Linux hosting options, pros and cons

[Ted Roche]

A client with a database-backed LAMP application is considering  
moving to a new hosting provider for their system.  Surfing the web,  
they find all of these $6.95/month deals and can't figure out why  
anyone would pay more. I know there are a number of folks on the list  
who provide such services for themselves or their customers, and  
would welcome feedback, from what questions should be asked to what  
features we should be looking at. (I should explain "we" - I am the  
developer of the app, and an adequate sysadmin, and will likely end  
up installing, configuring and maintaining the system)

Bandwidth: minimal. The system is a custom query application used by  
a small number of customers. Data is plain 'ol HTML with a few token  
branding graphics.

Basic software requirements:
Linux
Apache 2.x
SSL	
PHP 4.3 or better with the ability to add PEAR modules
MySQL 4.1.19 or later or 5.1
ssh/scp access, preferably on a non-standard port
rsync support
ability to add custom cron jobs
outgoing email, a few a day.

Storage: data is dinky, a couple of megabytes, HTML, CSS and .js  
files a few hundred K

Reliability: of course, clients expect web presence to work like  
dialtone: five 9's at no extra cost. A flaky ISP who blinks on and  
off is obviously undesirable, but the client is not going to pay for  
their own standby diesel generator, either. What's a realistic  
expectation, and how closely is it tied to "you get what you pay  
for?" In terms of mission-criticality, uptime is good, but going  
black during a natural disaster is not a deal-breaker, as long as the  
machine does a good shutdown and recovery.

Security: Client requires https communications, so a certificate is  
mandatory. Only one httrps per IPaddress/port combination, so an ISP  
would be charging extra for that, too.

The data is confidential business information, so there would be a  
concern with sharing an instance of MySQL and Apache. What are  
opinions of the current technologies of VMs and VPSes and UMLs?

So, what are folks doing, and why?


Ted Roche
Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
http://www.tedroche.com