Factors to Consider Before Hosting Yourself

Hosting your Web site externally, especially virtual hosting, is the ideal solution for many small Web sites but there are a number of reasons why you may want to move your Web site to your home or small office. The pros and cons of doing this are listed in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1. Factors to Consider When Hosting In-House

Savings	Costs	Risks
Monthly outsourced Web hosting fee Elimination of the cost of delays to implement desired services	New hardware and software Possible new application development Training The percentage of IT staff's time installing and maintaining the site Potential cost of the risks (% likelihood of failure per month x cost of failure)	Likelihood of a failure and its expected duration The cost of both the failure and post-failure recovery (hardware, software, data restoration, time) Irregular procedures that could increase the vulnerability of your site to failure

Is In-House Hosting Preferred?

There are a number of advantages and disadvantages to hosting Web sites that are physically under your own control.

Pros

• Increased Control and Flexibility: You will be able to manage all aspects of your Web site if it is hosted on a server based either in-house or within your control at a remote data center. You won't have to wait before changes are made and you can select the IT solution that best meets your needs, not those of the hosting provider. You can install the software you need, not what the ISP dictates.

  There is also the possibility of offsetting the cost of your server by subleasing space on it to other companies in your community, so that you can become a small virtual hosting service yourself.

• Cost: It is possible to host a Web site on most DSL connections. A Web site can be hosted on this data circuit for only the additional hardware cost of a network switch and a Web server. You should be able to buy this equipment secondhand for about $100. If your home already has DSL there would be no additional network connectivity costs. So for a savings of $10 per month the project should pay for itself in less than a year.

  The cost of using an external Web hosting provider will increase as you purchase more systems administration services. You will eventually be able to justify hosting your Web site in-house based on this financial fact.

• New Skills: An additional benefit is learning the new skills required to set up the site. Changes can be made with little delay.

• Availability: Reliable virtual hosting facilities may not be available in your country, and/or you may not have access to the foreign currency to host your site abroad.

• Language: ISPs often provide technical support in only a few languages. If you can't get adequate support for billing, engineering, and customer care services, an in-house solution may be better.

Cons

• Lost Services: You lose the convenience of many of the servicessuch as backups, security audits, load balancing, DNS, redundant hardware, database services, and technical supportoffered by the virtual hosting company.

• Security: One important factor to consider is the security of your new server. Hosting providers may provide software patches to fix security vulnerabilities on your Web servers and may even provide a firewall to protect it. These services may be more difficult to implement in-house. Always weigh the degree of security maintained by your hosting provider against the security you expect to provide in-house. Proceed with the server migration only if you feel your staff can handle the job.

• Technical Ability: Your service provider may have more expertise in setting up your site than you do. You may also have to incur additional training costs to ensure that your IT staff has the necessary knowledge to do the job internally.

• Availability: In many cases the reliability of a data center's Internet connectivity is usually higher than that of your broadband connection.

• Cost: Though you may be able to save money on a data circuit, there are other costs to consider. You may not have access to cheap real estate in which to host your servers. Commercial office space is often more expensive than basic data center space. You may have to purchase additional equipment and services to support your servers, such as UPSs, backup systems, software patch management, maintenance contracts, monitoring systems, and additional power feeds, all of which may be already bundled in with the services of an external data center.