Lunarpages Hosting Plans

Lots of server migration happening in Lunarpages for the past few months and I guess we are seeing the final transfer early this year 2009.

Server boxes were moving physically from Los Angeles datacenter to San Diego datacenter. I can’t find any reasons for the move but the migration planning and progress can be tracked from the official forum.

Migration of server Isis, Seth, Tsohea, Felix, Deneb, as well as Ez-web-n-mail are reported in late year 2008.

Generally the servers being affected will be offline for 6 – 8 hours (for physical transportation). As the migrations are planned properly, I don’t read much complaints about the users site. There are, however, quite some change on the server IPs, Isis server for example, switch to a new IP as: 67.210.119.235 IN PTR isis.fastsecureservers.com.

Server software upgrades

Folks at Lunarpages are also taking the chance to upgrade their software. Quoting fully from the forum post, these are the list of software being upgraded:

Apache to 1.3.41 if it wasn’t already this version
PHP4 to PHP 4.4.9
PHP5 when applicable to PHP 5.2.6
MySQL to MySQL 5.0.51a
Ruby when applicable to Ruby 1.8.6 newest patched release
Zend Optimizer to 3.3.3
ImageMagick to 6.4.3
IonCube to 3.1.32
ffmpeg when applicable to latest release snapshot

According to Tristan (Lunarpages technical staffs), these updates are for security purposes to update each service to the newest, secure release. Generally there shouldn’t be any effects on Lunarpages users but in case you’re one of the unlucky one, reviewing the php.ini file(s) might helps.

Just a quick updates on Lunarpages recent server performance – everything seems fine and I have another smooth month with the hosting company.

Ever thought of running your own website online?

Thanks to open source software, free web services, and cheap computer hardware; hosting websites online nowadays are much cheaper and easier. Look around yourself, there are so many bloggers and webmasters around – almost everyone are publishing content online or trying to develop their own cash machines online – why not you?

Although it’s cheap and easy, there are few consideration points that must be taken seriously. Web hosting, for example, is something that can make or break your website. In fact, picking up the right hosting service is the most crucial factor when comes to starting a new website.

5 Quick Tips in Web Hosting Shopping

What I’m going to show you today in this article is about web hosting shopping – a list of 5 tips for web hosting shoppers.

1. Getting the right hosting company

A good hosting company assure smooth and easy web operations. Reading hosting reviews at forums and blogs, checking complaints on Better Business Bureau or other organization, reviewing hosting features and pricing, as well as reading customers feedback are always the must-do steps to filter out the right web hosting firm.

Getting in touch with the customer support of your candidates might be a good suggestion as the quality of customer supports reveal (more or less) the quality of the management. Also, it’s wise to choose a hosting service that runs their own data centers (server centers). This is to ensure that your web host is not one of those small hosting resellers.

2. Dedicated or shared hosting

A shared hosting is cheap and affordable; while your website works safer and faster (theoretically) with dedicated hosting, it cost a lot more. For newbies or mom-n-pop webmaster, shared hosting is often the wiser choice.

In case you’re in dilemma, read further at: When you should take up a dedicated server?

3. Hosting operating system: Windows or Linux?

Web server operating system (OS) is another major consideration point.

Most shared server nowadays are running on Linux operating system due to the fact that Linux is more reliable and cheaper. Windows hosting on the other hand requires extra maintenance work and is much expensive. Windows hosting are normally selected when certain web applications (Microsoft ASP.net for example) are needed.

A point worth noting is that not all hosting firms come with dual OS hosting service. For example both Bluehost and Hostmonster offer only Linux hosting. For readers who wish to setup their website on a Windows hosting, kindly check Lunarpages Windows Hosting offers – they are one of the best in industry.

4. Web Hosting Features

Different hosting firms offer different web hosting package. Before making decision, you must understand what you need for your website.

Answer questions like: How much storage capacity do you need for your hosting server? What are the necessary hosting features – do you need shopping cart? Private SSL? How much bandwidth do you need? Do you plan to host addon domains on the same hosting account? How many MySQL databases are allowed? Does the web host support cgi-bin access? Is web stats report available?

5. Pricing

It’s no secret that there are full of scams and crooks in the hosting industry. Don’t be ripped off by lousy third-class reseller web hosts! Check and compare hosting prices before you hand out your credit card info. Also, a check on the hosting company refund policy is always necessary. Reliable hosting companies normally offer long trial period. Go with these web hosts as you can simply quick and refund if the the hosting company doesn’t suit your needs.

Sidenote: Lunarpages for example, offer a 30 days trial period for all their customers.

Conclusion: Get the right hosting service!

Finding the right hosting service is the first and most important step in building your website. All features that you need for your website should be carefully checked and studied before you make the decision. This is important so that you time spent for all these can be a long term benefit. In conclusion, we should not fall for lousy hosting plan and regret later. Instead, we should invest more time in the beginning to search and study everything that is out there to see which is suitable for us and select depending on our need.

With that, we will be able to build ourselves a good website.

Just a quick updates on Lunarpages server status – my websites hosted on Lunarpages is operating smoothly and responsively – everything seems just fine. I don’t see any potential problem with the server and for those who need graphical info, here’s the print screen on cPanel server check.

Server reliability is always one of the most important factor for a good web host. What’s good about Lunarpages is that the hosting company is operating customer’s websites with very reliable hosting servers.

How do we know Lunarpages server is reliable?

First, there are various hosting reviews that write good things about Lunarpages server performance. Take example of this server review that’s written a few weeks back. The server performance is proved via server status page (that can be only viewed if you’re Lunarpages customers).

Secondly, there are various uptime tracking services available online and there are many hosting review sites that’re using these services to evaluate Lunarpages server performance. A good example is shown as below where Lunarpages server status is monitored via a 3rd party system at WebHostingGeeks. Note that for the past one week, Lunarpages hosting server achieved upto 99.778% server uptime.

Why am I showing this to you?

These valuable indications proves Lunarpages server is reliable and they are delivering what they promised (99% uptime). I hope this helps doubtful customers that keep sending e-mail asking me about Lunarpages server reliability.