We recently helped a customer in making the the best decision for their needs. They are operate charter schools in 65 locations today. They’re technical aspirations are progressive but cost conscious.
To present them with the best solutions, we looked at what other vendors were quoting them and talked about what they wanted. Their goals were largely based on having the servers they needed – powered up somewhere.
Their needs were basic at this stage “having X number of servers online”. We developed a hardware (bare metal) only strategy that echoed other quotes they were given. We weren’t the cheapest.
We kept working with them on a version with Virtual Private Hosting. Some servers were more important than others. For the most mission critical applications they needed to make sure the uptime was near 100%. It was beginning to look like a mix of Managed Windows VPS and Linux VPS could have huge added benefits.
Their reasons NOT to colocate or purchase bare metal solution:
- Flexibility was short lived. Servers get old, they could easily allocate resources using virtualization to the servers they needed today, but what about 2-3 years from now?
- Server management was their job. Outside of hardware outages, they would have to manage the platform. Emergency work after hours wasn’t desirable.
- They didn’t want to be locked into a solution too small, or paying for something that’s overkill.
With a potential of needing 32 servers for their environment, thousands of dollars could be wasted by underutilizing hardware.
Their reasons to use Managed Virtual Private Hosting:
- They could provision more or less servers as they needed.
- They wouldn’t have to make a big upfront purchase if they decided to colocate.
- They wouldn’t have to tweak hardware to maximize performance.
- (Specific to Hostek) Managed OS patches (Windows VPS) are included.
- (Specific to Hostek) Backups of all their servers are included.
The cost was also a factor, which ended up being about 30% higher than the purely hardware solution. But for less than the cost of a PART TIME systems admin they wouldn’t have to manage the infrastructure.
[Tweet “Incredible effort that goes into providing a superior service, the value is almost incalculable.”]
What having Virtual Private Hosting would ALSO provide:
- Opportunity to focus on platform rather than hardware
- Gained partnership to accelerate their IT initiatives
- Peace of mind
It’s near impossible to calculate peace of mind most of all. Does your hosting provider promise to provide excellent service & support (here’s how you’ll know)? If so, next to the incredible effort that goes into providing a superior service, the value is almost incalculable.
It’s exciting to see a solution take shape. This conversation all started through a consultation, part of the free services we offer at Hostek. If you have a server project you are considering, we’d love to discuss it with you. Schedule your consultation here.
Tags: ColdFusion VPS hosting, VPS Hosting, Windows VPS Hosting
Categories: Business Tips, Hosting