By Colorful Tones on

We're looking to develop an internal faculty/staff portal on Drupal for a state-wide college (scattered centers). I believe a VPS is our best route so I keep hearing, but I'm still not certain of the advantages/disadvantages of VPS vs. Dedicated (or I even see Semi-Dedicated)? We obviously need 24/7 uptime and security is a must. We're also looking for a host that manages security, updates, and optimization, ideally on the Drupal end as well. We're looking for a host that also provides the option for Drupal development, because we may want a custom module or two, or a specific authentication implementation? I imagine that this ideal host has a default Drupal install with certain default modules in place?

I'm told that we need:

  • approximately 2Gb+ of RAM
  • at least 250Gb of disk space
  • network storage would be nice
  • SSL is a must
  • we also would like a sandbox area to perhaps test modules before pushing them to the live site.

does anyone have any recommendations? or advice for a Drupal/host newbie?
Thanks for your time!
Damon

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x

Comments

VM’s picture

VM commented

2GB of RAM i think pushed you out of VPS and into a Dedicated.

VPS is simply a sever that isn't mass shared. It's limited shared.

For all you are looking for you may want to investigate acquia.com

jrdixey’s picture

jrdixey commented

I don't have a hosting recommendation for you, as we're looking too -- but here are some resources I've run across that have helped me steer through the maze of hype and advertising out there:

Web Hosting Talk is a forum for discussing hosting experiences, both good and bad. They also have a system whereby you can request a quote for web hosting, on their Find a Host page.

Web Hosting Jury is not so much a discussion forum as a ratings bureau, with hosts submitting themselves to be ranked and users rating their service and reliability (and writing reviews).

HostJury is similiar to Web Hosting Jury but presents the ratings in a graphical format.

As for Drupal support, there are a lot of hosts out there that have enabled auto-install of Drupal through cPanel and Fantastico, but beyond that, I'm not sure how many hosts offer detailed support that would include Drupal customization. You might need to hire that out separately. (IMHO you want your host to be really dedicated to hosting, and your developers to be really dedicated to developing. You don't always find them in the same place.)

AFAIK, you should be able to set up your own sandbox by installing Drupal in two locations on your server. Just point your client or browser at the sandbox instead of your main Drupal install.

Good luck,
jrd

Kaumil’s picture

Kaumil commented

The problem with VPS and Dedicated is that you're physically limited to the hardware limits on that particular environment. Not to mention, you're also prone to a single point of failure, if the server goes down, well, so does your web site -- It's not redundant by any means. I would narrow your search down to a scalable web hosting provider, one that you can grow seamlessly without the need of migrating data each time you upgrade.

Clustered Drupal Hosting powered by Uptimehost's Cloud.

vikasbook’s picture

vikasbook commented

I think you are right because VPS Hosting can serve you all the mentioned things that you required and its quit secure so there is no need to think in all these things. I am just sharing you a link where you would see Linux and Windows VPS hosting that may fill your requirement http://www.apoto.com/vps/

seanray’s picture

seanray commented

I think the only choice for you is to find a dedicated hosting considering you need 2gb memory. 1and1 is a pretty good at dedicated hosting, and price is also very low. They are promoting their product right now which will allow you to try their dedicated hosting for 3 months, you can visit www.1and1.com is see whether it's good enough for you.