> > I have been developing PHP for a while now, and I am wondering how other
> > developers find their PHP hosting company.
Get recommendations from other users.
Also, be ready to move at any time.
I lucked out on my second ISP, and was (mostly) happy for several years.
Actually, I didn't know how good I had it, until...
[darkening sky and thunder in the distance]
They got bought out. The nightmare begins...
I'll skip all the sordid details, as you don't have several hours to listen
to it all.
But I've spent uncountable man-hours trying to get the old ISP to keep my
sites up-and-running while spending uncountable man-hours moving them to
another server. I went from maintenance mode on a dozen sites to panic mode
on the old server, and re-install and test everything on the new server.
On the bright side: I trust the new host implicitly, and I *KNOW* he's not
looking to sell out, and is in this for the long haul of providing good
service at a fair price.
> > We want to make sure that we are providing appropriate support to our
PHP
> > developers. I see too many hosting companies saying that they support
> > PHP,
> > but not having anyone familiar with PHP on hand. We want to have actual
> > support, a developer to call when you have a PHP issue.
That's really more than required -- I need a SysAdmin who understands PHP
and whatever extensions they promised well enough to know how to keep it
running. I don't need a PHP developer to fix my code.
Counter-example:
The "bad" ISP above literally called me at one point, and he said he knew
Oracle, but not PostgreSQL (which was dead on their server at the time) and
asked if I'd be willing to help. "Sure", I said. The tech then began
reading to me from the first page of the PostgreSQL manual...
[This is a small scene in the nightmare I promised not to go into...
Sorry.]
> > What do you think a medium sized hosting company could do to give you
(the
> > developer) better service and support?
Clearly list which extensions you have enabled, and at what versions.
Clearly state your upgrade policy up-front for PHP *and* all extensions.
MAINTAIN IT! If you lose your MySQL guru, then find another one fast, or
phase out MySQL "support"
> > Is access to professional PHP developers useful when an issue arises?
No, that's what the mailing list is for. I want access to a SysAdmin, not a
PHP developer.
> > Are hosting companies reluctant to give you more access rights?
Actually, the original "good" ISP gave me compiler access, as I was playing
with gnupg in beta status, and they figured that was better than
re-compiling for me every couple days :-)
They also ran PHP as a CGI with suExec because their other customers didn't
need it, and they weren't willing to install it and increase httpd risks
just for me. This was a pain sometimes, but they were always willing to
help me work around it.
Alas, they also gave CGI access to some idiots who continually ran run-away
scripts (Perl probably) that would bring the server to its knees. Sigh. Oh
well, guess you can't have everything.
The "bad" ISP wouldn't even send me a list of the files in my PostgreSQL
directories. Had they done that, I coulda told them it was puking because
/var was full because a bunch of long-dead temp tables were left over from
queries that were just too big and crashed the server. We could have wiped
those out and saved uncountable hours of pain. I might even still be their
customer if they'd done one little thing different on day one.
It's always a judgement call whom to trust how much. Either your ISP is
good at it, and everybody's happy, or they've got an inflexible policy in
place, and most people are happy, or they suck, and nobody's happy.
> > Are they willing to re-compile their PHP build to add other options?
Probably not.
> > How long do requested changes to the server take?
Most should be done within 24 hours. Tricky ones should get a non-automated
response as to why they aren't done, and some sort of
negotiation/counter-offer of how to solve the problem.
> > What other suggestions do you have for improving the relationship
between
> > the server administrator and the PHP developer?
Build a tracking db to issue ticket numbers for each problem, and use it
religiously.
Respond with a live answer that it's fixed, or an ETA, or establishes a
dialog for how to resolve within 24 hours.
If you *REALLY* want to provide top-notch PHP services, consider using
vmware and giving each customer root. Or give each customer their own pool
of httpd processes to configure they way they want.
You won't be able to squeeze as many customers on the box, but they'll be
happy and probably willing to pay a little more.
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