Linux hosting options, pros and cons

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Fri, Mar 09, 2007 at 06:28:29AM -0500, Kent Johnson wrote:
> <trying again, first time didn't seem to get through>
> 
> Ted Roche wrote:
> >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)
> 
> In my new job I am hosting a web site at WebFactional. I thought you
> might be interested in some first impressions.

I believe webfaction -- which it looks like is the same thing as
webfactional -- is run by the same people as
python-hosting/python-hosted. When hosting a project (trac + svn) there,
at one point the machine we were hosting on failed, and we lost 5 days
worth of wiki and SVN edits. (The nightly backups were corrupted or
something similar.) This doesn't include the fact that before we found
this out there was approximately 48 hours of downtime.

Obviously, this is a rare circumstance. A number of different
circumstances conspired to bring the situation to where it ended up.
It was, however, enough for us to take on the responsibility and move
our trac/SVN hosting in house, giving python hosting the boot.

They were extremely apologetic and duly chastised by the experience, and
I'm sure things have changed, and as I said, it did seem to be an
isolated incident, but it was several man-days of work that was just
gone.    

Just my personal experience with what I think is the same people.

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
Web Developer