Dedicated server or Reseller plan ?

[ace2010]

lets say that i want to start a hosting business, what will be better option

pay for a dedicated server (i already have one) + $400 something for cPanel per year + $16/month for WHMCS
or just get a reseller plan with $20-$30 per month ???

even that i already own a server looks that will come cheaper to just buy a reseller plan

did i miss something ?

 

[Tyler]

lets say that i want to start a hosting business, what will be better option

pay for a dedicated server (i already have one) + $400 something for cPanel per year + $16/month for WHMCS
or just get a reseller plan with $20-$30 per month ???

even that i already own a server looks that will come cheaper to just buy a reseller plan

did i miss something ?

It may be better for you to go back to the basics if you have to ask this kind of question. Let's start with your business plan, what's your projected theoretical clients for the first six months? Less then twenty @ $3/month?

Stuff like that matters. I'd avoid a reseller in general because usually they're oversold and poor quality. But if you know a quality reseller provider, and your projected numbers isn't that large, then yeah go with that.

But you know, if you already have a dedicated server I don't see the harm in using it -- you're going to be paying for it either way, correct?

 

[wswd]

There are different schools of thought on this. Some say start with the reseller account, then move to VPS, then dedicated.

Me personally, I like the control of a VPS or dedicated server, and will almost always recommend it right off the bat. I'm also for eliminating as many people as possible between the clients and the datacenter. If you start dealing with resellers and master resellers and uber alpha omega resellers, how many people are you going to have to go through if something goes wrong?

Client reports to you that something is wrong, for example. You then go to your reseller. Who knows how long it takes to get a reply? If it's a server or network issue, the reseller then has to contact the datacenter (or the dedicated server provider...their server provider might not even be the datacenter). The datacenter might ask them for more info, and they might in turn have to go back to you, who needs to go back to the client, etc. What a freakin' mess!!

If there is a problem with my dedicated boxes, I can pick up the phone and immediately talk to people who have access to my server. I had a problem on one of my dedicated servers about 6 months ago, for example. The server just completely stopped responding, wouldn't do anything over SSH, internal KVM over IP stopped responding, etc. Drives and components checked out great. Within 5 minutes, I had an external KVM over IP hooked up to my server. Between me and the remote hands at the datacenter, we had things solved and the server running again within 20 minutes.

With most resellers, you'll be extraordinarily lucky if you even get a response to your support ticket within 20 minutes, let alone be able to get the problem resolved. So for me, it's a no-brainer. I recommend the path that's best for the clients.

 

[ace2010]

i know that with a dedicated server i will be able to offer better services but worth to pay for cpanel and whmcs ?

 

[wswd]

That's the cost of doing business. People need to realize that to "play business" in this industry, there are costs associated with that.

For me, that $50 extra per month would be well worth it, knowing that you could provide far better service to your clients.

 

[Haclker]

You could try a reseller hosting first, because you must know what are you doing on first step. Then you can upgrade to dedicated server if your service is bigger.

 

[storminternet]

lets say that i want to start a hosting business, what will be better option

pay for a dedicated server (i already have one) + $400 something for cPanel per year + $16/month for WHMCS
or just get a reseller plan with $20-$30 per month ???

even that i already own a server looks that will come cheaper to just buy a reseller plan

did i miss something ?

I suggest you to go for reseller plan first. Here you will save server cost, whmcs cost and control panel cost. As your business grows you can then easily upgrade your hosting package to vps or dedicated server.

 

[rodenjurst]

I suggest you to go for reseller plan first. Here you will save server cost, whmcs cost and control panel cost. As your business grows you can then easily upgrade your hosting package to vps or dedicated server.

He already have a dedicated server. It's really not bad to test out if his dedicated hosting can work well with reselling hosting services.

 

[cassiejmiller]

If he has then continue with it then test to reseller hosting.

 

[PanosZ]

If you have money right now you can buy the licences and low the amount of money that you will pay per month for a dedicated.

 

[JamesZach]

I would say get a business plan ready and do a market study, plan your budget for marketing,hardware,staff etc. Start of with a vps and move to dedicated servers as that would be a safe route.

 

[jcarney1987]

Great you own a dedicated server but is it colocated? Where ever its located at do they have a fully redundant systems? If you have to pay extra to co-locate then I would suggest getting a reseller or a decent vps to start with. If your server is colocated already then it may be cheaper just to purchase your license and go from there. But build you a business plan and go from there.

 

[web3k]

If you can manage a linux server, keep it properly patched, secure etc, then go for a VPS - if you're able to grow fast, and that comes down to your business plan, then you'll appreciate the flexibility of a VPS.

If you're still learning the ropes with system administration, start with a reseller account. Much of the hard work is taken care of with a reputable host, which leaves you to market, sell and grow your base for scale.

 

[jcarney1987]

Don't forget if you attend to host using your name servers make sure ns1 and ns2 are in different subnets. ns2 should be on a offsite location. For example my server ns1 is located is georgia where ns2 is located in L.A Cali. Even if you buy a reseller plan Unless they give you an offsite ip address for the 2nd name server you should still consider getting a vps just for redundant dns.

 

[wswd]

Don't forget if you attend to host using your name servers make sure ns1 and ns2 are in different subnets. ns2 should be on a offsite location. For example my server ns1 is located is georgia where ns2 is located in L.A Cali. Even if you buy a reseller plan Unless they give you an offsite ip address for the 2nd name server you should still consider getting a vps just for redundant dns.

I think it's overrated and unnecessary, to be honest. Unless you have actual redundant servers with the clients' accounts, off-site nameservers aren't going to do you a bit of good. You're just wasting your money.

For example, let's say I host a server in Chicago, and have both nameservers in that datacenter as well. The only time something is going to go down is if there is a routing issue within the datacenter, the physical server itself is broken, or the entire datacenter (or parts of it) lose connectivity. If that happens, the hosting server is going to be inaccessible regardless. Doesn't matter where the nameservers are, the server is going to be unreachable.

If you have a redundant server somewhere with the clients' accounts (which unless you're running a tiny company, you aren't going to have), and can switch everything over using some failover method, really doesn't make a bit of difference.

 

[jcarney1987]

I think it's overrated and unnecessary, to be honest. Unless you have actual redundant servers with the clients' accounts, off-site nameservers aren't going to do you a bit of good. You're just wasting your money.

For example, let's say I host a server in Chicago, and have both nameservers in that datacenter as well. The only time something is going to go down is if there is a routing issue within the datacenter, the physical server itself is broken, or the entire datacenter (or parts of it) lose connectivity. If that happens, the hosting server is going to be inaccessible regardless. Doesn't matter where the nameservers are, the server is going to be unreachable.

If you have a redundant server somewhere with the clients' accounts (which unless you're running a tiny company, you aren't going to have), and can switch everything over using some failover method, really doesn't make a bit of difference.

Overrated and Unnecessary? I take it you have name servers in the same subnet. What happens when you have a server outage or even a data center outage? Lets say you have a very important client to keep online by now since you have a local outage he is missing his important email. Email servers are bouncing email because It can't find the server. Now your client just missed out on important email possible new customers, even lose paying customers. Think of the possibilities. What if the server came back up and it took a bit longer to sync up with ICANN roots. The server will be won't be reachable till after propagation again. How can you say Overrated and Unnecessary? Are you MAD? Even a small company can easily implement Failover DNS. This is one of the most important factors of hosting is maintaining DNS. Please never say overrated or unnecessary. Its setting bad examples. Even I offer my clients Offsite DNS for reseller plans. As long as the DNS is found the server will not have to propagate again and email will continue to try for upto 48 hours depending on mail server configurations.

 

[wswd]

Even I offer my clients Offsite DNS for reseller plans.

Yeah, I noticed. It's a great way to make an extra $3 a month huh? Why don't you just offer it for free, if it's so important. Doesn't cost you anything.

Email servers are bouncing email because It can't find the server. Now your client just missed out on important email

They're going to miss out on it anyway until the server comes back online. They aren't magically going to get the email. Personally, I'd much rather have the email bounce, so at least the sender knows that something is wrong, rather than have it sit there for 4 or 5 days without a reply. When it bounces, people might even actually go check the website, and see that it's down. Then they know there's a problem. If it's a server outage, the client isn't going to be getting the email anyway until everything is restored on a new server.

Me personally? We spread DNS servers around all over the place, but it really doesn't matter. If a server goes down and we can't bring it back up in 10-15 minutes, we've already started migrating clients to a temporary server in another datacenter. If a server outage or datacenter outage occurs, it's time to start moving clients immediately, not worrying about failover DNS.

 

[wswd]

Perhaps I should clarify a little bit further.

Been running a hosting company for 16 years, all on dedicated equipment. Never ran the host on a VPS or reseller account, or anything silly like that. In those 16 years, I have never had a server fail. Nope, not one. Sure, hard drives go bad. That's what RAID10 arrays are for. I've had memory sticks crap out. You replace them. Even had power supplies blow up (one, I was told by the datacenter folk, looked like a lightning storm inside the rack), but that's what redundant supplies are for. All the datacenters I deal with have around a 15 minute SLA on hardware replacement.

If a server was to completely blow up, I'd slap the drives in a brand new server, and off we go. Good as new. You're talking 15-30 minutes max. Then of course, you get into cloud hosting, where it doesn't matter in the slightest if a single server goes down. Doesn't affect the clients at all.

Secondly, how often do entire datacenters go offline? No doubt it happens in cheap datacenters, but when you use quality datacenters, it should never happen. Most have at least a half dozen different network/bandwidth providers, so if one of them (or even 5 of them) should go out, it doesn't matter. All have multiple forms of redundant power, etc. The only time you're going to get a datacenter outage is when something really, really bad happens, like a natural disaster. If an entire datacenter was to just fall off into the ocean, we could have our clients up and running on new servers in an alternate datacenter in a very short time.

That was actually a concern for us prior to Hurricane Irene last year, since we use Equinix New York for a handful of servers. We have a couple servers in the Softlayer DC center now as well, so that location is obviously a concern too. In our testing, we were able to restore user accounts, from our backups (which we take every hour) to new servers in other locations in just a matter of minutes.

Failover DNS is great for companies with absolutely no contingency plan for disaster recovery. In reality, there should never be a time where a server is inaccessible for more than 15-30 minutes, and the proverbial you know what should have to hit the fan to get to that point.

 

[CS Squad]

Well said.
This is the difference between someone who have "enough" experience with someone who have "some" experience.

Although it is important to have NS1 and NS2 on 2 different subnet, but it is also very clear that it will not do much for preventing "downtime" for the email service.
If the server that is hosting the website and its email service is down, having NS1 and NS2 on different is really do nothing good for this case.

@jcarney1987,
It seems like you are running NS1 on the server that is hosting the websites and email service, while only NS2 is hosted elsewhere.
But the correct practice to have redundant DNS would be NS1 and NS2 should be hosted separately, means "Server A" for NS1, "Server B" for NS2, and "Server C" for hosting the website and email service. etc...

 

[web3k]

But the correct practice to have redundant DNS would be NS1 and NS2 should be hosted separately, means "Server A" for NS1, "Server B" for NS2, and "Server C" for hosting the website and email service. etc...

Taking that even further, best practice to is host name servers (ns1/ns2) not only on separate servers, but on different AS networks and different locations. This ensures that a name server will be available even in a drastic situation such as a data centre losing power, not just something as small as a hardware fault.

For those really concerned about redundancy, distribution is one in many factors that should be considered