views:

424

answers:

6

I'm working on a web-application and need to figure out the best way to host it. I'm looking to minimize "Total Cost of Ownership," but it's more important to keep hosting costs low than labor costs in my case.

Potentially, some day, it will grow quite large (in terms of user-base) with heavy traffic but, of course, it will start out pretty small.

So, does it make sense to start out with a low-end virtual private server hosting plan, grow the server slice until it stops being cheaper than running my own servers, and then buy servers and set them up at a colocation provider, with all the pain of migrating everything,

-OR-

Buy my own server, set it up at a colo provider, and waste most of the server capacity to start, but reduce the pain in scaling from small to large significantly?

Has anybody tried both of these options? Are there pros and cons beyond the ones I'm considering?

Thanks.

Addendum: Thanks for the suggestion, but a shared hosting account probably wouldn't cut it, since I need to run persistent processes and access things like sendmail configuration files. I'm looking at either a VPS or my own server(s).

A: 

I would buy a dedicated box, from a company like serverpronto, then when you out-grow them move to a colo, which if done properly will be mostly painless.

Unkwntech
ServerPronto seems a little shady based on some online reviews like http://www.webhostingstuff.com/review/ServerPronto.html or http://www.hostsearch.com/review/serverpronto_review.asp . Do you have personal experience with them? Can you comment on that? Thanks.
xyz
I do, and when I was with them they were great, I never had any downtime, or experienced any lag(connection or hardware), and never got billed more then expected (not taking into account the months I went over my bandwidth) CONTINUTED...
Unkwntech
my only complaint was that, you have to pay more if you want more then online ticket support, but I'm impatient and like to talk to people.
Unkwntech
Also their BBB report http://www.bbbsoutheastflorida.org/BBBWeb/Forms/Business/CompanyReportPage_Expository.aspx?CompanyID=30003042 "A very high rating. A company with this rating would not have a significant number of complaints or other considerations that could pose a problem to consumers." -BBB
Unkwntech
A: 

It really depends on what you can afford now and the timescales involved.

If you can afford your own server now, I'd say go for it (but probably rent it - don't own it yet).

But if you can't, or it'd be a struggle, you need to weigh up how much you'll save during the period during which you can get by on a virtual hosting plan and what else that money could do for you vs the pain of migration.

benlumley
+1  A: 

Start small. Yes, some scaling headaches, but if you want to avoid them completely, use a Platform as a Service (cloud) service provider instead of hosting it all yourself.

Statistically, most projects fail, and the added overhead costs are not going to improve your chances. Even very popular and large services have difficulty making money. Hosting companies largely make their money out of the gap between the dreams of a customer and the reality that follows.

So, pragmatically, start hosted/shared so you can concentrate on the technology you're developing, rather than on maintaining a remote box, and ascend the tiers as the project gains users/customers.

I don't speak from experience, though, except for having dreams that don't get very far.

Phil H
+1  A: 
Mischa Kroon
+2  A: 

In the beginning you will actually find that scaling a VPS solution is far, far easier and more flexible than scaling on physical boxes. Personally I use and would highly recommend Slicehost. You can create and destroy new slices on the fly to test out new ideas or prototype something and you're only billed for what you use. You can also instantly scale a slice by upgrading to the next level up; within minutes your box is up with the new CPU and memory allocations and the cost is prorated.

I recommend Slicehost because they are developer-centric and are really a great bunch of guys.

Once you grow large enough to outgrow your VPS farm (which will take a while, trust me, these VPS's can be pretty beefy these days) you'll have enough cash to worry about moving to a physical platform.

Bob Somers
Do you know anything about Linode? It looks like they're less expensive for performance-related metrics (http://journal.dedasys.com/2008/11/24/slicehost-vs-linode), but quality support and responsiveness to problems is something I value too.
xyz
I haven't had a need to use the customer support on Slicehost yet, but they're all very active on their forums, twitter, their podcast, their blog, etc., and I've heard great things about it.As far as Linode goes, I've heard of them but I have no idea what their support is like.
Bob Somers
+3  A: 

I would highly recommend going with a VPS account. I've had clients who have spent many thousands of dollars and countless hours trying to get a perfect dedicated hosting environment setup and then never came close to needing it's capacity.

With VPS, as long as you use the virtualization technology that you want to stick with, it should be very easy to migrate/replicate the whole "server" to a new dedicated box when needed.

If you need SQL Server, I'd recommend starting with a Shared SQL Server rather than purchasing a full SQL Server license or using SQL Express.

EfficionDave
That's a good point- I hadn't thought of just moving the virtual machine when upgrading to a dedicated solution. There would be a performance hit, but it might be worth it because it makes it a lot easier to migrate. And virtualization might come in handy for development and testing anyway.
xyz