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Hosting Question?

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Hosting Question?
I m looking for the BEST available Red Hat Linux hosting with SSL
capabilities. I m least concerned about the hosting fees just want
the service remains up for 24/7. Because my current host goes down 2
times a week for regular maintainence and I don't want it even.

I want a service that remains up 365 days without a single minute
lapse.

Any ideas?

TIA.

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Re: [zeshan] Hosting Question? In reply to
Quote:
I want a service that remains up 365 days without a single minute
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None exist.
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Re: [Paul] Hosting Question? In reply to
nice reply Paul. Can you explain Why?

and I m serious I m looking for some good company. can you suggest one?

TIA.
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Re: [zeshan] Hosting Question? In reply to
Quote:
nice reply Paul. Can you explain Why?

Thanks. It's the laws of the internet. It is impossible to have 100% uptime.

If you want close to the best, without being predictable I'd recommend Gossamer Host. I've had a dedicated server for several months now and I don't recall it going offline once. Well infact it went once but that was due to a connection problem caused by my ISP.

They have a great setup regarding mod_perl and the way user accounts are setup.

Last edited by:

Paul: Apr 9, 2003, 12:20 PM
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Re: [Paul] Hosting Question? In reply to
I agree. My GHost dedicated server has been running since mid Aug '02 without a reboot. I ran a server monitor (page search every 20 minutes 24hr a day) on it for 5 months and the only downtime I could find was when my home system (Cable internet) wasn't getting to the internet. I have nothing but praises for Gossamer Host.

Dave

Last edited by:

bretzke: Apr 9, 2003, 2:48 PM
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Re: [zeshan] Hosting Question? In reply to
Quote:
I want a service that remains up 365 days without a single minute
lapse.

It starts getting exponentially more expensive the closer you get to 100% uptime.

Consider security upgrades. Even with linux, you may need to reboot the server (upgrading the kernel for instance), or at least restart a service which can cause a few minutes downtime.

That said, there's no reason a site should have to go down two times a week for regular maintenance, so I do think there is a lot of room to improve.

The main things to consider:

a. Are your services monitored 24x7 automatically? This is a must. If something crashes (apache, mysql, etc), it should be automatically detected and restarted to minimize any downtime. If it can't be restarted, a tech should be paged.

b. Is your O/S and the apps on the O/S managed? This is also a must. In the last six months there have been major holes in PHP, Apache, Sendmail, BIND, and even the linux kernel itself.

I hope you find this helpful. And yes, GossamerHost dedicated servers include both of these, and keeps a really good uptime to boot. If you have any questions about it, please feel free to contact me.

Cheers,

Alex
--
Gossamer Threads Inc.
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Re: [zeshan] Hosting Question? In reply to
I would also like to recommend Gossamer-Hosting - been very happy with the service and response time :-)

Klaus

http://www.ameinfo.com
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Re: [zeshan] Hosting Question? In reply to
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

Last edited by:

Wil: Apr 10, 2003, 2:06 AM