How to choose a reliable virtual dedicated hosting company
Evaluating vendor partner relationships and their quality of service is a regular part of doing business. For the same reason that employees are held to performance standards, your vendor partner’s ability to perform is a critical factor in the success of your business. Your managed dedicated server hosting provider is no exception, but it can be difficult to make an accurate assessment in the areas that count the most.
The problem is that comparing managed dedicated server hosts isn’t the same as shopping around for a new home appliance. On the surface of it, most providers seem somewhat similar. Plans are largely defined by processor speed, memory and storage space, and bandwidth. On closer examination, there’s a tremendous difference in the approaches that providers take to deliver service. As many IT managers have learned the hard way, if you make a decision based solely on price point, you are asking for trouble.
White boxes versus brand names
One of the easiest ways for providers to cut corners is with white box server hardware. Throw some off brand motherboards, memory, hard drives and network cards into a rack mount server chassis and you’re ready to go. It might be fine for a computer hobbyist to build his own PCs with hardware that isn’t certified complaint, but is that what you want your business critical web site and other applications running on? Make sure your provider is using brand name high quality hardware.
Support- the 3am call
There was a lot of discussion during the election about the emergency 3am phone call. One of the reasons that resonated is because people actually get those late night calls, and no one knows that better than harried system administrators. When you have to call your provider in the middle of the night, will you be able to talk to an actual human being? Do yourself a favor and answer that question before you have an outage.
Enterprise class infrastructure- they’re already doing it
What’s the best way to know if you have a dedicated sever provider who can deliver world class service? Take a look at who their other customers are. If they have large enterprise customers, then they are already doing it. You benefit from tremendous economies of scale in bandwidth overhead, datacenter redundancy, 24/7/365 support, and technical expertise that would otherwise be budget breaking for the typical SMB. They will also offer related services like managed backup and network attached storage, firewalls, load balancers and other security devices, and high end application support for databases and other software. They can do this because, by virtue of their larger customers, those resources are already in place.
More than most vendor partners, your managed dedicated servers host is a crucial element to the success of your business. In many cases, that provider is responsible for the public face of your company. In a tight, competitive economy smart business are giving them every advantage. When it’s time to review your relationship with your managed dedicated server host, be sure to look deeper than price point and feature set. By measuring the added value of a high functioning host versus the cost of a poor performer, you can be sure your provider is delivering the service you need.
Casey Cook is a writer, technologist, and musician living in South Florida. He worked for over a decade at some of the industry’s largest ISPs and Web Hosting providers in numerous capacities, including Director of Network Operations, Director of Corporate Alliances, and Senior Product Manager.
This is a step by step tutorial for myself and others on how to login and use ssh on your linux – apache – php – mysql – server to edit your httpd.conf. The only thing is I ran out of time on the video. You only have to restart apache and your changes will take effect. You can usually do this through your control panel. You can find the original sized video on my blog, MauricioZuniga.com
Video Rating: 5 / 5
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Filed under Virtual Dedicated Hosting by on Jul 22nd, 2010. 3 Comments. 
Choosing Your First Linux Web Host
Choosing Your First Linux Web Host
Choosing your first Web host is an important decision. You will, hopefully, have a long relationship with whatever host you choose. To make a decision, first you need to decide that what you need and then visit the sites of several hosting providers and evaluate what they are offering in regarding your requirements. If you choose wisely you should get good value for your money, consistency and prompt well-informed support. Get a Good Linux Web Host at OnSmart.net
Linux and its predecessor UNIX and Windows 2000 and its close relate Windows NT are types of operating systems that web servers use to do its operations.
In most of the cases Linux Web Hosting Account is recommended because Linux is considered as more reliable, stable and more universally compatible with any operating system. This is due to the functionality and speed of the Linux operating platform. Without any doubt, Linux is far more stable than Windows in a shared-server, or multi-user environment. Get a Good Linux Web Host at OnSmart.net (http://www.onsmart.net )
On the other hand, if you know that you will be using Microsoft applications extensively, or you plan on developing extensively using FrontPage, especially FrontPage 2002, MS SQL, ASP.NET or if you are looking for E-commerce add- ons or you will be using high-end databases then Windows/NT Hosting is the right choice for you. But if you are looking for universal compatibility regardless of the operating system the end user has, Linux has the ability to run a much wider variety of custom scripts and programs than Windows 2000/NT, and it offers easier, lower-cost set-up for advanced applications such as CGI scripts, databases.
Under Linux web hosting operating system, there is, database, server software and gathering of coding. Linux is the most preferred and demanded operating system because of its features and vigorous environment and it is the next best alternative to Microsoft and UNIX operating system. Linux is widely used and chosen worldwide due to its permanent network and server operating system. Linux operating system and APACHE web server, MYSQL database, PHP server coding applications are clustered under one roof that is Linux web hosting and for this, it is also known as LAMP server. The most reliable web hosting under web based applications is the Linux, and Apache is grabbing the market of Microsoft servers according to a survey over million of sites. Get a Good Linux Web Host at OnSmart.net
Advantages of Choosing Linux Based Web Host
Following are the advantages of using Linux based web server compared to Windows based web server:
1. Stable:
Linux/Unix operating systems has traditionally been believed to be very stable and robust. A web site housed on a Linux operating system will have very high up-time (of the order of 99.9%). Of course, other factors such as power supply, network admin skills, and network load etc. also matter when it comes to maintaining the system uptime.
2. Low cost of ownership:
The Linux OS comes free of cost (or at very insignificant cost, usually cost of distribution). Also, it has full fledged server, and desk top applications that comes free along with the OS. These server applications (such as FTP, Web Server, DNS Server, File Server etc.) being free, are also very stable.
3. Ease of use:
When it comes to web hosting, it is easy to host on Linux web servers. The process of uploading and hosting is almost same for both Linux and Windows web servers. If you want to use a Windows based tool such as Front Page for uploading a web site on to a Linux based web server, make sure that the Front Page extensions are enabled. This is only required if you are uploading using HTTP feature of Front Page. Front Page also makes it possible to upload a web site using FTP. Note that if you select “Front Page Extensions” during web site design, you must enable Front Page extensions on a Linux web server also.
You can use almost all types of file extensions or scripts when using Linux web server. Commonly, the following extensions are supported: .cgi, .html, .htm, .pl, .php, .shtml, .xml, and others. Basically it means that you can host web sites that use different types of server side scripts including .cgi, .pl, .php, and .asp with plug-in. Get a Good Linux Web Host at OnSmart.net
4. Easy to move between hosts:
A web site designed to be hosted on a Linux based web server can be hosted on a Windows web server easily, where as the reverse is not always true.
Most widely used: Linux/Unix based web hosting is most widely used compared to Windows based web hosting.
5. Scalability:
A web site is dynamic. Usually, a web site starts with a few pages of html and grows over a period of time to suit the customer’s requirements. It is preferable to design a web site keeping these requirements in mind. A web site designed for compatibility with a Linux/Unix based web server meets the scalability requirement easily without making any site wide design changes.
On the downside, Linux based web server is not fully compatible with Microsoft technologies. If you are using any specialized applications or VB for development of your web site, it is preferable to host with a Windows based web server.
About Author :
OnSmart.net offers Premium Reseller Hosting, Web Hosting, and Dedicated Server solutions with 24/7 Support and 99.9% Uptime at an affordable price. OnSmart.net is a Established Hosting Company with an established customer base, that specializes in Linux-based web hosting. OnSmart.net provides budget, shared, advanced and other types of web hosting services to a wide range of clients ranging from small business to individuals
OnSmart.net offers Premium Reseller Hosting, Web Hosting, and Dedicated Server solutions with 24/7 Support and 99.9% Uptime at an affordable price. OnSmart.net is a Established Hosting Company with an established customer base, that specializes in Linux-based web hosting. OnSmart.net provides budget, shared, advanced and other types of web hosting services to a wide range of clients ranging from small business to individuals
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Filed under Linux Web Hosting by on Jul 22nd, 2010. Comment.
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