Anybody here do web hosting as a side job?

[coolred]

I have a buddy that has a company that designs websites for people. They are looking to tie in with somebody to do web hosting. So when they get a client they can refer them to thsi person for hosting. So they basically have the whole package to offer. I was thinking about maybe getting into it, but I am not sure of what exactly is involved.

I am guessing i will have to beef up my net connection, road runner business class maybe. Any get some decent servers. What else is required, is it really that hard? I mean I understand you have to work about uptime and all that, so you have to keep the server(s) running stable. But what else is there that I need to know?

 

[amdskip]

1) You cannot host websites at your home on a business connection
2) You need to rent space on a reseller web server
3) http://www.webhostingtalk.com

 

[hjo3]

I don't see how you could possibly hope to compete with the larger hosts on price, reliability, or service. Also, I don't think "business class" cable or DSL would cut it unless you're doing extremely small-scale stuff. I think you'd need to rent space with a datacenter or something.

 

[torpid]

Sorry to be rude about it, but there's a lot more involved than you can imagine. It is a really terrible idea unless you have a LOT of money to invest and a lot of time. Even then it's still probably a bad idea. You won't be able to compete with the speed, reliability, and often times service of large web hosts. The fact that your friend is even considering this over just partnering with some huge web company is kind of weird to me. If I saw a web designer partnering with some company I've never heard of run in some guy's house I would go to a different designer because I'd be way too worried about inbred, unprofessional practices. Any clients you do end up having will be really strange clients with eccentricities.

Even if you throw that aside, partnering with a friend in this manner is a bad idea of itself. Business and pleasure mixing type stuff. Most likely your friend will demand rights on your machines that he shouldn't have, constantly ask for software to be installed, and so forth.

Just all around, a bad, bad idea.

Edit: And I say this as someone who was involved in a similar venture. The above is what I learned.