Web Hosting - Next Steps, Options & Recommendations
Discussion
We've been running our own ecommerce websites and a number of static/brochure style client websites (20-30 sites in total) on a Webfusion dedicated server for just under 3 years now.
Business has grown significantly, traffic levels, bandwidth usage etc. so we're looking into upgrading our systems and separating some of our main websites on to their own dedicated servers or VPS.
As we've grown, we've become a target for the usual unauthorised access/hacking attempts, so we've learnt a lot about web security, firewalls, IP address banning, controlling outgoing emails etc. We've realised that our main websites need to be "ring-fenced" so they are not affected by other projects and minimising the risk for the sites which generate the most revenue.
Just after some general advice and recommendations as to the best way forward.
We're happy with Webfusion, we've had minimal downtime and their support is great (24/7 and no extra cost), so I'll be going back to them for a quote but would be interested in hearing anyone else's experiences with other hosts.
Business has grown significantly, traffic levels, bandwidth usage etc. so we're looking into upgrading our systems and separating some of our main websites on to their own dedicated servers or VPS.
As we've grown, we've become a target for the usual unauthorised access/hacking attempts, so we've learnt a lot about web security, firewalls, IP address banning, controlling outgoing emails etc. We've realised that our main websites need to be "ring-fenced" so they are not affected by other projects and minimising the risk for the sites which generate the most revenue.
Just after some general advice and recommendations as to the best way forward.
We're happy with Webfusion, we've had minimal downtime and their support is great (24/7 and no extra cost), so I'll be going back to them for a quote but would be interested in hearing anyone else's experiences with other hosts.
Put the ones you're really bothered about on dedicated servers with DDoS and f/w protection on them, either hardware like a Fortinet or Juniper or something else. It might be time to be speaking with a fully managed company, Webfusion are cool, but they'll not be able to give you the remote hands you might be looking for. Other brands in the HEG portfolio probably would, you'll see them at http://www.heg.com/
ETA - just seen where you're located, my old lot at Reconnix would be worth speaking with
ETA - just seen where you're located, my old lot at Reconnix would be worth speaking with
Edited by andy-xr on Tuesday 6th January 14:47
It's more than systems really, they're much of a muchness when you're looking at LAMP stacks all day, it's how to make best use of what you've got, optimising the hardware, patching the servers, checking dependencies etc; sysadmin stuff that VPS type outfits just cant do because there's a stack of sites across shared VMs - that's why I edited my first reply to include another option for you. It sounds as though more managed would work better as it'd give you more security, more scalability and better infrastructure
Hi Rich,
We've had good experience with both CIS London (http://www.cislondon.co.uk/) and Xtrahosts (http://www.extraordinarymanagedservices.com/) for hosting our own websites as well as those of our clients. CIS are a small outfit so it's easy to get hold of a 'real person' and ask them for advice on a more bespoke solution. We use Xtrahosts for our more standard projects and they've always been very responsive to our requests. We've never had cause to ask Xtrahosts for any advice or manage any of our VPS instances for us though. CIS and Xtrahosts seem to be priced almost equally from the dealings we've had with them.
Hope this helps,
Billy
We've had good experience with both CIS London (http://www.cislondon.co.uk/) and Xtrahosts (http://www.extraordinarymanagedservices.com/) for hosting our own websites as well as those of our clients. CIS are a small outfit so it's easy to get hold of a 'real person' and ask them for advice on a more bespoke solution. We use Xtrahosts for our more standard projects and they've always been very responsive to our requests. We've never had cause to ask Xtrahosts for any advice or manage any of our VPS instances for us though. CIS and Xtrahosts seem to be priced almost equally from the dealings we've had with them.
Hope this helps,
Billy
Looked into Rackspace before but were too expensive at the time, not so much of an issue now.
If we went with Rackspace, would we be able to partition up x1 dedicated server to allocate resources to separate groups of IP addresses/websites?
Looking at their prices, we would be looking at x1 server to cover all of our needs, although that goes against my original idea of a mix of approx 4-5 dedicated servers and VPS, to spread the risk across our own network of sites and customer projects.
If we went with Rackspace, would we be able to partition up x1 dedicated server to allocate resources to separate groups of IP addresses/websites?
Looking at their prices, we would be looking at x1 server to cover all of our needs, although that goes against my original idea of a mix of approx 4-5 dedicated servers and VPS, to spread the risk across our own network of sites and customer projects.
You're going the wrong way on this. Rackspace are great for instances and cloud platforms where you need scale, but you need a good old fashioned web hosting company who can sysadmin things for you, not a massive company who will punt everything they can
I'm saying that with the knowledge that my company use Rackspace to host a massive email platform for xmillion users, they're good, but they're not going to give you what you need
I'm saying that with the knowledge that my company use Rackspace to host a massive email platform for xmillion users, they're good, but they're not going to give you what you need
4-5 dedicated servers isn't going to be cheap! Do you actually need that many, or would 4-5 VMs on 1 or 2 servers give you what you need? It sounds like you don't want one to be able to impact on the other so VMs could well be the answer.
I'd definitely talk to Rackspace too, they will generally do whatever you want sysadmin wise, unless you stray too far off piste with configuration. I didn't have any issues when we had a handful of dedicated servers with them.
At the end of the day you pretty much get what you pay for, and I guess the question is how important are the sites to your business.
For example the site on your profile to my mind has a very long load time - 4.4s for the DOM content and 5.6s total, we've found in our business page load has a massive impact on user bounce rate, so if you're spending £200pcm extra on hosting but make a huge dent on page loads which in turn reduces your bounce rate does that cover the extra? Something to consider.
I'd definitely talk to Rackspace too, they will generally do whatever you want sysadmin wise, unless you stray too far off piste with configuration. I didn't have any issues when we had a handful of dedicated servers with them.
At the end of the day you pretty much get what you pay for, and I guess the question is how important are the sites to your business.
For example the site on your profile to my mind has a very long load time - 4.4s for the DOM content and 5.6s total, we've found in our business page load has a massive impact on user bounce rate, so if you're spending £200pcm extra on hosting but make a huge dent on page loads which in turn reduces your bounce rate does that cover the extra? Something to consider.
Agreed, would be very expensive, I was looking at a mix of dedicated and VPS to reduce costs. The website in my profile is quite slow to load, it should be running quicker, code needs tweaking but as you say, a server upgrade alone could solve this. Also agree that any increase in spend on hosting would easily be justified with reduced bounce rates, which I'm sure it would contribute to.
We have x5 main ecommerce sites and x4 smaller ecommerce sites which ideally need to be hosted on their own dedicated server or suitable VPS.
We need another dedicated/VPS for x1 website with the same/similar spec as the server above, for a new website which should generate the same levels of traffic as all of our ecommerce websites combined.
Another server for a smaller web projects which needs to be separate from our other online businesses.
Then finally, another server for a group of smaller projects (not ecommerce) and customer websites.
We have x5 main ecommerce sites and x4 smaller ecommerce sites which ideally need to be hosted on their own dedicated server or suitable VPS.
We need another dedicated/VPS for x1 website with the same/similar spec as the server above, for a new website which should generate the same levels of traffic as all of our ecommerce websites combined.
Another server for a smaller web projects which needs to be separate from our other online businesses.
Then finally, another server for a group of smaller projects (not ecommerce) and customer websites.
tvr_rich said:
Agreed, would be very expensive, I was looking at a mix of dedicated and VPS to reduce costs. The website in my profile is quite slow to load, it should be running quicker, code needs tweaking but as you say, a server upgrade alone could solve this.
Personally I think you need to take a step back - you have some large issuesThe website in your profile is way too slow - the shopping cart you are using is pretty lightweight and fast and your site should load in 5-6 seconds (not 20+) and I think it would even on shared hosting!
I've not looked technically at the site or sites, but seeing as others have mentioned load times and bounce rates it could be worth looking into either a CDN or tweaking Apache to run better with what you're putting on top, even a move to Nginx if it warrants it, these are things you need to get advice from your hosting company or sysadmin / devops people though, they dont have to be the same company but often it helps if they are, and they have physical access to physical servers or at least have full ssh to the whole server which you dont get on some shared hosting plans.
I think if you're considering moving away from HEG then you need to be asking questions of the new hosts such as the scope of their support, can they help you optimise your application or is it just that they restart the remote server for you and reset passwords. Do they understand the differences in httpd dependencies that your application will need, and are you using the right type of front end to make the best out of the stack behind it
There's loads of companies who'll sell you server space and a firewall and say they support it, but what they're actually supporting is the connection and the hardware, when it goes tits, or isnt running optimally, they dont support that
I think if you're considering moving away from HEG then you need to be asking questions of the new hosts such as the scope of their support, can they help you optimise your application or is it just that they restart the remote server for you and reset passwords. Do they understand the differences in httpd dependencies that your application will need, and are you using the right type of front end to make the best out of the stack behind it
There's loads of companies who'll sell you server space and a firewall and say they support it, but what they're actually supporting is the connection and the hardware, when it goes tits, or isnt running optimally, they dont support that
Edited by andy-xr on Friday 9th January 08:51
Some great advice here and thanks for the feedback about the site speed. The site in my profile does need work, it should be running more efficiently, even with the 4000+ products listed. We have looked into using CDNs, definitely needs investigating, as always, all down to time and resources, it's not our main source of revenue though and our other sites on our server load far more quickly, for example www.bin-shop.co.uk
Timico are local to us, so will definitely give them a call. UKFast look like another suitable option, thanks for the recommendation.
We're building a list of requirements for the new servers today, things like; support, uptime, root level access etc. are key features for us. We've collated all the server stats for the last few months, so we've got a clear idea of our current usage levels. We do have a good level of expertise in house but we're not hosting experts, so feel more comfortable with a managed server.
We currently have a managed dedicated Linux CentOs server with these specs:
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E31230 @ 3.20GHz - Quad Core
4GB Ram
Plesk - 100 license
1TB SATA drive
Unmetered bandwidth
What specs should we be focusing on for our new dedicated server, to increase site speed and reliability?
For our smaller projects, where only a VPS would be required, what key features should we be looking for?
Timico are local to us, so will definitely give them a call. UKFast look like another suitable option, thanks for the recommendation.
We're building a list of requirements for the new servers today, things like; support, uptime, root level access etc. are key features for us. We've collated all the server stats for the last few months, so we've got a clear idea of our current usage levels. We do have a good level of expertise in house but we're not hosting experts, so feel more comfortable with a managed server.
We currently have a managed dedicated Linux CentOs server with these specs:
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E31230 @ 3.20GHz - Quad Core
4GB Ram
Plesk - 100 license
1TB SATA drive
Unmetered bandwidth
What specs should we be focusing on for our new dedicated server, to increase site speed and reliability?
For our smaller projects, where only a VPS would be required, what key features should we be looking for?
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