Starting a web hosting company ? | Tech Off

cro

What do you thing is needed (hardware and software) to start a web hosting company for hosting ASP.NET web site and enable SQL Database creation ?

What about the license ? How does it work if each web site can create a database ? Is it possible to use SQL Express ?

dotnetjunkie

You should do a search on SPLA

http://www.live.com/#q=spla&offset=1

MS also has a special site for hosters, and you can subscribe to their hoster programs.

cro

Intersting, thanks. What do you thing of that server ?

Dell PowerEdge SC1425

ElucidWeb

cro wrote:

Intersting, thanks. What do you thing of that server ?

Dell PowerEdge SC1425

IMO Dell is crap, everything they make sucks. Especially their servers, best bet for a server is HP, you can the Blade Servers which are much more cost effective.

Ang3lFir3
Codito Ergo Sum

cro wrote:

Intersting, thanks. What do you thing of that server ?

Dell PowerEdge SC1425

I have 2 of them (one SQL and one Web) running my current project.... While they are easy to work with and do the job exceedingly well... I do believe that if you listen to elucidweb and go with something like a blade server you will be better off in the case of setting up a web hosting environment... they are most cost effective and you can cram more "servers" into the same amount of rackspace..... plus the 1425's aren't all that upgradeable.... (dual 3.0ghz Xeons is nice tho Smiley

)

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

cro wrote:

What do you thing is needed (hardware and software) to start a web hosting company for hosting ASP.NET web site and enable SQL Database creation ?

What about the license ? How does it work if each web site can create a database ? Is it possible to use SQL Express ?

I've yet to see any hosted environment allowing SQL Express (this is where someone will point me to one) and the reason is very very clear. When you mount a database it spawns a new instance of SQL Express, which, on my machine at least, takes around 50-100Mb. Now imagine 20 instances on a single web host and watch it all grind to a halt. Then add on full text indexing, added to the latest version. Ouch.

Not allowing SQL Express would allow an awful lot more ASP.Net sites to run on a single host.

Plus of course you can charge a bundle for SQL server databases.

And finally don't forget to tweak the security on the asp.net process.

I think the key to hosting is the control panel. I've never seen one I'm happy with as a user, although Helm has been the best attempt I've found