Setting up commercial web hosting from a residence

[SenseiSteve]

Your thoughts?

What are the pros and cons of setting up a commercial web hosting business from a residence?

The reality of successfully implementing a commercial hosting operation out of a residential setting is fraught with a number of obstacles such as price, space, noise, power, cooling, security, redundancy, bandwidth, port speed and even DDoS protection – or having to deal with RaaS.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Your thoughts?

What are the pros and cons of setting up a commercial web hosting business from a residence?

If you have space for a 20 ft shipping container and a good water company then you can now get a mini datacentre where you can run a commercial hosting business from all self contained in a 20 ft shipping container, the issue will be getting enough water supply too it.

 

[server]

Your thoughts?

What are the pros and cons of setting up a commercial web hosting business from a residence?

Is there any point in doing that?

 

[izumi777]

Pros
- Could be could for big hosting companies with at least 50 racks (I think)

Cons
- Large scale investment.
- It could take several years to upgrade the data center to tier 4.

 

[ikalf]

I don't see any pros in doing this.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Pros
- Could be could for big hosting companies with at least 50 racks (I think)

Cons
- Large scale investment.
- It could take several years to upgrade the data center to tier 4.

these would be relating to an industrial operation and not a residential operation.

In relation to just Commercial Web Hosting from a residence then anyone can do this as all you need is a laptop/PC with a stable internet connection as any servers will be in DCs anywhere in the world, but in reality the more commercial you become the more staff and equipment you will need, so working from a residential home office will not work, so you would need commercial premises

 

[bigredseo]

I see many people who have set up "hosting companies" in their home when starting out. Usually it's just a shared device etc, but it's enough to host a few sites. The problem however is that this is usually against the TOS of your cable internet provider.

At our office location (commercial building, commercial internet etc etc) we have a few servers setup as backup devices. Their entire job is just to retrieve backups from websites hosted at other data centers.

We use minimal bandwidth during off-peak times, and our TOS allows for this.

But setting up a commercial web hosting business out of a home - I'd never recommend it. Besides the bottlenecks with bandwidth, and the TOS issues, there's firewall and backup power supplies and everything else to worry about too. Not worth the headache (usually).

 

[easyhostmedia]

The problem however is that this is usually against the TOS of your cable internet provider.

Yes in the UK our ISPs try and play that game 'you are running a business, so you need to have a business internet plan'.

My answer to them is 'Please go and read your agreement with OFCOM and you will find a home office can be run on a Residential Broadband Service'

I never hear nothing else from them as they dont like it when a consumer has read up on what they can and cant do.

 

[wixvps]

these would be relating to an industrial operation and not a residential operation.

In relation to just Commercial Web Hosting from a residence then anyone can do this as all you need is a laptop/PC with a stable internet connection as any servers will be in DCs anywhere in the world, but in reality the more commercial you become the more staff and equipment you will need, so working from a residential home office will not work, so you would need commercial premises

I agree with you my friend

 

[NetBriteGeorge]

Running a server from home is not a great idea. You can provide some level of service, but you should definitely have a business connection.

You'll need to invest in some UPS for your servers, your racks, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to get a generator to power it all.

The real factor in determining if it's a good idea or not is your motivations for doing this. If you're looking to host a few small websites, and your connection is 100Mbps or better, you can get away with it to a point.

The problem is, when you lose power, or suffer some other problem. I think a lot of people think they can take an old desktop PC, slap linux on it, hook it up to the internet and run cpanel. And while it's physically possible, the money you'll spend in offering a very inferior service is not worth it.

I know some businesses self-host their websites in their offices, and I've seen a few setups that were actually adequate for that purpose, complete with UPS and brand new electrical lines.

Years ago, I ran a server out of my house for a few personal sites. Back then, it was on a crappy ADSL connection (8Mbps I think). It was fine for small things. Things that didn't matter. The hardware was fresh, and I still have the case from that build (it's sitting next to me as I write this).

The other problem with running a server from home, especially on a residential connection, is that if you don't have static IP's, chances are really good that your IP is on a blacklist of IPs that are in DHCP pools for ISPs.

When you can get VPS for $5 from places, it doesn't make sense anymore imo to try and self host commercially. Self-hosting for personal stuff, and for a learning experience, is fine. But even then, get a cheap VPS. You'll be glad you did.