My Host Says I need VPS - Is It The Truth Or IS He Going To Rip Me Off

[glennk]

In the past 2 weeks I have been experiencing periods of downtime on my shared package. On Sunday my host said he was moving me to a different server with less people on there.

Today he got back to me and said

<snipped see sticky>

For me to take out a VPS account with them will double what I am currently paying. Second to this I have not got a clue about running a VPS. Please Please Please Please would someone offer me some advice here as I just dont know what to do and also I dont think I can afford the VPS they are trying to sell me. There are other VOS out there that look cheaper but my host is telling me that cheap will not meet my needs.

[edited by: eelixduppy at 12:26 pm (utc) on Dec. 3, 2009]

[kaled]

At a theoretical level, a virtual private server should not make a great deal of difference since the same amount of processing power is required (actually, slightly more). However, if the task-scheduler of the operating system is struggling, then running your site from a virtual machine might help - but, by the sound of it, your site will see no benefit, it's other sites hosted on the same machine that will benefit.

That said, your host has suggested a dedicated server not a VPS - so the additional cost will be even more. Also, there is nothing obvious in that quote that suggests they are trying to cheat you - in fact, it seems to me they are being quite reasonable.

On the other hand, maybe their hardware is a bit dated or they haven't configured things optimally - you might be ok at another host for about the same money. Or perhaps mirroring might be a solution (a subject I know nothing about). Or maybe, your htaccess file really is over-the-top and needs to be trimmed.

Kaled.

[glennk]

Hi there, thanks for your reply. Sadly changing to dedicated server with my current host will not be an option as it involves a price increase of over £1000 which is more than the site adverts create.

I will need to find one in my price bracket of around £600 per anum. Has anyone any recommendations and where do I begin looking ?

[glennk]

I have found something called "Cloud Hosting" with a company called Rackspace. Its just within my budget and they claim to be able to handle my site. Has anyone any experience of cloud hosting.

Also the cloud server will be in the USA whilst I am in the UK. Is this an issue ?

[J_RaD]

normally how hosting works.

super cheap shared plan then everything else gets pretty pricy QUICK.

I have not used cloud hosting but all that really would be is your site is spread around many different servers in many different places.

If the server will be in the US it will be fastest for your US users. Are more of your users in the UK?

[lammert]

If set-up correctly, cloud hosting will automatically scale over more than one server depending on the load. Hardware failure has no impact on availability because visitors are automatically switched over to other hardware in the cloud. Pricing is based on a combination of traffic, processor load, and storage requirements.

The good thing of cloud hosting is that your hosting is hardware independent by design and that (in theory) no hardware failure is capable of wiping out your internet presence. The drawback of this however is that your site must be designed hardware independent. This can become problematic when it comes to sessions, temporary storage etc. With many cloud hosting implementations session information and temporary files are still stored on the local disk of one of the nodes, causing problems when the user is switched over to another node, because of hardware failure of load balancing.

You have to check with the cloud hosting provider of your application is compatible with their implementation of cloud hosting.