[Web4lib] shared hosting vs. dedicated server

[Cary Gordon]

VPSs are a solution, but the don't obviate the need for system administration.

The tinyvps solution is cheap, but 128mb of RAM is quite limiting. It
might be hard to keep a CMS running reliably in that space. With that
type of system you get a timesliced fraction of a core. It also has no
provision for backup.

The cheaper VPS solutions aren't actually VPSs in the sense that Xen
and VMWare have VPSs. They are referred to as containers (CTs), and
you can put any number of them on a single hardware node. Most of them
use OpenVZ or  its commercial version, Parallels Virtuozzo.

That said, if you want to run your own server, and your needs and
resources are limited, VPSs are a potential solution, as are cloud
services like Amazon EC2.

At the lower end, I hear good things about Slicehost and Linode. Their
offerings are different, but complimentary. between them, you can find
almost any set of options you might want.

Cary

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 10:51 PM, Andrew Hankinson
<andrew.hankinson at gmail.com> wrote:
> A reasonable middle ground would be a VPS (Virtual Private Server) solution, where you essentially get full access to a machine to install and run whatever software you want. They are usually more predictable with their load issues than straight shared hosting, since the system resources are dedicated and partitioned between VMs instead of shared. (Accordingly, however, some of the low-end offerings are pretty anemic.)
>
> VPS sites can range in price. TinyVPS (http://tinyvps.ca/) starts at $5/mo. Slicehost (http://www.slicehost.com/) and Superbytes (http://superbytes.net/) offer more pricey options. (I have no experience with any of these, though)
>
> If you like the flexibility of a dedicated server, but don't want to shell out for hardware + sysadmin time, you might look into those options.
>
> On 2011-02-18, at 7:37 PM, Morgan A. Brynnan wrote:
>
>> Greetings,
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm new to the list, so hope this is an appropriate post.
>>
>>
>>
>> Has anyone had luck using a shared hosting model for the web side of their
>> library page and a dedicated server for the ILS?
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm working with a small rural library in an economically depressed area.
>> They currently share a dedicated server with the county government that
>> hosts their site & ILS on a dedicated server. The county uses a CMS, and in
>> order to escape the CMS, they must move their web site off of the county
>> server.
>>
>>
>>
>> I've found some excellent prices with national hosting/domain name
>> companies. Do they absolutely need a dedicated server for their site, which
>> is about 10 times the cost of shared hosting? The ILS (Voyager) would stay
>> on the dedicated county server.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks for any thoughts.
>>
>>
>>
>> Morgan
>>
>>
>>
>> Morgan Brynnan, MLIS
>>
>> mbrynnan at gmail.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
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-- 
Cary Gordon
The Cherry Hill Company
http://chillco.com