overselling on reseller service

[supernix]

There are good and bad points for overselling.
PRO: You can earn more money--for both host and client side (oversold hostings are also usually cheaper)
CON: When most of them suddenly have a surge in usage
When you meet clients who optimize the resources given to them
Resellers cannot upgrade servers to prevent it from crashing.

Conclusion: There are more risks in overselling (and even more if they oversell too much).

I don't know how long you have been doing any hosting at all, but you have missed some studying for sure.

Dedicated servers whether used for shared hosting/reseller hosting all have definite resources that can't be easily upgrade for the most part.

I have seen a many dedicated servers crash under load. You must have not ever heard of DOS/DDoS attacks. Which really is no different that getting a load of traffic the only difference is the intent.

I have seen many sites that were run on dedicated servers go to a crawl after being announced on the TV for some special purpose.

VPS/Cloud Servers are the only structure you can easily upgrade to match the demand.
The one option to upgrade that can keep a Cloud Server/VPS down for a while is adding more disk space.

Now I could be wrong about all that, but I have never heard of hot swapping RAM just hot swappable drives.

Point is that being a reseller doesn't mean you can't upgrade nor expand.

 

[ParkerGala]

I don't know how long you have been doing any hosting at all, but you have missed some studying for sure.

Dedicated servers whether used for shared hosting/reseller hosting all have definite resources that can't be easily upgrade for the most part.

I have seen a many dedicated servers crash under load. You must have not ever heard of DOS/DDoS attacks. Which really is no different that getting a load of traffic the only difference is the intent.

I have seen many sites that were run on dedicated servers go to a crawl after being announced on the TV for some special purpose.

VPS/Cloud Servers are the only structure you can easily upgrade to match the demand.
The one option to upgrade that can keep a Cloud Server/VPS down for a while is adding more disk space.

Now I could be wrong about all that, but I have never heard of hot swapping RAM just hot swappable drives.

Point is that being a reseller doesn't mean you can't upgrade nor expand.

I'm assuming here that this reseller account is not on VPS/Cloud servers. If it is, then yes you're right about it being easily upgraded.
And yes the reseller's supplier host will solve it like when it has received a DDOS attack. But the problem here is that [some of the] supplier host will just shut down the reseller's account until they get their clients under control. During the event where they ask you to purchase another plan or upgrade, you'll be spending more capital--which you won't earn back from your current customers. And you'll find yourself spending more than what you're getting. And, there aren't hosts who are willing to add resources to that specific dedicated server just because it's overloading from 1 reseller account (for free).

The point is, there's a risk that it will crash and burn if you oversell it and you can't do anything but spend more than you earn.

 

[ParkerGala]

Absolutely false. Its very easy to control the number of sites that are provisioned. It is no more difficult than if you are not overselling. If one cannot understand this than one should not be handling servers at all.

Who ever said it's not easy to control the number of sites? The problem is about controlling the traffic and space they use up--resources.

When you have 20 clients on a 10GB storage and 100GB BW reseller account and then you sell your shared hosting packages as 1GB and 10GB per account because you're assuming that they won't be able to use up all of it. Then you're going to have a problem when half of them decides to do just that.

 

[supernix]

If you price it properly then there is always the option to get another server and move some of them to it.

I think that is what is going on a lot of the times when you see these people talking about needing to change the IP for server maintenance.

 

[suppoB]

Is it good when a reseller host allows overselling on their service?

A lot of hosts that enable overselling at reseller level limit the number of domains which a reseller can host under one account.So this is better to avoid companies which offer overselling and want to attract attention by unlimited domains in their hosting packages.

If every reseller starts overselling without control, it can perform the server load and even downtime. As the reseller accounts are growing day by day, they will try to upgrade their plans in future and that is when things can get really tricky for the reseller hosting provider.

Having a reseller account, you get disk space and bandwidth at a particular price and resell these resources at a higher price. The customers can easily find out your real provider’s name and they can directly go to this company, which will not be a good thing for you.

Various methods exist for a reseller host to protect its resellers' anonymity. Private nameservers for example provide the highest level of anonymity and also project an image of professionalism.

The main advantage of a reseller package is that reseller plans are managed by the web host who provides the service to you and you do not have to worry about performing any server upgrades, server administration or security.

But sometimes it can become a disadvantage as you don’t fully control the server. A web hosting who does not keep security up-to-date, or oversells space on the server means that your reseller accounts are affected.

Moreover, in case of the server failures, your clients’ accounts are badly influenced by the downtime and you can’t do anything about it as you don’t have control over your server. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but before making an order for a reseller plan, make sure your hosting provider is reliable.

 

[ughosting]

I don't oversell, but I allow my resellers to oversell, as they are bound by the package I've sold them, and will need to upgrade as their users approach using the space I've sold them, so it's a good profit maker for my customers as they can sell packages before they have to buy them, but they do risk suspension should they fail to upgrade.
If my customers cannot make a profit, then I won't have any and I won't make a profit.
So resellers overselling is not a big issue.
Overselling the server on which the reseller accounts are hosted, now that would be a problem.

 

[hybridservers]

I think that overselling isn't great, because service doesn't have good quality anymore. Once I was a reseller client and I had a lot of troubles, because server was oversold. Many clients chooses dedicated or hybrid servers because vps in many cases are oversold.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Once I was a reseller client and I had a lot of troubles, because server was oversold.

Its no problem if you know how to manage a server and set reseler limits correctly. You can set a reseller to only have a specific amount of accounts and then make sure your server (VPS) only fills to a certain %.

We dont oversell and limit our resellers to 25 accounts, but then only keep our servers to approx. 70% of capacity before setting up another server.