What to start with DC

[Martin Jørgensen]

How did you start.

Cant help myself go planning for my first setup, someday i will go start my own hosting.

Did you start with one physical host, installing some hypervisor os on som local storage?

Cant go figure out, do all nodes have to be redundant?
2 hypervisors
2 shared storage nodes (replicating)
2 backups nodes (replicating)

How often do Supermicro servers halt? i like Supermicro

Ore can i just start with one big node with local storage?
Maybe redundant PSU and disk setup?

I wonna use setup for hosting web, owncloud, X2GO and so on

 

[T_Minus]

Depends how you want to use it

I've been hosting on supermicro gear for many many years, but we run baremetal CentOS.

If you want to get started in hosting the #1 step is to get a "reseller" Plan from someone else, and start learning the ropes of hosting. Decide are you running Linux or Windows?

If you want to learn about hardware, software, etc, then build something at your house to play around with

I would NOT get into hosting and jump right into VMs, and multiple servers, etc... unless of course your background is in VMs, hardware, and you have a good chunk of $$, it's way way way way more costly than bare metal for web hosting a bunch of small, basic sites that 99% people do.


If you want to start small playing around you could always get something from EC2, Linode or Digital Ocean for minimal or free/month, you get a "VM" of whatever flavor OS you select (they have many choices)... and you can essentially pay like $5/mo and setup a handful of "Nodes" to play around with anything you need more than 1 node for, if that's your goal.

Hosting is a LOT more than just the 'server' and 'software' you're going to need to consider support, technical problems (linux, cpanel, apache, whatever you're running you need to know how to solve the problem). Keep in mind if you're hosting a clients site and they're a business they won't be too happy about it going down or up often or for any period of time, ever... it's not a stress-free thing to do, and that's why up until recently we've ONLY hosted clients we actually manage their sites for. (You have to deal with lack of security, lack of software updates, etc... if you let anyone host with you, which could expose more of your clients depending on the exploit that wasn't patched, etc...)

Not trying to talk you out of it but there's a lot that goes into successfully hosting for people.

If you don't know how to tune the server that's another thing.
Setting up security software, firewall, etc, something else.
I could go on and on

 

[Diavuno]

How did you start.
Cant help myself go planning for my first setup, someday i will go start my own hosting.
Did you start with one physical host, installing some hypervisor os on som local storage?
Cant go figure out, do all nodes have to be redundant?
2 hypervisors
2 shared storage nodes (replicating)
2 backups nodes (replicating)

How often do Supermicro servers halt? i like Supermicro
Ore can i just start with one big node with local storage
Maybe redundant PSU and disk setup?
I wonna use setup for hosting web, owncloud, X2GO and so on

Good $%@&!%* luck getting into hosting without another service. Design or something.
website hosting is razor thin margins.

Super micro's are reliable! I've had some up for years before I took them down for updates or upgrades.
BUT I can tell you about servers! you'll need replication and redundancy for Everything if you want to have a reliable hosting service. "big node" is relative. Big for hosting static websites could be a 10 year old machine.
I'd start with something cheap. you can get $100 servers all day.

if you want advice on how to start hosting have you considered webhostingtalk.com ?

 

[Martin Jørgensen]

Im am working at a hosting provider already, i have decent Windows Skills, and used Linux for years.
Hardware and networking is no problem, and if i have any, this forums is the best

Just wanted to hear how your guys started?

 

[Patrick]

STH went:
Shared hosting -> VPS -> AWS -> AWS Upgrade -> 1/4 Cab w/ 3x Dell C6100 4-nodes -> 1/2 cab -> 1/2 cab (Vegas, NV) + Full cab (Fremont, CA)

And starting September, we just got 2x 208V / 30A racks. Given those will be for holding our big servers, but complexity rises.

Host more than just STH, forums, Linux-Bench and etc now as there are a few industry analyst sites we host and we have a few cool applications that are being built on the infrastructure.

But if I wanted to get into web hosting you basically need:

• cPanel/ Plesk/ etc
• WHMCS/ Hostbill/ etc
• Firewall/ router/ VPN appliance(s)
• Switches
• Likely want a backup appliance + shared storage

So if you think of that overhead, you likely need quite a few boxes to start out with just to start being able to turn a profit which is where the "razor thin margins" and need for a differentiator come in.

I was thinking about converting Fremont first to a Proxmox 4.0 + Ceph cluster, then moving primary production there while I did the same with Las Vegas. Still, very hard to compete in that business without scale.

 

[T_Minus]

Im am working at a hosting provider already, i have decent Windows Skills, and used Linux for years.
Hardware and networking is no problem, and if i have any, this forums is the best

Just wanted to hear how your guys started?

We are website consultants for marketing, website performance, as well as run a development side to make clients projects, and have some other guys that do ECOM for some clients too. Basically a min-IT team for new/small businesses. I help out a couple local clients with their infastructure but we're talking very basic stuff I'm not a network guy that's for sure, only got through the first part of my CISCO stuff before decided not my road

I started hosting clients in the late 90s IRCD, Eggdrop, BNC etc...

Then I started offering $5/hosting around `00 to niche clients, and soon realized that was not where I wanted to be. Stopped hosting clients and only hosted my own stuff until ~04 and then I only was hosting clients we managed their websites / projects / dev for, and that's how I've stayed until this year. Slightly expanding hosting this year to encompass some of my friends business needs.

cPanel / CentOS/CloudLinux + WHMCS + KAYAKO + ENOM = good starting point.

You don't have to go "all out" for hosting basic business static sites, or even dynamic wordpress and ecommerce sites which are 90%+ of your clients I'd imagine.

We have a # of clients on a single E3 w/32gb RAM setup as an "AIO" with mysql/apache on the same server, load stays under 20% 99% of the time. It runs RAID1, backups off-site to AWS & a 2nd identical server in case we need to get things going on another host quick.

In addition we offer custom backup solutions, managed hosting, specific ecommerce and wordpress plans, and more.

I don't host DNS.
I don't host e-mail (on shared servers).

 

[Martin Jørgensen]

STH went:
Shared hosting -> VPS -> AWS -> AWS Upgrade -> 1/4 Cab w/ 3x Dell C6100 4-nodes -> 1/2 cab -> 1/2 cab (Vegas, NV) + Full cab (Fremont, CA)

And starting September, we just got 2x 208V / 30A racks. Given those will be for holding our big servers, but complexity rises.

Host more than just STH, forums, Linux-Bench and etc now as there are a few industry analyst sites we host and we have a few cool applications that are being built on the infrastructure.

But if I wanted to get into web hosting you basically need:

• cPanel/ Plesk/ etc
• WHMCS/ Hostbill/ etc
• Firewall/ router/ VPN appliance(s)
• Switches
• Likely want a backup appliance + shared storage

So if you think of that overhead, you likely need quite a few boxes to start out with just to start being able to turn a profit which is where the "razor thin margins" and need for a differentiator come in.

I was thinking about converting Fremont first to a Proxmox 4.0 + Ceph cluster, then moving primary production there while I did the same with Las Vegas. Still, very hard to compete in that business without scale.

Same here Proxmox 4.0 is exciting news

 

[Diavuno]

I'd like to compare some of the scale out storage software.

 

[Chrisbrns]

What kind of hosting you looking to do? Same as a few guys here, start small and see what works for you. Sometimes your revenue and clients needs will help shape your direction at first. Like some of the folks here, I started small - quarter rack with 4 VMware hosts and 1 storage system. Now up to 75 compute hosts with 8 storage servers. We do medical so compliance is big. Audit trail of everything. Can cause a lot of headache due to demand, but if you work at hosting company, you probably already understand what production means. Good luck and your doing the right thing to jump in now.

 

[Chrisbrns]

I'd like to compare some of the scale out storage software.

So we been super happy with the Starwinds product line.

 

[Martin Jørgensen]

Not going to start anything the next 2 years, but great stories story.
I thing i am just to concerned about hardware failure, but again we have bare metal servers running 2003 still, no problems there, sometimes the need reboot. but that not very often

Redundant system is just double up of anything and become expensive

 

[Diavuno]

I sure hope your company does not have 2003 in production still...

 

[Martin Jørgensen]

Migration to Citrx (2008) is ongoing