website hosting and domain registration?

[dunl]

First reply I received this year was that it must be software related. 

[dunl]

It works, it doesn't, it works, it doesn't.

Now unless some kind of electronic gremlins are in there changing settings every half month or so....I doubt it is the phpBB3. 

[fug]

With website hosting you often get what you pay for.  There are a ton of folks out there who buy some space in a data center somewhere (or set things up in their basement/garage/shed) and figure they are a hosting company.  Even the company that the CJA is hosted on (Fiends beloved branzone) has had several outages over the past 12 months and I've been less than impressed by their service. 

I prefer dedicated virtual server type setups since I have more control over how things are installed and therefore uptime.  The downside is it's more costly than your cheap hosting solutions (figure $50 a month or so) and it requires more know how to set things up. 

Another solution would be to use some sort of cloud solution (ie RackSpace)... this allows you to setup several virtual servers for failover... and you only pay for usage.  So it's a more affordable way to mimic an enterprise level solution.

[FiEND]

well, we are promised 99% uptime.  that mean we can be down 87 hours a year and not complain.  sure Robin, the extra $500 a year may get us that extra 1% uptime, but that's a tad rediculous for something that is a hobby and passtime rather than critical data.  the only times i have seen this place go down was near the beginning when they added and upgraded a lot of hardware.

as for my broner for branzone... yea it's a good one.

[fug]

LOL... i don't hate branzone... I am just not super impressed... that's not to say they are any worse than any other small hosting company. 

I guess I'm a bit of server snob... and you are right... you can spend alot of extra $$$ chasing that elusive extra 5% uptime... and then there's backups etc that add to the cost. 

[dunl]

Well, I have to say that compared to CheapFirms....err...NetFirms, I'm impressed with this site.  It loads well, is almost always up, and rarely do I remember having any issues with logging on (even that's foggy....but I think I remember an "upgrade" that took it offline for a little bit).   Like I said, it's not like we're hosting a huge gaming site, web portal to the entire known universe, or anything like that.

Waytec can tell you about slow loading times trying to get onto the site....although I think most of that is him forgetting that the mouse isn't a little furry animal. 
 

[w squared]

I have to say that I'm actually pretty impressed with the "up" time on this site. It runs smoothly enough that I don't find myself thinking about it - which is saying something, because I can get cranky

There are some other forum sites I use that are run as businesses (sponsors and such) that seem to have a much higher rate of downtime. I think for a non-profit group that relies on IT slaves (sorry...I meant to say experts ) who donate their time and knowledge this site does VERY well. Those sites have administrators who actually derive revenue from running them...and they still don't do as well as you guys.

Thanks guys!

[w squared]

I hear what you're saying...but the "commercial ventures" that I'm thinking of haven't upgraded bupkis in the time that I've been using them 

[dunl]

So for moving to a new server.....best to do it yourself, or have them do it for you? (if they do?)

[dunl]

Well, I forgot to reply back here.....we moved over to branzone (same server as CJA).  We're quite pleased with the speed....compared to before, all the Packrats think they got new computers for Xmas. 

Thanks for the suggestions all, and special thx to FiEND for hooking us up with branzone.

[shonster]

globat.com is one of the better ones ive used, im a web designer and can get it all uploaded and running properly if you need it. if youre happy with what youre using, great.