Strategies for Web Hosting and Managed Services (Paperback)

by Doug Kaye (Author) "Why do so many web-hosting decisions seem to go wrong?..." (more)
Key Phrases: colocation vendors, public nameservers, effective cache hit ratio, Sales Transactions, Keynote Systems, Percentile Rule (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Arms IT professionals with a complete blueprint for developing successful Web hosting strategies
Written by a consultant who helped develop the Web hosting strategies at many of today's top e-commerce vendors, this book fills in IT professionals on the full range of services available. The book provides decision-makers with criteria checklists and other useful tools they need for determining what they need, why they need it, how to find it, and how to evaluate and manage it. Doug Kaye provides a clear, complete roadmap for building an effective Web hosting strategy, and offers practical advice and answers to critical questions. The book covers important topics, including the real cost of bandwidth, domain name services, shared versus dedicated servers, backup and recovery, service-level agreements, security, negotiating with and managing vendors, and hardware maintenance and support.
Companion Web site includes links to Web hosting directories, tools for evaluating hosting services, and online articles and white papers.

From the Author
This isn’t one of the hundreds of books that will help you write HTML or use Photoshop to design a killer web site. Those are the easy parts. I wrote this book to help you plan for the unglamorous on-going operation and hosting of your site. Specifically, this book explains how to select a web-hosting service or MSP and how to manage that relationship once your site is up and running.

Once you decide to outsource your web operations, your choice of a web-hosting service or MSP can have a substantial impact on the reliability, performance, and accessibility of your web site. In other words, selecting a web-hosting service or MSP is risky because the cost of making a wrong decision can be substantial. I want to help you avoid mistakes.

Parts one and two (~70 pages) cover the basics, exploring shared and dedicated web hosting, colocation and managed services in depth. Part three (~100 pages) investigates strategic issues such as loss of control, lock-in and finding a vendor’s sweet spot. I’ve dedicated full chapters to risk management, SLAs, and developing traffic and server scalability models. (The spreadsheets are available on line.) In parts four and five (~200 pages) I focus on technology with chapters on web-site architectures, caching and CDNs, connectivity, storage, backup and recovery, security, monitoring and DNS. I’ve also included a chapter entitled “The Net Detective Toolkit” that will help you research prospective web-hosting services and track down problems when they occur.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1st edition (November 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471085782
• ISBN-13: 978-0471085782
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #563,808 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great overview of the Hosting Industry and sourcing process., March 9, 2002

By A Customer

As someone whom is very actively involved in the Internet and hosting industry, I have experienced first hand the difficulty in the Hosting Provider selection process, either as a consultant to clients or as an observer to an organization's dilemma. This book should prove to be a valuable resource for enterprises hoping to understand and navigate this complex industry and as well as prepare them for the some of the changes it is currently undergoing.

Any IT decision-maker whom is responsible for mapping out a web-hosting strategy would be well served to spend the time to read this well written book.

Although the focus of the book seems to be from that of a prospective client of a Hosting Provider, this book should also prove to valuable to those Hosting Providers, providing an external but otherwise legitimate insight into the industry and some of the areas where service providers could improve their service offerings.

A definite read, or at least a quick perusal, for those who are sourcing a Hosting Provider or hoping to better manage a current Hosting Provider relationship.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WOW ! Get this book!, July 20, 2002

By	"reberrya" (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews

Don't listen to the guy who rated this book 2 out of 5 stars. He bought the book for the wrong reasons. If you are looking to learn what it takes to get a company to host your web site(s), this is the book for you. If you don't truly understand what it takes to set up a large web site, this book is a MUST read!

Doug covers everything. The first half of the book is about the different types of web hosts (shared, dedicated, co-location), and managed service providers (the people who can help you with whatever you might need to get done.) He tells you everything about the relationships between the managed service providers and the web hosts that you would have never known otherwise. He practically holds your hand and gives advice as to how you should select your hosting solution.

The second half of the book is where I truly believe the book really shines. Doug gets into Service Level Agreements which is absolutely critical when selecting a web host. He then talks about traffic models and how you should evaluate your site based on its projected traffic, bandwidth and so on. This is critical if you are planning a site, as it gives you a true sense for what's realistic, how many visitors translates into what types of servers and so forth.

Next Doug covers Web-Site Architectures and shows you the various models you will probably want to consider when initially setting up your site. He even goes into content caching, connectivity practices, storage, Backup and Recovery, Security and so forth.

I would have been lost and made so many mistakes without having read this book front to back. It is written well and is easy to understand!

I give this book an A+ as it is one of the top two technical books I've read. And don't take technical the wrong way. It is written in layman's terms, so anyone who feels comfortable with the Internet could pick this book up and understand exactly what Doug is talking about!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Only customer-centric guide I've found, February 20, 2002

By	Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This book's stated goal is to explain how to select a web-hosting service or MSP and how to manage that relationship once your site is up and running. It meets that goal in every respect by providing the customer side of the equation with a wealth of factors to consider, and a clear explanation of the significance of those factors.

Although the book has five parts, it can be divided into two sections that will serve two different audiences. The first section, comprised of Parts I through III, is focused on vendor selection, the hosting strategy itself (shared or dedicated servers, colocation or managed service providers), contracts, risk management, service level agreements and traffic forecasting. This is the heart of the book, and the depth of Mr. Kaye's knowledge and experience is nothing short of amazing. If you pay close attention to his advice and the pitfalls he points out, particularly in The Dark Side of Outsourcing and Service Level Agreements, you will be well armed to make informed decisions that will almost certainly avert the plethora of potential disasters inherent in web hosting and managed services outsourcing.

The chapter on service level agreements is essential reading. This is one of my areas of specialty and I came away with insights I hadn't thought of. I especially liked his treatment of traffic models, which underscores why any web hosting initiative (in-house or outsourced) needs to be a joint effort by business and IT. The spreadsheets used in the case study are available for download from the author's site that supports the book.

Technical issues are covered in the second section of the book. Topics include architectures, caching and content delivery (an area in which the author is a world-class expert), and details about connectivity, storage, back-up and recovery and security. This part of the book is more slanted towards IT than the business reader. However, I recommend that the chapter on security be read by all because it touches upon issues of which both the business and technical reader needs to be aware. The last part of the book covers tools. Again, this material is for technical readers, although I thought the chapter on monitoring would also be of interest to the business members of the book's audience.

What sets this book apart is that it's the only one I've found that focuses on the topic from a customer's perspective. Moreover, there is no other book that covers the rocky landscape of outsourcing, vendor selection and management, and contract service level management. If you're considering web hosting or managed services then you need this book.