WordCamp Presentation

How to cut through web hosting BS!

For more assistance, contact Peer1 – +44 (0) 800 840 7499

Introduction to Hosting

Options Shared, Dedicated, Managed Hosting!

Horses for Courses, who needs what?

Terms Hosting Companies use.

Peer 1 and ServerBeach

WordCamp UK

What is hosting?

SharedVirtual

DedicatedManaged

Fully Managed Cloud

Hosting options

Shared HostingAdvantages

CheapEasy to setupFlexible term contracts

DisadvantagesUnreliableLimited functionalityBe careful of SLAs

Suitable forStart upsSmall static sitesSimple Blogs

Not suitable forLarge sitesecommerceMedia heavy content

Virtual Private Servers

AdvantagesMore ControlGreater OptionsFlexible term contracts

DisadvantagesPossibly unreliableTechnical Setups

Suitable forMedium sized websitesBlogsTechnical People who know what they are doing.

Not suitable forLarge sitesMedia heavy contentEcommerceSecurity compliance

Terms Hosting companies use

“Unlimited “What to look out for:

•Everyone is limited by something i.e. bandwidth, port speed, memory etc• Look out for “fair use policies”• “Unlimited” often means under-performing as contention rates are going to be high

What you should ask:

• How much do you charge when I reach my bandwidth allowance?• What is your utilisation as a hosting company and how do you deal with outages should they occur?• Do you have unlimited support staff to deal with my queries?!

The offer is:Unlimited GB's of Space

Unlimited GB's of TransferUnlimited Domain HostingUnlimited E-Mail Accounts

Unlimited MySQL Databases

T & C’s of Unlimited Hosting!

The reality is:

Terms Hosting companies use

“100% Uptime”What to look out for:

• 100% uptime is a great marketing term• To achieve 100% uptime, the hosting solution can not have a single point of failure• On top of this, you need to consider geographical redundancy (in case a data centre blows up)• True 100% uptime costs £thousands

What you should ask:

• Find out if there is a single point of failure in the solution• Ask what happens if the data centre blows up!• How can you offer 100% uptime for £5 per month? Surely you’re losing money?!• If you are losing money, how long are you going to be in business for?!

T & C’s of 100% Uptime

Terms Hosting companies use

“24x7x365 Support”

What to look out for:

• Ensure that the support is dealt with by at least level 2 techs (you do not want 1st line support people when you are dealing with issues at 3am!)• Ensure the support teams native tongue is the same as yours to avoid communication issues• Many companies over-utilise their support staff to the point they are unhappy

What you should ask:

• How many rings will I have to wait before my call is answered?• Where is your support team located and do they have access to my account?• What happens if the hardware breaks?• Will your support team help me even if the software is un-supported?

Terms Hosting companies use

“SLA’s”SLA – Service Level Agreements

• Who are they protecting? You or them?• If downtime occurs, what are they legally obliged to do and do they credit you for outages?• Who’s responsibility is to report an outage? Theirs or yours?

• If they can get away with it, will they?• Do they publish their SLA’s on their website or do you have to request it?

• If you have to request it, what are they trying to hide?• Does the SLA break down security policies and how they manage their data centres?

1. Look at hosting companies financial stability2. Check the SLA3. Make sure SLA is reported to you regularly4. Is the provider a technology or service business? 5. Have they won any awards?6. Do they offer a range of Linux and Windows?7. Do you have to pay for support if you don’t want it?8. Check contract flexibility9. Who are you actually hosting with10.Don’t pay for what you don’t need

Top ten tips for hosting

A bit about Peer1...

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