# Hosting



## gauloise (29 Mar 2006)

I have been with a new hostsing company for almost 1 year and in the past 3 months have been experiencing a lot of down time, stats not running , mail servers down etc..

I would be interested to hear of any recommendations or advice as I am renewing in the coming months.
Many thanks!


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## ClubMan (29 Mar 2006)

_boards.ie _used to be a good place for local info such as this but I'm not sure what happened to [broken link removed]! For what it's worth _AAM _is hosted on [broken link removed] and they seem to be pretty good to deal with. The recent server problems are simply down to lack of capacity on our server and the need to upgrade due to the increasing popularity of the site.


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## gauloise (29 Mar 2006)

Thanks Clubman..I'll check them out.


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## runner (29 Mar 2006)

Agree with Clubman re hosting265.ie
Used them for a few years now - and they have a suprisingly good free support as well!


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## boskonay (29 Mar 2006)

Let me know if I can help with anything specific 

Stephen

www.hosting365.com


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## DrMoriarty (29 Mar 2006)

What sort of a(n) username is that, Stephen?


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## Ron Burgundy (29 Mar 2006)

i use  they are based in the states and i find them very good, i have a forum like this on my server and am about to launch 2 other sites as well.


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## ClubMan (29 Mar 2006)

Yes - I meant to clarify above that you are not restricted to local/_Irish ISPs_ for hosting and you could get even cheaper packages by shopping online in the _US _etc. In our (_AAM's_) case it's useful to have support easily accessible.


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## Ron Burgundy (29 Mar 2006)

with the host i am with they recently introduced 24/7 support which suits anywhere on the planet.


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## gauloise (29 Mar 2006)

Stephen I will be in touch..

Given that I have now tried and tested 3 providers, I am anxious that this time I get it right. I realise that there are providers in the US etc. but in your experience(s) how do these companies compare with Irish hosting for service and support?

Again many thanks for the feedback!


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## boskonay (1 Apr 2006)

Hosting is very much horses for courses. If you value price above all else, you will find cheaper hosts in the US, where the vast majority of small host vastly oversell their resold resources and put accounts on oversold underpowered servers.

At least with more local providers you can physically visit and see the set-up. There is a reason large websites, government, corporates, etc, dont host with foreign mass providers on $1 per month plans 

Hosting in Ireland is just as competetive, if not more so, than the US or UK these days.


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## Dearg Doom (3 Apr 2006)

> the vast majority of small host vastly oversell their resold resources and put accounts on oversold underpowered servers



Which ones? Any evidence to back this up? I've set up many websites using US based economy hosting and I've never had any problems with bandwidth or server performance.


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## Humpback (3 Apr 2006)

I used dynamic.ie for my hosting of a couple of sites, and e-mail only hosting as well. Never had any problems, and support was prompt whenever necessary.

Moved there from digiweb who were an absolute nightmare with customer support. Couldn't be happier now!!


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## gauloise (3 Apr 2006)

that's interesting Ronan_d_john as digiweb are my current hosters! I don't deal with them directly but throught the company who set up my database and they have been great but the service seems to stop with them. I will look into both dynamic and 365 and compare.
Many thanks for all your replies.


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## boskonay (3 Apr 2006)

Digiweb are fcused on being an ISP - you will typically get better service from a dedicated hosting company. 

Dearg - you've clearly been lucky, I've seen literally hundreds of customers who were with budget providers who had grand service for months then, when the provider lost a hard disk or similar, they found out there was no redundancy, backups, etc, and that they were hosted on a pc box resold out of someplace like ev1 servers or servermatrix.


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## Dearg Doom (3 Apr 2006)

I don't think I've been 'lucky' and I'm not aware of any evidence for what you have stated - are you? There are clearly reputable providers in the US that can provide hosting at a fraction of the cost of Irish providers - they after all have economies of scale that can't be achieved in Ireland. There can be very valid reasons for using Irish ISP's over US based one's however fear of poor service isn't one.


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## Ron Burgundy (3 Apr 2006)

I Run vb from an american host and its great, they have 24/7 support by e mail and phone and are very vheap compared to irish companies, i wouldn't change for the world.


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## boskonay (3 Apr 2006)

What typically is 'very cheap' or a 'fraction' of the price? Let's be sure we're comparing apples with apples


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## Ron Burgundy (3 Apr 2006)

7 dollars a month i pay or 140 euro for 2 years, what does that cost over here ???

the full list of what i get for that is on www.bluehost.com.


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## Ron Burgundy (3 Apr 2006)

anyone got the details of an Irish host company.


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## gauloise (3 Apr 2006)

I am currently paying €189.00 per annum, in the past and before I added my database I was paying between €89.00 and €129.00 per annum with 2 other providers. I was given 1 year free when I said I was thinking of moving elsewhere with one provider!


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## boskonay (3 Apr 2006)

Well, we offer plans from € 3.75 per month with ample storage, bandwidth and features, 24/7 support.

www.hosting365.com


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## techman (3 Apr 2006)

I have been using www.pchighway.com for the past year for two sites. 

Good support. On their starter package - $5.95 per month.


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## SineWave (3 Apr 2006)

On an "apples to apples" comparison pchighway seems to offer alot more.


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## boskonay (3 Apr 2006)

A lot more what? Disk space? Bandwidth? Yes, on the surface, but how much do you really need, and how oversold is the server? Industry standard is to put between 500 and 1000 accounts on a server. Assuming 1000, at 4000MB space each is 4TB storage - a hefty server indeed 

Comparing the more relevant things, like costs for extras and included features:

They include 1 domain, we allow 2 to be hosted
We include dedicated IP, they do not
We include freephone tech support, they seem to provide email only
We are in Ireland, they are in Switzerland 

They are also a euro more expensive! (shock !  )

Shared hosting, like domain names, are the commodities of the internet service industry. Anyone can claim to give you a squillion GB of space or bandwidth through overselling, but it is the features, add-ons, services and support, as well as the reliability and uptime / dependability that are crucial. 

Looking at http://www.webhosting.info/webhosts/tophosts/Country/CH - pchighway have less than 3000 domains hosted, so they actually look like a reseller, or certainly a small provider - have they the scale to compete and survive?


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## constrictor (26 Aug 2006)

Webhostingireland are quite good, and very good customer service too, but depends on what type of hosting you require. Personal, or business


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## blacknight (28 Aug 2006)

If you're looking for Irish hosting companies try:



There are a couple of lists on boards.ie, but they're quite out of date.

In the Irish market there are about a half dozen companies that have their own infrastructure and the rest of them resell their services or those of an oversold US host (and yes I am biased)

You can now get hosting on servers based in Ireland from as low as €30 per annum, so why would you want to be using a US provider?


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## boskonay (30 Aug 2006)

In fairness, that directory only contains 7 companies, most of them resellers.

As for infrstructure, depends on what you define as infrastructure


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## blacknight (30 Aug 2006)

boskonay said:


> In fairness, that directory only contains 7 companies, most of them resellers.



I know, but there aren't any other reliable lists around



boskonay said:


> As for infrstructure, depends on what you define as infrastructure



No power outages during the middle of the working day I suppose to start with .....

*cough*


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## boskonay (30 Aug 2006)

hehe, cheeky. Although I would start at -owning- the power infrastructure 

LOL


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## blacknight (30 Aug 2006)

boskonay said:


> hehe, cheeky.


You walked straight into it 


boskonay said:


> Although I would start at -owning- the power infrastructure



I'd prefer to let an experienced company look after managing that kind of infrastructure


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## boskonay (30 Aug 2006)

You think that company has never had an outage either? 

Pretty much every single data centre has either had an outage of some kind or will have one - it's only a matter of time. What matters is how it is dealt with.


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## HotdogsFolks (31 Aug 2006)

boskonay said:


> the US, where the vast majority of small host vastly oversell their resold resources and put accounts on oversold underpowered servers.


 
This is nonsense. 

The problem with Irish hosting companies is that they don't understand the concept of customer service. US hosts do, we all know the US is customer focussed, whereas Irish companies think they're doing you a favour.

I would not use an Irish hosting company if I had a choice.


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## HotdogsFolks (31 Aug 2006)

boskonay said:


> Pretty much every single data centre has either had an outage of some kind or will have one - it's only a matter of time. What matters is how it is dealt with.


 
Didn't you guys have a lot of downtime recently, but instead of telling your customers you posted on boards.ie instead, saying everything was ok?


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## boskonay (31 Aug 2006)

HOsting365 experienced a partial outage of about 45 minutes a number of weeks ago, yes. All customers were informed and we've since taken measures to improve communication. This is relevant how and you are?


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## blacknight (31 Aug 2006)

meh


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## HotdogsFolks (31 Aug 2006)

boskonay said:


> HOsting365 experienced a partial outage of about 45 minutes a number of weeks ago, yes. All customers were informed and we've since taken measures to improve communication. This is relevant how and you are?


 
Your 45 minutes figure is inaccurate. I know someone who's server was down for 6 hours during that outage. The reason I take offence to your posts is because you paint yourselves as angels and everyone else as unprofessional.


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## boskonay (31 Aug 2006)

45 minutes is 100% accurate. If your 'friend' experienced a longer impact, it was for another issue (which granted mught have been related to the outage, but a single customer server is not a 'complete outage')

I hardly paint hosting365 as 'angels' however, we are the only host in Ireland who has made the commitment and investment we have. Is it unreasonable to paint ourselves 'better' than companies who have a few leased servers in a third party data centre, or worse again, are merely resellers of other hosts? Yes, owning all the infrastructure means there is more to do, but the tradeoff is more control and better costs, which passes on to the customer as better prices.


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