[clue-tech] Need some generic web-hosting setup recommendations

[Nate Duehr]

On May 28, 2008, at 8:23 PM, David L. Anselmi wrote:

> Adam Bultman wrote:
>> A server failure at work has enlightened the powers-that-be to  
>> entertain
>> a reorganization of our web hosting setup.
>> Currently we use Plesk, which is an all-in-one management setup;
>> self-contained Web/DB/Email server.  It does not support any type of
>> redundancy.
>
> I'd guess you could do some kind of HA cluster underneath the apps.   
> Web and email are probably easy to add redundancy to, DB less so.
>
> [...]
>> If you web hosting, please, let me know what you use - and what you  
>> see
>> as the pros and cons.  I've got a decent amount of hardware
>
> I'd have said outsource until you mention hardware.  So you might  
> want to ask on a list with more sysadmins: SAGE, LOPSA, RMIUG.  BLUG  
> if you want to know what the locals do but I don't know that you'd  
> get much other than Tummy there.


Not that Tummy is a bad place to start!  Sean and gang really know  
their stuff, when it comes to virtual hosting.

The Debian-ISP mailing list has had this topic come up a number of  
times, you could hunt the list archives and/or re-ask the question  
there, and probably get some good answers.

Generally, what I've seen is the "pre-made" packages like Plesk are  
fine for simple hosting, and do a nice job of it, but to get large- 
scale redundancy, you're back down at the command line and apply the  
old brain cells to come up with a "redundant enough" solution.  You  
probably don't find much in the way of "customer-focused" GUI's  
there... since many hosting outfits that are that big, are heavily  
invested in their own home-grown solutions and aren't going to share  
their code or setup with anyone... we're not really over the "event  
horizon" of that becoming a commonly-shared open-source type of thing,  
yet.  Anyone smart enough to build such a thing is probably making a  
living with that information, still.

You're on that edge of medium-sized to big-sized hosting, where it  
starts to get expensive unless you have staff that likes building big  
redundant systems and works for pennies.   And there's a lot of  
competition out there doing it already... so you're probably playing  
"catch up" to grow bigger and more redundant, or hiring talent that's  
already done it that needs something new to do.

One more "business" option... many of the larger hosting firms will  
let smaller entities resell their services, complete with  
geographically separated redundant servers, and all the control panels  
pre-built and things.  It's often NOT shown as an option on their "buy  
hosting now" website, but if approached by business decision-makers,  
they already have the framework in place to "brand" their stuff as  
yours.  I know nothing of the pricing, but they wouldn't be doing it  
if someone weren't taking them up on it.  Perhaps your hosting could  
be "out-sourced" to one of the larger hosting firms successfully,  
complete with SLA's and contracts that state how they much act and  
behave, while letting you maintain contact with your customers.

It all depends on how much you trust handing over your customer's view  
of you to an outside entity.  Many of the larger "enterprise" websites  
are not-too-surprisingly actually managed web farms run by other  
companies, these days.  (I can't say who, but I know of a number of  
large "well-known" Internet sites who don't have their own sysadmins  
that focus on hardware or OS-level installation/maintenance jobs at  
all... all their admins do is manage the applications deployed on the  
server farm, and notify the data center folks when things are going to  
be changing on the servers, so automated monitoring and things like  
that aren't freaked out.  A "web server partnership" so to speak.)

So... there's $0.02... that and another $6 will get you a cup of  
coffee at that *$ place... stuff to think about.  Is "hosting" your  
company's core competency?   Or are you better at creating content and  
helping customers manage their sites?  Maybe it's a good time to re- 
assess where the hosting is actually done?

(Heck, you could even find someone else to run the Plesk servers for  
you who's already dealt with an emergency recovery plan and who is  
contractually obligated to keep your Plesk servers online or give you  
refunds -- which you could pass along to your customers in their  
contracts, or keep, again... your business call -- and just migrate  
your customers straight to their servers.)

Food for thought...

--
Nate Duehr
nate at natetech.com