We have recently got an application developed that runs through LAN which will be used for current employees to do real-time bookings. It also enables users from the Internet to do bookings as well. Question is, should I setup an in-house web server or use a managed dedicated server? What I’m afraid of dedicated servers is the downtime since this application needs to be used everyday 24/7. What do you guys suggest? Any ideas?
Hi, Personally, I'd probably lean to towards to outsourcing the hosting. Unless you have someone on staff that can handle the server, or have the resources/desire to hire someone to manage your server full-time, I think this is the best option. Also, (good) hosting companies will monitor your server 24/7, whereas a local staff member would probably only watch it from 9-5 (unless you specify that it's a 24/7 on-call position). One thing you should consider though: would there be any potential issues with updating/patching your software if it's hosted remotely? Do you have anyone that can do this, and can fix bugs remotely as needed? By the way, is this a Windows application or unix? If you're doing a Windows-based service, you may want to look into co-location. I hope this helps, Michael
I recommend you to purchase some good managed dedicated server...you should purchase from a company such as rackspace(They offer 100% uptime) from the last 7 years they have not faced a single outage.. Saad
First off, thanks for the replies. Michael: Well we were thinking of hiring full time server admin. Its a Unix application btw. The app will handle transactions and bookings for our company so It's going to be used almost every minute as we're a 24/7 service. Saad: Rackspace looks very great! I've contacted them as well. Im looking at others as well. Is there any other managed ded servers that provides 100% uptime besides them? What about mediatemple?
Not sure about mediatemple but i am sure Rackspace is the only one that provides 100% uptime...as i've seen many posts on webhostingtalk about rackspace..they always say that for 100% uptime try rackspace.com even webhostingtalk itself is hosted on servers housed in rackspace datacenters.. Saad
There is no 100% uptime servers. There is alot of factors like network issue, server hardware failure and many more. You can only achieve 100% uptime if you have cluster servers across different DC... Just voicing out my POV.
I'd suggest you to have 2 managed dedicated boxes from different providers and implement a failover system as your app seems to be mission critical. liquidweb and ev1servers are great
There is a lot of great dedicated hosting companies out there, I would recommend going that route more so then keeping it in house.
Thanks everyone for your help. Looks like ive found a good ded server company that can provide what we want