For the last three decades I have been involved in the development of cloud-based software…read moreapplications. If you want to create your own cloud-based application or just a regular website, you'll need a server for it that is connected to the Internet. Many companies do this with their own equipment, connections, and technical resources. Some even run web servers from home. If yours is a business application and you're serious about its success, then you be the expert in your business and let the right server hosting company be your expert in that part of the business. I have zero interest in providing my own Internet server hosting solution, even if it saves significantly on the cost. Setting up a server as an Internet-based host is not all that big a deal. Keeping it up and keeping it maintained is a very big deal. Do you really want to have to deal with IIS, DNS, and IP settings and changes, third party software management, email server configuration and maintenance, SMTP changes, data backup chores, operating system upgrades, security settings and rules, and the myriad other details that must be managed for the smooth operation of your Web servers? With our dedicated leased servers, we get Remote Desktop Protocol and FTP access. So my developers and I have full, secure, unrestricted access to our servers. We can do anything we need to do, but because of Digital Forest's expertise and great customer service attitude, we don't have to worry about any of the server maintenance and management. We can spend our time on the things that are directly important to our business. Besides, Digital Forest techs do this regularly and can do it much faster and with less chance of error than we could do. Well, I can say that about Digital Forest, but the reality with any other company I've tried has been just the opposite. Tip: don't base your hosting decision on the base cost of the hosting service. That is the smallest of your costs. It's all the rest that may be the difference between being profitable and sane. Pick the Right Server Hosting Company Assumptions: your candidate server hosting company will have racks filled and to be filled with rackmounted computers and network gear in a climate controlled facility. It will have high bandwidth Internet-backbone connections with redundant service. It will have a multi-million dollar state-of-the-art network operations center (NOC) with physical access security and serious uninterruptable power backup capabilities tied to battery and filtered generators. It will have top line data backup facilities and off-site data backup rotations. Then comes the huge differentiator--your server hosting company will have competent technical talent. Over years I've tried a variety of dedicated leased server hosting companies including what was, at least at the time, the largest in the country, Interland (now Web.com). I blame them for my bald dome. I couldn't even begin to convey the degree of contempt I acquired over the extreme incompetency these companies exhibited time after time. I could never trust them to do even the simplest task correctly. If I needed, for example, a simple DNS change, I came to expect that my site would be down for periods ranging from hours to days as a result of it being done incorrectly, and then incorrectly again when their mistake was "fixed"...even if I exactly spelled out to them what to do. It got to where I couldn't trust them to manage my servers and I had to do it all myself via RDP connection. With this single recommendation I can save you tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in grief, lost employee time, sacrificed customer goodwill, and real dollars. Go to Digital Forest. They have the right facilities, they have the right people, and their people are highly competent. When I submit a request on the Digital Forest online help desk, it is completed in a timely manner, it is done right (the first time), and it is done with a wonderfully positive customer service attitude. And they are competitively priced. Where with the other hosting companies I had constant grief that cost far more than the hosting service, I have now been with Digital Forest for several years and have not had even one bad experience. They do it right. Clean and simple. We started out with a simple two server solution, a production server and a development server. For our healthcare industry solution, MedTegra.com, Digital Forest has configured for us a leading edge server farm with several virtual servers in a secure three-tier architecture, RAID, redundant power supplies, hardware firewall and other security services, network switch, etc. In addition they host all of our email domains on their own top line email servers including anti-virus and spam protection and provide us with excellent email management tools.

We used DigitalFortress in Seattle for about 1.5 years before ending up having to find a new…read moredatacenter colocation provider. At the beginning, were in the market for a half rack as our current provider was being sold off. Initial sales talks with Digital Fortress's head of sales, Taylor Loya, was very difficult. She was very short on answers and unhelpful in almost every question or request. Usually the pre-sales part is the easiest! This should have been a red flag, but the CEO at the time finally swooped in and sealed the deal effortlessly, so we signed up. Fast forward 1.5 years, we had to call it quits and move. Taylor is impossible to work with because she never answers anything in a timely manner. Basic upgrade requests, fixing any sort of invoice error or anything billing/sales related takes forever! it can take weeks or sometimes a month+ to get a response, upgrade request or solution. I will say though, their technical support, especially Kenny, did an amazing job other than two incidents where they damaged our motherboards. Other than that, their responses are quick and helpful. Their helpdesk though leaves much to be desired, and they do not use a billing system. Instead, they just invoice you from a glorified QuickBooks which has issues all the time. You also have no way of looking up any of your service or billing information because they do not use any sort of system. The worst incident was when we had planned to move our equipment out on a Monday, that Sunday night Taylor from billing set our services to be suspended even though for 2 weeks prior we asked multiple times to extend our service and were happy to pay any premium. But of course, no responses from Taylor or anyone and all our servers went offline Sunday night. These are live production servers so we franticly tried everything we could to get Taylor to turn them back on, but all our voicemails went unanswered. My guess is Digital Fortress has no interest in clients smaller than an entire full rack. I would strongly suggest anyone that values their business, to avoid DigitalFortress. Atleast until they get management/billing/sales replaced.