Outlawed here, dont ask me why :?

The number of complaints I get from new customers (Internal corporate hosting) that our cr@p hoting is not working yet works fine on their development server. You look at a lot of dodgy html and tell them to sort their case usage out.

We then offer them a lower cost option whereby they get their site on a proper content managed system. They have proper editorial control, timed releases of notices, conformance with corporate graphic standards etc. Suddenly the mupper in the corner who was knocking out HTML instead of doing his job, real does look like a muppet.

At last count we were hosting over 200 servers, granted some are duplicated into clusters for perfomance and reliability. We use predominately RHES and Solaris with Websphere cluster, and tomcat application servers, Apache front end presentation server for static content, redundant Checkpoint Firewall 1 firewalls partioning the hosting environment into presentation, application and data servers. Segregating Internet and Intranet applicions by networks and firewall controlling those, Oracle clusters on Sun Solaris. Internet access from two providers on seperate SDH loops with fail over between the providers. We then run windoze for those applications that cannot run on *nix. and sqlserver etc. At the very end of the database provision we then have a couple of MySql boxes but the user must have a damm good reason to need them. That coupled with spreading load accross muliple server rooms, each fed from seperate motor gens and 100% over capacity ac etc adds up to a couple of million bucks worth on infrastructure. Dedicated ops staff for machine/os, dedicated DBAs, dedicated hosting staff for websphere, tomcat, apache, plus the content management stuff like open market, cocoon, jahia, dedicated checkpoint/cisco/wan staff plus project managers etc. Then the customer says I can get all I need for £100/year from fred blogs hosting.

At which time you shout. God preserve me from amateurs.

i'm glad frontpage is around, coz it keeps people like me in coding jobs ;)