Web Hosting in the Office / Connetivity Questions

[Frank_Rizzo]

I ask the same question at exactly the same time every year. The reply has always been the same: it's too expensive and not worth it

What are the latest connectivity options for hosting a webserver in the office?

The webserver is database intensive but has light users and traffic. At peak around 30 users a time are performing small to medium queries. The rest of the time it's just casual browsers and search engines.

1. Are leased lines still ridiculously expensive?

2. Is SDSL a feasible option?

3. What kind of bandwidth would be required for light us as stated above?

4. If an ADSL / SDSL solution is inplace what kind of downtime can be expected per month due to faults? How long do faults take to rectify.

4b. I seem to notice that the BT line here has never gone down AFAIK since it was upgraded to ~5Mb. Are lines now more reliable?

5. If bandwidth is an issue what about this new bonding technology where you can have multiple lines tied together? This I believe also multiplies the upload speed (and thus gives more bandwidth for those accessing the webserver).

I doubt much has changed so I guess it's another year of me renting dedicated servers.

 

[Frank_Rizzo]

Budget: Not really a problem but value is. I only buy if something is value and this is what currently prohibits me from going with office hosting.

I checked on the BT site for ADSL and it says I can have 512K for £170pm (plus £600 setup). That is obviously not good value as I could actually co-lo for less than £50 with free setup!

There has to be a time in the future where the costs of office hosting comes down to a more realistic level where the cost / facilities pay off is good.

I've asked this question every year for 8 years now and I guess there will be another 8 years before the value target is reached.

I guess the best option is to stick with dedicated but I tell you, i really hate the way webhosts treat customers as suckers with their pricing plans - just don't get me started on this

Co-lo is an option but the nearest decent one to me is 2+ hours away. Local ones just seem to be small leased line facilities themselves such as cottage industry hosting providers.

In summary: I'm surrounded with test servers here in my own office and I'd really like these to be in production here, where I can reboot the darn things at will or swap out a disk in seconds. But the costs of wiring up to the www are ridiculously expensive for what you get.

Unless someone knows an alternative I'll leave this until next year

 

[Frank_Rizzo]

Sure, but I have an air con unit, UPS, halfords car fire extinguisher and the office admin staff is fiercer than any doberman pincer

I don't think those things would apply in this case. Not wishing to host 1000 shared accounts, and not wishing to host an online banking cluster.