mainly with linux. I believe this can be done with xen, which would require you load a linux OS for the host. You can then load a windows vps if your hardware supports virtualization technology.

Thanks, the server is established and has a few website on it already, so I don't really want to mess around with it just for VPS. However, I think, because I'm running a "boutique" service and would personally get to know the clients myself, I might trust them with RDP access provided they sign an agreement and follow the rules I'll set out in terms of privacy and policy... that might work.

 

[SilverNodashi]

AcidRazor, please don't take offence in this, but you still have a lot to learn, before you can start a hosting company the way you want it. I suggest you get a reseller account, or VPS first, and learn how to "manage the system", i.e. do billing, reporting, handle spam & blacklisting, hacked accounts, etc. Getting, and managing a dedicated sounds a bit over your head, from what I've seen you talk about, and what you don't know yet. You may be very successful, or you could fail miserably

 

[guest2013-1]

AcidRazor, please don't take offence in this, but you still have a lot to learn, before you can start a hosting company the way you want it. I suggest you get a reseller account, or VPS first, and learn how to "manage the system", i.e. do billing, reporting, handle spam & blacklisting, hacked accounts, etc. Getting, and managing a dedicated sounds a bit over your head, from what I've seen you talk about, and what you don't know yet. You may be very successful, or you could fail miserably

None taken.

I've been managing dedicated servers since 2004.

Have been with ThePlanet since then. Had a server with Hetzner a couple of years back that I also setup from scratch. More recently I setup and configured another server at Hetzner with Win2008/IIS7 etc on it, also from scratch.

The server in the UK I setup last year (and the one I intend to use) was also setup by myself.

I have a solid understanding of:

• Mail Servers (Spam and all those goodies, PTR/Reverse DNS records, how to setup SPF, authenticated mail relays etc)
• IIS/Apache Server (my bread & butter really, being a web developer I need to know how to configure stuff, why things won't work, what an application pool is, yada)
• SQL Server/MySQL (same thing, web dev. Why sql injection attacks happen, how they do it, which techniques they use, how to track which pages are the weak links, how to fix those, what type of security to add to users created etc)
• Backups (the ideal time to backup, how often to backup, what to backup, how much space backups require, backup solutions... should it be on the same disk, another server etc)
• HELM/Plesk/CPanel (Even though I've only setup HELM, I've worked with Plesk and CPanel before, so I know how it works, I even know how to manipulate helm direct from the database...)
• DNS (I know how DNS servers work, how to set one up, how to make one valid, what MX records are, which RFC rules govern those records. What glue is. What A/CName/TXT means, require and everything associated)

Other small stuff like "lookup local before going 'global'" for mail/dns servers (which some people don't understand still). And to date *any* server I've setup always just worked. There were no strange issues or stuff that occurred that made the server unavailable for any reason.

2 Companies currently look to me to manage this for them. I figure I could do the same brilliant job on my own as well, and seeing as though many companies **** up (like Web Africa... especially if you get a lot of clients), I figure why not.

Sure, I don't have a billing system in place, but what good is a billing system if I don't know my ass from my elbow?

Luckily I do, and like I said, a billing system is the least of my worries...

 

[guest2013-1]

One thing I haven't worked with though is VPS or Cloud Servers (but that is obvious)

And up to June this year I was managing a client's reseller account with Web Africa

 

[SilverNodashi]

well, I aimed my suggestions more on the "running a hosting business side", than the technical side. The technical side of this is easy - heck, we have clients who run dedi's, that don't know even know what SSH is, but they know how to manage clients and processes - which is quite different from setting up a secure mail server.

With spam, and blacklisting, you'll have to learn how to deal with the clients who get spam, and the clients who send spam. and also how to deal with blacklisting of your own IP's, etc.

Nonetheless, good luck with it

 

[guest2013-1]

well, I aimed my suggestions more on the "running a hosting business side", than the technical side. The technical side of this is easy - heck, we have clients who run dedi's, that don't know even know what SSH is, but they know how to manage clients and processes - which is quite different from setting up a secure mail server.

With spam, and blacklisting, you'll have to learn how to deal with the clients who get spam, and the clients who send spam. and also how to deal with blacklisting of your own IP's, etc.

Nonetheless, good luck with it

Thanks, yes I know quite a bit about the business side of things as well (lol, except what to charge!). One of the bigger reasons why I want to concentrate on a small handful of clients is exactly the point to avoid some douche spoiling the mail server for the rest of us. Even then, it will take literally a couple of minutes to get a new IP address and get the mail server chugging away on that.

 

[guest2013-1]

lol

I'm a dumbass. My config is RAID 10... past-me must have known what he was doing when he ordered/setup this baby

It's got 4x 146gb 10k drives in it (SSF or whatever that means)