|
|||||||||||
PREVIOUS PAGE • SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER • CLIENT LOGIN Where should your Web site live?Before you set up a Web site, you need to think about where it should live. You can pay a lot, you can pay a little, or you can pay nothing. "Nothing" is an attractive figure, but if you plan to use the site for business, you should forget about this option. For one thing, you’ll be stuck with some horrid uniform resource locator (URL) — something like http://www.freehost.com/~yourcompany/. There’s nothing wrong with free Web sites, but a URL from a free-site host says "this is a hobby." So if you’re serious, forget about free. Let’s skip over the "pay a little" hosts and take a look at the other end of the spectrum: If cost isn’t a factor, you could buy your own server, learn how to administer a Unix system or an NT system, and lease a T1 line. For most of us, this isn’t a viable alternative. The problem is not what you might expect, though. Buying a computer to host a Web site isn’t a huge investment — probably not more than $1200 to $1500. But a T1 line will cost another $1000 or so every month, and that’s not all. Because a single link can fail, you need a back-up connection. That means another T1 line from another provider for another $1000 per month. The next issue you must face is support. You want the system to be operational 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year. That’s what the Internet is all about. If your system crashes at 2:57 a.m. on Sunday morning, you want somebody to be able to get it back on line right away. So that means hiring some system operators to keep an eye on things. Well, it’s clear that unless you’re running a very large Web site, this isn’t economically feasible. That’s why companies such as Communitech make sense for most of us. You share critical resources with thousands of other Web site operators. I operate a Web site at http://www.blinn.com/ and I can assure you that I don’t stay up 24/7 to keep it operational, that I don’t pay thousands of dollars per month for T1 and T3 lines, and I that I don’t have a staff of system operators in my basement. Instead, I use Communitech’s multiple T3 and T1 connections, Communitech’s technicians, and Communitech’s servers. Because my site is one of more than 50,000 sites that Communitech maintains, my cost for the site is just $25 per month. (Communitech has plans that range from about $15 per month to $100 per month.) There are other options. Some of the Web sites I maintain are on local servers and they usually run without problems. The local providers are small, though, and not all have technicians on site 24 hours per day. If something goes wrong overnight on Sunday, the problem may not be resolved until Monday morning. How much of a problem would it be for you if your site becomes inoperative for several hours? For a weekend? Overnight? If you accept orders from customers and those customers are in time zones all over the Earth, this could be a big problem. If your site is used mainly to provide collateral information to prospective customers who are primarily in your time zone, the problem may not be as serious. You may feel that you’re reading a commercial for Communitech. Not entirely. There have been a few problems, but they've all been resolved. Overall, I’ve found Communitech’s operation to be professional. The support staff has usually responded quickly to problems and concerns. Overall, the service has been an excellent value. I recommend http://www.communitech.com/. You can get a lot for $25 to $50 per month! 2003 updateCommunitech was purchased by another company -- one that I walked away from in disgust because of a complete lack of service. I'm currently working with a small service provider called Akashik.net. Make sure you check out what they have to offer before you sign up with anyone else. |
|
William Blinn Communications - All Rights Reserved |
|||
 |
|
|
|