by Zima
I think we all went through a stage in our lives, when we bought the biggest available fridge on the market, only to find out later that it will be filled exclusively with canned beer and maybe occasional pizza leftovers. After realizing what is wrong with this picture, we got rid of the fridge. Just then we meet our significant other, and in a few weeks time it becomes apparent that our new super cool picnic freezer is not enough to accommodate the newfound cooking drive. Also, it was made in China and is already broken. You know what I mean? Well, it’s the same with hosting providers.
What I’m saying is that often our ambitions may play a trick on us. Sure, we seem to be ready to build the next Facebook – we’ve got a community in need of a social network, a handy copy of SkaDate Dating Software, and an ultra awesome name that skips vowels and ends on a ‘z’. Off we go getting the best host known in the area. But wait.
Perhaps this is the best time to stop for a second and look back at your strategy. Notwithstanding the grand world domination aspirations, it is vital to plan ahead. If you know that your website will take time to expand, maybe it’s not wise to start right away with dedicated options. Actually, we advise customers to play around with our software for a month or so – just to get the hang of it, before starting a full-scale assault on the community. A way to save money during this stage is to sign up for shared hosting. No one is rushing you, so once you feel you are ready to get the attention of thousands of users, you’ll just switch to a better option.
Now, all those thousands of users. They will definitely love hanging out at your place just for fun, but eventually you might decide to sell them something or even charge for admission. In this case you have to make sure the hosting provider has all the necessary security tools in place. These, of course come at additional price, but they will be worth it in the long run.
Another thing to consider while watching the rapid development of your site is bandwidth and space allotment. Did you know that on shared plans even as few as 10 people actively using your services at the same time will already consume quite a lot of resources? And the last thing you want is for your clients to be devastated with lags or downtime. The next step is to move to a dedicated server or a VPS, but eventually even that could be not enough due to growing membership. The choice here is to move to a more expensive dedicated server or save money and go for optimization solutions like nginx, eAccelerator and memcache.
But what if something still goes wrong? I bet you want to avoid the frustration of finding out the support team of your chosen hosting provider decided to celebrate La Tomatina with a week-long binge drinking trip to Spain. It is, thus, critical to check if the customer service of the chosen provider works 24/7, and has reliable and well-qualified staff.
Juice!
Oh, and don’t forget to choose a Linux server! Sure, Windows back at home may seem more cozy and familiar, but it’s a proven fact of life that the best Server OS are still Linux or Unix.
By the way, you know what else can be better than pizza and beer in your fridge? Our Server Requirements. Very useful stuff right there. Just like when buying a new video game you look at the box to check if your hardware can run it, you should check if the hosting you are getting is compatible with SkaDate Dating Software. It is general understanding that hosting should be chosen to accommodate the software that will make you money, not the other way around. In our case we give you all the required info beforehand to simplify the search. On top of that we have a list of recommended hosting providers, based specifically on their compatibility with our solution. Choose them and your fridge, um, I mean website, will run like a kitten (with a discount at that). OK, maybe this wasn’t the best metaphor ever, but I hope you got my point.
Let me say this outright – we know how frustrating it is when instead of your beautiful dating website all you see on the monitor is a blank page, or when a new feature you longed for does not function for some mysterious reason. We’ve all been there before. In our case we’ve been there on both sides – while testing new products in-house and while trying to help the most important people in our lives – you, the customers.
