Download CHOOSING A WEb HOSTING PROvIDER fOR YOUR bUSINESS

Choosing a web hosting provider
for your business
New technologies, new web applications – the internet is continually evolving and new ways of delivering
your internet presence to the end user are emerging all the time. Whether it’s a simple site to give your
business a face on the web and assist new prospects in contacting you or the primary channel to market for
your business, with so many providers out there how can you evaluate the best host for your needs? Neil
Quigley, a consultant from Sleek Networks Ltd, looks at the key characteristics of a hosting plan and advises
on how to select the most appropriate provider for your individual needs.
Speed
Data centre networks are fast, that’s
the bottom line; however, all sites and
providers are not created equal. Many
‘budget’ providers have to contend the
bandwidth on the services they deliver
and aim to use 70 per cent or more of
their connectivity before thinking about
upgrading. Premium providers have
connectivity from multiple sources
and manage their routes effectively
whilst also keeping their utilisation of
bandwidth well below 50 per cent of
the maximum available. This gives a
snappier response to the sites you want
to host as well as reserving headroom
for your business during busy periods.
When selecting a provider of internet
connectivity always ensure that they
have multiple IP transit connections
layered over diverse physical connections
from different network providers.
Many providers offer multiple transit
46
Sleek.indd 46
providers but these are delivered over
the same physical wire, which means
that if the network providers network
disappears so will your internet
connectivity, regardless of how many
transit providers the wire carries.
Synergy
Matching the needs of your business to
the capabilities and intents of a hosting
provider is vital. Questions you need
to ask yourself are, for example: Is it a
simple or business strategic site you
want to run? Would you benefit from
growing a business relationship with
your hosting provider or do you simply
need to host a simple website and
manage infrequent changes yourself?
A simple site might be one that advertises
your (SOHO/SME) business, provides
a general internet presence and aids
customers and prospects in contacting
your company. It probably wouldn’t be
updated frequently and it isn’t vital to
the credibility and survivability of your
company. Typically the site would be
built in HTML, with some additional
scripting to add functionality.
A strategic website would be the face
of a SME or larger organisation, vital
to the success and credibility of the
company, such as an online sales or
customer portal. Availability here is
key and this should be engineered
into the design of the platform from
the very start, using high availability
(HA) architecture wherever possible.
Corporate portal sites often require
further steps than those mentioned
above. Service level agreement (SLA)
driven companies requiring an extremely
high level of availability such as ‘four
nines’ (99.99 per cent availability) or
higher will look to mitigate as many
of the single points of failure within a
TW E N TY: 1 1 E NH A N C E Y O U R IT S T R A TEGY
07/03/2011 11:30
strategy
platform as possible. Technologies such
as ‘global server load balancing’ (GSLB)
can even protect the site from a failure
in the data centre environment by adding
a copy of the hosting architecture at one
or more sites and intelligently routing
traffic to only healthy sites and servers
that are available to serve content.
While only a few UK hosting providers
can deliver solutions at this level, this
type of bespoke service delivery can be
tailored to fit the client’s requirements
precisely and maximise their exposure
on the internet. But with so many
different hosting providers out there,
what are the differences between them?
Hosting service providers (HSP)
A hosting service provider (HSP) is
focused on implementing hosting
solutions – they may provide a flexible
range of hosting solutions or just a defined
few, but they should all have expert staff
that have the experience and skill required
to allow them to design, implement and
maintain complex hosting solutions.
HSPs are advertising themselves as
the specialists in the industry, so they
should be flexible, knowledgeable and
experienced. They often have consultancy
wings within their business, which can
provide ‘professional services’ assistance
to perform development or systems
tasks that are beyond the capabilities
of your internal administrators, adding
value on a pay-as-you-go basis rather
than the much higher costs that would be
associated with fully managed solutions.
In compiling your HSP shortlist be
cautious of small operations that are
based on only one or two key staff.
Ideally look for established providers
with 5-50 staff and control of their own
resources (this means ownership of
their own data centre or suites within
existing high specification hosting sites).
Internet services providers (ISP)
An internet service provider delivers a
broad range of internet services that may
include some hosting products. Typically
larger companies, they are well placed
to deliver good value, entry level hosting
portfolios. This is possible because much
of the enabling architecture is already
in situ and used for their core focus of
delivering raw internet (DSL, leased lines
and ethernet) and voice services. There
are ISPs that have a significant hosting
portfolio that includes enterprise class
services, but the vast majority offer
limited shared hosting facilities aimed
at the consumer and SME markets.
multi-site tiered platforms costing
many thousands of pounds a month.
So, when considering an ISP for a hosting
solution, always ensure that those
services are considered ‘core business’
in their organisation; otherwise it’s
unlikely that you will receive the levels
of service you deserve unless your
company has significant amounts of
other non-hosting business with them.
The terms of the contract you want to
commit to can be an important factor in
negotiating an attractive deal, as discounts
are often available on longer term
contracts. Once you’ve built a relationship
with a provider and you are happy with
their performance over the existing
contract it is worth investigating if a term
discount can be discussed at renewal time.
Content delivery network providers (CDN)
Often called ‘cloud hosting’ content
delivery network (CDN) providers offer
a utility model for internet hosting
especially suitable for ‘bursty’ and
short-term requirements such as
marketing campaigns and national/
international events. These requirements
demand huge peaks in bandwidth, often
across multiple geographic nodes,
and global server capacity may be
required for short periods of time.
CDN providers often operate a similar
model to shared hosting solutions in
ISPs, but typically on a much larger scale,
having dozens or hundreds of servers at
multiple global locations sitting behind
load balancer arrays and fast internet
connectivity to deliver the bursts of
speed that their customers require.
While cloud-based solutions can be
very effective both commercially and
technically at absorbing the impact of
traffic rushes, the price per megabyte
transferred or for resources consumed
can work out significantly more
expensive than traditional hosting
solutions where normal levels of
traffic are ongoing and continuous.
Product vs. solutions – what’s the cost?
A balance exists between the standard
products and solutions that hosting
providers can deliver. While smaller
businesses or those that have simple
hosting requirements may be well
suited to a ‘boxed’ product, the larger
your company the more likely you are
to require a bespoke service. The latter
is typically underpinned by an SLA and
might include bespoke elements both in
the contractual terms that you agree with
the provider and the level of management
that they deliver as part of the solution.
There is a huge variation in costs for
commercial hosting solutions from
shared hosting resources costing
just a few pence each day to complex
Evaluation
The larger your organisation the more
important it is to ask your technical teams
about their upcoming requirements.
Once you’ve identified (or taken guidance
from the provider to identify) these you
can work closely with your preferred
provider to ensure that your hosting
platform is sized correctly, not only for
your immediate requirements, but that
it scales seamlessly to meet future
demands as a result of business growth.
It’s important you have an honest
and frank conversation with the
shortlisted providers to get a feel for
how they do business and (where
possible) speak to their customers to
find out if what you’ve been told ties
into their real world experiences.
There are truly some world-class hosting
providers in the UK and many of them
will have a genuine interest in your
requirements and be keen to deliver their
solutions that enable you to focus on your
core business. In almost every situation
a controlled data centre environment
is a better place to base your hosting
infrastructure than an in-house computer
room or workplace LAN. In addition, the
slightly higher cost of outsourcing your
hosting is more often than not offset by
the savings on in-house operational costs
and the additional value that the hosting
provider can bring to the solution.
About Sleek Networks Ltd
Sleek Networks is a hosting services
provider that specialises in delivering
high availability hosting solutions for
the most demanding businesses. Its
customers require high performance
mission-critical platforms that typically
comprise of multi-tier, resilient (and
often GSLB) architectures delivering
exceptional levels of performance
and service availability.
EN HA N CE YOUR IT STRATEGY TWENTY:11
Sleek.indd 47
47
07/03/2011 11:30