Need to find best solution for website

[cnetik]

First of all, this is a great forum! Just discovered it and I think it will come in handy... :)

Working for this company at the moment and we have a website currently running from a small-capacity rented server. With the expansion of this company we want to add some new services, including costumer webpage hosting, e-mail account service, as well as daily file backup. Being kind of a newbie in this, I came here for some advice. What would be the best solution for this situation? Should we purchase a server machine and software to make all of this possible, or just pay a secure host to make all of this possible? Thinking in long term... and been checking prices on Microsoft SQL server and all of that... would it be best in to just rent or purchase an online host or just set up a company server in our offices?

Please reply, ASAP.

Thanks in advance. :)

[webdoctor]

including costumer webpage hosting, e-mail account service, as well as daily file backup

I take it you have considered the liability aspects of this? :-)

IMHO if you don't know the detailed answer to your question already, you would be better to outsource this.

[emilyliuliu]

My personal suggestion is that you should not start from setting up the hosting servers at the very first beginning.So many services shouldn't be started at the same time either.Cuz that means you should spend a lot on maintenance but running business programs itself.

You should be sure what do you need at the very first beginning.Maybe you will choose one of your plans to start with -- make it professional first.

Hope this will help : )

[mack]

My suggestion would be to set up an internal beta testing server in-house. Do not allow public access to this server. Use it to test scripts and applications that you may use.

With a project like the one you mentioned there are just so many options open to you. You will need to test and re test many products until you find one that you are happy to work with.

For example your web mail service. You will need a suitable program to run this. There will be literally loads of suitable options out there. It really is a case of working out the pros and cons of each.

Once you have a list of suitable applications you then need to make sure they can work together. This may involve quite a lot of custom programming. For example if you want to use one username and password for all your services then you need to find a way of making this possible.

Once you have all your programs working and co-working as you require you will then have an excellent idea of just what hosting package you require. I don't think it is a wise move to decide on a host then base your software around it. You should concentrate on your offering then find a hosting solution tailored to it.

Mack.