VPS Advice

Fallen god · 13 Jul 2014 at 16:04

So I've recently been creating a few webapps/sites and a personally site/profile for myself, and my GF has been doing the same. So I was thinking to maybe buy a VPS and have everything stored there, and just handle all the middle bits myself inside of going for a full hosted solutions. Mainly so I can further learn the server side of things (I'm a full stack developer so not huge amounts of server experience).

Just wanted some advice on who you guys go with, any anything I should watch out for. Thinking to maybe go with Digital Ocean as they have some control panel level stuff and the price was pretty nice. These sites won't be having huge amount of traffic as there all pretty niche and more of a tech demo for our skills as where thinking to start freelancing soon.

mtalk · 14 Jul 2014 at 07:00

Digitalocean are self-managed VPS without control panel, so if you are not having technical knowledge to manage server it would be difficult to handle thing. Will advice to go for Linux based Cpanel VPS hosting with fully managed service it will hardly cost you a bit higher than digitalocean but you dont have to worry about service monitoring and management stuff .

I will suggest you check out : VPS UK

OR even : Webhosting UK I got many of my client including me using their service from last 3 to 4 year and support and quality if hosting is good.

lokkers · 15 Jul 2014 at 08:25

I don't find handling a VPS particularly difficult, and it's great having the flexibility to configure your own box how you want it. I run Ruby/Rails and Node on mine (with Mongodb and Postgresql) for a couple of hobby sites. I've not come across a host that offers this level of flexibility for $5 per month.

When I started off last year, I was a complete Linux newb. Now I'm much more confident and I've broadened my skill set no end.

You can always cancel it at no cost and move to a managed host if you find it too much. But I'd say give it a go

Fallen god · 15 Jul 2014 at 16:58

lokkers said:
I don't find handling a VPS particularly difficult, and it's great having the flexibility to configure your own box how you want it. I run Ruby/Rails and Node on mine (with Mongodb and Postgresql) for a couple of hobby sites. I've not come across a host that offers this level of flexibility for $5 per month.

When I started off last year, I was a complete Linux newb. Now I'm much more confident and I've broadened my skill set no end.

You can always cancel it at no cost and move to a managed host if you find it too much. But I'd say give it a go

Guessing this was with Digital Ocean. I'm not too worried with handling things since I currently provision my own machines at work, but a have a Dev ops team too to look through everything and include any security work so I was wondering if there was anything very important that I should keep in mind.

lokkers · 16 Jul 2014 at 18:17

Fallen god said:
Guessing this was with Digital Ocean. I'm not too worried with handling things since I currently provision my own machines at work, but a have a Dev ops team too to look through everything and include any security work so I was wondering if there was anything very important that I should keep in mind.

Yep I've been using DO for nearly a year.

They've got a decent range of tutorials on their site. The usual advice applies: Make sure you keep the machine updated, lock down any unused ports using a firewall, move SSH off the default port etc.

Why don't you ask a kind soul in your devops team for some pointers?

Fallen god · 16 Jul 2014 at 22:13

lokkers said:
Yep I've been using DO for nearly a year.

They've got a decent range of tutorials on their site. The usual advice applies: Make sure you keep the machine updated, lock down any unused ports using a firewall, move SSH off the default port etc.

Why don't you ask a kind soul in your devops team for some pointers?

I was thinking that, it was just personally stuff so didn't want too do it during work hours.

lokkers · 17 Jul 2014 at 19:53

Fallen god said:
I was thinking that, it was just personally stuff so didn't want too do it during work hours.

I wasn't suggesting configuring it during work hours, you're just asking someone for some advice and links to resources you might find useful. I wouldn't see that as a problem.

aln · 17 Jul 2014 at 20:47

lokkers said:
Yep I've been using DO for nearly a year.

They've got a decent range of tutorials on their site. The usual advice applies: Make sure you keep the machine updated, lock down any unused ports using a firewall, move SSH off the default port etc.

This is some pretty solid advice.

Beyond the above, make sure you backup and monitoring is as good as it needs to be. If you want to be clever about it, build your vm with something like vagrant.

lokkers · 17 Jul 2014 at 21:45

I forgot monitoring, so that's a good point! I've been using New Relic for a while, which monitors both my server and applications.

Fallen god · 18 Jul 2014 at 11:21

aln said:
This is some pretty solid advice.

Beyond the above, make sure you backup and monitoring is as good as it needs to be. If you want to be clever about it, build your vm with something like vagrant.

I do use Vagrant for my personal stuff, and trying to pick up puppet/chef is pretty funny.

lokkers said:
I forgot monitoring, so that's a good point! I've been using New Relic for a while, which monitors both my server and applications.

Thanks for this, I totally forgot about it, we used too use it a my pervious place and it is pretty amazing.