john doe wrote:
Hey Rodney, I hope you get this:
I was looking for a hosting provider. I'm a happy WinHost customer, but their speed (web site loading, etc.) isn't the best, but I know I'm getting what I paid for with a shared provider like this.
I am looking for a better solution to host a business instance of DNN for a client. I was looking at Managed.com, but at $100 / mo, it's very pricey.
I went over to windowsazure.com and couldn't quite figure out what plan to choose for DNN. What do you use? Are you using a dedicated VM?
That's one of the things I've thought about: having my own VM and managing it myself, but hosting it with a provider. The thing is, I'm not sure how licensing of the O/S works with something like Azure and whether you can completely configure the O/S (presuming one is included) with Azure.
THe azure hosting plans don't indicate whether you have access to MS SQL or not. Can you shed any light on what you use with azure.com? ANd whether you'd recommend it for a business hosting plan vs. something like WinHost? (The site I'm doing isn't a big one. But I'm concerned that the slow page laod times of a shared provider would hinder SEO crawling as well as negatively affect customer experience. (I use WinHost for my own site. And as a user, I get frustrated with how slow it takes to load for the first time. But i'm not that concerned because I'm just a small independent).
Anyways, just looking to see if I can find a balanced provider that provides better performance and lower density shared plans, vs. some sort of dedicated hosting. I know dedicated hosting will cost more. But it's hard to make a decision by looking at a web page. I'm looking for real world recommendations from users rather than from sales people of these sites who always say how great they are.
Sorry for the lengthy post. Just sharing my thoughts and hoping you might have some ideas or recommendations.
Sorry, just saw this now! (not getting emails).
I used to be with PowerDNN but I disliked having to manage the server myself and do software upgrades etc. plus my site was a bit slow.
After switching to Azure my site is much more reliable (I monitor it with Pingdom), I never have to maintain the server AND I scale up and down as I please with a button click.
I use Azure Websites and ported my DB to SQL Azure (so no VMs). You will need an instance of SQL running, so put that into the Azure calculator. My advice is to open a trial account with Azure and publish a test DNN site from the Gallery. It will set up everything you need to do and you will see how easy it is and what bits you need.
Give it a try and let me know what you think - Azure really is pretty amazing and has saved me a heap of money and is very reliable and fast.