New Post has been published on compevo communications
New Post has been published on https://compevo.com/blog/what-now-my-hosting-company-is-not-an-it-company/
What Now? My Hosting Company is not an IT Company?
There is a huge difference between just a “Hosting Company” and an “IT Company that provides in-house Hosting”. The most common time to learn this is ironically when things go wrong and your site is down and your business is sustaining losses.
This is not something they teach you in Business 101, but is something that would probably be apt. Perhaps the best way to explain the difference is to mention some real life examples.
Client ABC is with XYZ Hosting Company and their business runs off their services. Client ABC brings us concerns about their Hosting with XYZ company due to various performance issues and perceived downtime that is impacting their business.
Client ABC contracts our company to get to the bottom of the issues. Half of the time we find that the Host is not at fault, but the Client is simply a victim of their own success (eg. an overloaded server) and they are on a package that simply cannot sustain their business needs and amount of usage. Often upgrading is not the answer but sometimes it is. If we see for example high CPU usage, we may recommend more RAM or more CPU cores depending on the situation and analysis from our test lab. From there we make recommendations and advise their best course of action depending on their budget and situation. The most frequent approach often means creating a comprehensive IT business plan and implementing it, whether that be separating their database from their web server and other functions, to redesign, performance tuning, overhauling their code etc… An IT provider is like a Digital Contractor for your online business.
The real question is why would a client of another Hosting company come to us? There are many reasons, but primarily a lot of businesses don’t understand the difference. In fact most Hosting companies are simply that, a hosting company, they are not there to redesign your database, troubleshoot your scripts, or interpret your business requirements. They are essentially your virtual landlord, they provide what you pay for, if what you pay for is being provided properly and you have issues with your server or site, this is where you need to have an IT team of your own or outsource for consulting help. A Hosting company is not going to have the foresight or expertise to advise you of your overall IT situation or even try to prevent pitfalls in your online site because it is not their line of business and not what you are paying for.
That’s where a full-IT company that provides Hosting can offer you a lot of assistance. Being familiar with, IT business and hosting is a must for any serious consulting company who offers service to online businesses. However, finding a company which does it all and from in-house is often why we are sought out. Even if you do not go with our service, we constantly advise that you need a full-time IT time whether in your company or outsourced to another provider. It does make a lot of sense if your IT provider can also provide hosting services.
One benefit is simply having to deal with one firm and having no delay in the IT side accessing your hosting/infrastructure to correct issues. Imagine if company ABC has Hosting with one company and outsources IT with another. Or more often, no IT provider and their local IT staff is away and they have a serious issues with their online IT infrastructure. This often means even if the business finds an IT provider, the provider cannot even begin to help or investigate until a certain staff member has come back from vacation or leave.
The take away from this is to be aware what your business is paying for and make sure you have an IT behind you. If you separate your IT from your Hosting make sure the two can get in touch or have express permission to gain access to do their job, or make sure the staff member has left information and details with someone in your management, especially in case of an emergency.