Do you host with multiple providers?

[unplugme71]

For those who host their web site using VPS/Cloud services, do you spread your servers across multiple hosting providers?

My site has picked up a bit and I'm thinking of adding another web/db server on the west coast. I currently host with DO in NYC. I'm concerned about leaving all my apples with one company.

My thoughts were Vultr, Atlantic.net, AWS, etc for a west coast region.

 

[NutsNGum]

I tend to use a single host because I hate admin. If yours are working for you I wouldn't bother to change, unless there's a sudden jack in price or reduction in service quality.

 

[MacSociology]

I prefer to use the same host as I use a private cloud. It makes the administration easier, I can mix in dedicated servers, and it reduces the ping between DB-cluster and web servers. Backups are first stored on a dedicated server, and then duplicated to a second server on a different datacenter/supplier. Both backup servers use RAID16.

 

[Melrose]

I use two hosts, depending on what I need them for.

I use Bluehost for shared hosting and most of my sites, but I have two SaaS products that I need to run super fast and super reliably (it's a subscription product, after all), and I use an SSD VPS. InMotionHosting is fantastic - they have better VPS deals than a lot of the bigger companies, the speed is good and support is phenomenal. If I handle a design project, which is rare these days, I always set up my clients on InMotion as well because it means better service and fewer headaches down the road.

The reason I still use Bluehost for shared hosting is because they give you unlimited domains - InMotion doesn't.

 

[JoelTheSuperior]

My current setup basically involves using a lot of DO droplets with some load balancing magic.

Honestly as long as you're happy with the performance of a single provider (especially one the size of DO) I wouldn't worry too much.

 

[jonnysods]

I use one company on a shares server for about 50 clients, because it makes me a decent residual income on hosting fees. But if that company goes down, I go down!

Is a VPS more complicated than just running a shared server?

 

[Melrose]

Is a VPS more complicated than just running a shared server?

It can be. With a VPS you have to admin your own stuff. That's one reason I like InMotion VPS, because they have tech people there to help you handle the admin end of running the server. By the same token, if you need to install special server-side stuff you can just go ahead and do it.

VPS is a hella lot more faster than standard shared hosting as well.

 

[ericazz]

Yeah I'm using 2 VPS one is from Russia (Offshore-servers.com) and the other one is from USA(HostWinds)

 

[BillyBobBongo]

Is a VPS more complicated than just running a shared server?

I just moved from shared hosting to a VPS. I tried it many years ago and it wasn't for me, but these days I'm more clued up and it wasn't too complicated.

I'm currently with euroVPS, their VPS is unmanaged, but I am quite happy. However you could check out knownhost.com, they have a fully managed VPS and the reviews are always positive.

 

[jonnysods]

I just moved from shared hosting to a VPS. I tried it many years ago and it wasn't for me, but these days I'm more clued up and it wasn't too complicated.

I'm currently with euroVPS, their VPS is unmanaged, but I am quite happy. However you could check out knownhost.com, they have a fully managed VPS and the reviews are always positive.

My shared server must have some idiots using the box because I'm getting blacklisted on some email servers. I'm with host gator right now, not super thrilled with them or their pricing but I'm tired to the system with 40+ domains.

 

[BillyBobBongo]

My shared server must have some idiots using the box because I'm getting blacklisted on some email servers. I'm with host gator right now, not super thrilled with them or their pricing but I'm tired to the system with 40+ domains.

Aye, that's the problem with shared hosting. You're at the mercy of any unscrupulous individuals that are sharing your IP.

Your other problem is that you're with HostGator. Once upon a time they were a great company, but since being bought out by EIG the level of support and service has plummeted. I used to use A Small Orange, also now an EIG company, and over the last year or two their standard of service has slipped. Most recently my sites were all offline for 6 consecutive days.

As a side not I have always stored my domains away from my host. I use name.com and uniregistry.com for my domain purchases. The latter being very much my favourite.

If you're looking to change hosts then I would advise reading this, it might save you a headache or two in the future. A lot of hosting providers will offer a free migration to do that hard work for you, others ask a small fee. Either way, you don't necessarily have to do it yourself.

 

[JoelTheSuperior]

My shared server must have some idiots using the box because I'm getting blacklisted on some email servers. I'm with host gator right now, not super thrilled with them or their pricing but I'm tired to the system with 40+ domains.

To be honest it's really difficult to recommend HostGator ever since they merged with EIG.

If you're willing to put in the effort to set up a server yourself (honestly not that hard and there's some excellent documentation out there) I would definitely recommend you try a VPS - I've been using DigitalOcean for a while now and I would definitely recommend them.

I have also been using Linode (because of the whole "splitting things across multiple providers" thing), but considering how unprofessionally they have dealt with how they seem to constantly get hacked for their shoddy security, it's really, really difficult to recommend them.

 

[jonnysods]

I agree about HG. They aren't the same exciting company they once were.

I'm scared to leave because I'm taking the route of "it's better the devil you know than the devil you don't" right now but I'd like to leave them, but I have about 50 sites, some with email services.

Also my business is located in Canada and most of my sites are too. I'm getting destroyed on the US dollar right now!

 

[Melrose]

To be honest it's really difficult to recommend HostGator ever since they merged with EIG.

If you're willing to put in the effort to set up a server yourself (honestly not that hard and there's some excellent documentation out there) I would definitely recommend you try a VPS - I've been using DigitalOcean for a while now and I would definitely recommend them.

I have also been using Linode (because of the whole "splitting things across multiple providers" thing), but considering how unprofessionally they have dealt with how they seem to constantly get hacked for their shoddy security, it's really, really difficult to recommend them.

I will look into DigitalOcean. Thanks

 

[raxix]

Now we are using VPS, but in future we would like to move on dedicated server rather than using another VPS. Little expensive but give better performance to our high traffic websites.

 

[JoelTheSuperior]

Now we are using VPS, but in future we would like to move on dedicated server rather than using another VPS. Little expensive but give better performance to our high traffic websites.

Funny you say that - I'd rather use multiple VPSes than a single dedicated box. Reason being, a single dedicated box is a single point of failure.

That and VPSes can work out very cheap as you can fire them up and spin them down as and when necessary, rather than paying for capacity you may not need for the whole month.

 

[smirking]

I'm concerned about leaving all my apples with one company.

I'm more worried about a bad tech taking down my sites than I am with the company failing or getting royally DDOS'd. Years ago, the worst hosting company I've ever used had a noob accidentally delete the entire filesystem and there were no backups. This was around 2000 so it was quite a while ago.

The staff or operation policies of a company is your biggest immediate threat of something going horribly horribly wrong. If you trust a provider and the service has been good, I don't see any need to develop a relationship with another one.

Of course, I would love to have a very strong relationship with multiple hosting companies. It's never bad to have other options. I just wouldn't put a lot of energy into nurturing other options if I didn't need them.

Hosting companies tend to be like restaurants. Eventually nearly all of them will either lose their magic or become a diluted version of what you liked the most about them. The trouble is that you don't know if your backup option will have you running back to your original choice or vice versa.

Just make sure you have a reasonably current offsite backup ready to restore at a moment's notice. I keep copies of my servers in Amazon S3 just in case something ever goes horribly horribly wrong.

 

[Melrose]

I'm more worried about a bad tech taking down my sites than I am with the company failing or getting royally DDOS'd. Years ago, the worst hosting company I've ever used had a noob accidentally delete the entire filesystem and there were no backups. This was around 2000 so it was quite a while ago.

It still happens with GoDaddy hosting, except it's nothing so noble as a D/DOS or hack; a big forum I used to belong to lost EVERYTHING because a GoDaddy server died and they didn't have it backed up - like, not even 6 month old backups. Everything was toasted - best part is, unsurprisingly, GoDaddy refused to do anything about it. This was less than 8 mos ago.

I avoid them like the plague. I'll use their domain auctions, but then transfer away asap.

Hosting companies tend to be like restaurants. Eventually nearly all of them will either lose their magic or become a diluted version of what you liked the most about them.

I agree - and that's one reason I like InMotion. They're still small, still privately owned, and it's phenomenal all the way around: Service, speed, reliability. The only thing they don't have is dirt cheap pricing, which I can live with for a business site.

 

[smirking]

a big forum I used to belong to lost EVERYTHING because a GoDaddy server died and they didn't have it backed up - like, not even 6 month old backups.

That is awful beyond words in this day and age. At least when this happened to me it was a much more naive time and far less devastating since most sites were still static HTML files and sites weren't run on databases that can be difficult to restore even when you do have proper backups.

It's even worse when you consider that backup routines are built into all popular vendor hosting automation suites now and third party add-ons for any proprietary solution is readily available quite affordably.

I've always avoided GoDaddy. I do find their hosting to be mostly good in performance, but always hated the marketing in the Bob Parsons era and especially hated their pricing schemes that hit you with a million and one things to add on (some that would be considered essentials elsewhere) to inflate the pricing of the final product. I have to deal with them once in a while only because of clients.

 

[unplugme71]

I'm more worried about a bad tech taking down my sites than I am with the company failing or getting royally DDOS'd. Years ago, the worst hosting company I've ever used had a noob accidentally delete the entire filesystem and there were no backups. This was around 2000 so it was quite a while ago.

The staff or operation policies of a company is your biggest immediate threat of something going horribly horribly wrong. If you trust a provider and the service has been good, I don't see any need to develop a relationship with another one.

Of course, I would love to have a very strong relationship with multiple hosting companies. It's never bad to have other options. I just wouldn't put a lot of energy into nurturing other options if I didn't need them.

Hosting companies tend to be like restaurants. Eventually nearly all of them will either lose their magic or become a diluted version of what you liked the most about them. The trouble is that you don't know if your backup option will have you running back to your original choice or vice versa.

Just make sure you have a reasonably current offsite backup ready to restore at a moment's notice. I keep copies of my servers in Amazon S3 just in case something ever goes horribly horribly wrong.

It's silly that you would trust a single source of all your data. That's like keeping your primary backups of your home PC next to your desk, and a secondary backup in the closet. What protection do you really have?

I laugh when companies backup their data within the same provider only. What if the provider loses everything? You are completely screwed!

I host everything across two geographical locations with two companies. Each of them keep a backup and I have a third company to trust my off-site backup with. That gives me multiple levels of protection and each company charges the same for said services so I'm not paying any extra for peace of mind.

 

[smirking]

It's silly that you would trust a single source of all your data... I laugh when companies backup their data within the same provider only.

Congratulations. Pat yourself on the back... again. You win.

 

[hatuko]

For those who host their web site using VPS/Cloud services, do you spread your servers across multiple hosting providers?

I use a mix of dedicated and cloud VPS from different companies for a SaaS project I am working on.

Is a VPS more complicated than just running a shared server?

If it's unmanaged you have to care about everything yourself, backups, security and admin in general so yes, it's a lot of work that you don't have to do with shared. But if you are a developer you should be fine with guides such as those available with Digital Ocean and Linode. It's not that difficult.

I have also been using Linode [...] but considering how unprofessionally they have dealt with how they seem to constantly get hacked for their shoddy security, it's really, really difficult to recommend them.

It's true that they've suffered really bad DDoS but they are otherwise a very reliable company with excellent support and performance.

Now we are using VPS, but in future we would like to move on dedicated server rather than using another VPS. Little expensive but give better performance to our high traffic websites.

Actually, I use dedicated servers with lots of resources and they cost me a lot less than cloud (not 'standard') VPS with the same or similar RAM/CPU/storage.