As Alex mentioned, a 100% uptime is probably possible but will cost you.
You can have multiple servers connected to multiple networks with some sort of load balancing, as many big (read: huge) sites do. Hosting your machine at a TeleCity or a TeleHouse facility is a good option as they are usually carrier-neutral so you can guarantee good bandwidth connectivity.
I often find that servers isn't that much of a problem, when managed correctly, but your ISPs connection, it's uplink could well be patchy. It's worth investigating if they have backup networks in place which automatically switch over when the first fails, for instance.
Remote reboot facilities is also very handy. You can get a console attached to your server that can reboot the server remotely (by yourself) if you see the server go down. Of course, if you're going for managed hosting, then the tech team assigned to your server should do this for you.
Good luck. People mostly find that this sort of thing is trial and error. I've had many an error and many months if not years of great service off a select few hosts.
In the end we have decided to collocate our servers. That is, build our own servers and ship them to facilities in TeleCity in London Docklands area so that we rent bandwidth off a carrier-neutral venue. This gurantees us the best and burstable bandwidth for our needs. Better than most ISPs can offer you, because you're eliminating one more link in the chain.
Oh, and it's also important to realize where your customer base is. You should place the server as physically (in network terms) as closely as possible to the folks hitting your website. This is why we moved to London to be able to take advantage of LINX which is the main "switchboard" if you like for UK ISPs, which is our target audience. From hosting in LA with 150+ milliseconds to reach the server we cut that down to about 20milliseconds at most to reach the server at London. Makes a difference for those folks on dial-up and you're making better use of the internet as a whole.
Hope this helps.
- wil
You can have multiple servers connected to multiple networks with some sort of load balancing, as many big (read: huge) sites do. Hosting your machine at a TeleCity or a TeleHouse facility is a good option as they are usually carrier-neutral so you can guarantee good bandwidth connectivity.
I often find that servers isn't that much of a problem, when managed correctly, but your ISPs connection, it's uplink could well be patchy. It's worth investigating if they have backup networks in place which automatically switch over when the first fails, for instance.
Remote reboot facilities is also very handy. You can get a console attached to your server that can reboot the server remotely (by yourself) if you see the server go down. Of course, if you're going for managed hosting, then the tech team assigned to your server should do this for you.
Good luck. People mostly find that this sort of thing is trial and error. I've had many an error and many months if not years of great service off a select few hosts.
In the end we have decided to collocate our servers. That is, build our own servers and ship them to facilities in TeleCity in London Docklands area so that we rent bandwidth off a carrier-neutral venue. This gurantees us the best and burstable bandwidth for our needs. Better than most ISPs can offer you, because you're eliminating one more link in the chain.
Oh, and it's also important to realize where your customer base is. You should place the server as physically (in network terms) as closely as possible to the folks hitting your website. This is why we moved to London to be able to take advantage of LINX which is the main "switchboard" if you like for UK ISPs, which is our target audience. From hosting in LA with 150+ milliseconds to reach the server we cut that down to about 20milliseconds at most to reach the server at London. Makes a difference for those folks on dial-up and you're making better use of the internet as a whole.
Hope this helps.
- wil