Here's one of the dumb questions!

I sell shared hosting.

At some point I would like to sell reseller, Dedicated and VPS.

What kind of hosting package would I have to get?

Just wondering. I use HostMist and I like them greatly. I just wonder what all kind of costs would be involved in going that route in the future.

My dream is to own servers of my own, in multiple states, co-location is what it is called.

Anyone?

If you want to sell reseller plan, or VPS, dedicated server, there are few options

1. Working with vendors as an affiliate: you will get commission for each transaction
- in this way, you just re-sell vendors' plans, don't have your own plans.

2. If you want to create your own plans
- for reseller, you will need to have VPS. You can rent from a vendor
- for VPS, you will need to have dedicated server. You can rent from a vendor
- for dedicated server, you will need to have your own hardware and colo them in a data center

Each level has its cost, and it depends on many factors, cannot say exactly how much you will need.

However, from your post, I would suggest you stay in shared hosting environment, until you get more experiences about hosting industry.

Fair enough, thanks.

Just to make it clear, a dedicated server will do that job as well. It is arguable that a VPS is less cost effective, especially the entry level ones, due to processing overhead and licensing costs. Not to mention a potential performance handicap (compared to a well run reseller/shared hosting environment). Unless you really think that you have a demand/market for reseller hosting packages, it's probably best to stick to high quality reseller hosting (you can have more than 1 reseller account), and make the eventual upgrade directly to a dedicated server.

Do keep in mind that both a VPS and a dedicated server require a qualified server admin to keep them up do date. Obviously, if you don't have the skills, and paying someone full time for this is out of your budget (it usually is), you can buy fully managed ones (they're slightly more expensive than the unmanaged ones), or buy server management services.

I see you got good helpful information but there's also cloud hosting, that's having about 2 - 5 or even more servers all running together and they all share the specs that they all have its like putting servers together and combining them. If one falls your site will still stay up because it has others to depend on.

Depends on what you mean by "skills"

I already know how to run WHM and cPanel. Well, on WHM the IP and DNS stuff, I really have not messed with. But the stuff with account and packages, I've done that.

I'm sure there's been, please, enlighten me. I'm here to learn from the pros about all this stuff.

I was looking into that last night. I clicked on one of the banners above at the top here; and one place could put me into a Cloud server, with all the nice stuff for around 5K. Now, obviously, that's alot of cash. But, if I wanted to get into the big stuff, that what I would need.

Definitely don't need $5k to get into cloud operations (unless you're wanting to go and own the equipment). You can easily partner up with an affiliate or reseller program to allow you to resell services much cheaper. We used to own our own equipment, but we actually found it more cost effective to lease equipment (this was after we had 100+ servers of our own in operation). The flexability of using outside locations, having manned staff at the facilities on call etc - pricing plays a big part into it.

As for skills to run a system - it'll require more than knowing how to create a package and recompile apache. You need to be familiar with shell and how the operating system works, how to seek out and find exploits and spammers, how to repair aspects of mysql or various software and system updates that might be needed.

Advancing your skills in these areas will better prep you for the issues that you'll face down the road. That's not the say you can't learn as you go, but setting up a local system so you can become familiar with shell is something that should definitely be done.

A server admin does not rely on WHM and cPanel alone. Not having a competent sys admin to take care of your VPS/server is the most common way of getting yourself into trouble. You'll find hundreds of similar stories: hosts starting out great, only to be buried when a hacker keeps their server down for weeks.

I hear ya. If I went with a server, I'd go managed with some sort of support.

However, right now. I'm sticking with shared.

You want to *sell* them or *provide* them ?
If all you want is to offer for sale to your customers a dedicated server, then you might consider going the affiliate route, and simply taking a commission rather than effectively "sub-letting" a server you rent ...

heh... leave it to the grammar expert to point out my very funny error.

Oops.

Yes, provide.

Sorry.

Two thumbs up. Good luck.

Just trying to clarify the requirement, as the options are different

A lot will depend on your (and your team if you have one - if not you will want to get one) ability to manage servers, switches, networks, routers etc

The "simplest" way to provide dedicated servers (and vps etc) will be to partner with an existing *actual* provider of those, and to effectively resell under your own branding.

You will be required to provide the support, and (unless you arrange otherwise) the management of those - and I would *STRONGLY* recommend picking a provider with a proven track record of uptime, with their own network and AS number. It may be better to get them to do the management as well if you dont have your own people (inhouse or outsourced) to be trusted and competant to do that.

Essentially, you "rent" the servers from them, and then sell them on to your clients (with appropriate mark-up inline with the additional value you are adding to the equation)

The next "step up" method would be to arrange rackspace/colo for your own servers in a datacentre and for you to rent out those instead

Which of the above you feel comfortable with is a balancing act between relying on a 3rd party for the servers and your own abilities to source and maintain the hardware ...

As mentioned in this thread VPS Reseller

You can start with reselling managed servers and just learn as you go along.