Hey, So business idea I have for later when I have my own house is to run hosting services from home. The only issues I can think with this is internet connection and security, now I would make my home as secure as physically possible because I would be living there, being that I would ultimately own the physical servers it's more reason for me to protect it (people will naturally care about loss of their own stuff - or even family members, usually - more than other people's if it's expensive). Only limitation I see in my eyes is the connection, I know where my local exchange is and would look for a place close by to there or as close as possible to get the absolute most that I can from my line. I'm thinking 1 connection per server or possibly put a couple on one if their bandwidth is low enough. But even if it runs just as well as the big hosts, people would still be concerned about security I think. One Data Centre close to me want up to £100 just to host a server for me, then charge £50 per "Mbit used over bandwidth allocation" (refering to easyspace.com, they said they don't host people's servers so I contacted their parent company and that's the quotes they gave me) Cutting out the Data Centre - like a middleman - would mean cheaper services. Of course, I can't afford loads of different connections incase one goes down, however an ISP going down in my experience is very rare and is usually up at the latest in a few hours if or when it does. Just doing a quick calculation, 1% of 365 days is 3.65 days, my ISP hasn't had any downtime at all in the 3 years I've used them, which would mean my average uptime by now would be 100%, to drop to 99% would need 10.95 days downtime.. Not much I can say for security. Again I would be living there so it's in my own interests to keep it secure. I couldn't hire a security guard, it would be counter-productive and if people see him would think there's something to hide/expensive stuff in that house. Physically, if I have a garage I can brick the inside of it so from the outside it looks normal but inside its a sealed off room with only entrance from inside the house, and run everything in there, with outside ventilation the room temperature would always be low(I live in Scotland). Its even possible to put another wall inside, keep the equipment in there and another door so if I used the garage people look in wouldn't see computer stuff they'd just see a wall and door and think thats directly to the house. What's your opinion, and would you buy hosting from someone selling from home?
Absolutely no, with so many professional hosting companies, there is no reason to host on a server from home, with no basic FM 200, UPS, diesel generator backups etc.
Thanks for replying, Mostly it would be for personal use, however I'd like some customers to help counter operating costs (though even if I had no customers it would still be cheaper than using a local data centre). I'm actually planning on becomming a fireman, so in my career I'd learn about fires and stuff and have as much equipment as possible to counter fires, though I admit this isn't the same as having professional equipment put in place during construction. I could get a backup generator have it installed hopefully making a power outtage seemless. Effectively I would try and replicate a data centre but on a much smaller scale. Once running it would be really no different than going to a professional business, in most cases even when it comes to support as it takes up to some days to reply (from my experience) and possibly price depending on the ISP markup and power (what I've calculated now it would be almost 2/3 cheaper to run from home than goto the DC I said above)
It would be pretty cool. But you need would Tier 3 lines shooting to your house to compete with the big companies as well as a decent cooling system, so your house could potentially be cold 24/7 just to keep the servers in a good mood. Then generators would be needed if you started getting more then a couple clients. Combined with Web Hosting being one of the biggest Niche's compared to making money online I wish you the best of luck! Remember you haven't failed in till you quit! Goodluck
Depends on what you allow; for hosting backups it can be nice; backup space is costing tooooo much on the web, while it is quite cheap in hardware and does not have to be 100% reliable all the time (it is backup) as long as it is not gone when you need it. 1TB hds cost like $130, while buying backup online at providers usually costs you $130 per *month* and that is not even close to 1TB. Backups (when done smart) do not usually take up much bandwidth (only the first sync and after that deltas). I think $25/month for 1 TB is is making very nice profit and you'll have no competition
I've wanted to do this for a long time, but there are way too many drawbacks - security, rebooting or fixing a server when it's physically impossible (i.e., you're at work and it has to wait until the end of the day), power outages, etc.
Thanks for replies/input I would run tests over a few months to find the optimum performance, the most I could get out of 1 server and line etc. I would probably use water cooling for the system, AC if needed however again...I live in Scotland lol the air is hardly anywhere near hot (I lived in Australia for 16 years) but that too I would be testing to be precise with it. It's not so much for making money, yes I would run it like a business but it would be to recover operating costs as I would be using it for personal stuff too. Thanks Don't blame you tbh If I was looking for somewhere I'd choose a data centre over someone's garage too. That actually sounds like a good idea. I've seen some prices and it's amazing how they think people would want to pay those prices. Essentially though if it were just for backups I'd still be running it the same as normal hosting. I could provide backups as a service and also use it normally for myself. I was thinking using virtual servers that use 100% of the physical server, so the client (or myself) could restart it remotely. If you mean there's a physical problem, I could always train some friends/relatives and pay them for any time they help me when I'm not there to do it myself. Many professional companies don't have quick response time to support, I would probably have a 24 hour policy(depending on what I'm actually doing at the time if I would be at home much or not, could always access my email via phone). Again not much I can say for security, except that it would be my home so obviously I wouldn't want people to be able to come in without my permission. Fire safety wouldn't be too hard, I would have the neccesary equipment to combat it, I'd take measures to isolate different things should a fire break out, though again admit it's not the same as a "real" data centre. Bandwidth would be restrictive because I wouldn't be bulk buying services so I'd give them the statistics I would have found during testing, uptime isn't really a problem as ISPs are very rarely down (as I've calculated above I would easily have over 99%) it would more be anything on my end. Of course, apart from testing (for the purpose of testing), I would be running my own sites and stuff off this method before considering taking clients. Possibly for a year, then once I have solid stats(monitored for 12 months) I would present them and start offering my services to anyone who wants. Again even if I had no customers I would still have cheaper costs than using a DC, I would also have 100% control over my equipment.
Hi Scoty Personally I would recommend you to focus in your sites and let the hosting in the right place, specialized hosts. Think about energy costs on a 24/7 computer always turned on. And when vacations time come...... on or off? Yes, in you home server you are king but the connection normally isn't, so the more you request from it the less your isp will be ready to give you (download vs upload) Usually the cheapest host shared account offers you Fantastico, CPanel, etc. In fact I think it's not good to have only one host account, 2 accounts are the minimum, this way you can take at least the most important sites to the second host account in cases where the first host fail. If you go ahead with you project keep us in touch.
Seriously, it's not worth it. I assume your in the UK because your using £s. Go on www.webhostingtalk.com and go to the colo section and make a post asking who is the best / cheapest colo provider for the UK. Also, why not just rent?
I would probably be using DirectAdmin or free alternatives like Plesk, LXAdmin. I've thought about electricity, I worked at a LAN/internet cafe in Australia and electricity bill was $1500 a month, according to google: 1 500 Australian dollars = 1 425 U.S. dollars wow....USD really sucks atm, or AUD is doing well (or both) I've contacted a possible ISP host just waiting for their response regarding it. As for holidays and stuff again I could train someone else to maintain it and pay them for their time, or use temporary host somewhere else and divert everything until I come back. Being that most of the stuff would be mine it wouldn't really matter anyway. I'm not doing it yet.
Thanks, but this isn't one of my business ideas just a side thing I've got lots of business ideas though they all require money to start, none are get rich quick etc. I'm always thinking of ways to make money in the future starting with like £10k all in my head I hope to one day implement at least a few of them. I know that to start even just one of them will require much dedication and hard work from myself. Until then I'm just trying to make a bit of cash on the side, where this server thing is more for personal use and ultimately a drain on cash.
I see, Well good luck to you. I also have tons of ideas just not the funds to do them. Most of the time I like to do things starting from $0 or Less than $100. It makes you work hard and work smart that's for sure. I enjoy doing it.