nocturnalhostin
New member
One of the questions that I've been asked quite often is what the future looks like for hosting providers - given the national (well, in most larger countries) increases in high speed internet access.
In asnwer to this, I most often here people saying that it takes knowledge to run a web host or run a web server. In my opinion, however, I don't really think this is that true - with the usability of commercial softwater increasing (and even open source software increasing) - it isn't that hard for someone with little to no experience to setup a server and keep it running.
As an example, I had my father (PhD, but no knoweldge of comptuers) try to setup a web server. I gave him a box with Fedora Core 1 installed and only mentioned a few websites for documentation and slashdot for programs.
After about a week, he had found enough automated programs on slashdot to get apache/php/mysql running perfectly with support for virtual domains and had even found WHM AutoPilot and installed the trial license.
Now of course he wouldn't really know what to do if something happened (interms of how to fix it) - but with the wealth of information floating around in forums and what not - it wouldn't take him more than a day or two to resolve issues.
While this is, of course, unacceptable - this is someone with no comptuing "brains" at all.
Thankefully, however, I've found that the best reason for the continued survivial of webhosting companies in the highspeed-always on internet connection era is the terms of service of ISPs.
In the US, I am familar with two companies, Adelphia (which I use for access) and Verizon (which I used to work for). Both of whom have ToS prohibiting a customer form running any type of server. While neither actively monitored (at least during the times that I used them) - they both responded to customer complains and would shut off users that were running a server after someone complained.
Many ISPs are starting to tighten down on this as well with the number of comptuer viruses that are plaging their networks - I know that verizon for one has now started pre-emptivly looking for people with open ports (via port scans on their IP range) and shutting off customers without complaints being received, when their NOC detects a significant increase of traffic in an area.
The only ones that wouldn't be affected by this are ISPs that don't have this type of cluse in the ToS, don't monitor their customers or care about complaints, or (like verizon) have business packages that do allow customers to run servers.
I guess that one good thing in cases like these is that more and more ISPs that provide highspeed/dedicated connections are dealing with increasing bandwidth costs of their own (I mean, they have to pay for all those children running mp3 file servers) - and as their customer bases continue to grow, I can only imagine that they will begin to cut down more and more on the number of "freedoms" in terms of customers running servers or they may become increasing active in terms of finding customers running servers and shutting those customers off (or simply chargine fines or silently upgrading them to higher packages, if their ToS are carefully written to allow such things).
I just find it strang that many people don't consider this point of view when responding to the question of why can't everyone host their own website. It seems, at least in my humble/uneducated opinoin, to be a far more valid reason than that hosting requires excessive knoweldge...even more so when the Internet is making it easier and easier for people to find out how to do such things - I mean, we've gone from having to join a linux group in your community to people posting FAQs and Tutorials on how to start your own web-hosting company on line.
Of course, thats just my 2.5 cents, but I welcome everyones oppinion - just thought it would be a fun topic to re-discuss...
In asnwer to this, I most often here people saying that it takes knowledge to run a web host or run a web server. In my opinion, however, I don't really think this is that true - with the usability of commercial softwater increasing (and even open source software increasing) - it isn't that hard for someone with little to no experience to setup a server and keep it running.
As an example, I had my father (PhD, but no knoweldge of comptuers) try to setup a web server. I gave him a box with Fedora Core 1 installed and only mentioned a few websites for documentation and slashdot for programs.
After about a week, he had found enough automated programs on slashdot to get apache/php/mysql running perfectly with support for virtual domains and had even found WHM AutoPilot and installed the trial license.
Now of course he wouldn't really know what to do if something happened (interms of how to fix it) - but with the wealth of information floating around in forums and what not - it wouldn't take him more than a day or two to resolve issues.
While this is, of course, unacceptable - this is someone with no comptuing "brains" at all.
Thankefully, however, I've found that the best reason for the continued survivial of webhosting companies in the highspeed-always on internet connection era is the terms of service of ISPs.
In the US, I am familar with two companies, Adelphia (which I use for access) and Verizon (which I used to work for). Both of whom have ToS prohibiting a customer form running any type of server. While neither actively monitored (at least during the times that I used them) - they both responded to customer complains and would shut off users that were running a server after someone complained.
Many ISPs are starting to tighten down on this as well with the number of comptuer viruses that are plaging their networks - I know that verizon for one has now started pre-emptivly looking for people with open ports (via port scans on their IP range) and shutting off customers without complaints being received, when their NOC detects a significant increase of traffic in an area.
The only ones that wouldn't be affected by this are ISPs that don't have this type of cluse in the ToS, don't monitor their customers or care about complaints, or (like verizon) have business packages that do allow customers to run servers.
I guess that one good thing in cases like these is that more and more ISPs that provide highspeed/dedicated connections are dealing with increasing bandwidth costs of their own (I mean, they have to pay for all those children running mp3 file servers) - and as their customer bases continue to grow, I can only imagine that they will begin to cut down more and more on the number of "freedoms" in terms of customers running servers or they may become increasing active in terms of finding customers running servers and shutting those customers off (or simply chargine fines or silently upgrading them to higher packages, if their ToS are carefully written to allow such things).
I just find it strang that many people don't consider this point of view when responding to the question of why can't everyone host their own website. It seems, at least in my humble/uneducated opinoin, to be a far more valid reason than that hosting requires excessive knoweldge...even more so when the Internet is making it easier and easier for people to find out how to do such things - I mean, we've gone from having to join a linux group in your community to people posting FAQs and Tutorials on how to start your own web-hosting company on line.
Of course, thats just my 2.5 cents, but I welcome everyones oppinion - just thought it would be a fun topic to re-discuss...
