A few pre-sales Q's

[efc]

We are currently hosted elsewhere, and are looking to swap over to a different provider. We did find what we thought was a perfect fit, that was until we heard about MySQL problems one of the customers is having and then saw their MySQL settings. Now we are one two hosts, the newest one which we are about to cancel!

So here are here now looking at the Platinum package with AOH, which was on our shortlist. :)

We now have a few(!) questions which I hope you can answer:

Can you provide us with a phpinfo link on one of your shared servers so we can see what is installed in PHP and see the varies versions etc?

Can you show us the MySQL settings ("SHOW VARIABLES") for a typical shared server account? (should have asked this at our newest host!)

Can we run cron jobs e.g. for weekly newsletter, database dumps etc?

Do you have imagemagic installed

Do you have gzip installed in with PHP

Do we get Telnet/SSH access - used for DB maintenance etc (heh, I'm a vi fan!)

Can we have subdomains e.g. mysite.com, www.mysite.com, forums.mysite.com etc

Can you see any problems/issues hosting a site in Europe? What about support due to time zones?

Can you tell us the server setup? eg RAM, CPU, DISKS, RAID etc.

What type of network connection do you have to the Internet?

What about data integrity? Do you have RAID running on the disks? What do you backup to, tapes or disk? How long do you keep backups, and are they stored off-site?

We are unsure whether we would need the cpanel or not. What would you suggest, taking into consideration that we know our way around *NIX systems and have had our site running for the past 3 years? (we are not exactly experts though all the same!)

Many thanks for all the help you can provide us with. I hope we can find a home here with AOH – its look a nice friendly place to be! :)

[admin]

Thank you for your interest in AlphaOmegaHosting.Com. I will answer your questions below.

Can you provide us with a phpinfo link on one of your shared servers so we can see what is installed in PHP and see the varies versions etc?

http://inetsrv6.gahost.com/phpinfo.php

Can you show us the MySQL settings ("SHOW VARIABLES") for a typical shared server account? (should have asked this at our newest host!)

Because of the enormity of this information. If you can tell me what you are looking for, I will give you value of the variable.

Can we run cron jobs e.g. for weekly newsletter, database dumps etc?

You can run cron jobs with the cpanel plans

Do you have imagemagic installed

Yes, we install imagemagic on all of our servers

Do you have gzip installed in with PHP

We do have the php compiled with zlib compression enabled

Do we get Telnet/SSH access - used for DB maintenance etc (heh, I'm a vi fan!)

We can provide ssh access for those that have the requirement.

Can we have subdomains e.g. mysite.com, www.mysite.com, forums.mysite.com etc

Cpanel plans do support subdomains

Can you see any problems/issues hosting a site in Europe? What about support due to time zones?

No issues with the site being in Europe. We have a number of international customers. We do not have any issues support customers in other timezones.

Can you tell us the server setup? eg RAM, CPU, DISKS, RAID etc.

Our cpanel servers are:

Dual P3 1Ghz
1G+ Ram
Dual 36G Scsi Drives

What type of network connection do you have to the Internet?

The servers are connected to the internet via multiple ds3/oc3 connections.

What about data integrity? Do you have RAID running on the disks? What do you backup to, tapes or disk? How long do you keep backups, and are they stored off-site?

We do not run raid. Our servers are configured to use both disks to increase the performance of the server.

Our TOS specifies that we are not responsible for customer data. Our control panels provide a mechanism for backing up data to your machine. That said, we do backup our servers nightly to guard against catastrophic failures. Backups are kept daily, weekly, and monthly single rotations. While we will not guarantee our backups to provide security of your data, we are always happy to provide restores if a customer requests it.

We are unsure whether we would need the cpanel or not. What would you suggest, taking into consideration that we know our way around *NIX systems and have had our site running for the past 3 years? (we are not exactly experts though all the same!)

Based on your requirements mentioned above, I would recommend a cpanel plan.

Many thanks for all the help you can provide us with. I hope we can find a home here with AOH – its look a nice friendly place to be! :)

Thank you for your interest in AOH. If you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to ask us again.

[efc]

Originally posted by admin
[B http://inetsrv6.gahost.com/phpinfo.php

Can you show us the MySQL settings ("SHOW VARIABLES") for a typical shared server account? (should have asked this at our newest host!)

Because of the enormity of this information. If you can tell me what you are looking for, I will give you value of the variable.


Well in particular I’d like to know the settings for the 2 timeout variables. wait_timeout and interactive_timeout.

Originally posted by admin
Do we get Telnet/SSH access - used for DB maintenance etc (heh, I'm a vi fan!)

We can provide ssh access for those that have the requirement.


So its just a simple case of asking for ssh access then and we have it permanently, no questions asked? Just making sure there’s no problem getting SSH access. :D

Thanks again!

[admin]

wait_timeout | 28800
| interactive_timeout | 28800

We can provide you SSH access provided you have a valid reason for it and provided that you understand that it is to be used for functions related to supporting your website. We do not provide shell accounts nor do we allow bots or any other continuous processes to be run. I will not say that it is provided no questions asked, though.

[efc]

Thanks for the settings, its just what I needed to hear!

Nope, we don't run any bots or continues processes. SSH access would only be required for upkeep of our site. I've had UNIX admin experience myself over many years and am just a devoted *NIX user who likes the text front end and using vi, thats all. Besides it comes in useful for loading/dumping data from the MySQL DB.

Would that be reason enough? :D

[admin]

Works for me.

[efc]

Danny,

Is there a reason for not having the Zend optomiser compiled into PHP? All other hosts I've seen include it.

[admin]

It is very seldom used. If you have a specific need for it, we can look at including support for you. To be quite honest, none of our customers use it.

[Rodzilla]

Isn't PHP Accellerator practically the same as Zend Optimizer?

[efc]

Yes, it is, except PHP Accellerator is free.

Is PHP Accellerator installed on AOH servers?

[admin]

Yes, yes it is.