The future of hosting

[sofy60]

The future of hosting

Who thinks websites will be hosted on the home pc one day ? When is this day coming ?

[DotNetWebs]

You can do it now but I certainly wouldn't recommend it for a business site!

[Coding Monkey]

Unless you happen to live in Interhouse ;)

[TechFox]

I would never have a site hosted outside of a proper data centre (eg RackSpace)

[DuaneJackson]

It's not just an issue if bandwidth - it's a matter of having the skills to mantain the server. I'd confidently say the day when the majority of sites are hosted from home will never come.

[easyasit]

i think the oppsite will happen, the internet will get bigger, applications will run from the internet not the pc (finally defeating piracy)
All files will be stored on dedicated servers.

The dumb terminal will rtn i think.

Al

[DuaneJackson]

i think the oppsite will happen, the internet will get bigger, applications will run from the internet not the pc

Definetley. the Application Service Provider model has been around for a while but it only just becoming viable.

Richard "Dr Doom" Holway, a well respected analyst at Ovum admits the biggedt mistake he made was the rise of the ASP model a few years back, but it now looks really set to take off.

This is the way forward.

[KM-Tiger]

The dumb terminal will rtn i think
For many people it already has, as they use their PC for not very much more than a terminal at the end of an ISP connection, and business, even small business, is increasingly using client/server applications. Kashflow, for instance!

[Rob Holmes]

Yup - I agree - it seems to be going in the direction of more online rather than less.

We'll soon be able to log on at work and turn the heating on at home :)

Rob

[Coding Monkey]

Yup - I agree - it seems to be going in the direction of more online rather than less.

We'll soon be able to log on at work and turn the heating on at home :)


My uncle already has a system that allows him to do that. He can close the curtains from work.

[TechFox]

My uncle already has a system that allows him to do that. He can close the curtains from work.

How does it work?

[Enigma121]

Yup - I agree - it seems to be going in the direction of more online rather than less.

We'll soon be able to log on at work and turn the heating on at home :)

Rob


Never mind soon Rob. We have a contact that can arrange this TODAY.

As well as the heating, how about opening a skylight window, having a security lighting "script", or running yourself a nice hot bath. Anything's possible.

If any of you fat cat directors are interested I can put you in touch...

[KM-Tiger]

If you want to you can turn the lights on and off in this house in Texas:-

http://www.drivemeinsane.com/

[Rob Holmes]

If you want to you can turn the lights on and off in this house in Texas:-

http://www.drivemeinsane.com/

FANTASTIC !

Rob

[Proximitum]

the question is fairly generic. Sometimes hosting a website from a home pc may be the way to go. Business's will certainly always want the SLA and data prtoection scenerio in place to protect them from their customers and so will never look to host away from dedicated data centres.

When we talk about application hosting then the model will certainly change over the next few years. The key to ASP's is having the correct licence model in place to make application hosting a viable option for the consumer.

Just a few thoughts but there is certainly a wider area for debate here.

[crus]

Hi,

we used to have host 'from home' but this involved a dedicated 2 mg line. It cost a fortune but since then for the last 5-6 years everything is in Telehouse, where most small UK isps are. the reason being I have used a number of datacentres around the UK and all have interuptions, one which was the most expensive in the UK went off line for several hours. For business it has to be Telehouse for me, if they go off line its a major terrorist attack and we are at war and I fall back on a reserves and the US based reselelr stuff we do; or its the end of the world and I go and steal a Landie and raid the local TA for weapons!

Personal web serving of content is another matter, but the latest mac stuff does this seamlessly, although for a cost, using the .mac service. Similar local based stuff will be around very soon for serving movies and photos from your machine.

D

[4dhosting]

Anyone running a business website from a home xDSL line will have problems.

There isn't the power backup, redundant internet connections or support systems in place you'll find at a hosting company based in a datacentre. What if you're on holiday and the power trips in your house? The site would be down for days. Same for if the ISP has a failure and goes off line. Datacentre's have these redudancy built in.

You'll also find that speeds are slower. Most hosts will allow you to burst above the Committed Data Rate (CDR) and not cap you at 2Mbps as your ISP will, so as you grow your site can grow without having performance issues.

Not to mention that form of hosting breaks the majority of ISPs T&C's (Unless you've got a leased line/ethernet/SDSL service).

I'd agree with the comments about the Internet based application hosting - We're already starting to see this with SalesForce. We do a fair bit of ASP hosting for companies that use Terminal Services to connect to servers to run Office, Sage, etc so that it's all centralised/reliable/backed up.

Telehouse, where most small UK isps are. the reason being I have used a number of datacentres around the UK and all have interuptions, one which was the most expensive in the UK went off line for several hours. For business it has to be Telehouse for me, if they go off line its a major terrorist attack

Wouldn't entirely agree with that :-) Telehouse is quite an old building that's falling apart which a few summers back had portable aircon units hanging out of the windows because their own aircon couldn't cope.

Only benefit of being in there is for the number of carriers they have. Apart from that the racks are very expensive and the allowed power isn't enough to fill half a rack anymore.

I also believe it's had just as many power failures on HEX/GlobalSwitch.

IXEurope or RedBus are newer datacentre's which (IMO) are just as good for carriers and aren't falling apart as much :)

[DuaneJackson]

Our UK servers are at RedBus - other than a serious power problem exactly a year ago today its been great.

[4dhosting]

And that power outage was only in HEX which has now been upgraded a few times.

Meridian Gate and Soverign House remained un-affected.

[crus]

I agree redbus is good, we run backup and failover to redbus. The real benefits I have seen with Telehouse, the new building, is that as with the carriers, everything is over engineered so that it is able to accomodate the rooms of unused PCS in the event of disaster relocation.

This over engineering comes at a price as stated above, however this price is nominal in comparrison to the loses incurred when I have been let down by other datacentres.

The bulk of machines that we have now were in another London datacentre that was at the time, a major player. We got in when there were just a couple of racks, by the time it was full they had overloaded the power and then started having problems causing myself and clients to leave losing them 10-20K a month. The reason behind this was that like most other businesses financing forces a just capable model to make it profitable and rapid expansion disturbs this model and causes problems.

For me the peace of mind I get with the current structure at costs fractionally above some, lower than most is the reaon I have not moved in 4 years.

D