First off, thank you for your response!

Do you plan on running Exchange? How many users will it be serving..? Just you?
No, it would be for all of my client's emails as well.


Are there any special requirements that you need that you can't just get a hosting plan through a hosting provider? Plenty of providers offer email + ASP.NET 2.0 + SQL Server for less than $10 a month.

Yes,I have a new client that will require special fonts installed so that I can handle rendering preview images for her printing company. Also, I use the new MVC framework asp.net has, but I sometimes need access to change IIS. Unless I get a dedicated box on a server, I don't have access to something like that.

If you really want to build your own server and run it that way, I'd suggest in one beefier box and run Vmware on it if you want to seperate the various servers onto separate OS installs.


Would it be more efficient to run an instance of VMWare for SQL server, Exchange, and IIS? I honestly haven't had much experience with virtual machine, especially in terms of servers. I've heard hype about it and 08, but I didn't quite understand the reasoning. I get that there have been some great breakthroughs in sharing resources amongst the virtual PCs but I still fail to see how a virtualized PC would outplay 1 pc running all three things.

Is a Q6600 + 4gb ram not enough to run exchange, sql, and iis? What would you advise I upgrade to for this powerhouse?


But think about all of the costs involved... Windows 03 Server Standard is around $700, SBS is $500-$1200 depending on the option. If you don't go SBS, you'll need to buy SQL Server unless you plan on running SQL Express (4GB limit per DB). If you do run the full version, you'll need processor licenses, as you can't count the number of CALs required when hosting a website (processor licenses are about $5k each for Standard edition, $20k for Enterprise). If you want to run Exchange, again, you'll need the license ($700ish for standard and $3500 for enterprise) + CALs. And this would be absolutely bare minimum on costs. There would be no redundancy in caes your router goes out, ISP takes a dump, server crashes, etc. Don't forget to include the additional power cost for running that server 24/7. You'll also need backup software to backup your mailboxes, databases, etc.

If you plan on pirating all the software, than all your costs go away (except for hardware).

As a computer science student in college, I have access to all of the enterprise grade software listed above provided by microsoft through their educational software system...I realize that this is terrible, especially since I am a comp-sci student. I know that by doing this, I am only further harming my field and being a hypocrite and I suppose technically a thief but I have no intentions on carrying out the very little pirating I do do beyond graduation. I wasn't raised with a silver spoon, and whether I eat or not depends solely on whether or not I can sell my development.. if I have a server, I could generate a little more revenue per client and thus hopefully softening the blow when I can't find clients. The way I rationalize this out is, if I am successful at this, and I am able to get my company truly up and running I will be able to afford to purchase all of the software that I've been using through college. If I give up and go back to working 40 hours a week at some company, it technically is a loss for Microsoft & Adobe.

No, it would be for all of my client's emails as well.
If you plan on hosting a business' email, I'd really reccomend against hosting it yourself. Exchange is fairly simple to get up and running, but when something goes wrong, are you going to be able to resolve the issue within a timely manner? If your ISP/server goes down, then what? I'm not trying to be a pain, but this could be a painfully bad idea for the little amount of revenue it would bring in. Even if you do go the route of hosting your own IIS/SQL, I'd definately recommend getting a hosted plan ($6 a month for unlimited email/storage) atleast for email.

Yes,I have a new client that will require special fonts installed so that I can handle rendering preview images for her printing company. Also, I use the new MVC framework asp.net has, but I sometimes need access to change IIS. Unless I get a dedicated box on a server, I don't have access to something like that.
You could check with potential hosting providers to see if they would install extra fonts on shared servers. I doubt they would, but it's worth a shot. Lots of hosting companies are up to 3.5 framework now. They usually have the abilities of creating virtual directories, changing various settings, etc., so you may not need a dedicated server for that type of stuff.

Would it be more efficient to run an instance of VMWare for SQL server, Exchange, and IIS? I honestly haven't had much experience with virtual machine, especially in terms of servers. I've heard hype about it and 08, but I didn't quite understand the reasoning. I get that there have been some great breakthroughs in sharing resources amongst the virtual PCs but I still fail to see how a virtualized PC would outplay 1 pc running all three things.

Is a Q6600 + 4gb ram not enough to run exchange, sql, and iis? What would you advise I upgrade to for this powerhouse?
The big hoopla about VMWare is the ability to consolidate multiple physical servers onto a single server. This helps consolidate space, power, switching, licensing (in some cases) requirements. I think the industry average of utilization of a server is somewhere around 13-15%, thus making virtualization (the ability to consolidate 5, 10, even 15 servers onto one physical server) very attractive.

Depending on the usage of the server, size of databases, etc., that server should be just fine to run 2-3 virtual machines.

 

As a computer science student in college, I have access to all of the enterprise grade software listed above provided by microsoft through their educational software system...I realize that this is terrible, especially since I am a comp-sci student. I know that by doing this, I am only further harming my field and being a hypocrite and I suppose technically a thief but I have no intentions on carrying out the very little pirating I do do beyond graduation. I wasn't raised with a silver spoon, and whether I eat or not depends solely on whether or not I can sell my development.. if I have a server, I could generate a little more revenue per client and thus hopefully softening the blow when I can't find clients. The way I rationalize this out is, if I am successful at this, and I am able to get my company truly up and running I will be able to afford to purchase all of the software that I've been using through college. If I give up and go back to working 40 hours a week at some company, it technically is a loss for Microsoft & Adobe.
I think those licenses are strictly for education purposes and I'm pretty sure you'd be violating the t&c's by using it for profit. You may want to read that closely. Again, this is really a moral issue. I doubt Microsoft will beat your doors down for a few thousand in software. Another option you could explore is to offer additional services to clients to set them up with their own servers to host their own websites/db's/mail, etc. This will require a whole new set of expertise, of course, but you'll set yourself apart from many other small business consulting services that are able to provide one or the other, but typically not both of the services.

Good luck!

I would suggest looking into Server 2003 Web Edition for just the site. You can read an overview of it here. It's cheaper ($375 ish) then the standard version of server. I would suggest that you do not put IIS, Exchange and SQL all on the same box.

As a developer, you shouldnt need to worry about money. Learn how to write clean efficient code and the jobs will come to you. There are plenty of people including myself who are always looking to bring on new talent. The most difficult task for employers, is to find developers who actually know how to use their brain.

Do you plan on telling your client's that they are paying for pirated hosting? They deserve to know what they are paying for.

It isn't worth it. If you get caught breaking a license, it is a $100,000 penalty per software product. I assume you are not incorporated so say goodbye to your belongings/credit...

Your client's can also get in trouble and fined. If they get fined, they will probably sue you as well.

Also, consider that Time Warner is not a reliable company for this. Cable outages are somewhat frequent. When people start complaining that they have mail bouncebacks, they will get mad.

If your server goes down and a client misses an important email, you could get sued. If your data gets corrupted and you lose customer's data, you could get sued.

Personally I spend $650 per month per server hosted somewhere with total redundancy. If their needs are really basic I tell them to go with a cheap hosting company. I would rather not deal with support on a brochure site. If their needs are a little more advanced it is $20 per month. If their needs are very advanced they can be charged as much as $200 per month.

If a public website accesses SQL server, then you need a server license. Microsoft has stated that the seats are only for private networks. The server license can be very expensive ($5000+). I ended up on buying older versions of SQL Server with Server Licenses.

Here is something to consider. Look into white label types of programs. Become a reseller for a hosting company. This way you are not responsible to answer the phone at 3am. This way you are not responsible for the licenses or data.

Some hosting companies give up to $50 per month in commission per customer depending on the customer's needs.

For email hosting, try mailtrust. They have a new program where you can resell exchange accounts.

ChanceUSC said:vegetation said:Stick with your hosting provider. For professional use, you're opening yourself a whole can of worms by hosting it yourself off a cable modem with no network redundancy. I'm not 100% certain that it is a cable modem, TWC is simply the reseller of this other company in my area. It has 2mbs up which is faster than a T1 and the latency isn't bad at all from what I've heard (I know a guy that is hosting successfully using it).



Of course it's a cable modem. They simply switch you to a higher bandwidth configuration and give you the policy rights of your new plan; you wouldn't even change anything at your end other than a reboot of your modem.

As I mentioned earlier, this is just bad news if you're doing professional services with customers expecting their sites to be up. You're playing with fire that something is going to blow up down the road destroying your credibility. Risk reduction is the way to go here, it certainly isn't costly. Heck, even I run a small commercial hobby site and I make more than enough on ads to recoup a $35/month VPS. I wouldn't ever consider putting my customers on a half-assed system and this is just a fun hobby for me that nets me no income.

The idea about reselling hosting plans mentioned earlier is a good one. It's what a lot of developers do.. Businesses will pay the money for a good site as long as it's reliable. Reliable is the key word.

ChanceUSC said:vegetation said:ChanceUSC said:vegetation said:Stick with your hosting provider. For professional use, you're opening yourself a whole can of worms by hosting it yourself off a cable modem with no network redundancy. I'm not 100% certain that it is a cable modem, TWC is simply the reseller of this other company in my area. It has 2mbs up which is faster than a T1 and the latency isn't bad at all from what I've heard (I know a guy that is hosting successfully using it).



Of course it's a cable modem. They simply switch you to a higher bandwidth configuration and give you the policy rights of your new plan; you wouldn't even change anything at your end other than a reboot of your modem.

As I mentioned earlier, this is just bad news if you're doing professional services with customers expecting their sites to be up. You're playing with fire that something is going to blow up down the road destroying your credibility. Risk reduction is the way to go here, it certainly isn't costly. Heck, even I run a small commercial hobby site and I make more than enough on ads to recoup a $35/month VPS. I wouldn't ever consider putting my customers on a half-assed system and this is just a fun hobby for me that nets me no income.

The idea about reselling hosting plans mentioned earlier is a good one. It's what a lot of developers do.. Businesses will pay the money for a good site as long as it's reliable. Reliable is the key word.

No I agree that reliability is key, and I've done the reselling hosting plans too (which failed misserably, out of the last 3 hosts that I've directed clients too, there have been serious issues with and they are large / reputable hosts). The guy I know that runs a small 'host' off of the TWC business line in my area monitors his connection very thoroughly and has only noted a few minor outages that didn't last more than two hours over the course of a few years. The business class customers get a direct sales rep and the turnaround time between contacting his sales rep about technical issues and having someone on site to fix the issue is apparently really amazing in our area. I do agree with you guys in that I shouldn't be the one handling the emails because its one thing if a site goes down for a few hours, but its something completely different if emails start bouncing back.

I just have to make a decent run at this, I've got someone that is willing to invest 50k that i can spend on software licenses, hardware, and a more dedicated line if I can prove that I can get the business running over the course of the next year. I don't plan on putting more than 5 people on a line, infact I'm considering getting a business class DSL line that I can bridge incase 1 goes out..

More things to think about.

-Will you allow your customers to upload files? What if a file compromises your server security? Do you know enough about server permissions to prevent this? Do you understand SQL injection and do you know how to prevent it? If one of your customer's site gets hacked, all of your customer's sites are vulnerable.

-Believe it or not, I can hack many windows server setups, simply because they are not well thought out.

-Verizon Fios offers 15mbps up, 15mbps down for dirt cheap.

-Also consider running nightly backups.

-Do you have a hardware firewall? A nat router with port forwarding would actually be ok for this, unless it gets hacked.

-The box is strong enough to run all the software you want, but there is a reason people run them on separate boxes. Security. In an ideal setup, your web box would have 2 network cards. One for internal and one for external. It is the only computer that should get direct access to the internet. It will connect to the SQL server only through the SQL port on the internal card. This way, if your web server gets hacked or a virus..., your SQL data will still be very safe.

-I recommend Mailtrust reselling for exchange. I see many of my client spending lots more money than they should for exchange support. If they only went with a third party provider, they wouldnt need to spend on support. When you start supporting exchange, it may possibly take more time than you anticipate.

-4 GB ram is definately more than enough. 2GB should be more than enough depending on how efficient your code is.

-Will you allow your customers to upload files? What if a file compromises your server security? Do you know enough about server permissions to prevent this? Do you understand SQL injection and do you know how to prevent it? If one of your customer's site gets hacked, all of your customer's sites are vulnerable.

Yes and yes.. I just wasn't keen on what was suitable in terms of hardware specifications.. I have a firm comprehension of software / development.


-Verizon Fios offers 15mbps up, 15mbps down for dirt cheap.

Verizon still isn't in my area.. or at least it wasn't the last time I checked about a year ago. Ah I guess its time to make another phone call and cross my fingers. Thanks for the reminder!


-Also consider running nightly backups.

I'm going too.. I have 2 drives that I am going to setup in RAID 1, 1 drive for nightly backups, and 1 spare drive as a just incase all hell breaks loose.


-Do you have a hardware firewall? A nat router with port forwarding would actually be ok for this, unless it gets hacked.

Would you mind making a recomendation on this? I was going to just use a nat router.. but do you have any recommendations? I've been considering setting up a small linux box as a firewall / router and hooking up a switch.




-The box is strong enough to run all the software you want, but there is a reason people run them on separate boxes. Security. In an ideal setup, your web box would have 2 network cards. One for internal and one for external. It is the only computer that should get direct access to the internet. It will connect to the SQL server only through the SQL port on the internal card. This way, if your web server gets hacked or a virus..., your SQL data will still be very safe.

Sweet, thank you for the advise, going to go ahead and order 2 cards.



-I recommend Mailtrust reselling for exchange. I see many of my client spending lots more money than they should for exchange support. If they only went with a third party provider, they wouldnt need to spend on support. When you start supporting exchange, it may possibly take more time than you anticipate.

Yea I think I am really leaning towards mailtrust.. Exchange may be a burden that I am not ready to accept just yet. From what I've heard from other people that run independent hosting (linux) - email is the most frequent support related issue. I'm ready for supporting customers, but if there is a cheaper way out, then I would much rather go that route.

-4 GB ram is definately more than enough. 2GB should be more than enough depending on how efficient your code is.
My codes fine, I just didn't know what to expect from MS Server, SQL Server, and Exchange in terms of their consumption. I do have a tendency to cache everything server-side to avoid hitting the wire, but if I have it all on the same box, I shouldn't have to worry about that.

Thanks for the response man.

telstar said:I'm a freelance website developer, and I basically agree what what many here have said. Focus on securing new clients, developing great sites for those clients, and expanding your reach into new industries. The hosting is a business expense .... something you can directly build into the contract you come to with clients, and include in your invoice to them. Your websites are your product that should more than pay for your hosting expenses. $350/yr may seem like a lot right now, but it's a fraction of what you'll lose in lost revenue if you have to spend time fixing a system problem and dealing with client complaints while you recover.

I totally agree.

ChanceUSC said:telstar said:I'm a freelance website developer, and I basically agree what what many here have said. Focus on securing new clients, developing great sites for those clients, and expanding your reach into new industries. The hosting is a business expense .... something you can directly build into the contract you come to with clients, and include in your invoice to them. Your websites are your product that should more than pay for your hosting expenses. $350/yr may seem like a lot right now, but it's a fraction of what you'll lose in lost revenue if you have to spend time fixing a system problem and dealing with client complaints while you recover.

Where are you seeing a dedicated server w/ms server 2003 on it for 350/year?

It'd be $480/yr at hostmysite.com, though I run virtually all of my projects on the Linux/Apache/MySQL architecture. My point is that even if you end up paying more than the $350 you initially quoted, it will pay off in the long run. I'm not sure what types of projects you take on, or what you charge per hour, but I would just distribute the cost of hosting to your clients. Hosting obviously isn't free ... and it shouldn't be for your clients either. Charge them for that expense, and you can probably make a profit from it. Also, I'm not sure how you handle your taxes, but if you bill your clients for the hosting and treat that as income ... and treat the price you pay for the hosting as a tax deductible business expense. Serves as one more way to lower your total tax liability.