Picking a Provider...For Your Business

by Don Hamilton (wiz@wwwiz.com)

Before you put your business on the Web you have to decide what it is you want to accomplish. Do you just want a brochure in cyberspace or perhaps a database system with a credit card payment system? In either case, you should sit down and define your objectives. You should also take a quick look into the near future. Do you expect to have a simple site that will eventually grow into a monster InfoSeek-style site with constant technical demands on the operating personnel and programmers?

Here are three business models:

First is the simple site that has a brochure look and feel, with simple email and an ftp upload capability so the site can be changed with ease. In other words, even though you may still want most of your business to come through standard advertising, you also want a presence on the Web.
The second is a more complex site on which you may want users to be able to fill out forms and sort a simple database, along with a few sound files and a few Java programs running that will attract visitors to the areas of your site that you want them to visit. The site will have to change frequently to stay fresh and interesting, and you'll probably need to advertise in order to attract visitors to your site. In other words, you will be developing your site in the hope that it will increase your current business by a measurable to substantial amount.
The third is a highly complex site including credit card and password verification, and a complex database of items for sale that a person can put in their "shopping cart" and "ring up" in one big purchase. You'll definitely need to run massive advertising campaigns on the Web and in Web-related media to attract thousands of visitors a day, and to ensure that your business will be capable of becoming almost a stand-alone business on the Web.

Simple Site

Let's look at the first model—the brochure-type site. The first question you'll probably ask yourself is "Do I want to have my own server?" Odds are, you don't; most businesses will be smart not to get involved at this level. If you are a software/hardware company and a fanatic for the leading edge of techno-image and bragging rights, then go for it. Otherwise forget it. Find the right provider, save a lot of money and look good.

But how do you find the right provider? They all sound good when you see their ads, especially when the only thing you can understand in the ad is the price. However, as with all things, the best is not always the cheapest. In fact, you probably want a provider who can handle your problems if something goes wrong with your site at 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday. Here's a scenario: the WWWiz site gets 10,000 to 40,000 hits per day, so if the site is down for a even a few hours during prime time (9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.), we will tick off a lot of people who tried to visit our site during that time. The providers who can handle off-hours glitches cost a little more, but they're often worth it.

To calculate bandwidth, divide the speed of your modem by 8 (number of bits/byte) and then subtract about 15% for TCP/IP overhead and other losses. This gives you the speed at which data can be transferred from a site via your modem. For example, a 28.8 Kbps line divided by 8 is 3.6 Kbps of actual text or data. Subtract .54 Kbps for overhead (3.6 Kbps X .15) and you get 3.06, or about 3 kilobytes per second. This is about 10.8 megabytes per hour of transmission (3Kbps X 3600). If your pages and images average 10Kb in size, then you can handle a maximum of 1080 hits per hour (10.8Mb / 10Kb). But this is a per-hour capacity. Just as the number of hits varies from hour to hour, it also varies from minute to minute and second to second. Depending on the standard deviation of the number of calls during any hour, you could easily see the number that can conveniently hit your site falling to 1/2 or 1/4 of your maximum capacity.

So ask your potential provider how well they can handle problems during off hours, but don't stop there. Ask them how much bandwidth will be available to your server [See sidebar for a way to calculate bandwidth.] How many customers are currently using the same server you will be on? Get the names of some of the sites on the same server and check their sites and ask them if they have any support problems or if they can tell you what they like about the provider and the service. Make sure you talk to several of them because some people will always be unhappy and others will always be happy. Try to get a fairly accurate sample.

If you travel, find out what the provider can do to help you stay in contact while out of town or state. In some cases it may work for you to have multiple service providers. I myself have a national provider, with a fixed per-month cost and numerous POPs (points of presence, or dial-up locations) around the U.S., that I use when I travel out of state. It allows me to be connected for hours with just a local phone call. When I travel, this arrangement ends up costing me less, since my everyday provider that I use for local hosting is long distance when I am out of state.

The first model (the brochure-type Web site) calls for only a local host provider with moderate capabilities but a reliable service. This type of site is not going to have very many visitors, so it is easy to maintain. Most providers can build a simple set of Web pages with a few pictures and some links, so consider letting your provider build your first pages. It will be easier for you to learn to modify and improve your pages than to design the original site. Of course, you could buy a book on HTML and learn to design your site on your own, but this is a time-consuming route, and doesn't make much sense if you're interested in getting your site up quickly.

By the way, you should try to get your own domain name. After all, why be http://theircompany.com/mycompany when you can be http://mycompany.com? Plenty of providers can help you set up your own domain name; if a potential provider tells you their company name has to come first, start talking to other providers. Any local provider can tell you how to check to see if the domain name you choose is already taken, or you can check it yourself via Internic.

In the first model you may be able to get away with the cheapest provider and love your experience.

Moderate Site

The second model requires planning prior to the start of Web site building. The Web site must be planned professionally, otherwise it is likely to become a nightmare to maintain and change. As the site grows and expands, the effort required to maintain links and continuity increases at an exponential rate. This is a fact and must not be ignored.

For the second model you will need a provider who can program and write the code you will need to connect your database, Java code, image maps, and the other upgrades that you will need as the Web changes. Trust me—the Web changes faster than dog years. Just when you have cool sound and video, a new version of the browser server will come along and require that you change everything about your site or your customers will go to the other guys. Be sure to check on their security capabilities and backup methods.

If you have a simple data base and image maps you may be able to pick a provider with the right server software for you and life will be easy. Some server software does not require Perl scripting to build a database or an image map. They also can check your links as they are uploaded so that you don't accidentally upload or move things and break links. NaviPress, which is owned and used by GNN which is part of AOL, has such software. You can check it out and test it at the Webs Are Us Software Archive.

So be sure to ask what kind of software and server is used by your provider. Don't just pick because the software will make it easy to upload because there may be a penalty that is part of a feature. You must ask for the total impact based on what you plan to accomplish with your site. Read and learn for yourself. Be educated because there are a lot of people who are new to this business but will give you good-sounding advice.

Always check the companies that are using the provider and find out what their experience has been. Expect to pay a more than the minimum for hosting services for a complex well-traveled site. Be sure to ask about security. Ask what kind of connection they can provide—ISDN, T1. How quickly can they get you an upgrade if you need it? Can they provide support or consulting for your office network?

Complex Site

The third model is very complex and well traveled. This site requires that you have high-speed lines to the server, and probably to your computer, for the staff you will have supporting and building your presence. You may want to host the system yourself but I think most of the time you will want it off your site with a good firewall to stay out of your computer network system. Having it at a good provider reduces the risk of break-in and infection. No one will walk over to the computer and put an unverified disk in the computer and bring down your entire system.

Find a company that can provide on-site support for your network. It is a big advantage to have just one company to call when you have a problem. If you have an IS department, they can handle your internal network connections.

If, at a later point, you want to host the site at your own facility, you can move it. Most of the time it can be done with very little lost time. If you might do that in the future then the operating system of the provider and your dependence on it are important.

Some countries have no infrastructure or Internet backbone; they have very small data "pipes" from their country to any other. Sometimes a country new to the online world may have only a few servers (or in some cases, one). A company in such a country can locate their server(s) in, say, California, an area of the world with huge bandwidth, and operate on the Web as if their server(s) was located in their own country. This allows them to be more available to the world. In such a case, an email sent next door by a businessman has a good chance of going to the United States before arriving at its ultimate destination.

Useful Links

California WWW Servers
California WWW Servers: Los Angeles Area