Needed: Hosting, Server and Network Genius

[Barefootsies]

I am looking at buying up some hosting companies next year. No, not the size of PHAT, and the other names you consistently see on here. But a number of mainstream smaller companies who have clients, and are looking to sell off their networks.

This is something I am looking for on a very small scale to provide hosting, and other services for some of the projects I am working on in 2008. So I am not planning to be yet one more spamming host on the ole GFY. This is strictly for my companies way to maximize more revenue streams.

My question is, where would I find either

1. Managed hosting and support.
I am looking to buy companies, and clients. Not be Mr tech support. So I would want to contract out support for the network to an established company. Since this will be a small scale thing, I do expect support needed much. However, I want to make sure that they are some guru's in place to handle that madness.

2. A single contracted tech guru who can set up all this to run 90% on auto pilot. They worry about support once I have enough business booming through the servers, etc.

Fire away with your ideas, and recommendations chief.

[TidalWave]

1. Plenty of outsourced tech support companies available for shared/virtual hosting clients like the ones you want to buy.

2. A good tech will be expensive... anyone worthwhile, dedicated and who will handle your stuff without causing customer cancellations in the process because of messed up config, downtime, etc. will cost you at least $5k/month.


Shared hosting/virtual hosting clients are not "auto pilot" they are one of the worst customers you can have, and you will definitely be feeling it once you buy some of these companies. You will end up spending big bux on the support requirements for these clients since you will see a ton of tickets from clueless people because shared hosting has no entry barrier, its cheap to get an account and assume things will just work and when they dont freak out and blame you.

[Barefootsies]

1. Plenty of outsourced tech support companies available for shared/virtual hosting clients like the ones you want to buy.

2. A good tech will be expensive... anyone worthwhile, dedicated and who will handle your stuff without causing customer cancellations in the process because of messed up config, downtime, etc... will cost you at least $5k/month.

Thanks chief.

Well some of these companies I am looking at buying already have revenue over the $5k a month. So that would not be an issue. Gobbling up 4+ of them making at least that in the next year, and tada. Tech paid for ... and then some.

I'm in it for the expansion for things I am working on. Having a small hosting company would be key. But I do not want to get into myself doing the tech side of things. So that I would want to outsource.

[baddog]

Shared hosting/virtual hosting clients are not "auto pilot" they are one of the worst customers you can have, and you will definitely be feeling it once you buy some of these companies. You will end up spending big bux on the support requirements for these clients since you will see a ton of tickets from clueless people because shared hosting has no entry barrier, its cheap to get an account and assume things will just work and when they dont freak out and blame you.

You have an interesting attitude towards shared/virtual clients. Do you not offer virtual hosting?

[baddog]

Thanks chief.

Well some of these companies I am looking at buying already have revenue over the $5k a month. So that would not be an issue. Gobbling up 4+ of them making at least that in the next year, and tada. Tech paid for ... and then some.

I'm in it for the expansion for things I am working on. Having a small hosting company would be key. But I do not want to get into myself doing the tech side of things. So that I would want to outsource.

The problem with buying up multiple companies is that they will most likely be in multiple datacenters. The main problem with the technical stuff is that you can not fix everything remotely, so it pays to have someone that lives nearby for those situations.

In summary, you might want to have multiple techs, one by each datacenter.

[Barefootsies]

You have an interesting attitude towards shared/virtual clients. Do you not offer virtual hosting?

My thoughts exactly.

I am not looking to get into the website game. This is more about content hosting.

[Barefootsies]

The problem with buying up multiple companies is that they will most likely be in multiple datacenters. The main problem with the technical stuff is that you can not fix everything remotely, so it pays to have someone that lives nearby for those situations.

In summary, you might want to have multiple techs, one by each datacenter.

We in the grand plan, I would want to consolidate all the client base at some point into a central network, and billing system.

[Sly]

The problem with buying up multiple companies is that they will most likely be in multiple datacenters. The main problem with the technical stuff is that you can not fix everything remotely, so it pays to have someone that lives nearby for those situations.

In summary, you might want to have multiple techs, one by each datacenter.

Why wouldn't he just move everything to one network? Everything could be set up under the same universal system structure, not to mention it would be cheaper. I don't follow your line of thought on that one.

[Barefootsies]

Why wouldn't he just move everything to one network? Everything could be set up under the same universal system structure, not to mention it would be cheaper. I don't follow your line of thought on that one.

That's what I was thinking chief.

I buy up small fries with verified existing clients, and move them all to my network of servers, billing system, etc.

Keep in mind, we are not talking about big, or even medium companies. We are talking about small fries who are billing typically below $10k a month, and have a few hundred clients each.

I would buy the company, move their existing to my network. From there, have it set up centralized.

[baddog]

Would you be able to keep the IP's from DC-1 if you moved everyone to DC-2?

[Barefootsies]

Would you be able to keep the IP's from DC-1 if you moved everyone to DC-2?

Forgive my ignorance on this chief, as I am not a tech or sever meister...

But I think you may be thinking on a bigger scale. These are companies that offer small hosting packages for image hosting, music, video, etc. I am not looking for website hosting where we are dealing with a bunch of IP, and SEO type issues.

[baddog]

Forgive my ignorance on this chief, as I am not a tech or sever meister...

But I think you may be thinking on a bigger scale. These are companies that offer small hosting packages for image hosting, music, video, etc. I am not looking for website hosting where we are dealing with a bunch of IP, and SEO type issues.

okay, then ignore my offerings

[Barefootsies]

okay, then ignore my offerings

On the contrary haus,

I appreciate your server-network expertise. I am a business man. I work on the making money, and growth aspect. I leave the technical shit to other people. I am looking for some good feedback on what I would need, and where to find these BoDog maestros.

[directfiesta]

Would you be able to keep the IP's from DC-1 if you moved everyone to DC-2?

only if they actually own the full class ( in their own name ).

[baddog]

only if they actually own the full class ( in their own name ).

Kind of my point, but apparently, not an issue.

[Barefootsies]

What kind of software (server side) would I need for this type of set up?

To handle reseller accounts, etc.

[Iron Fist]

Shared hosting/virtual hosting clients are not "auto pilot" they are one of the worst customers you can have, and you will definitely be feeling it once you buy some of these companies. You will end up spending big bux on the support requirements for these clients since you will see a ton of tickets from clueless people because shared hosting has no entry barrier, its cheap to get an account and assume things will just work and when they dont freak out and blame you.

Well that firms up in one paragraph why I will never be moving to a dedicated box with your company ever. That is the shittiest attitude towards virtual hosting I have ever heard. To put it into perspective - I've been on shared hosting with this new company for almost a year now, opened 7 tickets for stuff I simply could not do myself (can't do some things on the command line in a virtual setup), and NEVER set any ticket as "urgent" - was always "When your techs have time..." which took between 4 hours and 5 days later.

I pay $60 a month for virtual hosting... and most of that is the reliability i've had with my package. Anyways, thanks for clearing that up...

[baddog]

What kind of software (server side) would I need for this type of set up?

To handle reseller accounts, etc.

DirectAdmin.com - very easy panel, inexpensive, and does everything you can think of

[TidalWave]

No, we don't offer shared hosting and there's a reason for it. The type of support required for it is entirely different then the type of support for dedicated server and colocation clients.

Shared/virtual hosting is definitely a pain in the ass. Can't fault me for thinking that. It's the nature of shared/virtual hosting and I don't see why anyone would have a problem with me saying that. If you want shared hosting, look else where. We specialize in dedicated servers, not virtual hosting accounts.

Virtual/Shared hosting requires a totally different support team then dedicated/colo type of clients, to handle all the issues and unique problems associated with virtual/shared clients.

[TidalWave]

Well that firms up in one paragraph why I will never be moving to a dedicated box with your company ever. That is the shittiest attitude towards virtual hosting I have ever heard. To put it into perspective - I've been on shared hosting with this new company for almost a year now, opened 7 tickets for stuff I simply could not do myself (can't do some things on the command line in a virtual setup), and NEVER set any ticket as "urgent" - was always "When your techs have time..." which took between 4 hours and 5 days later.

I pay $60 a month for virtual hosting... and most of that is the reliability i've had with my package. Anyways, thanks for clearing that up...

No problem. If you have that attitude then I don't want you here either. Just because I don't like shared/virtual hosting, and I don't offer it all of a sudden that means I'm a bad host. LOL, can you get any more ridiculous?

Getting hosting is a 2-WAY business relationship. You want to be treated well, and you need to treat the hosting company just as well. We are not here to take your abuse and just as you can refuse to do business with anyone you please, we can refuse to offer service to anyone we please.

[Brad Mitchell]

On the contrary haus,

I appreciate your server-network expertise. I am a business man. I work on the making money, and growth aspect. I leave the technical shit to other people. I am looking for some good feedback on what I would need, and where to find these BoDog maestros.

Since you're in Michigan why don't we meet up for dinner or drinks. I'm happy to expedite some of your learning curve on the challenges ahead of you and give you some constructive feedback.

Sincerely,

Brad

[TidalWave]

I put all my resources to ensure a certain type of customer is well taken care of (dedicated server), spreading those resources over 2 different types of niches (shared/dedicated) is not conducive to providing the best support possible for my targetted niche (dedicated server).

Leave the shared hosting to the shared hosting companies, the dedicated servers to the dedicated server companies.

[GrouchyAdmin]

TidalWave has a valid, but quite crass point: Most people who pay for Virtual Hosting are either just starting out, or are incredibly frugal. They also expect you to offer or install server-wide custom extensions so they can run their Tube scripts, etc, even though this may cause issues for other people on the same server.

If you're looking for primarily small fry Virtual/CPanel/etc hosts, they're a dime a dozen, and you can buy (and generally migrate them) fairly easily. With CPanel you can even just do an export. You'll still need someone fairly familiar with the systems, and is capable of not only importing the data through the panel system, but fixing/manually importing SQL, maintaining DNS, bribing the current block holder to forward the old IPs to the new nameserver if you don't own IP space, updating all of the zones, etc...

It's essentially an enormous headache, and consolidation of virtualhosts tends to cause many more issues than just having someone on call in the area to handle any hardware issues.. however, then you have a major split horizon among all of your hosting, which can become quite unwieldy.

As far as support, there's always BobCares, which isn't the best, or brightest, but they can assist during 'normal sleep hours' if you do not want to maintain a staff.

[Barefootsies]

Great info chaps.

[Barefootsies]

Since you're in Michigan why don't we meet up for dinner or drinks. I'm happy to expedite some of your learning curve on the challenges ahead of you and give you some constructive feedback.

Sincerely,

Brad

Actually I just may.

I do not get over to the east side much. Occasionally I head over to meet up with old college roomie in Ypsi. But I'll definitely try and make time.

I have a media network that I am working on launching in 2008. So I need to know what I will need beyond absolutely INSANE bandwidth.