Hello, Habr! I’m a call-in sysadmin, or rather, an outsourcer who consults and maintains both individuals and organizations of various profiles regarding IT infrastructure. It’s a tough, stressful, almost frantic job where I’ve seen it all: from vodka spilled on a laptop to serious server crashes in companies that managed to afford the server but oddly lacked the brains to maintain it. I think I don’t need to elaborate on what my job involves: I once left my position as a senior sysadmin to avoid having to look too much into my employer’s hands. I’m quite an experienced, grumpy admin, just like in the memes.
![[Survey and Evil] Hosting services, may they be damned](/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/a292f492f0e18729044f6f95f2c59d61.png)
I swear, some hosting providers look like this at best. At best!
I have plenty of funny and sad stories, amusing incidents, and even tales, but today I want to start with a very sore topic — hosting! Damn, those hosting services! Honestly, I feel like I’m losing it, and my criteria for choosing a service provider were grown in a scientific laboratory, sterilized, and preserved in my brain. While everyone else chooses based on the cheapest option, the bigger size, whether they run on Windows, or just any host... I’ll tell you what pushed me to conduct a survey to understand where I am right and where I am wrong. Well, admit it, where else to discuss this but on Habr.
So, if you see this text, it means I received an invite 🙂 And with your permission, I’ll start complaining right away.
What are the problems?
No one cares about performance speed
From bloggers and dog breeders with websites to development companies, everyone ignores website loading speed. There were dozens of inquiries saying, "It’s just my internet is slow, that’s why it loads like this; it’s probably fine for everyone else"The reason is that this hosting provides such speed. Meanwhile, loading the site and navigating it evokes memories of the sounds of a Dial-up modem; the rating of such a site in searches inevitably decreases, refusals increase, and all these respectable freelancers, individual entrepreneurs, and LLCs lose a significant number of visitors who could have accessed their site. I won’t even mention CDN — no one in my circle has even heard of it.
Lovers of freebies and those who throw money
Next are the lovers of two extremes: “I have free hosting, I outsmarted everyone" and "I have the most expensive hosting, I am cool.” Both categories are wrong, with the difference that the second one at least receives decent services. Free hosting is the worst evil because they will inevitably profit from you: placing ads on your resource, selling additional products, and to top it all off, they will provide the worst resources with a ton of restrictions. Overpaying is not necessary either — why would you need a VDS for a small grooming blog or a single-page website? Or why would a company need a lot of disk space when a virtual server is only going to be used for a single service with low load and small amounts of data? I believe it’s best to pay exactly for what you want to receive. And once again, I’ll repeat: free hosting cannot be good. Convince me otherwise.
TP can be interpreted as you wish
Technical support for hosting... that’s me. Yes, at smaller providers, the availability and professionalism of support leave much to be desired: they respond slowly and often don’t understand what is being asked of them — and this is when I am calling, not a fairy with a jumbled explanation, but someone who formulates questions and describes problems in professional terms and technical details.
I prefer providers with 24/7 telephone support, but if there’s a form on the website for submitting questions, it’s basically a lost cause. True, there are exceptions in both cases. But overall — it’s a gathering of students.
No one reads the details
Right now, I could blame hosting providers, but I’ll blame my clients — mature gentlemen with their own businesses who simply do not read the terms of contracts and service rules. And all the limitations of hosting come as a surprise after surprise, including the SLA. By the way, none of my corporate clients could spontaneously tell me what type of server they rented — just hosting is hosting. I tell them: “And what if your wonderful product, which you provide to clients under the SaaS model, is alongside some Azino-from-Fryazino and gets blocked along with you? Or there will be an attack on it from some clumsy young hacker?» (Well, I mean, I’m definitely more blunt). And they widen their eyes: "Wait, does that happen? Like, seriously.» I mean, these people will check the expiry date and ingredients of a cheese at Ashan three times, but the type of hosting? That’s not a big deal for them.
Unsafe safety
Safety — that’s never our thing. I look at my clients and I’m amazed — how come they don’t have seven kids, but only 0-1-2? They know absolutely nothing about safety and how to achieve it. Or it’s the same as always: buckle the seatbelt, buy insurance, dash into the pharmacy, but ignore the business, as if it can't get pregnant. Well, I don't know, getting into trouble is definitely possible — that's big problems and expenses. The thing is, not every hosting company provides decent security options, and sometimes you can honestly find this out from the user agreement. Not to mention those who promise a lot but deliver nothing and let the client down. In general, it’s essential to inquire about backup frequency and rules, uptime, antivirus measures, and server structure — even if you’re just hosting your DIY site.
Not for growth
Another issue is the lack of scalability and necessary features. I don’t know what my clients think when they start a blog, website, or online store. Judging by their vague requests for "help moving," they initially planned for a quick bankruptcy, but the project let them down and began to develop. Because many of them chose hosting without the necessary features, expansion capabilities, and speed increases, etc.
And as the cherry on the cake, constantly lost passwords and access, lack of responsibility in companies, and complete negligence among individuals, with their unwillingness to study, check, verify, and read reviews. And who should I blame after that, the hosting providers? The data centers? No, I will insist that the user is at fault (of course, unless there are cases of fraud and blatant setups from hosts — and they do exist!).
Good guys
Since we’re at it, I won’t give up bad hosts — I think the reviews will tell you everything, google it please. But about those who hardly caused me any nerves, I’ll say this: they are (there was a blog on Habr), (Selectel's blog on Habr), (they also on Habr), strangely enough, (a solid four), and my imported favorite, which won't suit everyone — .
Survey
While contemplating hosting services, a cunning idea was born in me that could potentially make life easier for both hosting providers and their users. However, to implement it, I really need statistics, particularly from a technically savvy collective intelligence.
Therefore, I ask for your help in sharing how you and your clients/bosses choose hosting services. I've created a separate survey for individuals purchasing hosting and another one for companies and their representatives. The questions are generally the same, but the form for companies is larger. If you fit into both categories, I would appreciate it if you could complete both.
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In short, I exhale, thanking you in advance for the survey, and most importantly — tell me in the comments, oh foolish me, how things are going with your hosting, what you consider when choosing, and what your dream hosting is like?
Hello, world!
Source: habr.com
