[pmwiki-users] web hosting questions / offtopic

[Sivakatirswami]

OLM.net  is great for service and very dependable
   it has been in the business "forever"

24-7 phone support is actually real... you don't even have to
file a ticket before you call, if they are busy you might listen
to a bit of  musak but will talk to some in the end.

Dreamhost.com: great low priced plans  with lots  of bells and whistles
has a good reputation among professional developers. email support
only, but they are back to you in minutes and super helpful.

The machine you are on and how many others are on the same box
is not really an issue these days. CPU speeds and hard drive speeds
are all "over the  top"..

It's all about "the pipe" ... the
network infrastructure behind the box and whether their tier one  providers
just  above  your machine are over subscribed. Unless you are savvy
you never know about this,  e.g. avoid ISP's using Cogent on the first hop.

If the "pipe is right"  and the data center has been in operation for
more than
two years, it means the ISP's data center isn't constantly
upgrading to new routers and such.  Not many  even bother
to ask the host these "tough questions."
if you actually knew what  some of these little  ISP's
had for connection to the back bone it would scare you.

Stick with Linux and you will find the "migration to new server"
  issue goes way down. Futzing with Windows boxes is forever...

If bandwidth is an issue and you are serving up a lot of data (movies,
sound files),
then  always ask "Can I get on a 100 Megabit connection?"
it's worth it... you would very, very rarely see a slow  down in response
times.  but on some shared 10 megabit connections, if some other domains
are serving up video, the socket maxes out really fast and response times
to your pages feel like molasses, and if the next upstream network
provider is also over subscribed... it gets worse. If you are just  serving
html pages and images, it's not a big  issue. Still I would go for 100
megabit connection if you can afford it... then your site "sparkles"
response timewise. Again, not many people even bother to ask
if the box they will be hosted on is connected via 10megabit  or100 megabit.

Both OLM.net and Dreamhost have really big pipes to the backbone.
Dreamhost only offers 10 megabit connections, but they are very
good "honest" about not over loading their routers. They even offer QT
streaming services on those connections.