When you use shared hosting, you are sharing a server with many other shared hosting accounts. It works fine as long as everyone has a low traffic site. However, if just one account sees a spike in traffic from either something good (a link from a high traffic Web site) or something bad (e.g. illegal file sharing) it effects every other account on that server.

These days I still use shared hosting for things like the high school soccer Web site that I maintain. However, I run my business Web sites on a virtual private server at Slicehost. I pay for the Slicehost account and I pay Kenn at Corvidworks.com a monthly fee to do daily backups, monitor the account for uptime and bottlenecks, and install updates for Ubuntu, mySQL, and PHP. I pay extra for new software installs, but I do my own WordPress updates, WordPress plugin updates, etc. that I can do quickly and comfortably.

Outsourcing my server maintenance has given me the power to run the web apps I want, it has increased increased site security, it insures that my data is backed up (and can be quickly restored), and it allows me to focus on customers and content. Outsourcing the server work is one of the best decisions I made in 2009.

Now, if I can break through the paralysis by analysis, I will get my podcast launched. One of the causes of paralysis is choosing between Libsyn, Blubrry, or other CDN options.

When you use shared hosting, you are sharing a server with many other shared hosting accounts. It works fine as long as everyone has a low traffic site. However, if just one account sees a spike in traffic from either something good (a link from a high traffic Web site) or something bad (e.g. illegal file sharing) it effects every other account on that server.

These days I still use shared hosting for things like the high school soccer Web site that I maintain. However, I run my business Web sites on a virtual private server at Slicehost. I pay for the Slicehost account and I pay Kenn at Corvidworks.com a monthly fee to do daily backups, monitor the account for uptime and bottlenecks, and install updates for Ubuntu, mySQL, and PHP. I pay extra for new software installs, but I do my own WordPress updates, WordPress plugin updates, etc. that I can do quickly and comfortably.

Outsourcing my server maintenance has given me the power to run the web apps I want, it has increased increased site security, it insures that my data is backed up (and can be quickly restored), and it allows me to focus on customers and content. Outsourcing the server work is one of the best decisions I made in 2009.

Now, if I can break through the paralysis by analysis, I will get my podcast launched. One of the causes of paralysis is choosing between Libsyn, Blubrry, or other CDN options.