Hi again everyone

OK,so I'm looking at moving servers to rackshack from my current Cpanel provider (who will remain nameless!). My only concern with Rackshack is that the servers are unmanaged - therefore, I would be interested in people's experiences (if any) of getting someone to manage the server for them - ie initial setup, including security, as well as general maintenance tasks. I do have some guys who do normal linux sysadmin, but I suspect that knowing Cpanel well would be of benefit and therefore I'm thinking of paying a retainer to someone to do this.

Would appreciate views, experiences and maybe even humour

Thanks

Ade

I think if you've got the time (and I appreciate that you may not), it's worth keeping the experience within your organisation if you can.

The trouble with paying somebody to set it all up is that they will, eventually, clear off and might leave you with a system that's working well at the time, but without the requisite knowledge to deal with problems when they occur.

Doing it yourself vs paying someone. Lemme tell ya what I have done to bring myself up to speed. 1997, I got into a hosting biz myself, but my first experience was a RaQ and it was a pain, I knew nothing about it, my but host was nice enough to take care of things for me, till I ended up having to get a second account with another company and it was a pain. Having someone around to take care of it for you is great, but when a time comes you need to do something.... your screwed unless you have good search capabilities. Anyway I got out of it two years later, and wanted to get back into it when I had better finances. But I needed to brush up on my experiences, so I took remote jobs with companies, forcing myself to re-learn it all over again. Now I dont have to rely on anyone to take care of my needs. And if and when I have someone around, Ill know if their actually doing work, or goofing off. If I make mistakes, I know I did it and no one elses fault.

When it comes to someone else, you must have some sort of trust. Although theres the professional courtesy, but you never know who you are going to get if you hire someone you dont know to manage your servers. You have no idea the kind of work you will recieve for the amount you pay in return. All depends on what you feel is best.

But Ive learned experience is your best teacher. IF you want it done right, its best you do it yourself Unless you are agood person to work with and have found someone who is good to work with to, vice/versa develope a nice relationship and it could take off. Then again, if their out of town, on business or have something to take care and you have no one else and something goes wrong (believe me you never know when something can come up) your up the creek with no paddles.

Here's my two cents:

1. Get a second server to just goof off on and learn. If you tear it up, great Get a restore and learn some more. Eventually, you'll feel comfortable enough to try some of the things you've learned on a production server.

2. Always backup a file before editing it

3. There's very few people I'd trust to work on one of my servers, some of the ones I'd trust are right here in these forums.
I won't mention any names, but search around, search here and else where.

4. When or if you ran into a jam and couldn't find the solution yourself, check the forum, this forum and others. I have a list of forums that I check regulary.

5. Learn, learn, learn.

Just my two cents

A 2nd server just to goof off on is a pricey toy. You are better off setting up redhat on a old 50.00 computer at home and doing it that way.

Hehehehe. Agree, that would be a cheaper alternative.

I learned in 1 month how to manage my box

Just had to read & read & read ....

I had biggest problem with my nameserwers

You must be a child prodigy then, I do server administration for 2 years and still have no clue what I'm doing.

im not a guru but I know how to setup it now

Thanks for all the replies guys. My problem (well, one of them!) is time and like most people I'm running around doing enough anyway. The reason I thought about getting someone in to manage the server was that I can't afford the time to devote to managing the server just like I don't have the time to program any more and contract that all out. It is a worrying thing though to rely on someone else (especially remotely) to manage a server so I'll take all the points into consideration

Thanks again

Ade

Its best to look for a server management company not single person. There are many management companies. The going rate is 100 dollars a month and 100 setup.

Yeah, thats what I've kind of figured - at least with a company we wouldn't have the problem of the "one guy" being ill or something. Thanks again to everyone who posted on this thread - it's really helped me

Ade

Hey ukAde,

Do you still need someone to manage your server ?

if yes you can past your contact details here so that i can be in touch with you. if you have anyone already there for this, no worries

look at the post dates....this thread is over a year old