Guest freeranger Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 Hi, I am a reseller with craphosts.net, and I wish to move to a more reliable service. You guys would seem to fit the bill, but first I must ask a couple of pertinent questions: 1. Name servers: Do I get my own? eg ns1.****? If so would these these hosted on the same box, or separate boxes for resilience? 2. Mail server: Would I have a backup mail server, or just the one 3. If only one, what happens if it goes titsup.com? 4. Reseller server specs: What are they? Are the disks set up in a RAID? 5. Uptime guarantee: What happens if you don't meet the guaranteed 99.9%? 6. Do you have a backup support system not hosted on your main server? (and not IM eitheR) craphosts.net recently had major problems and because everything was on the one server, there was no way of contacting them and thus I had some rather unhappy clients because I could not tell them what the problem was, or how long it might take to fix it. We had no email or website for a whole day, and nothing but problems since then:( If they'd had a separate support channel in the event of emergency, at least _some_ information might have been forthcoming. 7. Diskspace/bandwidth limits: Are these limits on what I can _allocate_ or what I can _use_? Eg, if I have 3gb diskspace and I allocate a1gb each to 3 clients, does that mean I cannot allocate any more to others, even though these three clients only actually use 500mb between them? Obviously, if the actual space used went over 3gb, I would have to purchase more. 8. Do you have pricing for extra disk space/bandwidth? eg, I might be happy with 30gb bandwidth but want to buy another 1gb space - can I do that, or would I have to upgrade to the next plan? 9. Bandwidth overuse charge - do you charge if I go over my totaly bandwidth allowance one month? 10. How many people do you have working on tech support, and what is the average turnaround time for support queries? 11. Do you support OSCommerce? 12. Do you support horde? If so, how does one access it? Currently, my clients go to www.theirsite.com/webmail 12a. Can I install a custom version of horde for a specific client? 13. domain aliases - allowed? how many? extra fees? 14. SSL: do you provide a shared certificate for resellers and at what cost? 15. Do you support private certificates? If so, which ones and again, at what cost? 16. Do you provide AWstats? If not, can I install it myself? 17. Backups: How often are your servers backed up? 18. I know users can backup their sites themselves but if they don't, can they have them restored from your backups and at what cost? 19. ChiliASP! Is it supported? If so, is there a charge for this? 20. I currently use Ensim, so if I move to CPanel/WHM, I will need to familiarise myself with it and set up all my plans. I want to minimise the impact on my clients, so can I set all their sites up _before_ I switch their domains to point to the new location? I would also not be able to move the domain that conatins my reseller site until the same time - is this a problem? How do you recommend ppl switch hosters? 21. I see that you offer only monthly or annual payments - if I sign up for an annual plan and, for some reason, was not happy after 6 months, would I get a refund on the balance I had paid, or is it tough luck? 23. Antivirus scanning of email - do you do this? 24. Spam filtering - do you do this? Can I turn it off if necessary? craphosts.net have spam filters that end up blocking legitimate email 25. Tomcat4 JSP/Servlets - supported? 26. When I add a client, can I have a branded holding page placed in their webspace, or is this something I'd have to do myself? 27. Can I brand the control panel and/or the webmail client? sorry for so many questions, but I need to offer my clients the same functionality if possible, and I do not want to get burned twice! many thanks, freeranger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinW Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 Free ranger: I am not in a position to answer all your questions, but will take a shot at those I do know: 1. Private name servers for resellers: that's an issue that was raised several weeks ago, and TCH is looking into providing that feature. But I cannot tell you if that has happened or when. 7. disk space: my understanding is that if you had 3b available, and assigned three clients to 1gb each, then you have used up your 3gb allocation. 8. Yes, I am sure you can purchase add'l space 9. Bandwidth use: You will receive an email if you hit 80% usage, allowing you time to purchase or assign additional bandwidth. As a reseller, you are responsible for maintaining and monitoring bandwidth usage. The normal TCH policy is that if you exceed bandwidth, your account is suspended until the start of the next month. 12. Yes, Horde is available - and via the same method www.mysite.com/webmail 13. No, I don't believe you can install a custom version of Horde - but don't hold me to it. 14. TCH does offer a shared SSL certificate upon request. 15. Private SSL certificates: if you already have one, TCH will install it on our server for a fee. Or you can purchase a private SSL certicate from TCH. Click here for more. 16. AWSTATS - yes. 17. Backups: are done daily. We even post the schedule -- Click here - and then under the 'Tools' in the midle of the page will be a link for the backup schedule. 19. ChiliASP - No! 24. TCH provides SpamAssassin for spam filtering, and you can control on a per account web site whether to enable or disable its use. By default, it is disabled. 26. Branded holding page - you can create your own branded holding page, and then set it up thru WHM so that when you create a new account, that holding page is automatically installed OK, that's all I know! However, there is one question that you did NOT ask, and that is asked by many people ... but I will give you a few minutes to think about it. Hint -- it is a service that many ask for from a web provider. Another hint -- it is commonly referred to using three letters ... :-) kw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-JimE Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 (edited) Arrrg KW beat me to it!!! Jim Edited May 30, 2003 by Jimuni Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 KW, tnx for answering those questions (hopefully someone can help with the others too!).. err....ummmm... I seem to be having total brain failure on the question I didn't ask - maybe that's why I didn't ask it How about another hint - like "the answer"? cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Rob Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 Answer to 11. I have oscommerce installed on my site. Can you install it? Yes. Is it directly supported, can TCH answer your questions on it? I doubt it but they have a great forum there and some of us can give a few answers here on these forums. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted May 31, 2003 Share Posted May 31, 2003 Thanks guys for the replies. Now can some TCH bod plz answer the rest? Still no answers to : 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27! And would like to know if private name servers for resellers have been sorted yet.... Oh, and whatever it is KW thinks I should have asked but didn't! cheers peeps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Head Guru Posted May 31, 2003 Share Posted May 31, 2003 1. Here we go! 2. You are given only the one mail server, we dont offer backup mail servers. 3. All mail servers run a mailque. Meaning they will spool returned mail. So this isnt a issue. If your mail server goes down and someone sends email to you.. The email bounces back to the senders email server and is qued to be sent again. Most smtp servers spool mail for several days. 4. Resellers Server Specs - Dual Pentium 3's 1.1GHz 1.5GB+ RAM Dual 80GB IDE 7200RPM ATA133 Hard Drives NO raid 5. Uptime - There are no refunds promised in our SLA. If your not happy with our service simply cancel and we offer a refund for the month of service that your in. Aside from that, there are no SLA level refunds. 6. We use 5 seperate datacenters. Explained here http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/forums/i...=ST&f=15&t=2321 That will never be a issue here. 7. Our support system is based on a urgency basis. Average tickets receive a 30 minute response time. However, when we are really busy that time can increase to a couple hours. When you submit a ticket we ask that you rank its level of urgency, thus that is what really determines the response times. I have seen level 5 tickets answered in 7 minutes. 8. There is no charge for us to restore a backup. 9. You should move all your clients over first. We will give you a url for each client so that you may test the site before moving. We offer movie tutorials that would really help your clients with the learning curve. They can be found here http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/help/moviepage.htm 10. If you sign up for a yearly and cancel 6 months later, we would offer a prorated refund. All refunds must be approved by management. 11. Yes we use mail filters in exim to filter virus attachments out. 12. No tomcat support here. 13. Control panel can be branded, web mail can but is more difficult. 14. All resellers can have private DNS servers. This is not a issue Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Rick Posted May 31, 2003 Share Posted May 31, 2003 20. It would not be a problem to sign up using your reseller domain before actually pointing the domain to the server here. You would be able to access the account using the IP address including the use of cPanel and Web Hosting Manager in order to familiarize yourself with it. You could even set up accounts and "practice" for the final moving of sites. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Hi Guru, thanks for all the answers. I have a few more questions off the back of them ...... 7. Our support system is based on a urgency basis. Average tickets receive a 30 minute response time. However, when we are really busy that time can increase to a couple hours. When you submit a ticket we ask that you rank its level of urgency, thus that is what really determines the response times. I have seen level 5 tickets answered in 7 minutes. All sounds good, but what time of day would you get a 30 minute (or even couple of hours) response time?I am on GMT and if support pretty much US daytime hours then I would be waiting some time to get a response to a support query I post at 9am GMT - unless you have some peeps in the UK doing support also?? Also, do how many support people do you have? Just an idea - "more that 2, more than 5" would be nice. 11. Yes we use mail filters in exim to filter virus attachments out. Can this be turned off per domain? If not, is it possible to restore a specific "filtered" message? I know of a couple of cases [not with you guys] where attachments have been incorrectly "filtered out".... Oh yeah, and Alertra altering - can resellers "use" your alertra status thingy, or would we have to purchase our own to use on our website? thanks again, freeranger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest freeranger Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Forgot to ask: Do you have any discounted pricing if I sign up annually or six monthly for a reseller account? I was just checking your signup page and there are annual prices for standard accounts, but not for reseller ones... cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Head Guru Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Hi Guru, thanks for all the answers. I have a few more questions off the back of them ...... 7. Our support system is based on a urgency basis. Average tickets receive a 30 minute response time. However, when we are really busy that time can increase to a couple hours. When you submit a ticket we ask that you rank its level of urgency, thus that is what really determines the response times. I have seen level 5 tickets answered in 7 minutes. All sounds good, but what time of day would you get a 30 minute (or even couple of hours) response time? I am on GMT and if support pretty much US daytime hours then I would be waiting some time to get a response to a support query I post at 9am GMT - unless you have some peeps in the UK doing support also?? Also, do how many support people do you have? Just an idea - "more that 2, more than 5" would be nice. 11. Yes we use mail filters in exim to filter virus attachments out.Can this be turned off per domain? If not, is it possible to restore a specific "filtered" message?I know of a couple of cases [not with you guys] where attachments have been incorrectly "filtered out".... Oh yeah, and Alertra altering - can resellers "use" your alertra status thingy, or would we have to purchase our own to use on our website? thanks again, freeranger. Our support is staffed 24/7 - Turn around time depends on the priority level of the ticket. + 5 Staff members. Email filters can not be shut off. At present we do not offer resellers access to Alertra..... YET! We dont offer any discounts to resellers for pre-payment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest freeranger Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Tnx for the fast response guru! How long has TCH been up & running? Cpanel v5 - any plans to upgrade to v6? Looking over the answers to questions again, I have a few final questions: Can I have a definitive answer on installing a custom horde version? I don't mean to overwrite /webmail, though that would be nice. I would like to install it /someothermail, which I have done successfully at my existing provider..... Data Centres. I see that you use five of em. Do you have specs for them? Also, what is the spec of the server I would be on if I signed up in the next few days for instance? I know you said dual PIII 1.1, but elsewhere I have seen that you are signing new clients up on dual xeon boxes.... The reason I ask for this info is that at the moment, I quote both the server spec and stuff like the bandwidth available from the datacenter on my website & I would like to continue to do so. Another thing is daily updated graphs of traffic over each of the 7 links from the datacenter. Is there something similar available for yours that I can integrate into my site? (looks good to the clients but ultimately pointless, I know!). tnx. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-JimE Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Mail - Several people here already install squirralmail and other clients so yours should not be a problem. Cpanel v5 - any plans to upgrade to v6?We are running version 6. Data Centres. I see that you use five of em. Do you have specs for them? Also, what is the spec of the server I would be on if I signed up in the next few days for instance? I know you said dual PIII 1.1, but elsewhere I have seen that you are signing new clients up on dual xeon boxes.... The specs for the centre I believe are listed on the TCH front pages. The reseller accounts are on the dual PIII whilst new clients to the other packages are currentley being placed onto the dual xeon boxes. Another thing is daily updated graphs of traffic over each of the 7 links from the datacenter. Is there something similar available for yours that I can integrate into my site? (looks good to the clients but ultimately pointless, I know!). This is nots possible unless Head Guru has something in the pipeline. jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeranger Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Cpanel v5 - any plans to upgrade to v6? We are running version 6. <cough>resellers page sez v 5<cough> The specs for the centre I believe are listed on the TCH front pages.Only in the sense of saying "Multiple Tier 1 Bandwidth providers in premium, U.S. based Data Center", which says bugger all really. The sort of info I show atm is total bandwidth/no of redundant backbone connections & which datacenter where. The reseller accounts are on the dual PIII whilst new clients to the other packages are currentley being placed onto the dual xeon boxes. Poor us resellers! I would have thought resellers would be the ones needing beefy machines cheers, freeranger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-JimE Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 (edited) <cough>resellers page sez v 5<cough> <cough>Ah<cough> Lianna or Head Guru can confirm/deny this. Only in the sense of saying "Multiple Tier 1 Bandwidth providers in premium, U.S. based Data Center", which says bugger all really. The sort of info I show atm is total bandwidth/no of redundant backbone connections & which datacenter where. More info can be found here:http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/about-we...eb-hosting.html I am not sure if Head Guru has anything else to add. Poor us resellers! I would have thought resellers would be the ones needing beefy machines Head Guru keeps a close eye on server loads etc so you can be sure that your site will never be slow! Jim Edited June 2, 2003 by Jimuni Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SEO Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 <cough>resellers page sez v 5<cough> Funny, I just looked and it shows v6.0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Head Guru Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Beefy Machines? I didnt know dual cpu boxes with multiple gbs of ram were whimpy. Maybe we didnt go to the same school of hardware. (insert high level of sarcasim here) No offense but this is the longest pre-sales thread ever You can NOT install custom horde. We are on the lastest release of cPanel Reseller machines are plenty beefy, all dual xeons servers are going to virtual account as of now. This might change with the next box, but I doubt it. Dual p3's and 1.5GB of ram is beefy enough. Here are actual loads stats from RIGHT now on some of our reseller servers - Load Averages 0.16 0.10 0.02 Load Averages 0.06 0.19 0.18 Load Averages 0.04 0.11 0.11 Load Averages 0.11 0.19 0.24 Load Averages 0.07 0.14 0.12 Load Averages 0.80 1.04 1.03 You can take a Super Computer and still overload it. Its more about how many users per box and how they are managed. Data Center information is dependent on the servers your placed on. I only colocate my servers in the top 1% of the data centers in the US and Canada. Here is a short list of our peering agreements - Below is a list of peers from each Public Exchange Point: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINX Peering 1A Networks Akhter Computers AT&T Global Avensys Networks Ltd BBN Planet Belgacom CBU British Broadcasting Company British Telecom Cable Inet Cerbernet Chello Broadband Claranet Comdisco Cubecom S.p.A. Datagrama Demon Internet Easynet Ebone Netcom Eclipse Internet Eircom IP Networks Group Energis Esat-X eu-X EuroNet Firstnet Services Ltd FLAG Telecom Freedom 2 Surf plc Frontier Internet Services Limited Global Access Telecom Highspeed Office Limited Highway One I-Nap Limited ICL Internet Services Intelideas NOC Internet for Learning/Research Machines, Plc Interoute Telecommuncations Interweb Design Limited iPcenta Jippii Group European Backbone Kingston Infrastructure Lambdanet Communications Lycos Europe mediaways GmbH Microsoft Minstral Internet NetBenefit NetKonect Communications Ltd Netscalibur UK Ltd NewNet Nextra Nominum NTL Internet NTT Octacon Ltd. Opal Telecom PFM Communications, Inc Primustel Red net Schlund SITA Song Networks Oy Support Net bv Tele Danmark NET, NXN Tele2 AB Teletext VBCnet (GB) Ltd. Verio, Inc. Versatel Telecom International NV VIA NET.WORKS Deutschland GmbH Wirehub! Internet XO Communications European AS XTML Zoo Internet -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MAE-East ATM Peering Allegiance Internet, Inc. AT&T Government Markets Broadwing Communications CAIS Internet Carrier1 Cogent Comdisco ConXioN Corporation Data Research Associates, Inc. DataXchange Network, Inc Digital Island Epoch Erols Internet Service Fiber Network Solutions. Inc Hurricane Electric Japan Telecom America Lightning Internet Services, LLC Nacamar NASA Science Network Netaxs NetKonect Communications Ltd Nextra One Call Communications PFM Communications, Inc Primus Telecommunications Rock Hill Telephone Company Santa Cruz Community Internet ServInt, Inc. SITA Splitrock Services Inc. (ASN-SPLITROCK) Swisscom North America Time Warner Communications, Inc. United States Geological Survey Verio, Inc. Williams Communications Group -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NYIIX Peering AboveNet COLT Internet Demon Internet Digital Island Globecomm, Inc. HarvardNet Hurricane Electric Intelligent Computer Solutions, Inc Japan Network Information Center Lightning Internet Services, LLC Maxim Computer Systems Corp. Mobilcom Cityline GmbH Nacamar NTL Internet Peer1 PFM Communications, Inc Primus Telecommunications Reach Networks Santa Cruz Community Internet Stealth Communications The Internet Solution Time Warner Communications, Inc. United Arab Emirates VillageWorld.com, Inc. Wirehub! Internet XO Communications European AS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lianna Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 (edited) Cpanel v5 - any plans to upgrade to v6? We are running version 6. <cough>resellers page sez v 5<cough> Thanks for informing us that our reseller's web page contains dated information. We appreciate you bringing that to our attention. As 3 others have stated, we are on version 6 of cPanel. The answers given here in the forums are the most up to date information that you can receive. Normally, updates are made regularly and frequently to the website. We've only recently upgraded to cPanel version 6 and have not yet updated the site. Edit: Looks like it has already been updated. Otherwise I just don't see where you get v5 from the reseller's page. http://totalchoicehosting.com/web-hosting-...-resellers.html Edited June 2, 2003 by lstover Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinW Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Lianna and others: FYI, go to the TCH Help Web site we have a link in the middle of the home page for 'Current versions of installed software'. This, too, indicates that we are on CPanel version 6. -kw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matman Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Dell's Dual P3 1GhZ w/ 1GB of memory is what we use here at the University of Maryland Medical School for our main site (over 50,000 files and a couple dozen ASP apps) as well as a dozen other sites for individual departments that have their own sites. I think it's plenty beefy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeranger Posted June 3, 2003 Share Posted June 3, 2003 Looks like it has already been updated. Otherwise I just don't see where you get v5 from the reseller's page.. It was updated after I mentioned it in the forum.... dsdemmin would seem to be the culprit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeranger Posted June 3, 2003 Share Posted June 3, 2003 Beefy Machines?I didnt know dual cpu boxes with multiple gbs of ram were whimpy. Maybe we didnt go to the same school of hardware. Chill out man, I was only kidding - I shoulda added a smilie.I know what hardware is capable of, but the wily user has been trained to expect bigger=better and things like "Pentium 4 3Ghz" will seem better than "Celery 1Ghz" or whatever, simply because Intel and AMD push these higher speeds as must-haves..... No offense but this is the longest pre-sales thread ever Well, you gotta be sure what you're getting. I've already made one mistake in picking my current vendor..... You can NOT install custom horde.Not even to /myspecialmail? I have done this for a client with my current provider. /webmail still points to the server-wide install of horde - I just didn't tell the client about that.Instead they click on a link on their website which takes them to a version installed in a separate subdirectory. Are you saying I cannot even do this, or did you mis-understand and think I wanted to overwrite /webmail? Data Center information is dependent on the servers your placed on. I only colocate my servers in the top 1% of the data centers in the US and Canada. Okay. If I go with you, will you be able to provide me with the specs (or a link to) the datacenter my box will be in? I would like to continue to display info like "x redundant backbone connections, Y Gbs of connectivity" etc on my website because it might be considered by my clients to be a step backwards if I remove information that was previously on display. The peering list is nice to have though, thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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