Managed Hosting Pricing

[SteveO32]

I am new to the forum and need some help with pricing a managed host package.

We are looking at 3 servers (2 web and DB), a firewall (probably a Cisco-class unit), some type of automated backup and normal traffic (not porn or high-bandwidth stuff).

We have just begun shopping and the prices seem to be all over the map.

Can you guys give me an idea of what is fair for this config?

Thanks a lot,

SteveO

[Steve-O Fan]

I think they all kinda rip you off anyways! :D

[SteveO32]

That is why I posted this. The quotes are all over. I was hoping someone with a similar config would let me know what they are paying.

SteveO

[Satori]

Well, it would be impossible to put out an estimation without much more specific details on what you need than those. Are you looking at all SCSI servers with RAID, or will you be relying on the backup systems and disaster recovery to take care of any hardware failures? If the latter, will the backups be to a server mounted tape drive, or to a NAS or a SAN even? If it's a tape drive, are the tapes offsite? If they are, have you figured in the time to ship them back to your server (if the local tape doesn't have what you need on it) into your disaster recovery procedure? Will you be doing the DR work, or do you expect the staff at the datacenter to handle it for you? Do you need VPN access to the firewall? Will the configuration grow in servers, and if so, do you know if the firewall will need to be big enough to handle that scaling, or are you alright with some downtime if the firewall needs an upgrade too? How about backside networking? Are these servers multihomed, and will you want to push some of your traffic internally? How does that factor in pricing with bandwidth costs, and speaking of those, how much do you think you'll need for the entire configuration?

I imagine that the price tag on your configuration could range anywhere from $3k a month to $15k a month, depending on how you answer the above questions, and the 50 or 60 other questions that I didn't ask. Obviously, that's a huge spread! Find out exactly what your minimum requirements are before shopping much. Analyze your IT resources as honestly as you can and determine whether you need to rely on external expertise or not for day to day operations, and whether or not you can handle worst case scenarios independantly as well. If your budget is tight, find out where you want your corners cut - there will be companies that offer you very, very low costs, possibly even below the bottom end I described in this post, but they won't volunteer how they are capable of bringing their prices down. Do your best to find out on your own, otherwise you might be depending on a service that just isn't up to snuff or worse, that isn't even there. Remember that if it looks too good to be true... it probably is ;.)

Cheers,

Satori

PS - I don't work in the sales department at my company, so I couldn't actually provide a hard quote if you provided all the info - if you need one in a hurry, feel free to give us a call so that one of them can help you though!

[Sarah]

Pricing is a differcult one but one thing you need to check is whether the support charges are included in the price.

You may think you are getting a good deal but as soon as you pick up the phone to put a support call in you could be charged as much as $50.

Have you tried submitting your requirements through HostQUOTE (http://www.hostquote.com/dedicated2.asp). Try the dedicated section as some of the web hosts also do Managed hosting. You will then be able to compare them with some you may already have.