webhost challenge
Out of context: Reply #11
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- chl0
I should point out that there is a significant, and I think poorly understood difference between being a bandwidth provider and a hosting provider. They are different things. Verio is primarily a bandwidth provider. They provide people, such as hosting providers, with connections to the internet. The hosting provider is responsible for the physical servers your site lives on, security such as firewalls and updated operating systems, technical support, and so on. Verio also does web hosting and uses its own bandwidth to do so, but that is a distinct thing from their bandwidth business.
A company such as (mt) Media Temple is a hosting provider. We pay for a multi-honed upstream connection to the internet which makes use of several bandwidth providers. One of these is, in fact, Verio, and a large percentage of our network uses their pipes. We also have providers such as Level3 and Global Crossing in our mix. This is a Very Good Thing, because if for example one of Level3's routers blows up and doesn't get fixed for three hours, we're not down for a corresponding three hours (and yes, that does happen.) In fact our customers never notice because traffic just gets routed through the bandwidth providers who are up. This is why getting a blended feed from several providers is a very responsible choice for any hosting provider.
In selecting a web hosting provider, it is perfectly valid to ask who they are buying their bandwidth from, and what kind of a blend is available. This will ultimately have an impact on your site performance. Another good question to ask which often gets overlooked is whether or not your hosting provider actually owns its own IP addresses. If they don't then they could potentially be affected by the actions of whoever does own the IPs, regardless of their own activities. We learned this the hard way at (mt) Media Temple before getting our network fully onto IPs that we do own.
I hope this clears a few things up. If anyone has questions, feel free to email me directly.