How we chose a host for our web server in 2005

In the days before we had our own server hosted in the Rackspace data centre, we had to use a shared service. So much has changed.

If you are involved in providing IT services from a remote location or via the Internet, our experience may be of interest.

We have recently completed a major exercise in which we moved all our hosted websites to our new server housed in a secure data centre. Since hosting is an important part of how a websites works, the services that we can offer our clients and the reliability of the final package; we put a lot of effort into making sure that we came up with a solution that really works.

The right hardware/software > In the right location > With the right support

Hardware and Software

That was the easiest part, almost any reasonable modern computer with RAID hard drives was going to be powerful enough to meet our requirements.

• The number of websites being run on the hosting server (the contention rate) will be one factor in the speed with which a website renders on the users computer. If your website is just one of hundreds, or even thousands that are hosted on the same computer, then it will have to wait its turn for access to the processor, then the processor may need to call a couple of images from the hard drive, or execute a query on a database. These may only take fractions of a second, but all those fractions add up. We only host our own websites on our server so we have complete control over the load.
• All the time one has to think about the possibility of things going wrong and how would make a fast recovery. It is re-assuring to know that all the major components of the server are available on site, so they can be immediately swapped out in the event of catastrophic failure.
• The software we needed on the server had to be the same as we use in our development environment. Win2003 server, IIS, MS SQL database server etc. Microsoft software is more expensive than the Open Source equivalent, but we made the decision very early on that we would stick with using the same software that most of our clients use in their offices.

Where to host the server

This was more unfamiliar territory. We knew that we needed the server to be housed in an environment that was both physically secure and provided good firewalls to protect from hackers, we knew that we needed high bandwidth access to the Internet backbone that was not going to fail (a server dangling off the end of a BT ADSL line was not even a contender), but everything else was open. American hosting services are cheaper than UK ones, and often have a stronger service tradition. Smaller companies offer a very direct service, but do not have the investment in infrastructure.

Here are some of the requirements that informed our final decision:

• Most hosting services have both reliable and large bandwidth access to the Internet backbone and this is why you will typically use their services rather than try to piggyback your web applications on your own server.
• The best hosting centres will have multiple networks to ensure that there is no single point of failure.
• Hosting server will also have peering arrangement that will affect the route from them to the particular user. Good peering will mean that it is fast to any destination, poor peering arrangement may mean a slower route form your host to the users ISP (Internet Service Provider).
• The ancillary services that the hosting service typically offers for free can also be of enormous importance. You should expect to have a good website statistics analysis package – so you can see clearly how many visitors are visiting you website each day (user sessions is a far more useful measure that website ‘hits’). Typically this will also provide information on search engine activity and key words that have been used in order to find your site.
• The ability to manage your own DNS records so you can set-up sub domains eg http://admin.yourdomain.co.uk or http://customer.yourdomain.co.uk which will enable you to add a professional look.
• If you are likely to want additional POP boxes for emails on the domain name, this is a service that can be bundled in with website hosting. It is then worth checking to see if you can also get virus checking and anti spam filtering included too.
• If your website is interactive (and most are now) you will want to use a fast database server – for us that means MSSQL or Access.
• The end user may be putting a lot of work into providing regular updates of information, it therefore becomes important that the site is being regularly backed up. A weekly backup with nightly incremental back ups would ensure that the worst that could happen is the loss of 1 days work. One can have full mirroring to have full resilience, but that is expensive and only worth doing if the risk of loosing a days work is worth the cost.
• Protection of the server with strong Fire Wall protection and implementation of tested security patches. 

There were several contenders who all claimed to be able to meet most or all of the criteria above. In the end we decided to put our server in the Rackspace facility in Reading and it was for one very specific reason.

The deciding factor

In IT it is impossible to be an expert in all things, so we knew that we needed strong support in those areas that we do not specialise. It was also clear to us, from bitter experience, that an escalation procedure for problems that defeat the first and even second line of support, will always pay dividends.

Rackspace have made a commitment to be ‘fanatical about support’ and I can now vouch that they live up to it. Even though they were the most expensive of our eventual short list, support was the deciding factor. And having now transferred all our site to our new server, I can say with confidence that I am delighted with the decision we made.