Start from the be beginning....

[ezmoney]

Hello forum this is my first of many post to come as I learn more about the hosting biz. I am a college student looking to get a head start on my future. I am trying to find out as much as I can about the hosting business so that I can one day start my own local company.

I would be greatful if anyone here can tell me what I need to learn about hosting, what equipment I need if I was to start a small hosting company for just my local area. The type of internet connection I will need etc... What type of servers do I need and what are the differnce between the flat servers that you see and plain towers of computers that you see?

You can use any of the basic computer lingo that you feel will help you get your point across easier. Also if you could give some example of servers and billing programs that you think would best fit a new comer with a small local hosting company in mind it would be great.

If this is the wrong place for me to post my newbie post I would be greatful if one of the admins could move this post to where it would be most helpful to me.

I havn't seen any flamers here as of yet and I hope that I don't, but if there are any out there who wish to put a negative view on my dream I would be greatful if you didnt post at all thank you.

Also if you see someone post a reply and you feel they left something out or you have an differnt view or another point of that person post it will also be taken in great thought.

Thank you in advance to anyone and all who post a reply that will help me.

[northwindwebhost.com]

Honestly, if you are beginning I would recommend you go with a Resellers Plan. Although this wouldn't give you any root access, it makes your life a lot easier and all you really have to worry about is getting clients.

If you plan on getting your own server there are many key factors in which direction you go.

From reading your post, it seems you want to get your own box and run it locally, (like in an office?).

For this to happen, it gets pretty expensive. You need at *least* a T1 line for your server to be connected to the internet on a decent connection. However you will notice, the more connections you add on to your server, the slower it will be.

A T1 line is only 1.5 MB/Sec. This means if there are 20 requests on the server, it is distributed at 75 KB/Sec. This already is a bit to slow for many broadband users. Althought just web requests are a bit different from actual downloads so you will most likely be able to get a few more connections to the server without the connection being real slow.

The "flat" server you are mentioning is called a 1U Rackmount Server. There are up to 4U Rackmount Servers. However a 4U is basically like a midsized case, just turned to its side.

These are usually kept in a "locked or opened" cabinet and stacked so it becomes storage efficient. This is usually the main advantage of getting a Rackmount Server.

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Honestly, for a beginning company, I would recommend you get something not so high-end. Something like a P3 1.2 - 1.4 would do fine. I say this because, you don't want to get a $2000 server and decide that you cannot manage it any more.

On the server you will need a few programs to run efficently. This includes an ftp program, dns, apache, an Linux or Windos OS, and a few others (can't think right now ). If you go with Linux, (which I would really recommend) you will need to know the basics of how to use it.

Control Panel

Todays standards, every hosting company usually is equiped with a control panel. You can of course create your own or pay for one. cPanel is one of the more "user-friendly" control panels out along with plesk and ensim pro. These are all paid control panels however.

If you need something free, you will need webmin. I consider this one of the "better" free control panels.

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Overall you can just consider to co-located or lease a server. Of course this means you won't be able to have your hands on the server but it will save you a lot of expenses. Plus them may offer cPanel at a discounted rate.

Well this is all I could think of right now, come back if you need anything else. =)

[northwindwebhost.com]

Oh and I just wanted to add.

This isn't a quick easy money scheme. It takes hard work and dedication to your work and your customers for it to grow.

You will most probably lose a few hundred dollars to maybe a few grand depending on how you will go, but once you go up, it gets easier and easier to keep yourself up.

hehe, I say this because your username kinda reminded me of how many hosts have gone out of business because they never figured the workload would be this much. So they basically take their clients money and abandon their business.

This is not something you want to do. =)

[vanitha]

Oh,

Donot go for a reseller plan straightway

if you have 10 cutomer having 20domains each.

When the server goes down ones then you have to respond all the 200mail at ones.

You should have that support staff in resource in the intial stageof business its hard to havelot of support staffs
that to you planned to have with in your local area.

So start with shared hostings when you experienced that then think of a reseller plans.

Best of luck......


Interest with dedication will take you to victory.

Hope you will establish well............

[vanigopi]

Hai,


Its really a good idea going with Reseller plan


since you are not investing for datacenter or for the support staff or any maintanace anything else.

you jusy pay for your plan and reselling with some margin


you are only work is marketing

the only chance of getting loss is when you keep the domains idle

thats may have less chance

start with 10 domain paln initally that will cost only 30$-50$ only.

To start a business with only $30-$50 is not much risk.

After selling 10 domain will getting in to 20 domain plan in next time.

Just make step by step progress in increasing your plan....


One more thing while increasing your plan compare with your offer if you can able to make lot of customer then go for 50 or 100 domain plans

while doing like this plan accordingly to increase your schemes.

You may get for lower price when your plan will become higher and higher so that you're profit will increase.....


so when you cover more customer your profit % will increase for each old customer to?

you can't find this type od things in other business like this....

anyway plan well before stepping in to business

a basic things to become a sucessfull business man is

dedication
involvement
timing sense
bit a luck tooo