Server Hosting for a Startup, General Information

[Viper]

Hey everyone, i was checking out MMORPG.com and came across this page. I figured the information would be helpful. http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/highborn/41 ... artup.html

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Written by: Highborn, from the Browser MMORPG "Disciple"

During the production of Disciple and in some previous ventures, I've gotten familiar with the pros and cons of several different types of hosting. I'm not going to share my opinions on specific hosting providers, but I do want to share my learnings on types of hosting and what we have found worked the best.

First, there are 4 main types of hosting that one considers:
Shared
Co-Located
Dedicated
Virtual/Cloud
Each of these has pros and cons, which I will cover.

Shared

These are the cheap hosted accounts which you share resources on a server (or cluster of servers). These aren't a fit for a game of this type, but there are many instances in which they would work well. For instance, if I were to be creating a traditional website, there is no reason to start on anything larger than a shared hosting account. Then, after you outgrow that, you can move to one of the larger hosting types.

Pros:
CHEAP!
Easy management, usually with nice control panel
No need to get your hands dirty with setting up web or database servers

Cons:
Usually very limited resources. If you grow quickly you can easily hit the limits of this type of account.
You can only run the types of code they support. Usually Java and more advanced services are not available
Performance is usually mediocre at best since they tune the servers to support everyone, rather than how your code needs to run

When to use it:
Early stage of a startup (alpha or beta)
Simple web applications
Company landing pages

Co-Located

Co-located hosting is where the provider provides the power, bandwidth, and rack space and you provide the servers. This means that you're responsible for either purchasing or leasing the server.

Pros:
Can be cheaper in the long-run than dedicated hosting
You can get great performing servers that fit your needs exactly

Cons:
Expensive cash up-front for servers or a long-term lease commitment
Rack space is still not cheap
You are responsible for most aspects of server management

When to use it:
You're business plan is set and you have predictable revenue streams
You need beefier servers than most hosting providers will give you at reasonable costs

Dedicated

Dedicated hosting provides a good balance of cheap start-up costs and great performance with the ability to run anything you want. There are many "managed" hosting providers out there too that will handle the management aspects of your server, such as monitoring and taking care of simple problems for you.

Pros:
Little to no start up costs
Great performance
In many instances less management than co-located servers

Cons:
Often there are long-term contracts, especially for "managed" hosting
You will still manage many aspects of your servers
Usually high monthly costs

When to use it:
You need more power than a shared hosting provider, but aren't ready for the commitment of purchasing or leasing servers

Virtual/Cloud

While this technology isn't new, virtualization technology has greatly improved in the last several years to the point that this has created a whole new market segment in hosting. This started slowly with "Virtual Private Servers" (VPSs) and has morphed into what is now called cloud computing. Cloud computing is typically a combination of technologies - virtual servers and then a mechanism for users to either manually or programatically provision new servers on-demand. This has been a boon for startups and is our current choice of hosting environments.

Pros:
Near-instantaneous server provisioning
Great environment for building scalable applications
No setup costs
Advanced features available such as server cloning and backups
Typically high-performance servers are available
For the price of 1 dedicated servers, you may get 6 virtual servers

Cons:
Managing all aspects of large number of virtual servers can create management overhead
A single virtual server is not as powerful as dedicated servers, but much more powerful than shared servers

When to use it:
Any startup
A great alternative to shared hosting providers for a small increase in price
An application that needs horizontal scalability

Conclusions
At this point, it should be evident why we are using a cloud provider. With any online game, the demand can fluctuate quickly and with little to no notice. If we were using a dedicated or co-located provider, our only solution would be to have servers sitting idle "just in case". With our current provider, we can clone an existing web, application, or database server in about 15 minutes and immediately have additional capacity. We think that this gives us the best chance to make sure that when you, our players, come to our game, you can get the best experience possible.
I hope this little bit of tech insight has been useful and I'll try to answer any questions anyone may have in the comments.
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I figure this may help anyone, if they are trying to start figuring out their hosting plan.

Viper

[Noctrine]

I say that, for anyone who needs to figure out anything related to web hosting. The best resource you have here is none other than Jattenale.Who just so happens to own a web hosting company.

[kyraneth]

nice find viper, thanks for posting this

#noctrine:

i have heard money good things about jatt's hosting services, i should check it out. anyone has a link?

[Raven67854]

#Kryaneth
http://www.apiservers.com/

[kyraneth]

thanks for the link but it seems jatt is running maintenance on his website...

[Noctrine]

It does doesn't it. You should still talk to him though.

[hallsofvallhalla]

I can vouch for Jatt's servers. I won one during a contest and it had good speeds with no downtime during my owning it.

[Alice11]

The server is hosted in contrast to the austere dedicated hosting. Shared hosting server ensures that the site will be hosted with many other sites and have to survive in the same company. When the site administrators to take a site to a host and ask for shared hosting services, they ensure that the hosting service that this site will be shared with other devices as well. The cost of shared hosting less compared to dedicated hosting. This is because the server which hosts the site has more players on the block, there will be survivors on the host with the site.