Hi again

I have a few more questions that I would like some input on,

(a) What type of anti-virus and virus scanning abilities are built into the program or can be added to the program for the protection of (i) the server (ii) the software itself and (iii) the protection the users individual email accounts?

(b) Does the program have a feature that I missed that is able to limit the amount of traffic that can come into and out of each account. This is good for your hosting options where the amount of bandwidth is limited, I know in the case of Shared Plan D this would mean for each 1 MB of storage size of the account the alloted bandwith is about 24 MB but better safe than sorry?

(c) This is more of a statement and some math then a question and by such I do not expect a reply to (c). Once again under your hosting options you have a dedicated hosting plan D which is $1,100 per month with a $450 setup fee for a combined yearly cost of $13,650. Now under another hosting companies dedicated servers I found a similar server with the differences being that the other company's server has an extra 150 MHZ, an extra 30 GB drive and 55% allotted bandwidth (150 GB per month). The cost of this server is $699 per month plus $300 setup for a combined yearly total of $8,688 and adding in the cost of $1,450 to purchase the 3 software programs that come with your dedicated server this bringing the total to $10,138 for the year, a savings of over $290 per month or $3,512 per year.

This is something that comes up again and again, (and is sort of a pet peeve of mine -- cute little things, but nasty attitudes!). You should to search out the various well known, well respected, and reliable hosting companies. You put together a graph of the high end, and low end of the spectrum, and see what the differences are. For the upper end, check out Exodus if they still bother to post their prices <G>, sort of "if you have to ask, you can't afford us."

What you will find, is that the bulk of them are pretty close together, and the differences are mostly what kind of shop they are -- Unix or NT, Intel or Sparc, etc.

Bandwidth needs to be calculated as SUSTAINED and BURSTABLE not by aggregated total per month. This is one area where 90% of the consumer hosts fall down. They are offering x-gig per month, but they do not guarantee that _any_ of it will be available to you during prime time. A host that offers you 1mb SUSTAINED, with 10mb Burstable (the usual entry level dedicated level) means that at any given time, you are _guaranteed_ to have at least 1mb of bandwidth available to you, with the ability to burst to 10mb to handle random spikes.

Then, you need to look at the actual hardware. What is the brand, reliability and durability of the power supply, mother board and connections, and most importantly the disk drives -- what is their REAL MTF and seek times? Are you getting a $600 consumer box for your monthly payments, or are you getting an $8000 sparc system with commercial quality disks? the MHz and MB may be the same, but the systems are WIDELY different. Even Dell/Compaq/IBM/no-name have differences.

I buy my servers, and purchase bandwidth (co location services) at a per-month/per-unit rate. I know what hardware I have, I know the quality, the life cycle, the repair history, etc. They are my parts, my machine, but I use the ISP's connections, cool-room, etc. My monthly price also includes that "overhead" (rent, electricity, floor space, locked cabinate, etc, etc).

So, while statistics (math, calculations, etc) don't lie (if done correctly)... well, you fill in the rest.

Make sure you are not just comparing apples to apples, but rather Golden Delicious to Golden Delicious, Granny Smith to Granny Smith , and not a Crab Apple to a Jonathan.

Buyer/renter beware!


PUGDOG® Enterprises, Inc.
FAQ:http://LinkSQL.com/FAQ
Forum:http://LinkSQL.com/forum

Good response to (c) and some vary valid and important remarks were made, but I want to but a small twist on what you said. You stated that 'I buy my servers, and purchase bandwidth (co location services) at a per-month/per-unit rate. I know what hardware I have, I know the quality, the life cycle, the repair history, etc. They are my parts, my machine...' but there is another side to the server rental customer base, this group, which I happen to fall into, does not purchase my machine(s) and it's part(s). This group has a minimum standard that it's hosting company must meet, this standard states that it is the hosting company's responsiblity that the parts are replaced when failing and before any loss of data.

Ofcourse as you have implied this standard does not make the difference if the bandwidth is not there when you need it to be there and that the type and amount of bandwidth makes all the difference.

Hi!

a. There is no built in anti-virus checker, but that's a prime candidate for a plugin once we find a good command line anti-virus tool.

b. You can't limit bandwidth per account, but you can limit total amount of mail, max attachment size, max folders, etc.

c. There are lots of places that offer cheaper hosting, and in most cases you get what you pay for. We can't compete with that. What we offer is specialized hosting where you _know_ you aren't going to get the knee-jerk reply that it's the software causing problems, and not the server. For the dedicated we can set you up to run under mod_perl as part of the installation, a great performance improvement and something you probably won't see elsewhere (or if so, not done right).

Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions.

Cheers,

Alex

--
Gossamer Threads Inc.

Thanks for the response to (c) I was wondering what it would say, as long as the support is there to make sure it works fine then I do not have a problem paying the extra. To quote you 'You get what you pay for'

This is why I say you are comparing more specifically than just apples to apples.

A company that tries to hide the lease/rental costs of the machine in the hosting or bandwidth costs is not really doing you a favor. One or the other will eventually suffer.

By buying my machine, I avoid the machine leasing costs imposed by the ISP. The isp cost will be higher to protect themselves from early termination, and it should also include a service contract which can be anywhere from $20 to $200 a month depending on the costs of the hardware.

These are all costs that you need figure into the long term operating costs. They may not matter in the first 6 months, but in the 4th six month period, or 18-24 months down the road, you may need a new machine, or repairs, and where do those costs come from?? They come from the part of your monthly fee that was earmarked for machine rental/use/repair.



PUGDOG® Enterprises, Inc.
FAQ:http://LinkSQL.com/FAQ
Forum:http://LinkSQL.com/forum

Pugdog, I remember you telling me recently that dedicated servers are much better value than co-located. Now you seem to be contradicting yourself.

Installations:http://www.wiredon.net/gt/
Favicon:http://www.wiredon.net/favicon/

No...

A colocated server is just a server you own and locate remotely at an ISP. A "dedicated server" often (but not always) implies the server is leased from the ISP (otherwise you'd probably refer to it as a colo server...).

But.... colocated servers may be dedicated to my business, but I might share them among accounts.

Buying your own machine is a better value, in my mind, than leasing one from the ISP. If you "rent" or "lease" dedicated server space from your ISP, you are, in effect, paying a portion of that monthly charge for the server, and a portion for the bandwidth.

If you'd like, think of the "hosting packages" as really combining 3 parts (plus extras, such as backup, support, etc).

1) the costs of bandwidth (everyone has this cost)
2) the costs of the server -- hardware for the physical server, service contracts, etc.
3) overhead -- the costs of housing the server at the ISP -- floor space, cables, electricity, air conditioning, etc.

In a "package" these costs are listed as a single value.

if you co-locate your server, the costs of #2 are taken out of the costs of the package, which can drop a $1700 hosting package to $1000, you are covering the costs with #1 and #3. Some ISP's figure the cost of #3 in with #1, others itemize the costs, and provide a varying degree of space -- a shared rack, a shelf, shared shelf, dedicated rack, dedicated cabinate, etc.

On top of #1, #2, and #3, you have the costs associated with maintaining the server -- software, upgrades, backups, etc. Some ISp's will include that in the price they quote for #1 or #'s1,2,3 or provide it as an add on for x-$ per month.

If you simply want to run your server, don't need the ISP to do more than make sure the machine is on, stays on, and you have access to your machine (as I do, with my ISP just down the road) I can buy my machine, coloacte it there, and do all the things I need my self. I pay for #1 with the costs of #3 included in the bandwidth costs (for one machine), and #1 includes restarts, and the basics of physically keeping the machine "on" and booted. I do everything else.

If you simply want to run your business, and you look at the lease costs of the machine as the costs of doing business, then you simply get the dedicated server package from your ISp. The ISP actually takes out the "lease" on the machine (even if they pay case, it's depreciated like a lease) on your behalf, and gives you use of that machine. To protect themselves, they include a service contract fee (either to a 3rd party like Panasonic or Honeywell, or self-insuring), and that way, they can upgrade, fix, repair, improve, whatever your machine, as long as they give the resources (at LEAST) you contracted for.

Does this make sense?

If you figure your business will grow, a package from your ISP that will let you move up without penalty (most will) is best. You don't own any hardware, they do, and they just move it around between customers as needed.

If you prefer to have your own hardware, control the entire set up, and take charge of the machine yourself, buying the machine is better, and you just allow the ISP to "care for it". Some ISP's will even offer you the in-house service contracts on your machine -- just like the electronics stores <G>

There are a lot of different ways and plans to go. Finding one that is right for you takes work, but when comparing two plans, again, make sure you are really comparing _EXACTLY_ the same thing, or you know how to make conversions (such as a 400 mhz Sparc with 256 meg of Ram vs the same specs on an Intel chip -- the Sparc will beat it into the dust. You'd need a 700+ Intel chip with 1gig of RAM to come close to the sparc....)

Anyway, again, just make sure you know what you need, what you are getting, and when comparing two plans, make sure you compare Golden Delicious to Golden Delicious.



PUGDOG® Enterprises, Inc.
FAQ:http://LinkSQL.com/FAQ
Forum:http://LinkSQL.com/forum

Thanks for clarifying that. Yes you did make sense.

Installations:http://www.wiredon.net/gt/
Favicon:http://www.wiredon.net/favicon/