Hi all
I am looking for a new hosting option and currently investigating Acquia and Rackspace. Rackspace is much cheaper (actually less than 10% of the cost of Acquia) but Acquia is optimised for Drupal.
All I really need is PHP5.3 with the usual extensions enabled for Drupal, and MySQL of course. I would like the option to run multiple sites/domains on the server, so I can move all my sites from my current shared solution to the new server. drush would be a useful feature to have on the server although not essential.
I have survived this long without requiring SSH access to the server and would be content with ftp.
Basically I need some advice. The main website to be moved is http://iwda.asia, which is an ecommerce site where videos will be hosted and streamed.
Thanks,
Shaun
Comments
It depends
I have sites hosted with a few different companies including Racksapce Cloud (RSC), Acquia Dev Cloud and soon Acquia Managed Cloud.
RSC is great if you have the skills to manage everything yourself, such as tuning the environment, testing and installing security updates etc.
DevCloud is good for smaller sites. It is more expensive that RSC but the environment is semi managed.
Managed Cloud is the top end option. You need to take out an Enterprise Acquia Network subscription to use this option so it it probably out of your budget.
Acquia's deployment tools are pretty shiny and integrate nicely with git. Both of the Acquia options limit the number of sites you can host and if you want to add more you pay extra. Feel free to contact me directly if you want more info on the Acquia options.
Another option is omega8.cc which provides semi managed Aegir and Drupal hosting. This might provide the right balance between cost and support.
I would recommend you use SFTP/SCP not FTP for pushing code to your server. FTP is just another moving part that can cause security issues.
Disclaimer: I am an Acquia partner.
thanks
Cheers, Dave, I will check out these options. omega8.cc looks interesting.
I will probably also be an Acquia partner fairly soon. How's your experience with them been? Email me privately if you like, or Skype me: shaun.moss1
alternative
We manage our own drupal server - specifically set up for the drupal environment. we have a flexible pricing structure (email me for details), FTP is standard and SSH and SFTP can be arranged for those who need it, drush included.
We can manage it all for you or allow you to manage it all yourself or any option in between
Cheers
Tim
I have just gone through the
I have just gone through the process of evaluating Acquia's services for clients. I have deployed a site for a client and it in my opinion has been a huge success.
I found that Acquia's Dev Cloud service is not really that much more expensive than other services, but it is 100% turned for Drupal and for me took a horrible/crappy Drupal site and actually made it run extremely well. Combine this with the other tools that bundled with the Acquia subscription makes it quite worth while.
The problem with the comparison between Acquia and something like Rackspace is the Acquia Subscription which pushes up the price a little. But looking at these gives you quite a lot which if you make use of them, and I would recommend it. Also the other thing that I find really good is the deployment and code/site handing functions are just great and will provide an extremely good method of managing your site.
Also they are about to release their new insight offering which also does basic SEO and security checking services to make sure your site is running the best it can.
I would highly recommend use Acquia Dev Cloud service. For me the difference in price is to make the difference in having good hosting and great hosting.
Also with Acquia's dev cloud you will not be able to deploy using FTP, as they require you to use code management, either SVN or git in which the choice is up to you. This is a good thing as it will help you maintain your source code much better, than you can with ftp, and they give you dev and staging environments as well.
Disclaimer: I am in the process of becoming a Acquia Partner.
--
Gordon Heydon
thanks
Thanks, Gordon. I would like to use Acquia, but their prices are slightly daunting at this stage of the business. I may simply go for an interim solution for a couple of months. Lunarpages aren't cutting it.
Hi iwda, Since you are
Hi iwda,
Since you are posting in the "Australian" group - does this mean you would prefer hosting in Australia? If so, I use a company called bitcloud.com.au - they are good because you can start with a small VPS and change the disk, cpu and ram requirements independently as you grow.
However, they are blank servers and you will have to manage them yourself. In my case I have installed cPanel which gives me a empty fully controlled account to create Drupal sites in. The multi-site part of your comment. As opposed to using Drupal's internal multi-site functionality.
If you are only running drupal sites and want the control at a server level - have a look at aegir or barracuda. Or omega8.cc (mentioned above) provides hosted versions of this.
http://geoff.com.au - http://redronin.com
not necessarily
No, I'm not necessarily looking for hosting in Oz. I've hosted in the US for many years and always been happy with the price, speed and support.
hostgator
For anyone who's interested, I've decided to go with hostgator for a couple of months until I can afford Acquia. Hostgator have PHP 5.3, whereas many others (incl GreenGeeks) do not have it yet.
Ive been hosting with Vandrad
Ive been hosting with Vandrad Labs for the last couple of years and they have been great, have got a couple of virtual servers with them and they offer great support.
http://www.vandradlabs.com.au/
Data and Jurisdiction
I am curious as how a company hosting overseas covers its due diligence to their client regarding data jurisdiction? I have a blog post where I discuss this from a jurisdiction persepective And rather then repost how I explain it I thought a link to the blog will serve best,
http://www.aimeemaree.com/blog/data-jurisdiction
Whilst I agree that Acquia hosting is great made for Drupal reduces set-up costs etc due to the fact the servers are in America it is not a solution for Australian .gov and also for various other companies such as enterprise etc. if your head office is based in X then your data should be based in X legal jurisdiction not Y. Of course for some companies this is not an issue or concern however for .gov and larger orgs this can not only be a concern but can be a key part of their legal liabilities to their customers.
My disclaimer here is that I have been involved for many years in gov and enterprise and have been involved in cases were there has been court cases involving multipule jurisdictions and with not good outcomes.
So what am I saying? Well not that you can't host overseas but just that as development houses it's my perspective that we need to perform this due diligence for our clientele.
Oh and I welcome thoughts etc on the above :)