Deciding on a managed hosting company can be a real pain in the you know what! From determining how much you want to spend on a monthly basis for managed hosting solutions, to determining what services you are looking for in a managed hosting provider to determining the security risks associated with utilizing a managed services provider, selecting your managed hosting company can be a daunting task.
If you were to visit other web hosting review forums and sites, you might find articles talking about the exact factors we just mentioned. More often than not, the majority of “Top Five Tips for Selecting Your Managed Hosting Company” articles touch mostly on monthly cost vs. the benefits of utilizing such a solution. Well, in today’s post, we are going to talk about something wholly different yet equally important: the managed hosting provider’s team.
The Managed Hosting Provider
The key to utilizing a managed web hosting service is the team which manages your solutions. At the end of the day, as much as colocation companies love to chat about the tier of data center they operate out of and as much as managed web hosting is about saving money on the cost of bandwidth, the team that handles your gear is just as, if not, more important than all the rest.
Why?
Hands on Colocation Equipment – The simple truth is your managed hosting company is only as good as the NOC technicians, the build room experts, the Linux Admin’s and the CTO who handles/maintains your gear on a daily basis. The simple truth is when you hire a managed web hosting service, you are hiring them to take care of and do all the IT maintenance which you either don’t want to do or don’t know how to do. You hire a managed hosting provider to troubleshoot all of the IT issues you simply don’t have the time for on your own,
Support and Troubleshooting of Managed Hosting Servers – Outside of the team of men and women who physically handle your virtual private servers and dedicated servers, the managed hosting companies support team is vital to your daily operations. The reason for the support techs importance is pretty straight forward. Although NOC technicians will be physically handling your servers and racks, the support techs of your managed hosting company will be your first line of contact on a daily basis.
To resolve basic issues, troubleshoot problems and fix nagging tech glitches, the managed support technician will be your best friend. Due to this, when choosing a managed hosting provider, it is vital you understand the capabilities of their support team and at what hours of the day they are in operation. Does your colocation company offer 24/7/365 support or are they off on the weekends? Does your managed web hosting solution have all local U.S. based technicians or do they outsource their support staff? Both are questions which need to be answered before making a final provider decision.
Know Your Managed Hosting Provider
At the end of the day, the majority of companies are going to decide on their managed hosting solution due to monthly spend and quality of services provided. Truth be told, this makes sense and it is more than acceptable. Yet before you decide on your managed dedicated server provider, make sure you know how qualified their onsite team actually is and make sure you know how accessible/qualified their managed support team is.
Without this knowledge, all the monthly cost savings in the world won’t save you from the amount of headaches you will encounter.