When you being the search for managed hosting. What are your top 3 features you look for?I want to make sure that the server will be secure in the end.Price is important; making sure it's not double the prices of others.And uptime. They should be able to fix any downtime errors quickly at 2 AM in the morning.Reasonable requests. Thank you for the input.Truely for managed hosting, If im talking about for business use I would expect the following.... * monthly patching of OS and any supported software* 24*7 server and service monitoring* 4 hour hardware failure replacementThats my top 3, others would include 24/7 telephone support and high uptime. Although I would expect to pay a premium for this, much like rackspace 
Greetings:
What is the guaranteed response time?
What portions of the service are proactive, and how those parts of the service are proactive?
How long has the company been in business?
There was a post about price. Since there are no established patterns, and there are some companies that undercharge in relation to their costs (something is not right ?either experience, skils, etc.), listing price as a top three factor is not safe in my opinion.
Thank you.I would always make sure that whatever you expect you get down in detail on a contract. Main points such as uptime and 24x7 support are fairly well marketed by every and all companies but discovering the intangibles is also pretty important.1. Are they any good i.e. Uptime/References...2. Do they really understand what you need/want or are they just going to upsell you at every opportunity.3. How flexible do you need them to be to fit into your existing business modelWhat is the guaranteed response time?
What portions of the service are proactive, and how those parts of the service are proactive?
How long has the company been in business?
First 2 there I agree with, thats really important, but the How long have they been in business could be a little unfair, since it potentially writes off all new startups which will stop them ever getting a foothold in the industry. Just becuase the company is new doesn't mean their equipment and staff aren't up to it!Truely for managed hosting, If im talking about for business use I would expect the following.... * monthly patching of OS and any supported software* 24*7 server and service monitoring* 4 hour hardware failure replacementThats my top 3, others would include 24/7 telephone support and high uptime. Although I would expect to pay a premium for this, much like rackspaceSee, I agree with your definition, but we operate under a different one. Just for comparison, yesterday one of our fully-managed clients asked for us to restore a database from backup, but he only needed info from a few rows, so we restored it to a temp database which allowed him to get what he needed and update the live db.To us, that is fully managed. Perhaps the things you mentioned are "managed" ? It's a shame there is so much confusion over this topic.Regards,See, I agree with your definition, but we operate under a different one. Just for comparison, yesterday one of our fully-managed clients asked for us to restore a database from backup, but he only needed info from a few rows, so we restored it to a temp database which allowed him to get what he needed and update the live db.
To us, that is fully managed. Perhaps the things you mentioned are "managed" ? It's a shame there is so much confusion over this topic.
Regards,
I agree, Managed hosting is a topic which is somewhat a gray area, I would agree with what you said also with regard to the database backup, but I would also say there are 'levels' of service in managed hosting going from basic OS updates and hardware support to full application support and development.Price is important; making sure it's not double the prices of others.
depends on what sort of management we are talking about right?
Double the cost? heck, the definition of fully managed dramatically changes from 1 provider to the next. I can see the price easily being double or triple for a real fully managed solution compared to scaled down "fully managed" definition.
How much does proactive monitoring cost?
How much does 24x7x365 proactive response cost? (ie techs are on the server before you contact them with a problem)
How about managed firewalls?
How about managed backups?
etc, etc, etc...
Price of managed hosting varies dramatically because the services being offered vary dramatically.
See, I agree with your definition, but we operate under a different one. Just for comparison, yesterday one of our fully-managed clients asked for us to restore a database from backup, but he only needed info from a few rows, so we restored it to a temp database which allowed him to get what he needed and update the live db.
To us, that is fully managed. Perhaps the things you mentioned are "managed" ? It's a shame there is so much confusion over this topic.
Regards,
Hi Karl - absolutely correct. Fully managed means fully managed - ie customers just deal with it like they would a large shared account - except the environment is dedicated to them... and they have zero technical expectations placed on them...
regarding that restore example you used - you really really really should look at r1soft's CDP solution. You can give clients access to their own backups and they can restore individual tables, etc from the DB right to their live site without issue...depends on what sort of management we are talking about right?Double the cost? heck, the definition of fully managed dramatically changes from 1 provider to the next. I can see the price easily being double or triple for a real fully managed solution compared to scaled down "fully managed" definition.How much does proactive monitoring cost?How much does 24x7x365 proactive response cost? (ie techs are on the server before you contact them with a problem)How about managed firewalls?How about managed backups?etc, etc, etc...Price of managed hosting varies dramatically because the services being offered vary dramatically. Hi Karl - absolutely correct. Fully managed means fully managed - ie customers just deal with it like they would a large shared account - except the environment is dedicated to them... and they have zero technical expectations placed on them...regarding that restore example you used - you really really really should look at r1soft's CDP solution. You can give clients access to their own backups and they can restore individual tables, etc from the DB right to their live site without issue...Thanks for the tip, but we use Ahsay and like it's feature set more. We did look at r1soft but it was too limited for what we wanted. The issue with the restore was not that he wanted one table, but some rows from that table. I doubt r1soft is that granular and at last check it's not MSSQL aware.For our fully-managed clients, we do have some technical expectations on them if they are running custom software or have some custom setups, but we have level 3 and 4 techs that respond to them right away and either help work them through their issues, help investigate issues or offer advice.Kind Regards,Thanks for the tip, but we use Ahsay and like it's feature set more. We did look at r1soft but it was too limited for what we wanted.
The issue with the restore was not that he wanted one table, but some rows from that table. I doubt r1soft is that granular and at last check it's not MSSQL aware.
For our fully-managed clients, we do have some technical expectations on them if they are running custom software or have some custom setups, but we have level 3 and 4 techs that respond to them right away and either help work them through their issues, help investigate issues or offer advice.
Kind Regards,
Hi Karl, nice to see someone offering real fully managed services. Far and few between these days...
Re r1soft - it certainly handles mssql. We use it to backup everything except our freebsd servers - and this includes windows, linux, exchange, pgsql, mysql, mssql, etc...
You are correct however, it will not handle specific rows, just tables... We previously used ashay (and still do for FreeBSD) - found the restores to be much to slow and found the solution to lack real scalability - but, you are right, it does some things very very well - handles exchange very nicely as well and also like how well it can backup users PC's or customers local, onsite servers - I guess they each have their advantages - but, if you ever hit any limitations with ashay and want a real life working example of r1soft to take a look at - let me know and Ill get you a tour
Cheers for now...See, I agree with your definition, but we operate under a different one. Just for comparison, yesterday one of our fully-managed clients asked for us to restore a database from backup, but he only needed info from a few rows, so we restored it to a temp database which allowed him to get what he needed and update the live db.
To us, that is fully managed. Perhaps the things you mentioned are "managed" ? It's a shame there is so much confusion over this topic.
Regards,
I fully agree with you. I have a client who has several servers managed and we recently did the same thing except we went a big further. We dumped a backup into a temp database, extracted the column they needed and restored the column.
That is what managed hosting should be. In my opinion.First 2 there I agree with, thats really important, but the How long have they been in business could be a little unfair, since it potentially writes off all new startups which will stop them ever getting a foothold in the industry. Just becuase the company is new doesn't mean their equipment and staff aren't up to it!
Having been in business 11 years now I can agree with this statement as I have seen both good and bad new providers. However for such business critical ops as a managed server I wholeheartedly believe that you should choose a provider who has several very good recommendations over their short time in biz. And look carefully at their support forums or other verifyable elements of support response and compentance.Talking of this, it's something I'm going to have to work on over the coming months, which is why I raised it as an issue here to see the responseGreetings:
This June, God willing and thanks to God, we are in business for our 13th year.
Over the years, we've seen too many start ups fail; so I do believe that if managed hosting is required, that number of years in business does matter. Otherwise it is yet another risk the customer is taking.
Please note, we were in the same boat when we started in 1995; we did have to prove ourselves over time.
Thank you.I guess it's going to be a hard few years for me and my team then while we get ourselves off the ground and well into the market. Any advice from anyone for us?I guess it's going to be a hard few years for me and my team then while we get ourselves off the ground and well into the market. Any advice from anyone for us?- Charge more than what you think you should charge- Focus on a customer base that has real revenue- Avoid the dedicated server/managed commodity hosting model. There's no money in customers who you charge less than $500/month for. We started out with the $500/month customers and quickly raised our minimum to $900/month (within 3 months). Now I pass on any customer that's less than $3k/month. Any lead who hears $500/month and thinks it's expensive isn't somebody you want to do business with. End the conversation then, maybe setup a referral business with a dedicated server company.Thanks for the input Michael, what about marketing to that customer base? I have some ideas, but marketing is not my area really.Thanks for the input Michael, what about marketing to that customer base? I have some ideas, but marketing is not my area really.Marketing is a strange beast. Good bad, or ugly, I think we've spent a grand total of $4k on our website and graphics over the past 4 years. We also spent $3,500 on google adwords which resulted in a $3,200 one-off contract. To be fair, we've also probably spent $15k on lunches/dinners that weren't directly related to sales initiatives, but helped spread our name around. Word of mouth is obviously a great tool, but a slow and indirect one which requires ritical mass to be effective. Early on, we definitely received a lot of mileage out of providing at-cost hosting to fellow systems geeks through <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.vix.com/personalcolo">www.vix.com/personalcolo</a><!-- w --> (we've since stopped doing that due to the associated headaches). The trick there is learning how to mine your contacts and actively work them.Networking is really where it's at. If you're not selling a commodity service, then without a reasonable scale, traditional print advertising isn't even relevant, and most digital advertising isn't going to be very effective. I've had the talk with a dozen different managed services companies ranging from $200k - $10m/year, and they've all bluntly called banner ads and adwords "large, bottomless holes into which to throw your money". Communication is the big picture. Talk to everybody. Get an office at a carrier hotel, or in an office building that has lots of small companies. Engage everybody you can in the elevator, the building's coffee shops, the bus-stop outside, whatever. Get used to shaking hands, keep your breath fresh, smile. Dress professionally. Read the Dale Carnegie book, "How To Win Friends and Influence People". Spend a couple hours a week looking at sites like Meetup, Craigslist Events, Upcoming.org, etc. If you're in a large metro, then you should be well poised to sniff out company parties, business networking events, startup parties, etc. In San Francisco my business partner goes to about 15 different web 2.0 oriented parties/networking events a month, and that's without having to venture outside of the city limits (he barely has to leave the city center/embarcadero region for most events). Also, establish yourself as an expert. Actively participate in places like SAGE, LOPSA, various tech startup lists, various technical expertise lists depending on what your real skills/passions are from a technical point of view.Put the management first, and the hosting second. Management requires time, hosting requires capital, and lots of it. Consider the hosting a side-effect. I'll say right now that the $100k/year customers who own their own infrastructure in their own datacenter cages are far more profitable than the $50k/year customers who use our hardware in our cage.There is some great information in this thread. Keep it coming guys!- Charge more than what you think you should charge
- Focus on a customer base that has real revenue
- Avoid the dedicated server/managed commodity hosting model. There's no money in customers who you charge less than $500/month for. We started out with the $500/month customers and quickly raised our minimum to $900/month (within 3 months). Now I pass on any customer that's less than $3k/month.
Any lead who hears $500/month and thinks it's expensive isn't somebody you want to do business with. End the conversation then, maybe setup a referral business with a dedicated server company.
100% agreed.
Regards,
Greetings:What is the guaranteed response time?
What portions of the service are proactive, and how those parts of the service are proactive?
How long has the company been in business?
There was a post about price. Since there are no established patterns, and there are some companies that undercharge in relation to their costs (something is not right ?either experience, skils, etc.), listing price as a top three factor is not safe in my opinion.
Thank you.I would always make sure that whatever you expect you get down in detail on a contract. Main points such as uptime and 24x7 support are fairly well marketed by every and all companies but discovering the intangibles is also pretty important.1. Are they any good i.e. Uptime/References...2. Do they really understand what you need/want or are they just going to upsell you at every opportunity.3. How flexible do you need them to be to fit into your existing business modelWhat is the guaranteed response time?
What portions of the service are proactive, and how those parts of the service are proactive?
How long has the company been in business?
First 2 there I agree with, thats really important, but the How long have they been in business could be a little unfair, since it potentially writes off all new startups which will stop them ever getting a foothold in the industry. Just becuase the company is new doesn't mean their equipment and staff aren't up to it!Truely for managed hosting, If im talking about for business use I would expect the following.... * monthly patching of OS and any supported software* 24*7 server and service monitoring* 4 hour hardware failure replacementThats my top 3, others would include 24/7 telephone support and high uptime. Although I would expect to pay a premium for this, much like rackspace
See, I agree with your definition, but we operate under a different one. Just for comparison, yesterday one of our fully-managed clients asked for us to restore a database from backup, but he only needed info from a few rows, so we restored it to a temp database which allowed him to get what he needed and update the live db.To us, that is fully managed. Perhaps the things you mentioned are "managed" ? It's a shame there is so much confusion over this topic.Regards,See, I agree with your definition, but we operate under a different one. Just for comparison, yesterday one of our fully-managed clients asked for us to restore a database from backup, but he only needed info from a few rows, so we restored it to a temp database which allowed him to get what he needed and update the live db.To us, that is fully managed. Perhaps the things you mentioned are "managed" ? It's a shame there is so much confusion over this topic.
Regards,
I agree, Managed hosting is a topic which is somewhat a gray area, I would agree with what you said also with regard to the database backup, but I would also say there are 'levels' of service in managed hosting going from basic OS updates and hardware support to full application support and development.Price is important; making sure it's not double the prices of others.
depends on what sort of management we are talking about right?
Double the cost? heck, the definition of fully managed dramatically changes from 1 provider to the next. I can see the price easily being double or triple for a real fully managed solution compared to scaled down "fully managed" definition.
How much does proactive monitoring cost?
How much does 24x7x365 proactive response cost? (ie techs are on the server before you contact them with a problem)
How about managed firewalls?
How about managed backups?
etc, etc, etc...
Price of managed hosting varies dramatically because the services being offered vary dramatically.
See, I agree with your definition, but we operate under a different one. Just for comparison, yesterday one of our fully-managed clients asked for us to restore a database from backup, but he only needed info from a few rows, so we restored it to a temp database which allowed him to get what he needed and update the live db.
To us, that is fully managed. Perhaps the things you mentioned are "managed" ? It's a shame there is so much confusion over this topic.
Regards,
Hi Karl - absolutely correct. Fully managed means fully managed - ie customers just deal with it like they would a large shared account - except the environment is dedicated to them... and they have zero technical expectations placed on them...
regarding that restore example you used - you really really really should look at r1soft's CDP solution. You can give clients access to their own backups and they can restore individual tables, etc from the DB right to their live site without issue...depends on what sort of management we are talking about right?Double the cost? heck, the definition of fully managed dramatically changes from 1 provider to the next. I can see the price easily being double or triple for a real fully managed solution compared to scaled down "fully managed" definition.How much does proactive monitoring cost?How much does 24x7x365 proactive response cost? (ie techs are on the server before you contact them with a problem)How about managed firewalls?How about managed backups?etc, etc, etc...Price of managed hosting varies dramatically because the services being offered vary dramatically. Hi Karl - absolutely correct. Fully managed means fully managed - ie customers just deal with it like they would a large shared account - except the environment is dedicated to them... and they have zero technical expectations placed on them...regarding that restore example you used - you really really really should look at r1soft's CDP solution. You can give clients access to their own backups and they can restore individual tables, etc from the DB right to their live site without issue...Thanks for the tip, but we use Ahsay and like it's feature set more. We did look at r1soft but it was too limited for what we wanted. The issue with the restore was not that he wanted one table, but some rows from that table. I doubt r1soft is that granular and at last check it's not MSSQL aware.For our fully-managed clients, we do have some technical expectations on them if they are running custom software or have some custom setups, but we have level 3 and 4 techs that respond to them right away and either help work them through their issues, help investigate issues or offer advice.Kind Regards,Thanks for the tip, but we use Ahsay and like it's feature set more. We did look at r1soft but it was too limited for what we wanted.
The issue with the restore was not that he wanted one table, but some rows from that table. I doubt r1soft is that granular and at last check it's not MSSQL aware.
For our fully-managed clients, we do have some technical expectations on them if they are running custom software or have some custom setups, but we have level 3 and 4 techs that respond to them right away and either help work them through their issues, help investigate issues or offer advice.
Kind Regards,
Hi Karl, nice to see someone offering real fully managed services. Far and few between these days...
Re r1soft - it certainly handles mssql. We use it to backup everything except our freebsd servers - and this includes windows, linux, exchange, pgsql, mysql, mssql, etc...
You are correct however, it will not handle specific rows, just tables... We previously used ashay (and still do for FreeBSD) - found the restores to be much to slow and found the solution to lack real scalability - but, you are right, it does some things very very well - handles exchange very nicely as well and also like how well it can backup users PC's or customers local, onsite servers - I guess they each have their advantages - but, if you ever hit any limitations with ashay and want a real life working example of r1soft to take a look at - let me know and Ill get you a tour
Cheers for now...See, I agree with your definition, but we operate under a different one. Just for comparison, yesterday one of our fully-managed clients asked for us to restore a database from backup, but he only needed info from a few rows, so we restored it to a temp database which allowed him to get what he needed and update the live db.
To us, that is fully managed. Perhaps the things you mentioned are "managed" ? It's a shame there is so much confusion over this topic.
Regards,
I fully agree with you. I have a client who has several servers managed and we recently did the same thing except we went a big further. We dumped a backup into a temp database, extracted the column they needed and restored the column.
That is what managed hosting should be. In my opinion.First 2 there I agree with, thats really important, but the How long have they been in business could be a little unfair, since it potentially writes off all new startups which will stop them ever getting a foothold in the industry. Just becuase the company is new doesn't mean their equipment and staff aren't up to it!
Having been in business 11 years now I can agree with this statement as I have seen both good and bad new providers. However for such business critical ops as a managed server I wholeheartedly believe that you should choose a provider who has several very good recommendations over their short time in biz. And look carefully at their support forums or other verifyable elements of support response and compentance.Talking of this, it's something I'm going to have to work on over the coming months, which is why I raised it as an issue here to see the response
Greetings:This June, God willing and thanks to God, we are in business for our 13th year.
Over the years, we've seen too many start ups fail; so I do believe that if managed hosting is required, that number of years in business does matter. Otherwise it is yet another risk the customer is taking.
Please note, we were in the same boat when we started in 1995; we did have to prove ourselves over time.
Thank you.I guess it's going to be a hard few years for me and my team then while we get ourselves off the ground and well into the market. Any advice from anyone for us?I guess it's going to be a hard few years for me and my team then while we get ourselves off the ground and well into the market. Any advice from anyone for us?- Charge more than what you think you should charge- Focus on a customer base that has real revenue- Avoid the dedicated server/managed commodity hosting model. There's no money in customers who you charge less than $500/month for. We started out with the $500/month customers and quickly raised our minimum to $900/month (within 3 months). Now I pass on any customer that's less than $3k/month. Any lead who hears $500/month and thinks it's expensive isn't somebody you want to do business with. End the conversation then, maybe setup a referral business with a dedicated server company.Thanks for the input Michael, what about marketing to that customer base? I have some ideas, but marketing is not my area really.Thanks for the input Michael, what about marketing to that customer base? I have some ideas, but marketing is not my area really.Marketing is a strange beast. Good bad, or ugly, I think we've spent a grand total of $4k on our website and graphics over the past 4 years. We also spent $3,500 on google adwords which resulted in a $3,200 one-off contract. To be fair, we've also probably spent $15k on lunches/dinners that weren't directly related to sales initiatives, but helped spread our name around. Word of mouth is obviously a great tool, but a slow and indirect one which requires ritical mass to be effective. Early on, we definitely received a lot of mileage out of providing at-cost hosting to fellow systems geeks through <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.vix.com/personalcolo">www.vix.com/personalcolo</a><!-- w --> (we've since stopped doing that due to the associated headaches). The trick there is learning how to mine your contacts and actively work them.Networking is really where it's at. If you're not selling a commodity service, then without a reasonable scale, traditional print advertising isn't even relevant, and most digital advertising isn't going to be very effective. I've had the talk with a dozen different managed services companies ranging from $200k - $10m/year, and they've all bluntly called banner ads and adwords "large, bottomless holes into which to throw your money". Communication is the big picture. Talk to everybody. Get an office at a carrier hotel, or in an office building that has lots of small companies. Engage everybody you can in the elevator, the building's coffee shops, the bus-stop outside, whatever. Get used to shaking hands, keep your breath fresh, smile. Dress professionally. Read the Dale Carnegie book, "How To Win Friends and Influence People". Spend a couple hours a week looking at sites like Meetup, Craigslist Events, Upcoming.org, etc. If you're in a large metro, then you should be well poised to sniff out company parties, business networking events, startup parties, etc. In San Francisco my business partner goes to about 15 different web 2.0 oriented parties/networking events a month, and that's without having to venture outside of the city limits (he barely has to leave the city center/embarcadero region for most events). Also, establish yourself as an expert. Actively participate in places like SAGE, LOPSA, various tech startup lists, various technical expertise lists depending on what your real skills/passions are from a technical point of view.Put the management first, and the hosting second. Management requires time, hosting requires capital, and lots of it. Consider the hosting a side-effect. I'll say right now that the $100k/year customers who own their own infrastructure in their own datacenter cages are far more profitable than the $50k/year customers who use our hardware in our cage.There is some great information in this thread. Keep it coming guys!- Charge more than what you think you should charge
- Focus on a customer base that has real revenue
- Avoid the dedicated server/managed commodity hosting model. There's no money in customers who you charge less than $500/month for. We started out with the $500/month customers and quickly raised our minimum to $900/month (within 3 months). Now I pass on any customer that's less than $3k/month.
Any lead who hears $500/month and thinks it's expensive isn't somebody you want to do business with. End the conversation then, maybe setup a referral business with a dedicated server company.
100% agreed.
Regards,