how hard is it to start my own server?

marcnyc

Hello guys...
I am having issues with my hosting company and since I have over 10 different websites and domains hosted with them I was thinking of finally being indiependent...
I was wondering if somebody can direct me to some link or just tell me what it takes to start my own server...

What do I need besides a computer that is always on? What kind of connection? Anything else?

My stats (for the website I am having issues with on my hosting company, which is one of the ones with the most traffic) say that monthly average daily traffic is 1424792 KB for my site I am having trouble with. Since that is about 1.5Gb traffic I would think that for all my sites I would need at least 5G daily traffic. Is that unrealistic traffic for a normal cable-internet connection?

I am in NY and I currently have CableVision's Optimum Online (optimumonline.net), which is said to be 3 times faster than DSL.
Do you know if there are any companies in NY that would provide me with whatever type connection it is that I need? And what type is it anyway?

Any help on the subject would be appreciated.
Thanks

thorpe

You would be best off paying for a dedicated server or maybe even co-location. With that much traffic, your going to need some serious speed and bandwidth. The other thing though, unless you really know your stuff, you'd probably need to hire someone to admin it for you. There are allot of security issues to face, and seriously, if you have clients on these servers you cannot offord downtime.

marcnyc

What is co-location? What kind of pricing would I be looking at for co-location and dedicated server???

You know of any companies offering this at affordable prices?

It would just be nice to have a computer set up at home and finally not have to depend on anybody. Indipendence is my primary concern at this point.

I don't really know my stuff, but couldn't I just hire a geek to set it up once and leave it there?

thorpe

Co-location is where you buy (or hire) a machine, and put it in a location that has a fast connection.

You have shell access so its no different than having a machine at home.

Really though, If your not up to administering a server your heading for trouble. You cant just set it up once and leave it. It will get hacked. If you have clients who rely on this service, your better off leaving it to the pros.

Co-location and even dedicated servers are expensive. Im not sure what exactly your looking at now, but last time I looked at a co-location here in Sydney, it was going to be upwards of $800 / month.

Having said all this. I run my own servers from home. Pretty easy setup. Im only on an adsl connection, so my upload speed is pretty slow. But for testing, and just running a few personal sites it suites me fine. I would never consider hosting any paying clients though, its just too risky.

dalecosp

So you basically pay "rent" for some space in a big company's data center. You can rent one machine, or sometimes an entire cage; sometimes you can rent the cage without any machines and put your own in there, but it's kinda pricey, I'd think, as thorpe mentions.

In NYC, two companies with good reps are NYI (New York Internet) and Pair.com, both of which do co-lo AFAIK, and also AFAIK they do hosting as well ... if your trouble isn't with them 😉 you might see what they have to offer. Both of them are pretty supportive of open-source in general.

Finally, if any of your sites are for real brick-front business, what about putting the server there? Some small/medium businesses have bandwidth to burn, and if it's there site, there might be some incentive ... maybe you could work out a "deal" ....

Finally, in re: security. You've got to have a little experience, I'd think. Running a "test site" on your home connection might be good practice ... but check your ISP's TOS; many expect higher rates for hosting a server 😉

AstroTeg

As mentioned before, security is a concern. If you don't know what you're doing (or at least don't take the time to learn), your machine may get eaten alive. Or it may not.

Questions to ask yourself:

How big of a pipe will I need to host 5gb of data per day? Will a T1 (1.5mbs up/down) be sufficient? Do you have a lot of users hitting the machine at the same time or is it a large number of users at various times of the day? You get into burst rates and things like that. Typically with most "home" cable/DSL plans, the upload bandwidth isn't enough to support many concurrent users. And then you have the legal issues to work out with the cable/DSL company about hosting a commercial server.
How will you handle an outage? Are you (or can you) be on call 24/7? What will you do if a hard drive fails? What will you do if a power supply fails? What will you do if your Internet connection goes down? Will you have an SLA (service level agreement) which states how long it'll be up per month?
What about backups? Will you be able to store them off site?
If you're hosting at home, will you have backup power for when there's a power outage?

I'd say it depends on how serious you want to get. You can definitely toss a box up today and let it run. The trick is matching your websites' requirements in terms of uptime and performance. I think your next safest route is to go with a leased server somewhere and let a third party manage the hardware and bandwidth for you and have some software loaded on the server to make managing it easier. The trick is this usually isn't that cheap.