Selecting a Hosting Company for Your Big-Time Web Site
If you're building a Web site that is going to be BIG, big in size, big in features, and HUGE in traffic, where do you host the thing? How do you select a company that can handle a complicated Web server farm? I've built a couple like this including one that pulled over $1 million every day in direct, over-the-Web orders. Here's a few things I learned to look for. This is the first part of a seven-part article.
September 15, 1999
There are big differences between hosting a small Web site and hosting a full-scale, active, transactional site. Plain HTML pages with forms and mailtos: are easy to set up and maintain -- it is still quite feasible to build viable Web businesses with fairly simple resources. This article focuses on hosting needs for high-traffic, commerce-enabled Web sites that are likely to be using processor and bandwidth intensive, cutting edge Internet technologies. Sites that experience heavy traffic and need to be up all the time. If they’re down even for moments, sales are lost, corporate image is damaged and jobs (maybe yours) can be jeopardised. This type of hosting may not best be done at the corner ISP. I’ll explain what you get with off-the-shelf hosting and why you need something better if this type of Big Time Web site is in your plans.
When you’re ready to host a big, full-scale Web site with eCommerce and heavy traffic, you’ll need hosting facilities that fit your needs as a business – not as a mere consumer with a personal or hobby site. You want your site to be up all the time. You can’t afford to have the site down whenever someone wants to tinker with the software or if there is a power outage. You need to host your site somewhere that can handle it – somewhere where your servers are monitored around the clock.
Hosting BIG Web Sites
Do you need help with selecting hosting services for big web sites, hosting sites, level of service agreements?
