Windows Server Virtual Hosting

[administrator]

I only do Linux hosting but have a few virtual servers here and there. Can vouch for Memset, good support, a couple of outages but they have informed me of them rather than me see the server offline and report to them. Control panel is good and they throw in DNS hosting as well which can be handy. Have used Fasthosts before and they were not great, 1 and 1 are OK but support delays can be lengthy if you have an outage. I had one server down for 24 hours due to disk failure - at least you won't get that in a VPS.

I am starting to like VPS machines, my only problem with them is that as they are an instance and not a physical machine there is nothing stopping rogue workers copying your machine and taking it home to dissect it if they wanted to, that is the reason I stick with physical boxes for anything serious!

Anyway, 1GB dedicated RAM is enough for a decently powered Linux VM. I have a couple of 256 / 512 MB ones and anything more than a couple of sites on them and they struggle (Wordpress type installs, not static sites) so with a full-blown Windows one I guess you will need a bit more.

The 1 and 1 machines show dedicated 2GB and up to 4GB burstable so looks like should be an OK solution. At £30 per month is much cheaper than buying a dedi as well. Worth a tickle I reckon!

One of the handiest things I have found with VPS machines is the speed in which you can re-install. Was working on a shell script last week to do most of the leg-work for me in setting up new sites, did not specify an absolute path in part of the script and when ran in CHOWNd the whole OS to the web server user. Took me a minute or two to work out why MySQL had stopped working Machine was re-images in 5 minutes and sites set back up in 15. Would have taken a fair bit longer with a "real" server.

[VectraMan]

I have no idea what an "AWS Micro Instance" is, other than guessing that it's a smaller version of whatever an "AWS Instance" is.

I've been looking at the sites of Fasthosts, 1&1 and Memset, and they all seem to offer much the same at the same sort of price. So maybe we'll just pick one.

I'm sure you're right about support. A few years ago a colleague and I had to drive to Docklands one night to go press the reset button on a Linux server because the people who were getting ridiculous amounts of money per month weren't prepared to do even that. That's the sort of thing I'm trying to avoid.

[eek]

Amazon will give you an AWS micro instance for free which is probably identical to what you currently have.

The issue you are going to have

And it needs sensible support people that don't just grunt and say "it's your server".

as that means you are paying for support which you may not actually need. If your demands are not great I would look at the grid solution tsohost.co.uk provide. There may be a couple of backup requirements they can't do but they can provide everything else on that list and provide easy wordpress setup.

[Spacecadet]

1and1 do windows virtual server hosting for £19.99 per month

I *think* it does everything on your list

[VectraMan]

Anyone with knowledge?

This is to replace a dedicated Windows 2003 server that seems increasingly slow (512MB RAM I suspect is the main reason). The supplier has suggested a replacement for some £600pm, which seems a bit crazy when the likes of Fasthosts have virtual Windows servers from as little as £35pm.

It has to be a web server, run an ASP .NET based shopping system with MySQL5 db, as well as some olde fashioned ASP, and a few PHP things like PHPBB and Wordpress. And it needs full remote desktop access, to be backed up, be protected by a firewall, and support multiple domains. And it needs sensible support people that don't just grunt and say "it's your server".

I know it's a bit of a how long is a piece of string question, but how well do these virtual servers perform? It doesn't get a huge amount of use, but neither is it a site getting one hit per month. I don't want to suggest going down this route if it immediately becomes obvious it's overwhelmed and we end up with a more expensive dedicated server after all.