Comments on: Quality web hosting… cloud or no cloud?

By: Ryan Gasparini

Ryan Gasparini — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:15:38 +0000

Rackspace Cloud Servers and Slice Host are both owned by Rackspace and the best bet for distributed hosting. Shared hosts, virtual hosting and dedicated servers are all legacy methods of hosting relying on one set of hardware or software. The ability to host any deployment without the nickel and dime-ing of services and hardware, single-point-of-failures and lack of knowledgeable support makes distributed hosting (a.k.a. cloud) an efficient way of deploying projects at a lower cost with greater flexibility.

By: Scott Meves

Scott Meves — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:24:06 +0000

Thanks so much, Chris. We have a dedicated server now and it’s been working out ok, but I kind of assumed that could hosting could potentially be *better* than a dedicated host, i.e. during a large spike in traffic. I suppose this depends on the type of “cloud” hosting… from what I can tell MediaTemple would automatically dial up your resources, but with something like Amazon you would have to manually start new instances. Also, you make a great point about PCI compliance, and we went through a few extra steps to get our McAfee Secure certification which required we have full control over our server (closing ports, etc). I wonder how difficult it would be to get those working with a “cloud” host. Perhaps a middle ground is something like SliceHost, where you have full control over your slice, but you could dial it up as needed. Thanks again for your valuable input.

By: Chris Clarke

Chris Clarke — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:05:23 +0000

I’m not yet convinced that cloud hosting is what it’s cracked up to be. It’s a step up from standard virtual hosting, but it’s not the same as dedicated. Some things to consider:
- What are your OS and software options? (Think about DNS, webmail, database engines, languages, security software, etc.)
- Do you need to be PCI compliant? (If so, the cloud is probably out of the question.)
- How many public static IP addresses can you have? You’ll need one for each SSL certificate.
- What tech support is included/available? As you said, Rackspace is the king of hosting support, but its CloudServers don’t come with it.
- How long does it take to scale up or down? MediaTemple is instantaneous (up to a point); others may not be.
- Magento and Symfony might burn through a lot of “compute cycles.” Are you OK with a dynamic hosting bill?
- What are the options for off-site backup, and restore?

For what you’re doing, I’d suggest a dedicated box. Rackspace is worry-free, but you could save a lot by going with a cheaper company like ServerBeach or Hostway and handling the sysadmin yourself, or subing it out.

By: Lawrence Krubner

Lawrence Krubner — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:15:55 +0000

I’ve had dedicated servers through Rackspace and their support is really Amazing. If you ever, ever give them a negative rating on one of their feedback forms, a manager will call you within 15 minutes and ask you what the problem was. If anything upsets you, they really do treat it as a crisis.

That said, they are very expensive.

I’ve also used Media Temple. They seem very solid and very good.

For all that, I’ve currently a dedicated server from Hostway, and I’ve got a bunch of sites on another dedicated server that Chris Clarke has from Hostway. You can can get a dedicated server for just $99 from Hostway. It’s a lot of server resources for not much money.

By: Scott Meves

Scott Meves — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:13:18 +0000

thanks for the advice, jared!!

By: jared

jared — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:17:32 +0000

I host a Magento site and several WP/WPMU installs with MediaTemple (grid service) and I would recommend them. They provide lots of control and they have a great support team. Their pricing is one of the lowest I’ve seen for grid hosting.