Factors while deciding a Hosting company

What decide the quality for a hosting company

[AjiNIMC]

What are the factors while deciding a Hosting company? I want to compare few hosting companies, so what according to you are the imp attributes?

Thanks,
AjiNIMC

[celgins]

It's just my guess, but I'll bet most website designers/programmers, etc., will say:

1) Reliability (Server up-time);
2) Disk space provided (1GB or more);
3) Cost (Hopefully less than $10USD/month, with today's prices);
4) Reputation (Few complaints and issues);
5) Customer service (Will you get a prompt, courteous person to help you resolve any issues with your website)

[Leosghost]

24 x 7 support reachable by phone ( toll free )and email ..

DC sitting on a big fast pipe ..

Physically close to their own DC if possible ..

24 x 7 monitoring against attacks ..

Daily back ups ..more often for really active sites like this ..

If you aren't going DEDI then small numbers of sites per server ..

Own IP addies available ..

cute secretaries in front office and good coffee ;)

[giggle]

One BIG thing that I didn't consider and that cost us time and money was the ability to connect to our SQL database using SQL Enterprise Manager and connecting directly via VisualBasic. One of the major UK based hosting companies that I originally signed up with wouldn't allow that, so I had to move the domains to a new hosting company. Pain in the ar*e and a wasted purchase of a yearly hosting package that was never used.

[2by4]

Adding to leosghost's list:

<<< 24 x 7 support reachable by phone ( toll free )and email ..

phone or email is fine, I've had resolutions in minutes over email at 2 am, I don't care which they use as long as they have support there for emergencies.

<<< DC sitting on a big fast pipe ..

DC linked to more than one big fat pipe

<<< Physically close to their own DC if possible ..

own their own DC, you'd be amazed how many don't.

<<< 24 x 7 monitoring against attacks ..

of course.

<< Daily back ups ..more often for really active sites like this ..

of course.

<< If you aren't going DEDI then small numbers of sites per server ..

150 is good.

<< Own IP addies available ..

I'd never host any site I cared about on anything but its own IP, none of this name based nonsense, that's good enough for development boxes, but it's not good enough for any site I care about.

Plus:
no windows in datacenter.
not below $10, that's right, I want to pay for top quality service, servers, data pipes, techs, and I want the company to make some money so they can keep providing me with great service in all areas.

[lammert]

SSH availability to configure anything you want at low level

Free use of .htaccess or better httpd.conf

Uptime. Remember that 99.5% uptime implies that they are allowed to have your website off-line for almost two entire days per year without any problems. Do your math on those uptime estimations to see what it really means.

[kamakaze]

Just wanted to add:

- FTP Access
- Apache server with access to mod_rewrite

[AjiNIMC]

24 x 7 support reachable by phone ( toll free )and email ..

I must say "24 x 7 technical sound support reachable by phone ( toll free )and email .."

I had some real bad experiences dealing with non-technical staffs.