[ale] Looking To Outsource Web Server Management
Jeff Hubbs
hbbs at attbi.com
Tue Feb 19 23:48:37 EST 2002
Mike -
I have never been comfortable with dedicated hosting. In the Summer of
2000, I led a Web site development and implementation project for which
(to make a long story short) dedicated hosting became the only remaining
alternative. The client was paying for whatever ISP I chose, and I went
with the one who at least claimed to have familiarity with the unusual
(and now toes-up) content management system that I had to work with
(again, keeping long story short). In my dealings with this ISP, I got
to see what their actual level of capability was with respect to
actually taking care of the issues involving the server you're leasing.
It would not be fair to call this ISP "inept" as a broad brush stroke;
that was certainly not true. However, their ability to respond to any
one customer's needs was, by practical necessity, quite limited. For
example, they could install NT, sure, but they didn't know how to set up
software RAID. If there were a problem with your server that required
console access and for some reason neither VNC nor PCanywhere would
work, it could take a while for someone to actually hook up a KVM "crash
cart" to your server. They did not know and did not perform the basic
things you have to do to secure an Internet-connected Windows NT server.
I concluded that no matter how legitimate or storied the ISP, you simply
cannot trust what the sales/marketroids tell you about their service.
The ISP I worked with swore up and down that they backed up their
machines every night and it was fine if you ran Oracle or SQL Server.
Fact was, their backup routine didn't work on open database files and
they weren't using the kind of backup software for which you can buy
modules to deal with SQL Server, etc. I had to write up a procedure for
our client to manually create a backup file from within SQL Server so
that the ISP's backup operation could pick it up (in case you're
wondering, SQL Server's ability to automatically run DB backups at
predetermined intervals was inexplicably broken!).
You also have to remember that, no matter what the sales droids tell
you, the health and safety of your server as likely as not depends on an
underpaid and overworked 21-year-old who searches Monster every night
looking for better offers before heading out at 1AM to grab coffee and
pie at Waffle House and find himself a rave to score some meth at.
I know I'm painting an unhealthy picture, but it's the result of ISPs
trying to do the same thing you're trying to do by utilizing their
services: keeping the costs down. Instead of you yourself or someone
who you interview, select, and hire and to whom you pay a pretty penny
taking care of all this stuff, you're renting a basic computing
capability and a revolving itinerant contingent of entry-level sysadmins
who you do not know, who do not know you, and are utterly unfamiliar
with the vagaries of what you're trying to run. Should one person or
even two people actually have enough involvement with your system to
have learned anything about which might help them work a problem the
next time one occurs, you can rest assured that ina few months' time
you'll go right to square one with someone else you've never met after
"your guy" is laid off, is fired, or jumps to some other ISP for an
additional dollar an hour and a chance at some dental insurance.
So: what to do? I think it is valid to take advantage of the steps
ISPs take to harden their Internet t'comm, power, cooling, and physical
security by co-locating your server(s) with them. Barring that, though,
I would say that anything else should stay your responsibility and your
problem. Build or buy the best, cheapest box you can spec out that will
still do the job - and get two exact copies of that one. You should be
able to pop out the drives from one and put them in the other readily.
Locate two at the ISP and keep the other one at the office or at home.
Each one should have a tape drive. Buy or build a fourth box for use
as a firewall at the ISP. Some ISPs will run a phone line to your box;
put a modem in each one and set up remote console through it, but don't
leave the phone line connected during normal operation. Box #1 is your
main server; stick a tape in its drive and set up a cron job to make a
backup at some interval. You're going to go to the ISP and swap out
that tape every day or every week or whatever. Box #2 is a cold spare;
if #1's PS fries, a trained monkey ought to be able to move cables and
drives to Box #2 and get you going again. Box #3 is your
cold-spare-in-hand; that's for when the upstairs toilet floods the ISP's
data center and they cut power to the entire floor for an indefinite
period. You take it to a hopefully less accident-prone ISP and get it
running from the backup tapes you made before you rescue your drowned
servers from the first ISP and cancel your contract with them for cause.
A lot of what I'm saying would make bean counters have kittens. Buy
three of the same box to run one instead of paying a fixed amount every
month? Yeah, that's what I'm saying, Mr. Bean Counter. The existence
of these dedicated or shared hosting deals does nothing to repeal the
simple logic of risk and consequences. If that bothers you, Mr. Bean
Counter, I'll forget the ISP - here's my purchase order for a big UPS,
some steel doors and crosscut keylocks, separate HVAC, two separate
commercial broadband Internet accounts, a fire-suppression system...
- Jeff
Chris Fowler wrote:
>Call RackSpace first. Your problem is that you need on call support. That
>may get expensive. You need to find someone who will offer you an SLA that
>provides provisions for your needs. I believe Dell is more suited for
>Mom & Pop type orgs.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mike Millson [mailto:mgm at atsga.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 5:52 PM
>To: ALE
>Subject: [ale] Looking To Outsource Web Server Management
>
>
>I'm trying to do some strategic planning and start making contacts with
>people who could help manage a web server I am hoping to get in the future.
>Basically I want to have a dedicated web server, and I want to outsource the
>management of the server. I am looking for someone to install and configure
>MySQL and an open source servlet engine like Tomcat and possibly JBoss.
>Someone to advise me and be on call in case something happens to the server.
>
>I have been looking at the dedicated solutions from Dell. They offer the
>basic install of Linux and Apache and basic support, but you have to install
>your own databases and middleware. So it would be the case where everything
>would be able to be handled remotely.
>
>These are the Dell plans I have been looking at.
>http://www.dellhost.com/us/en/host/moreinfo_D-2800_dedicated_poweredge_optio
>ns.asp
>http://www.dellhost.com/us/en/host/moreinfo_D-3000_dedicated_poweredge_featu
>res.asp
>http://www.dellhost.com/us/en/host/moreinfo_D-3100_dedicated_poweredge_optio
>ns.asp
>
>What I like about them is that you get 8 IP addresses with each plan. And
>you can add IP addresses one at a time for a small fee (I have to verify
>what that fee is). I haven't seen anything else like this out there in the
>hosting world.
>
>The D-2800 ($249/month) has an IDE drive. The D-3100 ($349/month) has a SCSI
>drive. The D-3100 ($449/month) has single channel RAID 1. Some of the
>options seem kind of steep. $199/month for a firewall. $100/month for 5
>daily incremental and 1 full weekly backup.
>
>Does anyone have any thoughts on any of these Dell plans? Maybe I should be
>looking someplace else or in another direction? Anyone in the business of
>managing web servers that would be interested in talking about this more w/
>me?
>
>Thank you,
>Mike Millson
>Web Systems Engineer
>Sun Certified Programmer for Java2 Platform
>----------------------------------------
>AableTech Solutions, Inc.
>770.414.8834
>404.219.3177 cell
>770.414.8206 fax
>http://www.atsga.com
>----------------------------------------
>
>
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