Why Sharing Can Be Hazardous to Your E-Commerce Business

[Sarah]

Would you share office space, personnel, equipment, or even customer leads with your competitors? Of course not. Why then do so many business owners share their web servers with companies all over the world? While we may have been taught to share things all our lives, when it comes to your company?s web hosting, sharing is not your best option. In fact, it could cost you thousands of dollars in lost e-commerce business.

In the world of e-commerce, consistent accessibility is one of the most important features. If your site goes down due to a server error, it can devastate your business. This is why more and more companies are implementing dedicated servers as a better way to host and manage their sites. After all, why share when you can have your own?

[thecoolh]

hmm

cuz rackshack is the ideal example of why its better to be virtually hosted by a host instead of getting a dedicated server if the site isn't too big for it...

there are soo many legitimate examples (many not provided by me, lol) of how a dedicated server provider can provide cheap generally "crappy" hardware and not provide any support if it decides to fail... "oops, the hard disk failed... but its all your problem because you're the dumbass for not reading the fine print in your contract saying we don't care if the hard disk we provided fails, and we won't help you recover your data unless you pay us $150/hour... but we don't know how long it'll take, so you might want to organize a bank loan to pay our bill"...

if a server at a virtualhost fails, its more likely they'll get to it much faster than a dedicated server client (unless you happen to be extraordinarily large) because its not just 1 client they have to worry about... (it isn't about the revenue, its about their reputation, if the host cares about their business that is...)... 100 complaints from $10 clients is much more damaging than one complaint from one $1000 client...

[Jaiem]

OTOH, I can't see a company like Amazon running on shared servers. ;)

[thecoolh]

didn't i say on the first paragraph of my reply: "if the site isn't too big for it"

? most of the ecommerce sites i've seen on dedicated servers could probably run off virtual hosting accounts... even a lot of my own clients... but the profit margin is larger on dedicated servers in most cases... so most hosts don't say anything about it...

[Brad]

Actually I don't invision shared hosting as sharing your office space or personal equipment at all. I picture it more as a virtual mall, where all the shops share the same roof over their head but are totally seperate. Yes, they are on the same machine but if that machine is managed correctly, it doesn't matter if it's dedicated or shared.

Theres plenty of room under the same roof for most ecommerce sites, rarely does an ecommerce site see the kind of traffic needed for a dedicated server. Rarely will they ever lose thousands of dollars just because they are on a shared server. If the server is over loaded, then it's time to move on to a better managed solution.

Even a dedicated server can have the same problems as a shared one, not managed well, network problems and more. Constant accessibility is always going to be a broken factor, it's the nature of the Internet. Network problems will always exist at one time or another, whether it's shared, dedicated, etc. Server errors happen on the best of both too.

The costs have come down on dedicated servers, which makes them attractive but the knowledge factor needed to take care of a dedicated server is now in the hands of the ecommerce owner. Most ecommerce sites don't have the time and knowledge to manage a dedicated server, keep it secure and run their business, this is why a managed, shared server is attractive.

The uptime of a well managed dedicated server is no better then a well managed shared one. Show me proof.

[thecoolh]

exactly... :) thats exactly what i wanted to say much more elegantly... hehe... :)

hehe... and amazon would have to be in one big mall... i mean... you do see department stores in malls, don't you? amazon.com = department store... :P

[dibby]

Pure ***opinion*** from a developer :-

I think any site that stores CC numbers online automatically has to be on a dedicated server - no debate (additionally any site who stores CC numbers in a database with no encryption might as well publish them on the front page).

As for price, search for managed - do you seriously need root access? In most cases, no. If you need certain software installed, think of it as a startup cost in with the business. One recent experience I had involved a small dedicated server, fully managed, no root access for a low fee. The only problem was that the stock php/mysql install wasnt up to scratch, but it was $75 for a custom install as a one time only fee - cant really argue can you?

If the site is relativly small and the cards are being processed thru a gateway providing ssl - then shared is ok. However there are some easy tests to do just to check out a shared host, not 100% gurantee you a safe trip, but it'll narrow down a large extent of the problems/vunerabilities of shared hosting.

Signup 2 accounts (money back garantee's come into nice play with this) - telenet/ssh into one account, and try to enter the other accounts dir. If this works, o lord please post the name of the host so all can stay clear. Next try other_account/www/ or other_account/public_html/ or whatever the host setup is.

If you gain access on this (and i know it seems laughable, but i've seen it on a dozen different hosts) then you cancel both your accounts and continue searching.

Next, make a text file with a unique id e.g. your_name_some_number and upload it to account A.

From account B telnet/ssh and do a grep or whatever the os's native search facility is for the your_name_some_number and see if it returns the file.

If none of these works, your in with a shot.

If you are using email to pass details from a site e.g. order details, use some type of encryption. I'm not an expert on encryption, thats for the think tanks, but a low level is certainly better than no level. Even passing the output via php/perl using their functions but preferably something like pgp and the various open source/free for comercial use alternatives available.

I know this probably bored most of you to tears, but it might help someone :-)

With regards to the amazon comment, if they keep buying servers from compaq, their budget may well require them to move to shared hosting in the near future :-)

Long live the google cluster!