[Zope] shared/virtual hosting recommendations

[AM Thomas]

As promised, here's a summary (below).

I only got three messages, and they were about the one company I 
specifically mentioned in my first message.  This doesn't really 
surprise me as I doubt many regulars here are concerned with this kind 
of shared hosting, and I'm still not sure this is the best channel for 
the kind of information I'm seeking.  If anyone knows of some better 
channel for this kind of info, I'd be delighted to hear about it.

I only received feedback about Zettai.net.  Two very positive responses, 
one negative.  Based on this feedback, and just looking around at 
different hosting providers' web sites, I'm fairly certain I'll proceed 
and get an account with Zettai.

More below.

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The first positive response was from David Pratt 
(fairwinds at eastlink.ca).  He wrote, among other things:

"I ordered a second virtual server (jail environment) from them last 
week which is my vote of confidence.  They have knowledgeable, friendly 
staff and are responsive to support queries.  They also keep you well 
informed of issues affecting the servers.  I think it also helps to have 
a host that understands Zope particularly because you may have an 
unplanned problem that you may not have encountered or maybe need some 
insight on how to expand."

and

"It was hard for me to find a host that could offer the flexibility I 
wanted in my applications development and I have found that the virtual 
server is a really nice balance of cost and flexibility."

He also graciously advised me a bit on the specifics of the type of 
account I'd need, noting that RAM allocation is key with Zope and 
particularly Plone, and adding: "Products like Placeless Translation 
seem to also add about 20Mb to your footprint. The more products in your 
zope instance, the more RAM you need as a base - then the size of your 
zodb's and concurrent usage factors into this.  I am still trying to 
figure this one out quite frankly, and I guess the best indicator will 
be experience."

Finally, in a follow-up message to me, he also said (among other things 
- I'm trying hard to keep this somewhat brief) "My opinion right now is 
that I don't need to go anywhere else as far as a host goes - my plan is 
to eventually move from virtual servers to dedicated servers and there 
are a few options for those when I get there.  The big thing for me is 
that I know what my costs are and know that as I expand I have an 
understandable and predictable path while keeping the costs in line."

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The second positive responder was Ken Johnston, who has been developing 
a site on Zettai for four months.  He sent me a very enthusiastic e-mail 
in support of them.  It sounds like they've worked with him a lot as he 
learns by doing on his first Zope/Plone site.

---

The only negative response I got was from Chris Withers; he posted his 
messages about this to the list, so I don't think I need to reproduce 
them here.

I do want to say that I hope I didn't put Zettai unfairly on the spot (I 
suspect I did).  I'd love to hear from other hosting providers, even; if 
I were to recieve information from several hosting providers (beyond 
offerings, prices, and whatever's already on the Zope.org hosting page - 
more "this is what we're about, this is how stable we are, these are our 
future plans" kind of information), I'd be glad to compile it here or on 
a web page somewhere.

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A sincere thank-you to the respondents!

- AM Thomas