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Archives for March 2010

Host Monster Web Hosting

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Host Monster is often considered a low profile webhost that has gradually (but surely) grown to become one of the greatest market players within the shared hosting universe. In my personal opinion Hostmonster website hosting is one of the greatest cpanel web hosting companies currently available. I personally favor cpanel for all my own website hosting due to the stable web hosting setup it provides and as it allows me to take care of all my web hosting customizations myself. Host Monster uses cPanel since they started offering web hosting and they are one of the largest cPanel hosts in my opinion. Why am I saying this? Well, Host Monster is home to over 750,000 domains that are hosted on their web servers. Not many web hosting providers can boost such a statistic.

Host Monster started as a web host in 1996 and has now completed 14 years in business. How many web hosts you know of can offer the same stability and experience? I know a few, but I can count them on 2 hands and have plenty of room counting. I started my own web hosting career with a website that I was able to host on my ISP’s servers, but I soon realized that my own domain name would be a good thing to have and to pick a good web host. By that time domain names still cost $35/year to register. At that time Host Monster was already around offering cheap web hosting. It’s amazing in my opinion.

Host Monster is different in one way as they still offer SSH access for their shared web hosting accounts. Call me old school, but I like that additional level of control as a web hosting customer. Not that this matters to most web hosting customers, but if you ever get to the next level in web hosting where you rather want to do something via SSH it is good to know that there are still web hosts out there that offer this kind of feature.

In regards to features, disk space, and bandwidth allowance you do not have to compromise with Host Monster. They match what other web hosts offer and even go the extra mile by offering you a free domain name registration INCLUDING domain privacy. Domain Privacy hides your personal information on the domain name registration (WHOIS) so that spammers cannot look up your phone number or your administrative email address. Depending where you would buy this on the open market you usually pay somewhere between $10 – $15 for this addon. Host Monster gives it to your for no extra cost. Free Domain Name Registration and Privacy Protection – this combination is hard to beat and hard to find from all other web hosts.

My Conclusion for today is that Host Monster is a great web host and you should definitely take a look at it before signing up for any other web host. Just because they do not advertise as aggressively as others, they should not be ignored. Their support has a great reputation and so if you love high uptime for your website (who doesn’t!!!), Host Monster might just do the trick. Visit Host Monster Web Hosting and check out their extensive list of web hosting features.

Small Business Guide to Dedicated Server Hosting

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Many small business start out with their website hosting on a shared web hosting account. It’s cheap and easy to setup. However, usually sooner than later they outgrow the shared web hosting account and need to move their website to a dedicated server to keep it up on the Internet. That is often the moment things start really going downhill because the lack of knowledge in this field is immense. A small business usually does not have any dedicated IT staff nor does it possess the knowledge to do all the work related to leasing a dedicated server.

The following questions often arise when it comes to the moment of moving a website to a dedicated server:

1) Which provider can I trust without being ripped off?
2) What is a fair price for a dedicated server?
3) What kind of hardware (memory, CPU, disk, etc.) do I need?
4) How can I manage the server (administration, security, backups, etc.)?
5) How do I move our website and domain to the dedicated server?

Each of these questions might pose a significant problem that needs to be addressed as otherwise things can go wrong and it becomes expensive to fix them.

There are thousands of providers for dedicated servers out there. Some are good and some are outright bad. How shall a small business know which one to choose? The best choice would be to follow a recommendation or referral to avoid a negative surprise. I often recommend Liquidweb as this provider is a) reliable and b) their servers are fully managed and c) prices are very fair and reasonable.

What is a fair price for a cheap dedicated server? “It depends” is the answer. It depends on your needs in regards to dedicated server hardware and what extra services you need. I usually order some backup services with my dedicated servers. One dedicated server web hosting provider that I have used in the past – The Planet – even offers offsite backup services (or offsite replication) which moves your data from your dedicated server into one of their other data centers. This is an ideal solution in my opinion as it gives you extra protection in case disaster would strike. However, the setup is a little more complicated and somebody without the proper experience or knowledge easily gets lost. And of course it is also a price question as all these little extra services can add up fast. However, my recommendation would be to not go too cheap as it will pay to have high quality hosting.

Depending on what backend your website uses, you need to spec out a dedicated web server properly and leave room for growth. There is no one answer here. If you have less than 25,000 visitors per day you are might be Ok with a 2 GB RAM server and a normal Dual Core Processor. However, you might want to consider an upgrade to 4 GB to have room for growth and peace of mind. Talk to the web host you are going with for your cheap dedicated web server and let them help you.

As mentioned, some web hosts (e.g. Liquidweb) offer fully managed dedicated servers. Other providers charge extra or you can completely go off the record with this and hire an external service provider for server management. Again, pick someone that you maybe know from a referral. Ask around. Don’t ignore this topic because if your dedicated web server does not get properly configured and secured, it will get hacked. You would be surprised how many port scans and attacks an Internet facing web server has to go through every day. You want your system hardened and firewalled from someone who knows what they are doing. My favorite are the guys from ConfigServer. They offer great service and have their own custom software that they use. I always felt protected after they secured my dedicated servers. And they are inexpensive, too.

Moving a website is usually not too difficult, however it really depends on how complex your website is. Your web designer can probably help or you outsource this task to whomever manages your web server. Your domain name should be registered with a provider that is not your webhost at the same time. I recommend NameCheap or Enom as they have great prices and are independent. You will have full control of your domain name and cannot be held hostage by a web host.

This article only scratches the surface about dedicated web server hosting and leasing. Definitely spend time researching this process before signing up with a provider. It also pays to get an independent opinion from a 3rd party on your plan and your needs. If properly executed the move from shared web hosting to a dedicated web server should be fairly smooth. However, please do not go cheap as it will come back and bite you. You can get dedicated servers for less than $50 per month, but you get what you pay for. Depending on your needs and requirements a number of $175/month to $450/month sounds more reasonable to me.

Resources for this Article

ConfigServer Services

The Planet

LiquidWeb

Liquidweb Customer Review

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I was browsing a web hosting forum the other answering questions and providing free web hosting advice when I noticed a thread about Liquidweb. Liquidweb.com is one of my favorite hosts when it comes to fully managed dedicated servers. This was a Liquidweb customer who had nothing but praise for his web host.

I finally took the plunge this last August and got my first dedicated server, thanks in part to the good reviews here at WHT. I went with LiquidWeb and I do not regret it for a second. The server was up immediately, and they have ever so patiently helped me with all the questions I had as someone who is new to using a dedicated server.

The customer makes some really good points here. For one he trusted the web hosting reviews and picked a high quality web host. His server was setup immediately and the heroic support of Liquidweb jumped right in to provide a top notch experience.

There has been next to no downtime, Apache failed once and support took a look and had it back in up seconds (before I even got the email saying that it was down), they’re always super fast on support – either by email or by phone – and very polite and knowledgeable.

This is very important to notice. Liquidweb’s support team caught a problem before the customer did and instead of just waiting it out, they went ahead and fixed the problem. Job well done, Liquidweb.

Usually when I contact support, it’s because I’ve done something silly or I have no idea how to do something – the server and connectivity has been fantastic. It is incredible to call or email support, any time, day or night, and get a response back almost immediately. I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending Liquid Web! This is a company that gets it right.

The reviewer explains why he contacts support and how that experience has been. I have written about the same thing several times. Liquidweb has highly skilled support engineers that also have good people skills and know how to treat a customer right.

About Liquidweb in case you do not know them. Liquid Web offers cheap shared hosting, but is mainly known for their web hosting offers on fully managed dedicated servers at very low prices. They own their data centers and provide a superb environment. Their business puts the customer first and you can really tell it is paying off.

Go here to check out Liquidweb yourself.

Go here to check out their current Specials.

If you sign up with Liquidweb, let me know by using either a comment on this posting or by using the contact us form of my website. I’d love to publish your review with a link back to your website. Thank you.

Source of the original review: WHT

New, powerful Entry-Level Servers at ThePlanet

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Check out the new entry-level servers at ThePlanet.com: Great power, better prices

ThePlanet.com is making the latest server technology more affordable than ever for people looking for cheap dedicated servers. There are 2 new additions to The Planet’s portfolio of high quality Dell servers. Dell is one of the most reputable server providers today and so this move really means a high quality, low price option for customers

ThePlanet.com concentrates this event on the new Intel G6950 processor which features a 64-bit architecture, allowing servers to easier address more than 4 GB of physical and virtual memory – which means better performance for you the customer.

Here is a sample configuration:

  • Dell PowerEdge R210
  • Intel Pentium G6950 dual-core 2.8 GHz, 32 nm processor
  • 2 GB of RAM
  • 250 GB SATA hard drive
  • 2 TB of bandwidth per month
  • Price: just $99 per month.

If you need a little more power without sacrificing the price too much, choose the Pentium G6950 SATA Plus. It comes  with double the RAM and storage capacity for just $125 per month. Yes, you read this right – just $125 per month

Visit ThePlanet now for more details.

By the way – these affordable dedicated servers make great game servers – especially with this bandwidth and the available RAM.

VMWare: My Experience with upgrading the Virtual Hardware in ESX 4

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When moving VMs from an ESX 3.5 cluster to an ESX 4 “vSphere” cluster in VMWare you will have to look at upgrading the VMWare Tools for sure. However, you also have the option to upgrade the virtual hardware of a VM. The virtual hardware upgrade offers some performance benefits, but not every VM will be able to take advantage of it. It is also not mandatory to upgrade the virtual hardware, however if you do want to upgrade the virtual hardware, you need to upgrade the VMWare tools to the latest version first AND you need to go through a full reboot cycle first. Upgrading the virtual hardware of a VM requires to shut it down as the option is only available in a powered off state of a VM.

So far I have upgraded the virtual hardware on several VMs in my environment and the overall experience has been good (knock on wood). In one instance I had missed to update the VMWare Tools to the latest version and upon the attempt to upgrade the virtual hardware my vCenter politely asked me if I really wanted to proceed. I did not and opted to update the VMWare Tools first.

What can you expect after the upgrade? You can expect a plug and play fest so to speak. It’s like ripping out the motherboard and all the other components from a physical server and to replace them with newer ones. So far I upgraded several operating systems including Windows 2000, Windows 2003, and Windows 2008. No issues other than the usual “plug and play spiel” inside Windows.

I still have to do some performance testing, but overall things seem to be speedier.

ThePlanet.com Bargain Basement – Great Deals

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It is with pleasure to see that if you are in the market for a cheap dedicated server like I am eventually am, that there are choices out there that you will like. The other day I read a forum’s discussion at WHT where people talked about how many customers ask for unreasonable offers in the dedicated server market. Unmetered bandwidth servers or server with Gigabit uplinks for $50 to $60 per month – fully managed!!!! What are these customers thinking?! And even worse – there are some fly-by hosts that respond to those inquiries and offer such servers. Yuck.

I am all for quality when it comes to dedicated servers and I have been happy with ThePlanet.com since 2004 when I ordered my first dedicated server at their then existing division “ServerMatrix” (now merged into their other product lines. So, while searching for the best cheap dedicated server deal out there, I had totally forgotten about the outlet webpage at ThePlanet.com.

Here is a deal that I am currently eyeing:

  • 2 x Intel P4 XEON 3.2 GHz
  • 2 x 250 GB 7200 RPM SATA Drives
  • 2048 MB RAM
  • $137.54 per month

There is no setup fee involved if I would order this cheap dedicated server right now. ThePlanet.com usually uses high quality hardware like from Texas neighbor Dell and so I feel very comfortable that this is a solid server that can go for a few more years. I have worked in different data centers over the years and have Dell, IBM, and HP servers go way past the expected life span. So, I might save myself a few bucks and pick one of those servers.

Want to see what ThePlanet.com has to offer in their bargain basement. Check it out here.

Is there a problem with “Unlimited Web Hosting”?

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Nowadays you see so many web hosting providers offering so-called unlimited web hosting. Unlimited bandwidth here and unlimited disk space there. It seems like the only limit is the sky. Well, the truth looks differently of course. There is no such things as unlimited bandwidth or unlimited disk space. Unless you have seen a hard drive with unlimited disk space somewhere on sale – I haven’t. The same is true for a network switch that could handle unlimited traffic. And then of course there is the web server hardware which has limitations – even though those boundaries really go high up quadruple quadcore CPU configurations and memory levels of 128 GB and more (there is more to this to say, but you get the idea).

So, what does unlimited really means? It’s a numbers game and a marketing game. Web hosting is a business often based on average values. The average website never uses more than X GB of bandwidth and on average only uses X amount of disk space. A web host – based on his/her experience – can now work these averages into a business model and create web hosting plans around it. A web server with 8 GB RAM and 1 TB disk can hold many more websites under this business model than the same web server where only the available physical disk space can be sold. This process is called “overselling”. This is nothing bad as long as the web host monitors the server closely and makes sure the physical limits never get reached.

Now, when it comes to unlimited web hosting you always have 1% of the users taking these offers by the word. Initially you would think this is more an accident, but most of these users know that they need a dedicated server and not a shared web hosting account. So, these users grab every available resource of a web server with their websites and that ruins the experience for everyone else. The server slows down and eventually crashes. The user gets suspended and complains in a public forum how bad this particular web host is . So, web hosts have recognized this problem and put a limit on unlimited into their terms of service. Unlimited means web hosting within certain limits and those limits are usually CPU and RAM of a server. Most users will never even come close to these limits and so it is a non-issue. However, it is an issue for those 1% of web hosting customers that take the web hosts by their words.

Conclusion: Unlimited web hosting does not exist even though it is advertised all over the place. It is a marketing gimmick and should be treated as such. For you, the normal web hosting just take it as it is – you get a web hosting account with huge allowances for a really low price. Do not expect unlimited resources though, because there is a reason why dedicated web servers exist. And unlimited web hosting is just one of them …

To find a good web host, please visit my Top 10 List of Web Hosts.

New to Web Hosting?

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It is never too late to start a website. Be it a business website or a personal website, the Internet community will pick you up for sure – all you need is some cheap web hosting. There are many ways to go online with your content (pictures, text, blog, forums, etc.), but it can be quite daunting if you have never done it before. A good way to get started without breaking the bank is to work with a reliable web host that takes care of many of the startup items for you. One of the cheap web hosts I like is the team of Just Host.

Just Host is dedicated to make your web hosting experience a good one. If you are new to web hosting and want to start with a new website, they offer everything you need to  get started appropriately. For one, there are no hidden fees and their hosting packages cover every angle. What sticks out is the free domain name for life promise combined with a cool site builder tool. Who says you need to learn programming to have a website?! Just build your own website the easy way with the site builder and automatically upload it to your new account. Or pick the WordPress Blog installer from the Fanastico Script section and start your own blog in less than 2 minutes. If you are not familiar with web hosting, things might look a little scary, but Just Host has taken that piece completely out of it. And if you are still stuck, open a support ticket. Their support team does not bit or makes fun of you – they actually want to help you and to get the most out of your cheap web hosting package.

Just Host has convinced me through their pricing and their feature-rich web hosting packages.