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."

Comments

ASP on Linux

[delirium of disorder]

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.

Re:ASP on Linux

[mkiwi]

I recently migrated a legacy ASP server in my company (previously all Windows and Cisco servers/firewalls) to a Linux box and have had no problems. If you need ASP .NET support on Linux then you're SOL, but as far as VBScript goes (ugh) it will run fine. You can also use your existing Access databases (which I assume you have) by connecting across the network. Sun's solution works, and I believe there are a few more implementations out there if you so wish to try them.

Really though, you should migrate to a more powerful programming language like Java, Perl, or PHP. You won't understand now, but when you get the order to build a huge website later on you will thank the gods that you went for one of those solutions.

Re:ASP on Linux

[imemyself]

If you need ASP .NET support on Linux then you're SOL,

That's not entirely true, mod_mono can do atleast some ASP.NET stuff on Linux. It may not run everything, but you're not totally SOL, especially if you can tweak the ASP.NET code to make it run on Mono.

Re:ASP on Linux

[batkiwi]

What does windows.forms support have to do with ASP.NET?

Re:ASP on Linux

[SanityInAnarchy]

Not to start a flamewar but

You just did. It wouldn't hurt to do a little Google research, as most of the things you say are so untrue that I'd mod you -1 Flamebait/Astroturf if I had the points.

Does it even support winforms yet?

Yes.

.Net 2.0 is coming with VS.net 2005 and Mono has still not caught up with VS.net 2003.

Most of the 1.0 code is complete. 2.0 isn't complete, but what's implemented should work.

But cross platform it is not and its a MS technology just like win32 is, though you can have limited success with wine.

I'd hardly call 4210 applications "limited". Now, I have no clue how many of those work, or work well without tweaking, but between Wine and Cedega, I rarely run into legit apps that don't work. Of course, tools for pirating stuff like Daemon Tools causes problems...

But maybe try it before you knock it? Recent Wines are actually getting pretty damn good. It's amazing how often I'll just download some random free app off the Internet and have it work flawlessly.

More importantly, are you familiar with the history of Linux? Unix was as proprietary an OS as they come, yet they actually published APIs and stuck to them. The GNU people were essentially doing what the WineLib people are doing -- reimplementing the APIs. They weren't shooting for binary compatibility, but they wanted people to be able to take any Unix program and, with a minimum of tweaking, recompile it for the GNU system.

And really, you don't need 100% compatibility. Getting 99% compatibility probably means you get 99% of people able to switch to Linux, which means the 1% stuck on Windows are about as relevant as the 1% currently stuck on DOS.

Mono is even easier, because it was designed to be cross-platform. The actual, official Microsoft .NET code has been ported to Linux, so we know it can be done. And no sane opensource person is afraid of it because it's Microsoft's tech -- if it comes to that, we can always fork it. The fact that it was designed by an evil/incompetent corporation doesn't necessarily mean the tech was a bad idea. Think about it -- how relevant is the original AT&T Unix compared to Linux these days?

Just use Windows. If the server is cracked its the ISP's problem. Not yours if you outsource the server.

I wouldn't count on it. If the server is cracked, the "ISP" (hosting provider, most of them don't sell Internet access) certainly has a problem. But who's going to answer why you went with that provider?

I'm confused!

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

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.

Rackspace

[beavis88]

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.

Re:well... to be obvious...

[CastrTroy]

There's lots of sysadmins out there. The problem is finding a good one. I know lots of people who do sysadmin work. Even Microsoft Certified Systems Admins. A lot of these people have no idea what they are doing. A good sys admin is hard to find, and they are expensive. Not only that, if you aren't a sys admin yourself, then it's hard to interview one and really get a sense if they really know their stuff. I'm not aware of any agencies that will conduct interviews for you for positions you don't know how to fill. How do you interview an accountant when you don't know anything about accounting?

Rackspace

[zburner07]

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.

Stay away from godaddy.com

[Billly Gates]

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.

check out webhostingtalk

[WankersRevenge]

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!