Green powered websites

[3x-a-d3-u5]

Hi guys,

I've been doing some market research and was wondering what is the enthusiasm towards 'green' web hosting? In other words a server (i.e. your website) run completely on wind or sun power.

I have a short (i.e. 5 questions) questionnaire if you don't mind . EDIT: will add link ASAP.

I will share results as soon as it's completed, so please take part

[3x-a-d3-u5]

Here is the link

Thanks guys (and girls)

[Dave A]

Meet new Error 610 - website unavailable due to lack of wind

I think it is no secret that server farms are pretty power hungry beasts. It's not just powering the computers - it's dealing with the heat they generate. Just what that might add up to in power consumption per average website and whether that is particularly efficient I have no idea.

I'd be supportive of shooting for energy efficient server farms rather than press for a direct linkage to how the power is generated.

[3x-a-d3-u5]

Heh 612 its raining here no sunshine available for display...

Seriously though the idea is:

The intended servers will be 36% more power efficient.
Run entirely on 128% of 'Green' produced power.
Certified by: http://www.3degreesinc.com/products/recs/

This has also been included in the survey, thanks for pointing that out .

[Marq]

You should look at the phrasing of your questions. Two of them I was "forced" to answer - if you know what I mean.
I didnt really have an option to answer. Question one for example - I needed to see more options like - I don't love my host and would move if offered a better deal or something like - I dont care about about green power or what you have driving your servers as long as they have up time.

Most hosts also offer various php services/mssql or mysql and coldfusion etc etc. I develop in coldfusion and would consider a host that did not rip me off and charge extra for hosting.

What are you planning on when it comes to these kind of things?

[3x-a-d3-u5]

Thanks for taking the survey! I understand your wanting more variance in answers, but that would split up the market to much. I'm trying to narrow it down to 'Yes I'll move' or 'no i couldn't care less'. Must be a mix of my entrepreneurial spirit and the instant gratification generation we live in

I have added some more 'other' boxes.

To start, its the basic PHP/MySQL linux box for business/corporate owners. From there I would like to expand into smaller/cheaper hosting packages. I don't currently have plans for the coldfusion and other niche markets. The simpler the offering can be (with the most perks) the lower costs can be kept. This may be seen as limiting my market share, but this way enables me to give more dedicated and effective support.

When this idea is off the ground, it may be a good idea to break into new markets, but with such a small number of potential customers, the competition becomes tough.

[Dave A]

Originally Posted by 3x-a-d3-u5

The simpler the offering can be (with the most perks) the lower costs can be kept.

Which perks would you consider "simple" in a business package?
And by a business package, I mean something targeted at a real world business which is looking for a reasonable web presence.

[3x-a-d3-u5]

Well this is actually a good question, if you don;t mind answering you own question , what (extra) services would you appreciate from your host?

Generally the perks would be those things that other companies charge for. Adding extra mailboxes, adding a new domain, extra databases, telephone support all for no extra cost.

[Dave A]

Hmm. Can I give you a list of things that bug me rather. Then you can pick what is simple basics out of that. Also, it's been a while since I had to deal with shared hosting in a serious way, so some of these might have been patched already.

Personally I'd run a mile from shared hosting packages that offer unlimited domains, except if you're going to redirect .biz to .co.za or something like that. It's about the surest sign of an overseller I've seen yet. You can stand on your head - there is a resource overhead per website that is unavoidable no matter how miniscule the traffic is. And it is the single domain owner with reasonable traffic that bears the consequences.

Give me one main domain and let me have some subdomains (for my company blog and perhaps some other business related bits and pieces). Give me processor time, RAM and cache settings that match the storage and bandwidth offered and don't spread the libraries over too many sites (yeah - I know it can't be done individually at the shared level, but then build your reseller, VPS or dedi to produce a fair result. The slowest page rendering time should be a pretty small ratio of disk access delay at worst.

On email, give me a spam filter and an anti-virus app on server. And when it comes to how they should behave, well that's a topic on its own. Maybe the short answer is at least send the header when you dump/block an email that has a marginal score.

Give me Fantastico Deluxe, not plain old Fantastico. It's wonderful to be able to update software at the click of a button instead of manual FTP, especially given the marvels of SA internet.

When you set up a new account, fix the reverse DNS setting straight away. I've found it to be a problem every time. Why must I ask when it seems cPanel doesn't automatically do it properly? (BTW - has anyone ever done a bug report to cPanel on this problem?)

On new accounts and having to ask, tell me my email sending limits, the automatic timeout limit for scripts, the concurrent connections limit (there are probably more) and drop a mail to me when these limits are hit.

Be honest with downtime. From the clients point of view downtime is when the website is not available (My favorite message on this is "MySQL is not available" and yet this doesn't count as server downtime).

Let me know the date and time of the last backup, either in cPanel or by automated email. Neither of us want to be surprised if something goes wrong.

This goes beyond simple, but:
Let me be able to have Linux and MS platforms, even if the MS platform has to be a subdomain and there isn't a cross-platform internal file structure bridge. I know that's not easily achieved, but it would be useful. (Another long topic).

Enough rant for now.