Good Evening,

Basically, I run a small business and have always hosted my website and email with another company over the internet. I now want to host my own website (and maybe others in the future) and have my emails running from my server.

I have not bought the server yet and so have two questions. Which server software would I be best suited to? also is there anything hardware related that I need to have - I am looking at a Dell server - not too sure yet but is there a minimum spec I should be looking for?

Thank you all in advance
Cheers
James

Hi,

For the relative cost, and hassle, wouldn't you be better paying for a dedicated managed server (like we have here)?

Why do you need the actual hardware located with you...do you have a specific requirement for that?

No specific reason I guess other than my current provider has a bit too much down time! Also nice to have full control over the server for backups and installing new sofware etc. Also we have several websites in the pipeline which I would like to have on my own server such as shops etc..

As for cost - I was thinking upto around £1000 for hardware plus software costs on top of that.

Thanks
James

there is a lot more than just hardware to think about when you host a web server, you have also got to think about your internet connection speed an adls line won't be able to cope with the ammount of connections, you will also need a dedicated ip address

but here is some things if you do decide to do it any way. where i work which is a web hosting commpany we use dell server's they are good we use windows server 2003 standerd edtion on all are server's which means we use windows DNS (domain name server) and IIS (internet information server).

for are mail software we use mailenable enterpise edtion with spammassian filtering (very good if you get it set up right). also avg for virus filtering.

for data bases we use bouth MySql and MSSQL but you will only need one probley depends what your website use's (like this website probley use's MySql)

ow and you will need a good firewall most hosting companys use a hardware firewall as these are much better but these will cost lost of money.

if you need more information just ask me and i will help you out.

Thanks very much for the reply Adrian.

What would you reccomend in terms of internet connection speed and provider? I have a BT 8megabit connection at present which I recently upgraded from a 2megabit. I can sort a static IP easily as BT offer this to me.

Would you be able to give me a rough idea of price for a standard, fairly decent setup?

Thanks again
James

can you go to Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test and run the test it will test your connection speed bouth ways downloading and uploading then post back the results of the test then i can see if you can run it at all on what you have now.