The VPS Hosting Solutions Provider

Many companies are moving to an outsourced VPS hosting solutions provider. Choosing the best cost VPS Hosting is a common task. They are moving because they need to respond to the pandemic with a move to e-commerce and to support working from home and remote access to systems.

IT has also been under severe budgetary pressure.  They need to have a cost-efficient transition at the same time as keeping the existing operational systems running.  A VPS Hosting Solutions Provider (“MSP”) like HostSailor will provide their expertise in VPS Hosting Solutions to help ease the pain.

There can be cost reductions.   Instead of the capital expenditure needed for the purchase of new hardware and software to support VPS Hosting, it can be much smaller regular amounts of operational expenditure.

Choosing the best-cost VPS Hosting Provider!

Choosing the best VPS Hosting Provider is a serious project. You will have a business relationship that will last a long time. Both parties need to be comfortable with it.

Knowing what you want and knowing what each MSP will provide for a regular fee is essential. You must have an agreed understanding, first of your requirements and second, what the MSP will provide.

In our experience, there are several steps to the process:

• Identify your Requirements

This is not an IT project, more an exercise across the entire business.  You will look at your existing business processes and remodel them to better support your new business.

People could be a problem. You are taking them from their current comfort zones to somewhere new.  To keep them onside, you need to give them a sense of ownership.  Communications and involvement are essential.  If they do not feel part of the process, they will resist change.

This is why the project team defining your requirements should include staff representatives.

• Documentation

Potential VPS Hostingsupplierswill responds differently, making it difficult to compare apples with apples.  Giving potential suppliers a template to fill in will ease the comparison.   The requirements that were uncovered in Step 1 are the basis for this document.

Creating three categories of requirement, mandatory, essential and nice-to-have groups responses into easily assessable lists.

During the evaluation, a potential supplier must meet all mandatory requirements, as many of the essential ones as possible, and some of the nice-to-haves.

To support the selection, rank each response by assigning weightings to each requirement and applying a degree of compliance for each.  Multiply or add the two to get a rank.  This technique can rank potential suppliers and support the selection.

• Issue a Request for Proposals

The next step is to find potential VPS Hosting suppliers who you can send a request to quote.

There are two ways to do this – the long way, use local knowledge, internet searches and recommendations to find VPS Hostingsuppliers and ask them for quotes.  The shorter way,   see the one or two suppliers who everyone else in a similar business is using and just go to them.

Have them fill out your requirements list, stating how they meet each requirement. If the VPS Hosting provider has a website setting out their various hosting plans, then you may be able to do this yourself.

• Draw up a shortlist.

Review the various responses and agree on the preferred supplier and a backup supplier. Use the same team as drew up the requirements.   If you have gone the shorter way, as stated above, you may already have a preferred supplier.

• Go for it.

You are not quite finished yet.

To protect yourself, you need a Service Level Agreement (“SLA”). An SLA defines what is to be supplied, by whom, and who has responsibility for each activity.  It includes problem escalation and resolution processes, and importantly defines the penalties for failing to meet service levels. It should also include dispute resolution processes.

Sorting out the SLA will help assess the cultural fit of your two organisations.  This business relationship could run a long time and you must be comfortable with your VPS Hosting supplier.

If you can’t agree on a satisfactory SLA, then you should walk away and restart again with the backup candidate.

The SLA should include a programme of regular management meetings to review any changes or service level issues.  It is also an opportunity for you to bring the MSP up to date with any changes in your organisation that might affect the SLA. One common danger is that the MSP becomes part of the furniture over time, and the SLA is largely ignored.

Which Specific things should consider while assessing a potential web hosting provider?

Comparing VPS Hosting plans can be confusing. Here are a few areas that you should consider when assessing a potential supplier:

• Security

This is the highest priority, especially in an e-commerce environment.  You need to know that your data is secure.  Your customers will want the comfort of knowing that their financial data is secure.

• Performance

Performance is a biggie, especially the loading of web pages. Slow processing of on-page information like price lists can also be a showstopper.   SSD disk storage options, the availability of multi-processor servers, and high-speed network and Internet connectivity on some plans or as add-ons are essential.

Simply put, in a VPS Hosting environment, the ability to modify the configuration of the underlying technology, especially its horsepower and architecture is essential.

• Resilience

Outages will happen.  That is a fact of life.  The VPS Hosting provider must show that they have a solid backup and recovery plan that enables a return to normal service as soon as possible.

• Support

You will need help and advice from time to time.  Your VPS Hosting supplier must have a 24/7/365 accessible service with competent and helpful staff.

This short article outlines the approach we take to being the best VPS Hosting supplier both in cost and service. Please contact us if you need any help or advice or just for a chat.