Hi
I am new to the hosting activity with drupal (actually to any site). I have talked to a few hosting company supports about the possibility of hosting a site with them, but I do not know that am I asking the correct questions.
So I want to know what should I mention in my requirements from the hosting provider.
What I have been asking is:
1. Do you support Drupal sites. If yes then what version. (Generally they are having Fantastico, and the latest release has Drupal 5.1)
2. What version of PHP, Apache and Mysql are they using? (I believe PHP5 is essential, someone please mention the minimum requirements for Apache and Mysql)
3. Specifically I ask for "Crontab Management".
4. What administrative panels do they provide (like CPanel, Plesk etc.). If yes then what is the extra cost (if any).
5. Do they host the site as well as the databases on the same server? (Because I believe it is better on the same server)
6. Specifics that I require like FFMPEG etc. And if they do have the same, then what is the cost of installation or maintainance?
7. What happens in case I exceed their bandwidth limitation? Do they stop my site altogether or charge me extra ?
8. In case of VPS or Dedicated servers, are they 'managed' or 'unmanaged'.
9. Are there any limitations on the number of files I can upload? (because I have read cases where space allocated is 300GB but file limitation is just 50000)
10. Do they have daily backups and means to protect data in case of power outages ?
11. Do they want payments in advance , a long-term contract or on monthly basis? How easy is it for me to upgrade to any of their other plans?
Since I am new to this, I am not able to touch the technical details like SSI, htaccess protection etc. It would be really nice if more people can chip in with the questions (technical or non-technical) that we need to ask and what affirmative answers we should look for?
(I shall also update if I get anything more)
I would hope this would not only help me but other newcomers as well.
Thanks and Regards
Comments
More questions
12. Do you allow ALL PRIVILEGES for MySQL? More specifically, CREATE TABLE, CREATE INDEX, LOCK, UNLOCK, and CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE. Some of these may be lifted in Drupal 6, but for Drupal 5, all of them are needed.
13. Do you allow PHP to open sockets to other sites?
14. Do you use a PHP op-code cache/accelerator?
15. Do you run shared MySQL servers on a separate machine from the one I am hosted on?
16. Do you limit resource usage (CPU percentage, CPU seconds per process, memory, ...etc.)? What are these limits?
I am sure there are more. I will add whatever I remember in the future.
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Drupal development and customization: 2bits.com
Personal: Baheyeldin.com
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Drupal performance tuning and optimization, hosting, development, and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc. and Twitter at: @2bits
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Also consider asking
Also consider asking questions regarding the level of support and uptime guarantee offered.
Website Hosting
Here are some more items...
also you may want to ask their server hardware and software configuration, which is very important.
For example, my company provides:
1. upfront server configuration
2. realtime server load tracking
3. Test file downloads to check bandwidth port speed
The above can be checked any time from the DrupalValueHosting website by all visitors in real time!
These things should be transparent to the customers for all hosts.
Steve,
http://www.DrupalValueHosting.com