RustyMic
23 Sep 2008, 06:40 PM
Need some advise from those within the industry. . .
Nearly a year ago my company split from our web developer after working together for 5 years. During that time, our site had grown from virtually non-existent to reaching approx 30k unique visitors a month. The site was designed, maintained, and hosted through our developer on a shared server. It came the time when our developer wanted to move our site to a dedicated server, which was the beginning of our separation. At the time, I was already frustrated with their hosting fees which were racking up to approx $700 month. Moving to a dedicated server was going to double the monthly hosting fee. . .which didn't include the maintenance, updates, or marketing. $16,800 a year to host a site? I could drop a T1 and still have enough money to buy a new server every 2 months if I wanted.
After consulting with a good friend of mine in the IT world, we decided to cut the expense of their hosting fees and move elsewhere. After discussing this with them, we quickly learned that they would not longer continue work for us. Security and liability was their response and refused to continue doing business if our site was on any server except for theirs. So the day came and the site was moved. Our site is currently hosted on-site, and am happy to say performance, speed and security has not been affected thanks to the help of my comrade. . . ah, but the feeling is bittersweet.
Although the site is stable and secure, the ease of picking up the phone to have a page updated or a new function added has been swept away. Is it normal practice for developers (legitimate business', not freelancers) to only serve on their servers? I'm in a situation now were we'd like to redesign our site from the ground up, but would like to continue hosting on-site. Is this something that's going to be problematic or are there companies that will take on the job within my requirements? Any advise, tips, or feedback are truly appreciated. I'd love to hear from those on the other side of the table. . .
Nearly a year ago my company split from our web developer after working together for 5 years. During that time, our site had grown from virtually non-existent to reaching approx 30k unique visitors a month. The site was designed, maintained, and hosted through our developer on a shared server. It came the time when our developer wanted to move our site to a dedicated server, which was the beginning of our separation. At the time, I was already frustrated with their hosting fees which were racking up to approx $700 month. Moving to a dedicated server was going to double the monthly hosting fee. . .which didn't include the maintenance, updates, or marketing. $16,800 a year to host a site? I could drop a T1 and still have enough money to buy a new server every 2 months if I wanted.
After consulting with a good friend of mine in the IT world, we decided to cut the expense of their hosting fees and move elsewhere. After discussing this with them, we quickly learned that they would not longer continue work for us. Security and liability was their response and refused to continue doing business if our site was on any server except for theirs. So the day came and the site was moved. Our site is currently hosted on-site, and am happy to say performance, speed and security has not been affected thanks to the help of my comrade. . . ah, but the feeling is bittersweet.
Although the site is stable and secure, the ease of picking up the phone to have a page updated or a new function added has been swept away. Is it normal practice for developers (legitimate business', not freelancers) to only serve on their servers? I'm in a situation now were we'd like to redesign our site from the ground up, but would like to continue hosting on-site. Is this something that's going to be problematic or are there companies that will take on the job within my requirements? Any advise, tips, or feedback are truly appreciated. I'd love to hear from those on the other side of the table. . .