DO-IT-YOURSELF  COLOCATION  VIRTUAL HOSTING  MANAGED HOSTING  WHAT'S BEST FOR YOU Also see   Why Outsource your Hosting Services?

Today’s Web sites demand high bandwidth and scalable, robust technical infrastructures. E-commerce sites require 99.999 percent availability, 24/7 monitoring and the ability to scale at the click of a mouse. Whether customers are experiencing overnight success - or simply the annual holiday rush - Internet sites and servers need to be built to cope. Companies need to be able to focus on their core competencies instead of worrying about technical issues, particularly at times when capacity is stretched to the limit. The question is, how can these requirements best be met? How do companies create a real Web site – one that can be a sustainable, valuable business asset, and not merely a glossy brochure? There are four basic options to choose from when making a Web presence felt: DIY (Do It Yourself), colocation, virtual hosting and managed hosting.

DO-IT-YOURSELF
Setting up a data center may be one of the novice’s first ideas, but what does it involve? A secure environment with redundant, specialized power, cooling and fire prevention systems is a must. Servers, routers and firewalls are the main equipment requirement, followed by Internet connectivity and bandwidth. The next requirement is a team of technical staff to monitor, maintain and troubleshoot the equipment 24/7, all year long. This setup gives companies complete freedom to install and run anything they like, and the ability to scale up or down is limited only by their own resources.

This freedom comes at a price, however. The up-front capital costs and complexity involved in the setup make DIY hosting an unfeasible option for most businesses, especially start-ups. Unless an enterprise adopts technology early or has closely integrated external and internal IT systems, DIY is unlikely to be a business advantage because of the considerable financial outlay involved.

If not DIY, then what?

COLOCATION
The second model, colocation, is the closest option to creating a data center from scratch. As with the DIY option, colocation gives customers complete freedom to install anything they want. The main difference between colocation and the DIY option is that the data center environment is provided by the colocation facility. Customers rent space for their servers by the rack, square foot or cage, while the colocation company maintains the security, power and cooling systems, and Internet connectivity. While some colocation facilities provide limited technical support, customers are generally responsible for building and installing their own servers, as well as making their own arrangements for technical support and server maintenance.

As with DIY, scalability is limited only by the resources at a customer’s disposal, and the customer owns the hardware and can add or remove equipment as required. Bandwidth is determined by the pipe size (ISDN, T1, T3) provisioned by the customer. Customers may be able to add bandwidth after the fact, depending on the provisions made by the colocation facility. They may have made arrangements with certain bandwidth providers, or there may be restrictions on the cable running to the building.

Theoretically, colocation offers unlimited possibilities for the customer in setting up equipment, choosing a location, hiring technical staff, and so on. In reality, the customer’s budget and technical staff’s knowledge set limitations to these possibilities. The more servers that require maintenance, or the number of different operating systems a customer has, the more technical staff will be needed. In most cases, personnel will need to be added as a customer adds hardware or software.

Colocation is ideal for companies who do not have the space or resources to create their own data center, already have their own equipment or run applications where absolute control or confidentiality is of paramount importance.

If all this seems like much more commitment than you need, there is a third option - virtual hosting.

VIRTUAL HOSTING
Individuals or companies with static Web sites (those that contain no databases or no server-side scripting) may want to consider virtual hosting. The concept behind virtual hosting is very simple: Customers rent disk space on a server owned by someone else. Often, month-to-month contracts are available, as are instant online pricing and ordering. Virtual hosting packages typically include domain name registration, a fixed amount of disk space and monthly data transfer, as well as an interface that allows customers to administer their account, and a certain number of e-mail addresses.

Virtual hosting is deployed very rapidly or immediately in some cases. As customers rent space on a single server, set up is very simple. In most cases, all the hoster does is add a new directory to the web server’s hard drive and make some configuration changes to the web server application. Up-front capital costs are extremely low, as they are spread over hundreds of users all sharing the same resources.

Virtual hosting can be very limiting. The primary drawback to this hosting model is lack of control. As a single server is shared by a large number of customers, everything is controlled centrally by the virtual hoster. Customers are limited to the software the hoster installs, and the only scalable components are bandwidth and disk space. Customers are restricted to the hoster’s choice of hardware and software, and have no opportunity to install any software of their own or make any hardware modifications. Upgrades and maintenance are the responsibility of the hoster, who also schedules any resulting downtime. Technical support is performed by the hoster and any server problems will affect all the customers using that particular server. The upside to this is that such issues are usually reported and resolved fairly quickly. Resources on a virtual server are limited – virtual hosting is not scalable to any great degree. If a particular site is experiencing a lot of traffic, this will negatively affect traffic to other customers’ sites on the same server.

Security is another important issue that must be taken into account when considering virtual hosting as an option. The hoster makes all security arrangements for the server as a whole, which means that if the server is hacked, all the customers’ data may be vulnerable.

MANAGED HOSTING
Companies who do not have the technical equipment or technical personnel to handle in-house hosting will benefit by outsourcing their needs to a managed hosting company. Managed hosting provides servers, services and support, all in one package and usually for a monthly fee. Unlike the colocation model, managed hosting customers do not buy their hardware outright. Instead, customers choose the components that they need and pay a recurring packaged service fee, which includes their required hosting and capacity needs. The managed hosting provider assembles the server, installs all the software and provides technical support. Servers are housed in a telco-grade data center and are maintained by the managed hosting company. Managed hosting companies guarantee their hardware for the life of the server, with defective server components being replaced as required, often at no extra charge to customers. This eliminates the problem of server inadequacy or obsolescence that can arise with customers who own their own equipment.

To a certain extent, managed hosting customers also face restrictions such as being limited to the hardware, operating systems and facilities offered by their managed hosting provider. However, while a virtual hosting company may only offer one platform or operating system, managed hosting companies typically offer support for multiple operating systems. Most hosting companies offer a variety of different managed server packages including value-added services customers opt for, such as e-mail systems, firewalls and performance-monitoring software to suit a wide range of budgetary and technical needs.

As servers are housed in a secure data center on the managed hosting company’s premises, customers do not usually have physical access to them. Managed hosting companies compensate for this lack of control by providing 24/7 technical support that includes constant monitoring and maintenance. The managed hosting company performs all software installations, hardware replacements, and hardware and software upgrades. Scaling is a simple matter for managed hosting companies, who typically have on-site provisioning departments. Typically, all that is required to add another server or increase bandwidth is a phone call or e-mail. Other advantages of the managed server concept include low up-front capital costs, flexible month-to-month contracts, and rapid server deployment; if the parts are on-site, it can take less than one man-hour to build and deploy a managed server.

The up-front capital costs involved in managed hosting are extremely low when compared to colocation. Managed hosting companies typically charge an “initiation of service” fee that includes the set-up fees for a number of value-added services, as well as for the provisioning of the server itself. The recurring fees for managed hosting cover monthly software and hardware costs, data center fees, and maintenance and monitoring by technical support staff.

WHAT'S BEST FOR YOU
None of the four options – DIY, colocation, virtual hosting or managed hosting is suitable for all types of business. As we have seen, each of the models is suited to particular business models, depending on the priorities and requirements of each type of business.

DIY suits companies with particularly unusual or unique requirements that fall outside the scope of offerings provided by mainstream hosting companies and the resources to fulfil them.

Colocation is ideal for companies who already own their own equipment and have the resources to hire their own technical staff, but who do not have the time or the financial resources to set up their own data center to house the equipment.

Virtual hosting is a low-budget option that caters mainly to individuals who want a simple Web site, and who do not expect to attract high-volume traffic.

Managed hosting offers considerably more flexibility than the other three options. The completely outsourced option is ideal for companies or individuals whose software and hardware requirements do not differ much from the norm. Its scalability also makes it a particularly attractive option for customers or companies who are likely to incur unexpected growth, such as seasonal fluctuations. Most managed hosting companies offer a wide range of hosting solutions to suit different budgets and levels of complexity. Customers with larger requirements benefit from the ability to customize their own advanced configurations, while low-risk, end-to-end packages are ideal for the newcomer to hosting.