Posted by Sanders Kaufman on 09/22/07 12:07

"The Natural Philosopher" <a@b.c> wrote in message
news:1190459002.6815.0@despina.uk.clara.net...
> Sanders Kaufman wrote:

>> A home server is fine for learning on, but a pro server is where you put
>> that learning into practice.
>> It's the difference between riding one of those arcade skiing machines,
>> and actually skiing.
>>
> Where does pro hosting start?
>
> I've RUN a pro host. Its essentially no different from what I have at
> home.

Professional doesn't just mean you made money.
It means that you manage and maintain it as if it mattered.

You *can* operate a home server professionally, but it would be
prohibitively expensive.
As you go on to say - you've done it. Many of us have.
But without the economies of scale enjoyed by hosting providers, it cost oh
so very much.


> For many many sites with high content into a niche market, where traffic
> is pretty low, home hosting wins hands down, especially if there is a lot
> of site development going on.

Yes - for sites that don't *need* to work, home-hosting can be a very
cost-effective solution.
It's like how, if you don't need to go anywhere, having a picture of a car
is more cost-effective than actually having a car.


> OK if one day the traffic gets burdensome and the customer is paying
> megabucks, move the machine to someone else's machine room.

I've always found that it's best to resolve such issues *before* they arise.

> You have to balance all the issues There is no one best solution.

Well - only the actual issues. The actual issue presented by the OP was one
in which they wanted off-site hosting, and your response, that they consider
home-hosting.
Because of the cost and complexity of network administration (especially for
someone who's just learning to program some web pages) - ya gotta go with
pro hosting.

I remember the first time I hosted a domain on my home network. I built out
a FreeBSD machine with the defaults, and never turned it off. Then, one
day, GTE called me and told me that they were cutting me off because I had
become a SPAM relay. When I checked, my Unix box was just a goin crazy
taking in and sending out spam.

As Reverends Bush, Rice and Ashcroft once said, "Do you really want the
first sign of trouble to be a nuclear mushroom cloud?".

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