I didn't really look at mosso, rackspace, or any of those posted, but you need to keep in mind whether your dedicated server is managed or unmanaged as well.

I tend to like managed servers so they host will fix problems rather than me taking my time away from other work time to fix the issues. Simply put in a support ticket and let them fix it.

Sure, the managed servers are more money, but if you aren't willing to have a dedicated server admin available, it's well worth the money.

I'm not sure if this was addressed yet in this thread, but thought I'd through it in the mix.

    Thanks a lot.

    My current hosting server set up is perfect. Simple and clean. The hosting company set up the LAMP, qmail etc for me. I managed everything from set up a ftp account, web site, email domain, dns record, cron works through shell. Only set up email accounts through web vpopmail interface. And the tech support is wonderful. Only problem is that the traffic charges is too much.

    I don't see any other good hosting companies offer the same simple and clean platform. I guess the clients pool like me is small. If you can set up all these web services through shell, most people will just set up their own boxes.

    But in my case, we don't have server guy in our team, I can do LAMP set up and updates in my developing box, but for the production box, I will pay the hosting tech guy do the LAMP set up, update, patch. Because if I did 9 of 10 works right, 1 in 10 wrong. The cost of the downtime and the fix for that 1 time will be more than pay the expert to do the 10 works. Plus the time I spend on server would be much less productive than the time I spend on php application.

    Specially, when the server has problems, such as spam attempts to the mail server, mysql server crash, updates conflicts with other preinstall system etc. I depends on the hosting tech to solve. And due to I left all the LAMP updates to them before, so the system is all their set up, they will be able to pinpoint the problems quicker. Rather than have my LAMP updates or patch works in their way.

    But I do keep track of what they were doing on the server and what the problems were and when new issue pop up, in most cases I can help the hosting tech support to pinpoint the root of the problems.

    I cannot find the same simple and clean hosting deal else where. (But I have to pay every GB big money now.)

    Then I am turning to my second option. Looking for someone fully manage the server and I will give up my power and freedom of the root access, as long as the managed box will fit in my 85% web services requests and another 10%, we have a way to get around, and the last 5% if we cannot do it, then fine.

    I was trying out Mosso's demo and talk to their tech support guys. They were knowledgeable and helpful even I am not their client yet. But their new price matrix on requests stopped me. Our projects are with heavy graphic design parts, and requests (hits) are huge.

    Plus, we host dozens sites, most of them are small, target local market, but with great graphic design works in. Meaning visits are low, CPU and memory usage are low, hits are higher.

    On the shared space like Mosso, even we have the redundancy protection. But we may pay for the hits and get less share of the server reources.

    Now I am going to check all the companies you recommend. I will look for No Outsource Tech Support, plus

    1) simple and clean platform.
    2) they manage the LAMP updates and patch and trouble shooting.
    3) they will offer extra install, update, patch service if I request. (paid of course).
    4) I will only focus on php application, and my own application scripts issues. If I have root access, great. If not, I can live with it.
    5) good backup service will be better, plan B is I can still download the sites and databaes myself.

    In simple words, I need someone to take care of server and I will just have to worry about php application. And I can sleep better knowing if there is a server problem, someone in our timezones can physically walk to the box to fix it, if it is necessary.

    I will keep you guys informed after I contact these companies. Please continue offer yoru advices. Thanks!

      Okay, traffic is where you're going to have to pay for it. No-one gives away free bandwidth. It's just not possible.

      Now, all dedicated servers allow you to customize what is set up on it to begin with. So if you don't want cPanel or Plesk or Webmin or DirectAdmin but want a strict LAMP install, you can ask for that.

      In simple words, I need someone to take care of server and I will just have to worry about php application. And I can sleep better knowing if there is a server problem, someone in our timezones can physically walk to the box to fix it, if it is necessary.

      This is exactly what managed dedicated servers are. The management team takes care of this for you. And really good companies have monitoring services which automatically email you when your server goes down or isn't reachable and should also alert them to the outtage and they should take care of it.

      When you get a dedicated managed server, you don't give up root access, you just give up your maintenance schedule so you don't have to worry about kernel upgrades or security patches for the system. Everything else (except initial setup) is up to you. Keeping PHP, MySQL, and other services up to date is up to you; although, they can do upgrades for you if you ask them to.

        as for bandwidth, I am paying 360 dollars just for 60 GB now, on top of my box rent. The larger hosting companies offer 500 up to 3000 GB free bandwidth which I will never be able to use them all.

        1and1 managed server. I have to live with whatever they give me.
        1and1 root server, they will still give me whatever they have.

        So they willl not custom install for me.

        I am checking other companies mentioned in this thread.

          LayeredTech, I have to manage everything myself. Not what I am looking for now. Later on, if I have in house great server talents or countable contractor, I will check them out.

            So far no success for me to look for a managed server(box).

            1and1 managed server.

            price, bandwidth, hardware are good. but tech support is outsourced. and managed server control panel is hard to use.

            Mosso

            charge requests over 3 millions turn me away.

            Gator

            Tech support are good. They will fully manage the server but not willing to do the updates of LAMP (even I am willing to pay.).
            MonteCarloHosting.Net

            has no sales phone number?

            Flosoft.biz

            German company. I will look in USA and Canada first.
            I will continue to try and hope people can continue give me good information.

              rackspace

              gives me a 383 $ quote. I am looking for 100-250 range.

              I google "managed server" there is a long list for people offering managed server. Who else has better "managed server" list to share?

                Okay, seriously, you can edit your posts. It's okay, we'll still read your post(s).

                I'd be careful with HostGator (I believe that's who you're calling "gator"). They do have limits to their bandwidth usage, and if you happen to overuse the bandwidth, they will cut you off, without notice, even for "unlimited" bandwidth.

                I sincerely doubt that you're going to find a redundant, managed, automatic backup, load balanced servers that are configured as a cloud, is not going to come cheap. That $383 is probably the best you're going to find. I'd be surprised if you find anything for around your price range. The best you can do is get a top of the line dedicated box with management and use a control panel to setup automatic backups, or set up your own rsync stuff with your own home box.

                  One more thing about the term "managed server"... find out where they manage up to.

                  A company I used to work for used a very large hosting company. Their version of "managed" was that they did everything hardware based, but drew the line at software. We had someone in house who dealt with that. I suspect Rackspace is similar (especially their $383 version). So definately check on what their defination of "managed" is before you sign on the dotted line.

                    with HG, you get 2,500gb with a good managed server... if he's using 60gb now... he'll never run out with 2,500

                    you have full control over the server, if you wreck something they will fix it

                    you can use ALL the resources on your server, it's yours after all... the ONLY restriction is bandwidth and of course anything "illegal"

                    fyi, i use HG, not at the dedicated server level, i'm at the reseller level and have had no problems

                    the bandwidth/resource limits for "unlimited" are for shared servers and you will be suspended for using any resource limits in the TOS before you run out of bandwidth, these restrictions, aside from bandwidth are not in place for dedicated servers.

                    if i could afford it, i'd definitely purchase a dedicated from HG

                    http://www.hostgator.com/dedicated.shtml

                    piersk wrote:

                    One more thing about the term "managed server"... find out where they manage up to.

                    A company I used to work for used a very large hosting company. Their version of "managed" was that they did everything hardware based, but drew the line at software. We had someone in house who dealt with that. I suspect Rackspace is similar (especially their $383 version). So definately check on what their defination of "managed" is before you sign on the dotted line.

                    What you are describing (the hardware based managed) is what you get for an UNmanaged server at hostgator. To me, that is NOT a managed server, that is merely a colocated server. If they call that managed, that's crazy... do they expect people to come in a swap out a hard drive if it goes down... that's ludicrous.

                    Whos would that be so I stay away from them?

                    Oh, as far as updates to your LAMP system, I'm surprised that you find HG won't update them (especially if paid).

                    I'll see if I can find more information.

                    I asked a dedicated server member at HG and he said, "On a managed server, HG will update apache, mysql, php and the linux kernel for free if you ask them to".

                    I'll post other replies if they are given.

                    LOL bpat, who cares about quad posted reply.

                      stolzyboy wrote:

                      Whos would that be so I stay away from them?

                      Much as I'd like to share, there are still a couple of NDA's hanging over my head. Needless to say I doubt you will ever use them unless you end up working for a bank or some other large company like that.

                        Hostgator is the closest one I get.

                        They said if I am on shared hosting, or if I on a reseller package, they fully managed it.

                        I think reseller package is not powerful enough for me and I may over use their resources and get me shut down.

                        I have dozens sites hosted on my server now. I don't have heavy traffic but I do have some heavy php scripts pages, which could create instant high CPU usage for very short time. I never have the performaces issues because I was on my own server.

                        But if I am on dedicated server, one salesman said yeah, we can updates you if you request a work ticket, it is based on individual case. one salesman said, no we don't do the updates, because the updates may conflict with what you did yourself and it will be too time consuming to fix that. But they can troubleshoot and fix the problems for me. Like I said before, many problems can be solved by updates.

                          If you want a cheaper alternative, you might look into FloSoft.biz's FlexServ Dedicated Server. Essentially each box is it's own server (so you have full root access, and it's completely managed by them, although it may have to run Plesk, not sure though). The difference is, that instead having dedicated HDD space, it's a SAN and mounted during boot up, so if you need more room, they can just give you more in the SAN, and you can have like 5 machines all serve data from the same place in the SAN. So you have redundancy plus dedicated IPs. And it's cost effective. The base-line is like $25 per month. Not too shabby 😉

                          I know you don't like them being in Germany; however, while I was testing out the system, they do have extremely fast response times to server outtages. Plus, they monitor all of it for you as well.

                            Thanks! I will check the German company out. Price is not the top issue. I am more comfortable with 200 dollars budget. 300 dollars are accpetable too.

                            Close to 400 dollars, then it might not be worth for me to switch. I am paying 500 - 550 a month now (100 - 150 dollars more than 400). The time and troubles to transfer all the domains I hosted now will be worth more than 2000 bucks I think.

                            All I need is some professionals manage my server for me. More like hostgator solution. But they don't auto update the dedicated server due to they will give me root access. I would rather not have root access and have them manage my server if I have to chose. But they don't have that option.

                              I got a reply from dedicated server support. He stated, "Yes we update php, mysql and the linux kernel for free if you are on a managed dedicated server with us."

                              All you need to do is ask them to do it. Typically, they will upgrade the shared/reseller servers and will notify people on their forum. At that time, you can request for HG to do it for you on your dedicated managed server.

                              I could rent a dedicated server and resell it to you. 🙂 J/K.

                                I would rather not have root access and have them manage my server if I have to chose. But they don't have that option.

                                No, you really do want root access. This way you can set up scripts like Trac or SVN repositories or easily add PEAR packages or edit php.ini or install ruby or RoR or update Perl or whatever. While you could ask them to do this for you, sometimes it's much easier to just do it yourself, especially when you want to create Trac for one client, or give one client a SVN repo and not everyone else, or you just decide you need something done "today" instead of waiting up to 72 hours for people to respond.

                                Trust me, I'm not a server admin; however, I can now successfully install and add software to a dedicated server quicker than putting in a support ticket.

                                If you have it, I have a good feeling you're going to miss it once it's gone. It really does do a lot for you in terms of freedom.

                                ~Brett

                                  Yeah, I wouldn't go w/o root access on a dedicated, you never know when you'll want to try something out yourself instead of ticketing support.

                                  And, honestly, the more you "play" around with the server, the more you'll like it and you may try more advanced things and find it fun!

                                    They didn't mention Apache in their first reply. I inquired, they said, yes, they'll update Apache for free as well.

                                      Thanks a lot.

                                      At first, I was hoping them to do all the same updates for their shared hosting as for their dedicated server. Specailly the security patches, not just for LAMP. I could accept if they just do LAMP, but at least offer the ticketing for sendmail and other crucial parts.

                                      I specifically asked the salsman, you have the same set up for shared hosting and dedicated server, why not offer update at request to dedicated server, he actually asked his supervisor and came back told me that due to I had root access, it would be time consuming if there are conflcits so they wouldn't do it even for paid requests.

                                      I think the statement Stolzyboy got from support department should be the corrent one.

                                      I would try to get the written statement from hostgator in email before I rent hostgator's server, "Yes we update apache, php, mysql and the linux kernel for free if you are on a managed dedicated server with us." Stolzyboy, maybe you can suggest them to add this to their web pages. A real fully managed server with client has root access. Big sales point for them and an assurance for the clients. (also their web page states that mysql 5 is only available for shared hosting which is not true, I have to explain to my business partner No, their statement is wrong they do offer mysql 5 for dedicated server. It is kind a liittle trouble for me to convice my business partner, specially after I dropped the hosting my business partner signed up with and we have to pay the penality.)

                                      I think I have a winner. hostgator's dedicated server with root access. (Even I may not be comfortable with big updates on product box myself, I can hire contractor to do it if needed. But I prefer hosting tech to do it.)

                                      I have a cheap developing box (my retired PC), I did apache, php, mysql, firebird install and updates myself. But for a production box, I have dozens sites running. I cannot afford the down time or mess up. As a matter of fact, I did install and update on my current production box first. Successfully done it first a few times, and then one time I was missing something. Cost me more to ask hosting tech support to fix for me, plus down time of the box. So from that, I asked them to do all the updates. Plus, that way, they knew the system very well when new problem pop up.

                                      I am paying 600 a month in average including rents, traffic, and update and trouble shoots ticketing etc. (350 dollars or more traffic, 50 dollars or less ticketing etc.) I am looking for same level service with half price, and better hardware for grows. First I will see if my current hosting company can give me a big break in traffic cost so the total cost can at least not be too far from hostgator's deal. (swithing dozens clients cost big time and big money too.) Otherwise, hostgator's dedicated server would be the one.

                                      Stolzyboy, bpat1434, and everyone else, thanks for your help and finally I can settle down with this issue now.

                                        On their dedicated server section, it states:

                                        Managed

                                        We will keep your server up to date on security, and operating system updates. Security updates are usually installed within 8-20 hours of their release from RedHat, CentOS or Microsoft.

                                        and

                                        Root

                                        You will receive full root control of the box.