Comments on: Blogging In Transition: A Host Of Issues – Act One

By: mjgraves

mjgraves — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 03:23:35 +0000

Thanks for the tip! There are so many hosting companies that it’s difficult to sift the good from the bad. I know that I failed to fully appreciate the difference between “managed” and “unmanaged” hosts, whether real or virtual.

A shared host is always implicitly a managed host. If my current VPS doesn’t work out then my next step will be to try a managed semi-private server, which costs just a little more than the current VPS.

By: Larry C

Larry C — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:57:14 +0000

Michael, just read parts 1 & 2. Very interesting, as I am in the process of setting up a website and am going through the same decision process. Like you, I am coming to the conclusion that a VPS hosting environment seems to be the best of both worlds.

Your article highlights one of my major worries with VPS, however, which is a lack of accountability / finger-pointing when something goes wrong. That’s a concern to me: I’m pretty good w/ linux, but by no means a guru, and I don’t want to be spending my time administering & patching apache, mysql, etc.

One thing I came across in my research was managed VPS hosting. In this, the hosting company will provide you with a hardened hosting OS to start, but then it’s up to you to administer. They also will provide (best effort) support to help you with any problems; in other words, if you have a linux/mysql/apache question, you don’t need to go posting on internet discussion forums; you can simply call the help desk.

I haven’t used them yet, but one company I found in my research that provides this service is Knownhost. I’d love it if anyone who had experience with this hosting service could comment. ( I am not a customer or employee of them; I just found them doing some research; I hope this post doesn’t sound like shilling!)

By: mjgraves

mjgraves — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:28:59 +0000

Ward,

Thanks for the comment. Rest assured that I have bookmarked WestNIC as a strong potential if my needs grow further.

Michael

By: Ward Mundy

Ward Mundy — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:31:08 +0000

Great writeup. We had virtually the same experience with BlueHost except they disconnected our site in the middle of the night (without warning) for “excessive bandwidth usage.” Remember the ads promising unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth? Don’t believe it. The fine print gives them the right to drop you like a hot potato. I’m reminded of Mark Twain’s old saying: “A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it starts to rain.”

As you have observed, the VPS option is great for those that want to spend their whole life on network administration. For us, a semi-private hosting solution with WestNIC has been the best of all worlds for under $100 a month. We use an enormous amount of storage, bandwidth, and server resources hosting over a dozen very busy web sites. And, unlike with BlueHost, we’ve never heard a single complaint about usage with our semi-private hosting provider.