I co-founded and have run a web hosting company (RiptideHosting.com) for more than 10 years. Today I cover some of the topics of how to compare web hosting. I do not cover shared hosting but rather how to ensure you are getting the redundancy necessary to ensure your site/application is up and running all the time.
Today I review how you compare complex web hosting options such as:
- Data center comparison (redundancy N+1) Power,Internet Connectivity, Cooling
- Monitoring – are you monitoring to make sure your website is online and available?
- Backup – do you have your files backed up, what if the data center or web hosting company disappeared?
- And much more
I forgot to talk about support – depending on your level of expertise you may need technical help but at a minimum I suggest you look for the following
- 24/7 onsite support – is someone there at all times to physically look at your server in case there is an issue with the hardware and something needs to be replaced or maybe your server needs to be turned back on.
- Does someone answer the phone when you call? With smaller companies like ours the customers get to talk with the same people for sales and for support.
Once you find a data center / web hosting company that can keep your server online it is up to you to secure it so as a hacker does not take your server off line.