Open Source Hosting Reccommendations

[kingleer]

Hello everyone,

I am doing some volunteer work for a human rights NGO. They maintain about 3 or 4 websites and are looking for a new, open-source hosting solution.

The sites are currently hosted in Canada and are targeted towards an international audience. I've never had to assess hosting providers before, so this turf is a little unfamiliar to me. I am doing some googling (obv,) but wondered if anyone here had some good suggestions off the top of their heads.

Here are the requirements.

[snip]
Open Source Hosting:

100 GB hard disk space (Web and Email combined)
300 G bandwidth per month
512 Memory
No limits on domains, email accounts, etc
Apache Web server
Debian GNU/Linux OS
AlternC control Panel
Complete SSH/SFTP access (including root)
MySQL Database
PHP Engine
POP/SMTP servers
Basic management and support services
[/snip]

These aren't all set in stone. Obviously "No limits on domains..." doesn't really mean no limits. And I expect there are good alternatives to the AlternC control panel. But suggestions along these lines would be great.

Oh and by the way, the budget is around $150 a month.

Thanks,
Fergus

 

[mneylon]

Is the charity / NGO Irish or international?

 

[kingleer]

It's based out of India, currently hosted in Canada.

::HRLN::

 

[Forbairt]

Hey Fergus,

As I said yesterday ... I'd be inclined to go with US hosting on this one as the target audience is international. That said ... india -> US is quite a hop so the latency might be a bit of an issue. Maybe its as good to get the middle ground and go Irish

That said if they've been with the canadian company I presume they were happy enough ?
Why have they decided to move ?

the mediatemple offering - (mt) Media Temple - (dv) Dedicated-Virtual Server might be good ... but for your 150 a month you're getting ... 60gb storage, 1gb ram, 2 TB bandwidth which is not bad but falls short of your 100gbs space (they really require that much ??)

Maybe the Irish hosts can confirm whether or not you should go irish on it.
Also going with the basic plan from MT might be good and scale it up as you need to ... would save them a few hundred.
(I'm going to guess mail is one of the major issues for them and webspace for that???)

 

[mneylon]

Well most of the bigger Irish hosts have excellent connectivity to the US and everywhere else, so I can't see why US hosting would be attractive for anyone involved in human rights

 

[Forbairt]

Well most of the bigger Irish hosts have excellent connectivity to the US and everywhere else, so I can't see why US hosting would be attractive for anyone involved in human rights

*rotfl*

 

[kingleer]

Well most of the bigger Irish hosts have excellent connectivity to the US and everywhere else, so I can't see why US hosting would be attractive for anyone involved in human rights

Assuming pricing and services are a good fit, I'd certainly be recommending an Irish host over a US one...

 

[Forbairt]

Assuming pricing and services are a good fit, I'd certainly be recommending an Irish host over a US one...

Yep .. support is a complete ***** when it comes to the US hosts .. and I find a lot of the US hosts servers are JAMMED full of sites (on the shared hosting at any rate) They can crawl at times .. as someone decides to hammer their site.

Getting issues resolved usually takes the best part of a day with the US hosts . where as with the irish crowds .. I bang them off an email ... get my support ticket .. and usually have a response in 15 minutes (sometimes longer .. sometimes less). Thats without me needing to ring anyone up as well which I find great because

1. I hate waiting machines .. it bugs me ... if I can email in the issue I will.
2. I much prefer writing down my issue than having to explain it on the phone to someone.