Posted by lucashodge on June 29, 2006 at 6:48am
Hi all,
I am wondering if anybody has recommendations for an Australian host that has good support for drupal 4.7?
I had a quick search on google and got:
http://www.ausweb.com.au
Thank you for any feedback
Cheer, Luke
Comments
quadrahosting
Try quadrahosting.com.au.
I've been using them for a couple of years. I have a multi-site Drupal configuration running there. User support is good. Page delivery times are good. They cannot offer unlimited domains/ unlimited databases as some USA-based hosters are now doing, but of course the payoff is that their servers are not overloaded.
Recommended.
John
www.also.com.au
www.drupal.com.au
Was doing social distancing before it was cool.
I would not recommend any
I would not recommend any Australian Hosting Companies. I find them all over priced, and under serviced compared to Overseas Hosting companies.
I recommend to all my Australian Clients to seek web hosting overseas unless they have a very good reason to choose an Australain hosting company.
--
Gordon Heydon
Latency
I found an interesting resource about latency and sales:
http://highscalability.com/latency-everywhere-and-it-costs-you-sales-how...
You could argue that Australian hosting is much cheaper when you factor this in.
Yes I agree with this
Yes I agree with this completely, and when you are talking that 100ms latency costs 1% of sales yes spending money to get this servers closer to customers is 100% the right thing to do.
But when you are talking about spending less than $US100/mth on servers your main concern is not reducing latency, but making sure that you get the best bang for you buck, is the most important.
Reduction of latency is what you want to do when you start looking at you are running on bare metal (not a VPS) and can afford to co-locate it close to your clients.
BTW, Liked the article.
--
Gordon Heydon
Expensive yes - but we answer the phone
I run Anchor - www.anchor.com.au and we can provide hosting for Drupal.
We are more expensive than US hosting providers but I hope that the service
we offer is better. You can call us and we'll answer the phone, no phone
queues, no on hold, no international call costs. If you've got a problem we'll
do what we can to help you out.
And of course, our servers are in Australia so the latency should be a bit
better than US based services.
Ausweb hosting
I'm currently having issues with ausweb. They ask you to use Fantastico to get it running and it does work, but as you start enabling modules it quickly brakes - memory exhausted, sql gone away query and stuff.
Called their tech support and they said they cannot increase the memory for security reasons - that I should either find modules suitable for their server or hire a dedicated server service (which might be a bit too much for me) and then setup it to my desire.
Result: I'm currently looking into moving elsewhere if I don't a solution within a month.
Thoughts?
Your hosting.
I love Fantastico for uses such as quick demonstrations and trying out various programs. But that is all its good for.
Do not use if for your final website. In the long term it will cause more problems than its worth. It may be an extra hours work downloading, unzipping and then uploading by FTP but in a shared hosting environment such as the Cpanel that you are using you need to do this for your final web site.
Your problems with lack of memory etc are not due to Fantatico. It is simple the setup of the Ausweb hosting.
I can supply you similar Cpanel/Fantastico hosting to Ausweb with more facilities and a cheaper price that I know works well with Drupal as I use it with Drupal on a number of websites. If you want to try this I will set it up for you to try for free for a couple of months. If you want to try it then email me with the Domain name and user name that you want to use and any specific requirements that you want.
Details of the hosting can be found at http://AusValue.com
You will need to access the Registrar of your domain or domains and change the DNS (Domain Name Servers) or 'Delegation' of each domain so that it is set up as follows
NS1.JYPES.COM
NS2.JYPES.COM
The delegation of a domain is always setup to point to two or more DNS servers.
Regards
Ken Dawber
Save your self some time and move now.
If a provider is telling you they can't increase memory for security reasons then I'd move right away. Because that's just a bullshit answer :)
We support both australian and overeas customers with drupal
Hi all.
We are a drupal hosting and design company. We have servers in Australia and USA and can offer drupal friendly hosting solutions without the issues (we also have had them in the past). We can provide the hosting account as a shell for you to manage yourself, or we can provide a full back end drupal service level maintenance agreement where we manage core and module upgrade and security patching, site and database backups (not server ghost but true offsite website backups)
Feel free to contact me for more information if you are interested. tim@jethromanagement.biz
We host 30 plus drupal sites in these environments for ourselves and customers and are growing rapidly.
Cheers
Gravity Rail is now doing Drupal Hosting
Hi there,
I've just started a Drupal Hosting company.
We offer everything from low-end servers running multiple sites in a virtual host environment to complete multi-tier infrastructure for a single high-demand site with failover, CDN and other high-end features.
On the low servers, you get a complete host to yourself but you can put a whole lot of sites on it, based on Aegir 0.3 currently and migrating to 0.4 as soon as it's RTM.
On the high end servers the sky's the limit. We've based some of what we do on the Project Mercury work, though we tend to prefer nginx to varnish due to its simplicity. Multi-master MySQL with hot failover, CDN, real-time load monitoring and, if necessary, real-time provisioning of additional servers to meet sudden jumps in demand.
This is being rolled out gradually to select clients, so get in touch and let's talk about whether it's right for you :-) dan@gravityrail.com
Oh, and let me just say for the record that Anchor is totally awesome, have only heard good things.
Cheers,
Dan
====
Dan Walmsley
Managing Director, Gravity Rail Pty Ltd
Connecting Artists to Audiences
mellahosting.com
Hello Perroud and LukeHodge.
My name is Shanley Hacking, Im the owner of mellahosting.com Im based near Sydney on the Central Coast, I own my own business in website hosting, webdesigning and other Internet Solutions, My servers can provide you with everything you require to have a drupal site hosted with ease.
I have plans that start from only $7.95pm - $39.95pm AUD, then it goes to Dedicated. Feel free to visit my site for these details: http://www.mellahosting.com/Hosting-Plans/services.html
I also offer 1 month free and no setup costs. So you have the opportunity to try first. Cancel anytime. For DNS settings to be changed I offer this a free service for you, if your not sure what to do. Im available to talk to anytime on 1800 228175 or on 0416588638. Obligation free ;)
I will look forward to hearing from you both.
Regards
Shanley
www.mellahosting.com
Thanks
Guys, Shanley,
thanks for the info, I'll check - let's see what ausweb comes up with, otherwise I'll probably be talking to you soon.
Cheers,
P
Hosting - a few comments
Hi people,
I've been around the block with hosting and sites a few times now. Here are some thoughts that may be helpful ...
1) I think Cove in Melbourne and NetLogistics in Sydney are both great hosting providers. I believe that Cove offer the ability to set your PHP memory limit but I haven't tested this (reseller account only maybe ... had a pre-sales conversation with them re this thus far but haven't tried it out). NetLogistics moved my php memory limit up to 96M from 64M on a when I pressed them on it.
2) The main issue with Drupal hosting (IMHO) is the PHP memory limit. Most shared hosting is set at 64M, you will need at least 96M once you load up your site with a few modules. Also, some modules can be cactus (this is open source people!) - they have issues with their programming, their compatibility with your Drupal version, your PHP version, something went wrong on the install (EG: You started your site with Acquia Drupal and then used Update Manager module and it changed module install path), and they can screw up your site (So always backup your database, always delete old module, upload new one, then run updates. Don't update multiple modules all at once).
3) Don't under-estimate your needs against you ambitions. Shared hosting is great but is really for simple (brochureware) sites.
4) When things start to go wrong you can't just blame the host ... is your SQL database going sideways? Are your permissions OK? Do you know what php and sql settings you may need adjusted to accommodate your sites requirements? One way to learn all this is to develop locally and then push to production.
5) Siteground offer 96M as a default, but their service is awful so best avoided. I had a terrible time with them a few week ago that caused a client to go off-line and they didn't care a bit (they say "professional", what they mean is "cash extraction").
6) Local hosting will generally provide a better support service. The site response times will be a bit faster if your target audience is Australian. Also, there is apparently a slight SEO benefit in having your hosting proximal to your target audience.
Oh yeah
Both Cove and NetLogistics offer 30 day money back guarantee.
So, Provided your Drupal 4.7 sites work with current versions of PHP and MySQL, then you should be fine with these guys.
If you need an "older" environment, then I guess the requirement may be better phrased as,
"I need (dedicated OR shared) hosting with PHP version 4.x and MySQL version XXX (to run a Drupal 4.7 site) ...
smilne23, great tips man, but
smilne23,
great tips man, but some of this stuff is a bit too advanced for me, like "SQL database going sideways" - I wouldn't have a clue how to chech that. I'm learning everyday how to optimise Drupal, but I'm miles from being confident to control it.
@Perroud
I think the point smilne23 is making is with shared hosting, if something goes wrong you're screwed. Unlimited bandwidth will not help you if you start hammering the database. Many hosting companies will disable your account if your site is using up an unfair amount of resources.
The fact is that drupal can (with dodgy configuration or module selection) work the database very hard. The shared hosting sysadmin doesn't know or care what Drupal is. they just look at the stats and see your custom app is dragging down the server.
SQL database going sideways ...
... Just means it is uh, f%^&ed, and you should revert to backed up DB. "sideways" is not a technical term :)
PHPmyAdmin is available in Cpanel (web site admin browser-based SQl admin tool). You gotta get a handle on using this to backup and restore databases.
During development I have a habit of duplicating my databases and renaming them logically (eg: devsite1, devsite2, devsite3 ...). I point my site to the new version each time by changing Drupal's settings.php file.
Like I said, get a local dev environment going. (I avoid WAMPP, but maybe it is a good start for you).
Lots of pain ahead mate, but once you get through the basics of SQL, PHP, Apache you willbe far better placed to be developing with Drupal.
Cheap hosting + domains
I would not recommend not using a cheap service when you're starting out. The savings are not worth the risk. Remember that cheap hosting has to cut costs by sacrificing redundancy, reliability, security and support. Many cheap hosting plans usually seem good at first but as more and more customers sign up, the network slows down and the staff can't keep up with maintenance or support. I've got a dreamhost account that's not much good for more me other than storing some old SVN accounts because the network is too slow.
I've seen some disasters that have been very expensive. These include: entire databases lost, sites shut down (and redirected to an advertising site) when traffic reaches a certain threshold, loss of domain ownership, denial of service attacks.
And I don't know how many of my clients lose their domain name details. I had one experienced client pay a fraudulent invoice last month and another ask me about something that turned out to be fraud only yesterday. I also had another domain name seller try to charge my client $20 for delegation. I just logged into their upsteam provider and redelegated from there (dumb asses).
Use a reputable domain name reseller (like TPP) just as you'd get a decent locksmith to secure your house.
Someone from Anchornet posted above. They have been around a while and I've heard nothing bad about them. Also Ilisys offer good support and hourly backups.
When you get skilled up you can start looking around for hosting plans that give you more options and you can save some cash with your experience. Until then, play it safe! (unless of course your site is not worth much)
Domain registration trap - Advice please
I am in this exact position now and would really appreciate any advice to rectify the situation.
I registered my very first domain name with DNClub.com, who seem to have since fallen off the face of the earth. They offered what seemed to be a 'good' free service that I jumped at being young and naive. That was probably 10 years ago.
I made a simple site for my company and thought all was good. Then I ran into problems with spam filling up my inbox etc etc
Over time I got a bit wiser and decided to move my account to a better host where I paid for services and had more control. I sent email after email with no reply. So I looked up my site on whois and found out that the site was listed under ultradomains.com
I thought that I'd be able to speak sense into these guys as they seemed more professional online. So I emailed - no reply. I rang the number that was listed on whois for ultradomains.com and it was a recording, asking me to ring another number. So I rang and got a pornographic message!
Over the years, my website has been available to the public but I have not been able to update it. My CPanel shows that I have gone over my quota in space (probably all the spam I was recieving) so I can't do anything in there anymore as it has been disabled.
I have another account now with anhosting.com which is going well. I have asked them to try to transfer the old domain to their system but they say it is locked and that they can't do anything until it is unlocked. They also say that the domain is ultimately registered through enom.com so I have contacted them but they say they can't do anything about their clients accounts.
I have almost booked a flight the US to knock on their door in person but that seems silly.
Is there anything I can do here to get my site away from these people?? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
with peanuts, u get monkey :)
ya, all they border is volume.
if you sucked up resources more than they can handle,
they will label u as excessive customer, and they will be happy without you on their shared hosting.
They will then contact you for virtual server or dedicated server n stuff...
Compare and Contrast
OK, I am awaiting a conversation with Cove re this, but have a look at this statistical comparison ...
I have 2 reseller accounts. 1 with Netlogistics and one with Cove. I was having a bugger of a time migrating a site from my local machine to a Cove (reseller) hosted site. Things just weren't working! SO I took the time to try the site on Netlogistics. It went smoothly there.
I had a look at the Drupal SQL reports (/admin/reports/status/sql) on the two separate installs and CHECK THIS OUT:
Netlogistics:
Qcache_lowmem_prunes: 0 (The number of times MySQL had to remove queries from the cache because it ran out of memory. Ideally should be zero)
Cove:
Qcache_lowmem_prunes: 1094141 (The number of times MySQL had to remove queries from the cache because it ran out of memory. Ideally should be zero)
I also ran this tool: http://loadimpact.com
It crapped out (couldn't complete the test) on Cove but seems to be doing fine on Netlogistics!
Maybe I am lucky on Netlogistics and am on a new server that only has a few sites on it? Maybe Cove are not so great (at least for Drupal sites) and NetLogistics are the way to go?
We will see ...
I have used both COVE and NET
I have used both COVE and NET LOGISTICS - as documented above. Net Logistics seemed better, but in reality I would have no problems recommending both. WebCentral was perhaps the worst service I've ever had, quite funny really, as they used to have 'premium' reputation.
Speaking of premium
Speaking of premium reputation, I've just had a bad experience with TPP Internet, premium account. I tried them for about 1+ month, couldn't get anything working there and they didn't seem to care a bit - a part from one girl at support that tried to help but was also limited by the company's policy, besides it takes them 2 days to answer any query.
So I just gave up on them, and setup my website on a test account with Crucial.com.au. It seems to be all good (phelun.com/perroud) - this week hopefully I'll try transfer it to a proper live account.
RimuHosting
In addition to their servers in Brisbane and Sydney, RimuHosting is now offering hosting at a datacenter in Auckland.
I would recommend to use for
I would recommend to use for Drupal website this australian based web hosting company aspwebhosting.com.au. Their windows hosting is compatible with the Drupal hosting management and collaboration application
Irena @ web hosting reviews