Best Hosting Notes: Part One

It so happened that until recently, all my web projects were implemented on their own servers. And for this reason, I have never had to deal with hosting. But everything comes to an end and at the end of 2008 I suddenly decided that I simply had to buy myself a hosting and a couple of domains.

This thought did not come suddenly, but was sucked in for several months. I tried to consider all possible options, to estimate the best option. In addition, I tried to formulate for myself, why do I still need hosting. In the end, the choice was made, hosting paid for the year ahead, domains purchased.

With this note, I would like to open a small series (without ending) about my experience with hosting. The first note will contain abstract thoughts about hosting, about why such a choice was made, and about what the selected host gave me.

UPD: the second part of the article is available

Passion for hosting

The first urges to buy a hosting appeared for me in connection with the opening of the HabrRedactor , which is still based on a working server (it will be transferred as soon as it reaches its hands). These urges quickly passed, because, according to popular wisdom, there is nothing more permanent than temporary. The Habra Editor was launched, it worked, it was updated and continues to work, it is visited by up to 120 people a day and this is quite enough. The hosting again somehow fell out of my field of interest.

The second and more serious push towards personal hosting occurred while working on the habradigest project . There was already a temporary solution and thanks to the excellent comrade ontheflyThe project received both hosting and its domain. The project was developing, but mostly in terms of content. The site remained in pristine condition. And, when it came time to make a normal site, the idea of ​​hosting again surfaced on the surface of my field of interest. Why?

The thing is that the current hosting habradigest.ru supports only php. And I, as some here present know, a programmer on the Microsoft .NET platform (PHP lovers will also be interested in reading to the end). Thus, I finally matured and somewhere towards the end of November, the indistinct needs of the hosting took shape in a great desire. The only thing left is to find a hoster.

Such a different hosting

So, what did I want to get from the hosting? Below I give my needs, which guided me in the search:

• availability of MS SQL Server 2008;
• IIS7;
• .NET Framework 3.5;
• the largest or unlimited space for files and databases;
• unlimited traffic;
• in general, as few restrictions as possible;
• foreign hoster.

I will write about the last requirement below, but for now I propose to get acquainted with the search results:

• www.discountasp.net - offers gigabytes of space, 80 gigabytes per month of traffic. Very muddy schemes with additional features that need to be purchased separately, for example, SQL 2008, is delivered as a separate feature. Ugly site. In general, the impression was bad;
• www.bizhostnet.com - offers some frivolous numbers for big money, like 20 MB for a database. It was immediately swept away;
• www.webstrikesolutions.com - gigabytes of space and 20 gigabytes of traffic. The site could not find out details about the versions of the database and IIS, but it became clear that 20 gigs was not enough;
• serverintellect.com - wild prices;
• 3essentials.com - 2005 SQL Server, which did not suit immediately. In addition, many other comments on prices and features offered.

It would seem that everything is bad, but there is another hosting service on the Internet that turned out to be just a dream come true. His name is MochaHost .

Weird name dream host

So what does MochaHost offer? I suggest everyone to go to it on the page with plans and make sure that here:

• unlimited space;
• unlimited traffic;
• unlimited number of databases;
• unlimited number of FTP accounts and email;
• 5000 sites;
• MSSQL Server 2008;
• IIS7;
• .NET 3.5
• Plesk 9 (which is also good);
• when buying a hosting for a year they give a lifetime domain;
• regular discounts and coupon system;
• low cost.

As they say, comments are superfluous. PHP users can also see their Linux hosting is no worse. A hoster with an unpleasant name for the Russian ear MochaHost makes all its competitors with one little finger.

Here it must be said that in one of the discussions with friends there was a point of view that all of these UNLIMITED are ordinary marketing and no more. Yes it's true. No one will host 5000 sites on a shared hosting or drive traffic with terabytes. But tell me, do many of you use gmail at least 30%? I only use 2%. And I will stay with Gmail only because I feel confident in its 7 gigabyte framework. What is 20 megabytes for a database? I want to be sure that if I start logging every request, then my database will not die in an absurd framework by the size and quietly grow to 20 gigabytes. I want to be sure that there are no restrictions on traffic, and I don’t even want to think about restrictions, even if they are difficult to reach. Which, incidentally, is wrong, since in less than 3 weeks I caught up with 5 gigs of traffic on an "empty" domain. I do not want to know anything about restrictions, and the UNLIMITED policy makes me happy. Long live the UNLIMITED!

Why not Russia?

Yes, I promised to tell why I did not stop at the Russian hosting. There are many reasons for this, but I will focus on a few. First, look at what is offered by our host, for example r01.ru . For 24,000 rubles (!) They offer me less than I received abroad for 2000r. No comparison.

Second: I am absolutely not sure about the technical side and the speed of domestic hosters. Being a resident of the country, and having some, but experience in communicating with the citizens of my country, including sysadmins and businessmen, I am firmly convinced that no one will run after progress in a high-tech business. Therefore, when .NET 4.0 arrives on our servers, I will not receive it at any acceptable time. And here the point is not that the hosters are bad, just asp.net hosting is poorly distributed in our country, and no one pays much attention to it (there is an opinion that it is customary to host asp.net projects on our servers). Well, about the prices, I again will not say anything.

Third: support. You will excuse me, of course, but I’ve not just heard about the support of our hosting companies, but I myself encounter constant rudeness, telephone ping-pong when you are sent back and forth, irresponsibility, and simply disrespect when communicating with the support departments of different companies . Here is a concrete example: the well-known story with "breaks". Yes, the client is insane, let's say directly “frame”. But what right did someone have to put out his private conversations with support for general consideration? Are they all smart? Never swear with sellers? I don’t want the next such “smart” support worker to ever post on the basorg the logs of my conversations with him. I don’t rummage about hosting, I, as an ordinary user, can goof off, but I want to be sure that the whole Internet will not laugh at me, and the matter will concern only me and the host.

Rudeness, excessive self-esteem, pride, disrespect for people are all about our service sector. When all this disappears, I will be the first to go to our hosters, but for now, alas, I have chosen a foreign hosting (and have not been disappointed in the support! More about that later).

Purchase

So, the choice is made, payment by Sberbank card went without any problems. By the way, I must say that on the Internet there are sites with free coupons for the makhahost. I used one of these and just got a 10% discount. Not bad, right? In short, for a year of hosting I paid 2000r. Plus, they gave me a "lifetime" domain in the ".com" zone.

Read about the first steps, experience, setting up a domain, and communicating with support in future releases. Thanks for attention.