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How to Start Your Own Hosting Services
If your like many another webmasters you might be thinking
of starting a web hosting company. But where do you start?
And more importantly, what do you need to know? Well, in
this article I will show the basic things that you will
need in order to succeed as a web hosting provider.
Before you start make sure this is something that you have
the knowledge to do and not just from reading books, but
where you have worked on them. Running servers may sound
easy, but it's far from easy, in fact, even people experienced
with servers will have trouble with them from time to time.
You will have to deal with security threats, downtime and
fixing program errors.
Starting your own hosting services is going to be challenging
and frustrating. One option to think about is reseller hosting
plans. There are several good web hosting companies out
there that offer reseller hosting, but at the same time
allowing you to get paid, but without you having to spend
your time maintaining servers. You may want to start out
this way to get a customer base going.
You can rent, lease or buy your servers, If you decide
to buy the servers, get them custom made to your exact needs,
if you have the money, if you can't try to get a server
that best fits into your plans. You'll need a place to keep
the servers. You can find local building to do this or you
could keep them at home. If you keep it at home, you'll
need to make sure everything is just right for them.
Now, which operating system (Windows, Unix, etc.), control
panel (Cpanel, Plesk, etc.), security are you going to choose.
Each of these should be researched with care, check to see
if they fit your needs or not. Also you must consider that
some programming languages can only run on certain operating
systems, most web site owners want programming languages
such as PHP or PERL.
You'll need to keep your servers up to date with the latest
security patches. You'll need a good firewall, the firewall
is first defense you have and may be your best. It's essential
to monitor the servers all the time for any errors, hackers
or virus, one slip-up can cause all your servers to be hacked
into and then all your customers will be leaving.
To get the highest possible server uptime you'll need multiple
Internet connections. Depending on the area which you reside
in, it may be hard to find a Internet connection provider.
You will need a fixed IP address, that won't change after
each use. Some providers won't offer this, so make sure
you check before you choose.
How much are you going to charge for your web hosting services?
If the price is to high people will leave, but if the price
is to low people may think your servers are overcrowd with
another web sites and that you offer terrible services.
What plans will you offer? Shared, reseller or dedicated
hosting or maybe all of them.
When you really think about it, it's a lot harder then
it seems on the surface. Your best choose may be to go with
a reseller hosting plan, this will at least give you taste
of what you need to do and help build a customer database.
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