Considering offering VBFAQ Hosting

[Joeychgo]

We have our own dedicated server, which was designed to be considerably more power then we would need ourselves.

We have been considering offering hosting services.

What we have concluded so far, is that we dont want to offer hosting like is normally offered. We want to sell only a few hosting plans as we dont want to even come close to crowding the server.

The idea being, we wouldnt be low priced. You would be getting the performance of being on a high powered dedicated which contains a very limited number of sites. (on some shared servers, I have seen over 600 sites on one server. Ouch)

My thinking is to sell something like this:

$50 a month;
20 Gig Storage
100 Gig Bandwidth
CpanelWe would sell probably no more then 5 packages. We would be pretty agressive at watching sites on the server, and your site would have to be approved prior to acceptance. This is only because we want to ensure the integrity of the server performance for all. Our sites are on this server as well, so you know we're going to take great care of it.

Our dedicated is an AMD Dual-Core Opteron 165 1.8Ghz
2x 1M L2 Cache, 2G Ram (which we would upgrade as necessary- We can go to 8G) - So its very strong.

Anyone have opinions? This isnt an offer, this is more about trying to see what others think.

[Peggy]

It's not something that I could afford, but I hope it works out for you ;)

[Joeychgo]

Affordability isnt the idea. Most shared hosts considerably oversell their servers. Here, that wont happen. This is about making sure server performance, and thus, site performance.

[Peggy]

I understand all that Joey, really, I do ;)
The fact remains... it's not something I could afford. But I'm sure you could do well if you go with it.

[G_Man]

Too bad I am not in a position to take advantage of this. My first server was Yahoo! *cringe*...

Lord knows how many sites were running on there. I am with Site5 now and things are fine, but I already knew someone using them, else it would have been another crap shoot.

So, I think what you are doing is great and if my site were at the point of being able to take advantage of it I would be onboard in a flash.


Good Luck and hopefully you'll have a free spot when I do need it!

[Elpie]

I looked at doing something similar with a dedicated server I have. However, my sites are mission-critical and I eventually gave up the idea - not having control over the other sites was the deciding factor. Sure, you can approve a site before taking it on, but what you cannot control is what they do with the site once its up. Customers tend not to like being told that they must not install certain things without prior permission, must ensure they update scripts immediately, etc. In the end, my paranoia over security for my sites won out over good business sense.
Dedicated servers are expensive though so sharing space with paying customers *is* good sense. Good luck with it!

[Elsie]

It's not something that I could afford, but I hope it works out for you ;)

i second all that :)

[Paul M]

I think $600 a year is well out of range of anyone likely to consider you, for that sort of money people are going to go to a 'professional' host.

(I'm not trying to imply you would not be professional, I'm sure you understand what I mean :))

[FLMom]

I would think about doing it, but again like everyone else, it is just too much money. Maybe if I were making money off my site I would consider it more, but I do wish you the best of luck with it :D

[Elpie]

I think $600 a year is well out of range of anyone likely to consider you, for that sort of money people are going to go to a 'professional' host.

A "professional" host may well be behind the server though Paul. My dedicated server, for example, is fully managed (because I don't have any sys admin that can be on call round the clock) so, if I had offered to sell some space on it this would have been backed by 24/7 monitoring and full server management. There are also many people paying this kind of money already for virtual dedicated server space. Compared to the $400 a month I pay for my server, $50 would be a very good deal ;)

[Peggy]

$400 per month?!?! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
OUCH!

[Joeychgo]

A "professional" host may well be behind the server though Paul. My dedicated server, for example, is fully managed (because I don't have any sys admin that can be on call round the clock) so, if I had offered to sell some space on it this would have been backed by 24/7 monitoring and full server management. There are also many people paying this kind of money already for virtual dedicated server space. Compared to the $400 a month I pay for my server, $50 would be a very good deal ;)


Yep - And our server is also backed up by a management service, cause I cant watch 24/7

[Elpie]

$400 per month?!?! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
OUCH!

That's what I say every month LOL. With the New Zealand dollar taking a dive against the greenback it is not inconceivable that keeping the site up for the people affected by Katrina could end up costing me NZ$800 a month before long :(
However, the security of the site and the data it contains means I can't offset any costs by selling server space. Catch22 unfortunately. Now, if everyone would just find what happened to their loved ones and we could be sure that another hurricane wont hit this season, I could shut up shop and stop going broke ;)

[Peggy]

WOW... bless your heart! Unfortunately, their predicting almost twice as many hurricanes this year. And people ask me why I left Florida..........

[Noppid]

Yep - And our server is also backed up by a management service, cause I cant watch 24/7

And I'm watching it the other 24. We both have a direct line to a "professional host" that manages the server.

We can't be all things all the time. It was a very easy business decision to pay for premium professional experienced support from a well known and established hosting company. Why play host when there are professionals? We have businesses to run like most people.

Hosting is something we can take for granted now. We can and will delegate serious issues to a professional. Yet, we know enough that we can assist on many issues first tier. We even have phone numbers.

No, it's not for everybody, but not eveybody is a businessman and would need the quality accounts that could become available.

[Peggy]

ouch...

[Joeychgo]

Why ouch? Its just explaining what our thoughts are. Of course $50 a month isnt for everyone. But, for that person that needs a higher then normal level of quality, but doesnt need their own dedicated, this would be for them.

[Elpie]

Be very careful about what your potential customers run Joey - 2G Ram is not much and many reasonably active sites running a CMS, for example, can use 2G Ram just on their own. 100Gb of bandwidth is likely to attract larger sites.

[Noppid]

Be very careful about what your potential customers run Joey - 2G Ram is not much and many reasonably active sites running a CMS, for example, can use 2G Ram just on their own. 100Gb of bandwidth is likely to attract larger sites.

We are not soliciting a site that needs dedicated. If they need dedicated they need to spend the several hundred a month. This is not dedicated hosting that is on the table.

What's on the table is hosting for professionals that want a guarantee of who their neighbors are on a server. They will know up front what the system has to deal with and what their sites will have available for server resources. We will limit the number of sites so performance is always there. We won't host the idiot that has an automated perl script that can make three thousand sites over night spamming.

Shared hosting servers host up to 2 thousand sites with 2 gig of ram just fine in some cases. I'm sure two will be fine with what we currently host and plan to add. But again, we are businessmen and have a plan. Our hardware man and our support man talk almost everyday. They could add two sticks of RAM to our server if needed in like maybe 10 minutes. Even if they stopped for coffee along the way.

So yep, we thought of that already too.

[Joeychgo]

Not to mention - our server can accept up to 8 gig ram. We could have another 6 gigs installed within 48 hours.

[Paul M]

There are also many people paying this kind of money already for virtual dedicated server space. Compared to the $400 a month I pay for my server, $50 would be a very good deal ;)I rent a dedicated server for $45 per month. Now admitidly it's not top of the range, but it would happily run most standard sites, only the Big Boards would struggle on it. :)

[Noppid]

I rent a dedicated server for $45 per month. Now admitidly it's not top of the range, but it would happily run most standard sites, only the Big Boards would struggle on it. :)

We are offering top of the range. Plus it's not somebodies old server the DC is monetizing till it dies. You can't run a business on that kind of server if you are serious.

And again, this is for feedback. No offers are on the table, no deals on being made. We're collecting information.

I'm greedy. I'd be happy to stay the way we are. But the truth is, we're so under utilized, it's just silly not to farm some out at some point or at least explore the expectations of other serious webmasters with this need.

Truth is, we don't need to share. So there's no sales pressure. ;)

[Joeychgo]

I rent a dedicated server for $45 per month. Now admitidly it's not top of the range, but it would happily run most standard sites, only the Big Boards would struggle on it. :)



Is it managed?

What are the other costs? $45 a month is awful cheap - Whats your connection level? How much bandwith do you get? How much storage?

[Joeychgo]

The price is not going to insure quality sites.



Several reasons -


1. While it wont ensure quality sites, it will ensure serious people. There is plenty of $10 a month hosting. I dont want to get caught up in that mess.

2. If I were to go at $10-$20 a month, I would need alot more customers to generate the same income. More customers are harder to care for. I would rather have 5 customers that we pay alot of attention to and keep them happy.

My thoughts are not to start a hosting company, but to simply offset our hosting costs. DO we need the money? No. Not need. I am in business to make money. If I can do that by selling a handful of premium hosting accounts, then thats something I will explore.

For those of you considering making a living on the internet, let me offer this piece of advice. Be diverse. Dont expect to make all you need from jsut adsense, or just link sales. Dont expect to make your living off of just one site. Have a number of sites - all growing, all earning, in different ways. That way, if a problem should arise, your not broke all of a sudden. I cant count the number of times someone who was only earning money via adsense got banned - and didnt know what else to do as their income dried up suddenly.

[onehost]

$400 per month?!?! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
OUCH!

I pay $150 a month for my managed dedicated server... $50 is a lot to be
asking for what he is giving out, not to mention overselling, I have a site
in mind right now, you could go and get free hosting if you are willing
to place a banner, or link ad of some sort... personally, it sucks, the hosting
industry has just killed itself over greed, overselling, and giving away free hosting.

[Noppid]

I pay $150 a month for my managed dedicated server... $50 is a lot to be
asking for what he is giving out, not to mention overselling, I have a site
in mind right now, you could go and get free hosting if you are willing
to place a banner, or link ad of some sort... personally, it sucks, the hosting
industry has just killed itself over greed, overselling, and giving away free hosting.

Nothing is being given out. The proposal is for discussion. By the private contacts we are getting, there are plenty of people interested that understand the value of such an account on a brand new state of the art machine in a brand new state of the art datacenter.

There will be no ads on any site that is professionally run in exchange for hosting here. We want established businesses and business people. Not people that are looking for a place to do a start up with free resources bartering ad space. What good is an ad on an unestablished site to anyone? While some businesses are based on this premise, this is not what we are discussing.

Also, this is not going to be a hosting server. We are expecting to fill some unutilized resources. Not corner the hosting market.

And again, if we don't, so what. We budgeted what we are spending. This is not about money, it's about opportunity. Those that know, well, they know. :)

May I ask what machine you get for 150 managed and what data center and how many middle men till you get to your ISP? Our tier to the ISP is one step and we own the machine. The manager does not matter for us. We don't need to care if he is around tomorrow. ;)

Ask EV1 what happens to your data if a reseller that hosts your site on a leased machine don't pay his bill, they will tell you, hope ya got a backup, good luck finding a new host. That won't and can't happen to us.

[Joeychgo]

What interests me - is that everyone seems to be concerned with cost...

If you go to vB.com or many other webmaster forums, you read thread after thread about how this host sucks and that host sucks. Down time, unresponsive to support requests, just plain going out of business, etc etc.

You get what you pay for.... Its just that simple.

For example, here are a few quotes form vb.com



NO NO NO! Do not go with 1&1, it'll be the worst decision of your life. I bought my first ever domain from them, and to cut it short they had the debt collectors banging down my door trying to recoup the money for a domain I transferred away from them before the end of my first year.





This has to be the worst ever web host that I have dealt with. they have no clue as to what vbulletin is, they are always coming up with new issues to try to get me to up my plan with them. I'm sick of having to jump through hoops just to get these ass-holes off my back!

don't use them if you do anything more than 5gigs a month.

they constantly complain that my CPU mintes are more than there max of 60 allowed. last message i got was that my site used 250CPU minutes in one day. I average 15gigs a month of transfer.


I left RWH and moved to Dreamhost due to uptime/service issues. Now I'm having the same CPU usage issues with Dreamhost as everyone else and looking at alternatives.


I've been through a real mess with DreamHost too. I unlocked my domain and everything in order to switch over to DreamHost but they just couldn't do it. In the end, I had to renew at my old host PLUS pay an additional fee for the switch, which was supposed to be for free, to DreamHost.

My board has been down for days because of them and I couldn't even reach my members. It was a real mess. http://images.vbulletin.com/images_vb3/smilies/rolleyes.gif

And now that everything is done, they tell me I can't send out Admin mails through my AdminCP because apparently, I'm violating their spam rules or something. I've asked for help here, well more for reassurance than for help actually. DreamHost tells me I need an opt-in system for members who wanna receive Admin mails. Apparently, checking a box while signing up and being able to uncheck it anytime you want is violating their spam rules. Members need to be logged by their IP address, date and time too. Their suggestion: You might consider having a programmer add the IP address and date to the logging information script.

To sum it up: Don't sign up there even if it sound appealing. It's fine just for hosting big files and such, but for vBulletin, it's crap!


Thats just a SMALL sampling of a few threads. Let me let you in on a little secret, the hosting business is terrible. Overselling is just one part of it. Some hosts want to charge you a monthly fee for every extra database, some want to charge you for add on domains. You can be told your site is too server intensive and you ahve to move - NOW. All kinds of things go on.

To be honest, 99% of the people on this site, would not be our target audience. Why? Most of you are hobby forum owners, meaning your not earning your whole income on the net. (nothing against you guys whatsoever) Your not really in a position to spend any money on a forum.

But that company who uses their forum for product support, doesnt want the aggravation of dealing with a host. What we are talking about is a shared hosting situation, with no responsibility of management, at the price of a VPS and with very few sites on the server. We are talking a highly reliable and speedy server, with no aggravation. FOr many businesses, thats worth $50 and alot more per month.

[Elsie]

i don't think people are suggesting it's not *worth* the money, simply that some people - many, i should think - simply *can't* afford that price.

for those who can afford it, it's a great idea.

it's just a fact of life, not a case of questioning/challening the idea. :)

[Peggy]

i don't think people are suggesting it's not *worth* the money, simply that some people - many, i should think - simply *can't* afford that price.

for those who can afford it, it's a great idea.

it's just a fact of life, not a case of questioning/challening the idea. :)
exactly

[Peggy]

You get what you pay for.... Its just that simple.
fortunately, this is not always the case ;)




Most of you are hobby forum owners, meaning your not earning your whole income on the net. (nothing against you guys whatsoever) Your not really in a position to spend any money on a forum.

If all goes according to plan, this will be changing, in my case, pretty soon:D

[Elpie]

I've found the discussion interesting. I manage a large number of sites and my own hosting is not cheap. Heck, I pay $400 a month for a dedicated server for just one site and although it is crippling me (its a completely altruistic site so no income from it) the cost is worth it to me simply because the host does everything I need. I have had offers of much cheaper and even one free dedicated server for that site but the couple of million visitors a month it has been getting until very recently needed that site to always be up. I have a problem and support is a phone call away, 24/7. That money is worth it because I can go to sleep each night knowing that the site is being carefully monitored and action taken immediately there is a need.

By comparison, the site on which I have my forum is on shared hosting that I did not have any input in using. It costs us over $50 a month. It is hosted by a reseller of a reseller and support is almost non-existent. The first tier resellers are a couple of 15 year olds so when our host has a problem they have to wait for support when these kids are not in school.

Would I pay $50 a month for what Joey is offering? Hell yes!

[Joeychgo]

Not offering 'yet' - But clearly you see where im going.

[Noppid]

I've found the discussion interesting. I manage a large number of sites and my own hosting is not cheap. Heck, I pay $400 a month for a dedicated server for just one site and although it is crippling me (its a completely altruistic site so no income from it) the cost is worth it to me simply because the host does everything I need. I have had offers of much cheaper and even one free dedicated server for that site but the couple of million visitors a month it has been getting until very recently needed that site to always be up. I have a problem and support is a phone call away, 24/7. That money is worth it because I can go to sleep each night knowing that the site is being carefully monitored and action taken immediately there is a need.

By comparison, the site on which I have my forum is on shared hosting that I did not have any input in using. It costs us over $50 a month. It is hosted by a reseller of a reseller and support is almost non-existent. The first tier resellers are a couple of 15 year olds so when our host has a problem they have to wait for support when these kids are not in school.

Would I pay $50 a month for what Joey is offering? Hell yes!

I'd enjoy discussing some of your experiences with that tast. I bet it's a challenge even with management? If that's ever possible, drop me a PM.

Thanks

[Peggy]

I've found the discussion interesting. I manage a large number of sites and my own hosting is not cheap. Heck, I pay $400 a month for a dedicated server for just one site and although it is crippling me (its a completely altruistic site so no income from it) the cost is worth it to me simply because the host does everything I need. I have had offers of much cheaper and even one free dedicated server for that site but the couple of million visitors a month it has been getting until very recently needed that site to always be up. I have a problem and support is a phone call away, 24/7. That money is worth it because I can go to sleep each night knowing that the site is being carefully monitored and action taken immediately there is a need.

By comparison, the site on which I have my forum is on shared hosting that I did not have any input in using. It costs us over $50 a month. It is hosted by a reseller of a reseller and support is almost non-existent. The first tier resellers are a couple of 15 year olds so when our host has a problem they have to wait for support when these kids are not in school.

Would I pay $50 a month for what Joey is offering? Hell yes!

Honey, if I had it to spend... so would I.

[Sonnie]

Well I can tell ya... I don't think I would think twice about it. I am definitely realizing the "get what you pay for" truth. I am with RWH and we have been down numerous times in our 3.5 months... for several hours, once for right at 10 hours. The site speed comes and goes, but I've had plenty of complaints. I was just telling another member today that I've been looking and looking for another host, and when I find one that I think I can trust, I'll go with it. It seems every time I find one that I think might work, I start investigating and find they have had problems.

I've looked at all of the shared hosting review sites and in most cases I see different hosting companies listed at the top. Everyone is praising them... until you go to the next review site and see several folks dogging them.

I believe I'd sincerely be interested in your hosting, if it is what you say it would be and you can take care of our forum, such as daily backups, support (not that I've needed much - all of my support has been to the tune of "when will our site be back up"). I've been looking for a host that has few clients on a server and have offered to pay more to a few hosting companies for this, but they tell me they don't have anything that meets my needs.

Another thing I have dreaded is the change over... I really don't want to be down... we've been down too much already.

Add me to your list... check my forum out and tell me if I'd qualify. Read our rules, we keep it squeaky clean and professional. Let me know when you are ready to sign folks up and we'll talk.

Sonnie

[b2w]

I wish I could have a dedicated server...ahhhh.

[Peggy]

Not me. Too much responsibility.

[b2w]

Not me. Too much responsibility.

For myself. Not to sell. No way!

[WoodiE55]

Joeychgo,

I applaud your attempt in offering what looks to be an ok offer based upon the three bulleted offerings. I don’t agree with post #27 you made with the quotes of negative reviews about other hosts. For you and I both know those hosts mentioned not only have a lot of negative reviews but they have also a lot of positive reviews as well. Go do a quick search at WHT for GNAX.net – there are plenty of bad reviews about your host as well. Anyone can find negative stuff about anything, yes even my host The Planet.

I don’t know why that post bothered me so much, maybe it’s because of the way I took it – you trying to put your server on an untouchable pedestal. I dunno.

After paying nearly $300.00 a month for my server, I’d love it if my hosting bill were now only $50.00. The way I see what’s being offered - $50.00 isn’t much and I’d rather split a dedicated server with 3-4 people then go back to a shared hosting account or even a VPS account. For those still on a shared account, paying $10.00 a month and happier then a pig in mud then yes, this is too much for you. However once you start having problems with your site coming to a crawl, network issues, downtime, lose of data then you’ll realize how nice this offer is.



-Michael

[Joeychgo]

Actually, GNAX isnt my host, their my Datacenter. They only house my server, they dont manage it or anything else. SO regardless of their recent lack of service (which should be on the road to being resolved to an extent as they have recently completed a major expansion)

Ok, that aside. Hosts are funny. There are people with good and bad experiences. But as an example. Lunarpages is a GREAT host, unless you have a vBulletin forum of any size/traffic. They will boot you out of their servers in a heartbeat if you use too many resources. However, when I was with them, I had -0- downtime. They were friendly and helpful, they just didnt like my growing vBulletin.

Its a good point though Woodi. I certainly didnt mean that our server would be 100% perfect, 100% of the time. I just meant to say this is a strong server, that will only house a handful of clients. Inherently, it should be more reliable then many shared servers out there.

Add to that the fact that MY sites are on this same server, you better believe I'll be working hard to keep it running smooth as any troubles will affect me as well.

I agree completely with your last paragraph, and that was my thinking when I came up with this idea.

[WoodiE55]

Actually, GNAX isnt my host, their my Datacenter.

Yes I'm sorry I mis-used the term host as I meant datacenter. I too am no longer with a "host" but with The Planet's datacenter.

BTW, have you considered posting this in WebHostingTalk.com's forum as well? I know there's a big craze going on for VPS account which are right around this price range - it should be pretty easy to show them that this is a much better deal.


-Michael

[Joeychgo]

I havent fully decided if and how I want to do this yet. Im probably going to, just need to get all my dusck in a row first..

[utw-Mephisto]

European Example of Dedicated server (best hosting company for years (http://hetzner.de/rootserver_en.html)

29€ = $36
39€ = $48
59€ = $74
79€ = $99
149€ = $186