[Hidden-tech] Web Hosting Providers

[Mark D. Hamill]

Cloud hosting can have fewer outages but it all depends on how it's
engineered and how much you are willing to pay. The big cloud hosting
providers like AWS and Azure have figured it out how to offer almost always
available services, but it's not automatic.

For example, it's cheaper to buy a cloud service that's in just one data
center. All data centers have redundant power supplies and such that makes
it unlikely that the data center will go down, but there are no guarantees.
Generally issues like denial of service attacks are handled behind the
scenes but you could still be affected.

A cloud provider can't make your site well if it is engineered wrong. For
example, if you are using WordPress and there is a buggy plugin causing
issues, this is an application issue you will have to detect and fix and a
cloud provider can't solve it. Cloud providers provide infrastructure only.

Configured correctly, you can replicate your site in multiple hosting
centers for the same cloud provider and have the alternative site go up
automatically when the other one goes down. But even with cloud hosting
it's pretty complex, so you need to know what you are doing or hire someone
to do it for you. For example, if you maintain a dynamic database, you want
any changes to the master database to be replicated to the slave. Doing
something like this is not easy, and it's not easy to have the secondary
site become the primary and replicate any changes to its database back to
the primary one. Cloud hosts also don't provide much in the way of hand
holding, so you need to bring these skills with you or hire someone who has
them.

Generally, most people's needs aren't this complex and they don't want to
pay for all these fancy features. In that case I'd stick with a big cloud
provider like AWS in one data center. While you can't guarantee that the
site won't go down, it's pretty unlikely. But there is a learning curve for
cloud providers compared to general web hosting. General web hosting is
much more easy to use. For example, you can do most things yourself with
cPanel or Plesk. You probably won't get that from a cloud provider, and the
web interface you get is likely to be minimal.

Depending on how important this is for you, you might want to get some
cloud education. There should be training both online and in the classroom,
and in the latter you can try it all online with an instructor.

IMHO, there is a lot of "cloud hosting" that really isn't so beware of
snake oil.

On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 4:29 PM Lesley Schneider via Hidden-discuss <
hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net> wrote:

> I saw Dreamhost. That is cloud hosting. I read that if a server goes down
> the whole system doesn’t go down like what I think happened with Earthlink.
> Of course, Earthlink will never tell you what happened. Anyway, is it true
> that cloud hosting has less massive outages?
>
> On Jun 28, 2020, at 2:21 PM, DM Cook <dmaterialized at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> MDDhosting is very inexpensive and quite reliable; dreamhost is slightly
> more expensive but even better. I can highly recommend both from personal
> experience.
>
> On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 12:38 PM Mark D. Hamill via Hidden-discuss <
> hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net> wrote:
>
>> Siteground has good, completely solid state shared hosting, a bit
>> expensive. If you can live with its quotas on database size and outgoing
>> emails, it's very reliable.
>>
>> I haven't used them, but I've heard good things about Dreamhost.
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 11:43 AM Lesley Schneider via Hidden-discuss <
>> hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Good morning. Earthlink crashed from 10 nPM last night to 7:30 this
>>> morning nationwide. Not all parts of the country are back up yet. I have
>>> been with them since the 90’s. I have to websites and two different email
>>> accounts, one for each site. They are expensive. Can anyone recommend a
>>> god, stable, reasonably priced service for my needs?
>>>
>>> Thank you,
>>> Lesley
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> --
>
> DM Cook
> Instructional Designer & Technical Writer
>
>
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