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Managed ASP Web Hosts?
maumedia asks: "I'm hoping someone can help me here, as I'm nearing frantic on this issue. I need a good Windows/ASP managed host -- a company that will manage/troubleshoot a dedicated server for us. My research has turned up either shared hosts, or dedicated hosts, and not very much in-between. If we're not ready to hire a sysadmin and pay for our own backbone, but we've outgrown the massively-shared hosting system, where can we go? I'm really hoping for an answer that doesn't involve a move to PHP/Linux, as it makes much more sense to us to utilize the resources we have at hand."
I can't recommend a specific provider, but I would like to point out that moving to Linux does not mean abandoning your ASP code. Java System ASP is cross platform; you can provide ASP content using a Linux, Windows, Solaris, or other *nix server.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
You say you need a dedicated hosting, but can only find shared and dedicated hosting. Isn't the second of those what you want? Seems everywhere I look offers what you are looking for unless I'm misunderstanding something. GoDaddy.com offers ASP/ASP.NET hosting as either shared, dedicated, or even dedicated virtual servers. I'm confused I guess on what your looking for.
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Not to be a negative Nancy but since Apache is 70% of the market (not including domain parking), it's not really a profitable area for people to do managed hosting for such a small market. It's funny because I get this same run around from people when I tell them I run Linux... but in this case, the reverse is true; LAMP (linux, apache, mysql and php) are the standard that the web revolves around and having gone with ASP and IIS sort of leaves you in a bind.
Honestly, I can also say that it is not going to get any better. More and more hosting companies are lowering their IIS support do to the costs it incurs and mainly because a LAMP architecture can host more domains with fewer resources, lower costs and lower amount of day to day maintenance.
Maybe PHP isn't your best bet and maybe you'd like to even try Apache Tomcat instead of Apache but honestly, it is in your companies best interest to move their architecture over to something more commonly used in order for them to lower their costs in the long run and take advantage of a larger and cheaper employee pool.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Look at the top of your screen. Ive been seeing rackspace banner adds for a decade. In the Internet world, that means something. Go with them, or one of their high-volume cookie cutter competitors.
A better choice might be a local "solutions" company. They might not have backup generators, or n+1 AC units, but there are plenty of places better then your closet.. If your in a city with, say, >500,000 people then you have at least a couple of consulting shops who would do hosting. Their "management" might be only monitoring, with time/materials for actual responses/requests. With an SLA that clearly states what is their fault, and thus part of the monthly bill, then even if you get hit for $100/hr calls, they will be minimal, and worth it. With more-and-more VMWare hosting partners popping up, the hosting itself could be very minimal.
For something that is "important", and by that I mean making money for someone, I couldnt recommend shared hosting under any circumstances. Rackspace somewhere will almost definitly be cheaper then a last-mile connection with a good SLA.
it just seems to me like you guys are being stubborn about going the route you should be going. If you've out grow the shared environment,it's time to contract a sys admin. there are plenty out there that are willing to work on a contract basis.
That said, i've encountered data centers that have system administration services for an additional cost. I would suggest you start by talking to your data center and see if they offer this service or if they know of contacts you can talk to. If they don't do it, then they've only got to gain by referring a friend that wouldn't mind administrating if it means you might pick up your server and leave.
Fairly expensive, but they seem to know what they're doing, and most importantly to a company like mine without lots of dedicated tech staff, they give a damn about solving your problems quickly and correctly.
Maybe www.2advanced.net might be up your alley.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
I would definitely recommend Rackspace. As part of my job I have dealt with them for several setups for both our own projects and projects. They're not kidding when they say that they have fanatical support, they've always been super responsive, given clear warnings about anything going on that might effect our service, and have proven extremely knowledgable. In addition to maintaining your server they are also very good at helping you grow and scale your enviroment as you need.
Rackspace is definitely not cheap but they are absolutely worth every penny and are perfectly targeted for your situation.
Sorry if this sounds like an ad but I truely have been amazed by my experiances with rackspace and will always recommend them to anybody in this situation.
Reason?
Go lookup last week's (or 2 weeks ago news) under the spam section here on slashdot? Godaddy has done some unethical things with leaving their sendmail relay's open and then closing your account and hijacking your domain for punishment for spamming even though someone else spammed by using their open relay under your domain name. Sleezy and could be expensive for several days of downtime while your legal team faxes threatening documents until your domain name is released back.
Even if you own your domain name its still not a company I would want to do business with.
http://saveie6.com/
www.webhost4life.com and www.serverintellect.com. I have been happy with both. While not having used their dedicated services ( i went straight to colocation ), i have been more than happy with their shared/virtual services.
We have been using INetU for 6 years and have been very happy with them. We are hosted on FreeBSD/Apache, but INetU offers Windows/IIS too. Tech support has always been very responsive (usually can get someone on the phone immediately) for FreeBSD, and the machines have been very reliable.
One, you are asking a linux-based culture about windows and ASP. I could tell you ahead of time that it won't work.
Two, (Wait, I just thought of one. 1and1 is where I get my LAMP hosting, but reciently they have been doing Win2003 hosting.) ASP is not the industry standard, so seriously consider porting your code to work with ASP-on-linux or even better Perl or PHP on GNU+Linux. It will save you a lot of time in the end.
Seriously.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Though Slashdot does cater to the tech heads, I recommend you check out webhostingtalk.com being it caters exclusively to webhosts and webmasters with a gazillion members. Not only will find the answer to your question but you'll also have a good place to research any hosts hosts - sketchy or otherwise. I'm not affiliated with them, but I've found all my hosts through them. It's a great community. Good luck!
I would _not_ recommend 1and1 for anything.
In my experience their support has been awful, even when the problem is their fault. I had a situation where they refused to place a bad hard drive (DMA suddenly stopped working), and finally had to move to a new host.
I'd stay away from 1and1 like the plague.
They completely lost one of my colocated servers, and pretty much told me to go screw myself in the process.
Then, had the audacity to send my account to collections because I didn't pay for the month of service that I didn't use.
I disable sigs...do you?
I use and like goDaddy.
Cheap and reliable. They do Linux/php and Windows/asp.
Mosso uses server clusters lets you run both ASP and PHP on the same setup for $100 a month. No root access, but an interesting blend of features. Might be more accessible than VPS, which is the other choice between shared and dedicated. It's owned by Rackspace Managed Hosting.
RichM
Data Center Knowledge
I've worked with folks who work at this place for years (No, I don't work there, thanks for playing *grin*) and they do good work. Been in business for several years, host several thousand servers (not just several k v-sites), and actually have people with a clue, a real 24x7 NOC, etc. They're who I recommend to people for ASP stuff. http://www.maximumasp.com/
They have sort of a mixed reputation generally (hence the whole 'headhunters' name), but in some cases they can really be a benefit, particularly if you have a high-value position to fill, and you don't have the resources to recruit and interview yourself (e.g., you only have to fill this position once every few decades or something).
Like most things in life, good ones don't come cheap though, so it all depends on what you want to pay for.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I've hosted a number of various machines with ThePlanet through Servermatrix - they have some of the best pricing on the market and their backbone speed, network stability and uptime are comparable to a lot of the more expensive providers like Rackspace. They have managed solutions available for their windows servers last I checked.
"Make it idiot proof, and someone will make a better idiot."
Hostmysite will do a lot for you as far as helping you troubleshoot problems with your site. They're not there to write the code for you, but generally go beyond the average host
laid me off, but after the Dot.Bust I was eventually laid off by what is now known as Navisite (navisite.com) and they have always specialized in managed hosting for both Windows and *nix. When I was there up through 2003, they had more Windows admins than *nix admins.
I would highly recommend AdHost, a company in Seattle, which specializes in colocated and dedicated servers with great managed hosting plans. They have friendly and knowledgeable staff and in my experience have been very good to deal with.
A company that is great at providing dedicated hosting will almost certainly be excellent at providing shared hosting. So, the recommendations here have a VERY wide audience.
Yes, it's probably time to get away from GoDaddy. People are reporting a lot of different areas of abuse.
--
The U.S. government is so superior that Arabs should be happy to be killed by it?
I'm not surprised that Daemon-Tools doesn't work though on Wine given that it is a kernal level driver. There is a way around that if you can use iSCSI. Use a iSCSI initiator on the Linux side and something like StarWind on the Windows side to present the Daemon-Tools virtual CD to Linux. It'd be very weird, but it would work. [Why you would want to do that, I have no idea unless you have no, or s-l-o-w, Windows boxen and are running Daemon in a VM. REAL weird!]
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
Check out Via West. they are keen about providing whatever you want with the background to support it. viawest.net
I don't know what your geographic area and complete requirements are, but... buy a box, or two, or three, or four... and get a co-located setup with a provider such as CyrusOne. I am not associated with them in anyway but have done enough due diligence to know that these people are experts. http://www.cyrusone.com/
They have both Windows and *nix professionals on hand 24x7x365 and there's various levels of 'management'.
I hope this helps.
The Brinkster web site seems very amateurish to me. Look at the all caps: "TRAFFIC STATS (coming soon)". They don't yet have traffic statistics?
If you've out grow the shared environment, it's time to contract a sys admin.
Isn't that what a hosting provider is? Don't the companies that offer shared, dedicated or managed servers "admin" them?
That might beg the question of what specifically a sys admin does, but that goes beyond the scope of this thread, maybe. Or maybe the answer to that would help define "managed" host.
What you're looking for is a managed dedicated server..
GrokThis.net is a pretty good host, they're Linux-centric and only advertise unmanaged dedicated servers, but they've worked out custom quotes for me in the past with management included.
As for ASP.. they offer Mono for ASP.NET hosting (on Linux), and they're very comfortable with Xen if you need Windows for something (such as MS SQL Server). You could install Sun's ASP engine if you need to support 'classic' ASP apps.
If you're not too scared of going down the Linux route, they can probably both provide the environment you're looking for, but also the management services you need.
I have been looking for a good asp.net host.
Oh yeah? Well I have been looking for an AMD to P3 adapter, and I don't want your uninformed zealotry about how this wont work and how I should buy a whole new motherboard. Everything else in my computer's set up for a pentium 3, and it'd take me days to swap out motherboards and hook things back up, so this is completely out of the question.
Meanwhile, maybe you should consider that the grandparent poster is right, regardless of what the submitter wants to hear, and whoever decided that the application was to be in ASP.net be sacrificed on a bloody altar so that the application can be rewritten in a language that people actually use in the real world. If there was a demand for ASP.net hosting, then why do you have to ask slashdot for asp.net hosts?
I know, you can start a company and host for yourself and the submitter. And whoever else eventually shows up.
Hébergement dédié
Très bonne connectivité
Configuration performante à la carte
Haut débit
Bas coût
Très bonne qualité de service
Support technique extrêmement compétent
Aucune limite d'utilisation
C-Dedie !
I have been using 1asphost for a long time maybe three years now. I just use the free service, but I highly recommend them.