Does your web hosting company have its own data center?
This is a question that everyone who is serious about their web projects should ask themselves. There are many, many web hosting companies out there, and it can be very difficult to decide amongst them when shopping around for web hosting. Too many people get wrapped up comparing storage space and RAM, bandwidth, uptime, etc. These are all important of course, but don’t forget about what’s at the core of it all – the data center.
Most web hosting companies don’t have their own data center – they simply rent some space or servers from a company that does have a data center. This is fine, but it’s important to remember that if they don’t operate their own data center, then they’re really just someone else’s customer. So if your support issue involves the actual hardware of the machine, they may not have immediate direct access to it – they’ll have to put in a support request to fill your support request!
Even if your hosting company has the best relationship in the world with whatever company owns the data center that their hardware is located in, this can still make for slower support turnaround, delays upgrading hardware etc.
I’m not saying you should only host with a company that also has their own data center, I just think that you should add this as another thing to thing about when considering web hosting providers!
