overselling on reseller service

@easyhostmedia: yes, that is what do I mean to say in long run you get only issues with your web hosting services if you relay on a web host offering overselling with services.
 
If a web hosting provider allows its Resellers to oversell, this means that many of them are overselling the resources of the underlying virtual or physical infrastructure. I don't think that anyone who is serious about the Reseller Hosting business would be happy to find out that the resources or the account are not guaranteed.
 
Is it good when a reseller host allows overselling on their service?

that would depend on the host....

overselling is allocating more than you have...

so i have a very small 20GB server (for imagination's sake)

user1 comes along and buy's my 10GB package
user2 comes along and buys another 10gb package
user3 comes along and buys another 10gb package (i officially ran out of space 10GB ago)

but user1 only has a small php wordpress site with two e-mail accounts and is using 500mb (in total, with databases)

user2 has a few downloads on their joomla site and run's a small software company they use 1.5GB

user3 is just learning php but might want to put a proper website up one day and uses the domain name for e-mail 1GB


so as you can see the total used is 3GB
the total allocated is 30GB (i've oversold by 50%)

but as long as the processor, ram usage isn't topping out. The user's disk requirement's aren't too likely to change drastically (very often)



now onto reseller overselling...

your reseller buy's 10 gb and you allow him to sell 40 gb to his users (if he goe's over 10GB usage he has to upgrade with you)

but it's the same thing overselling is what's allocated not what's used.

don't confuse overselling with overloading (a practice used by a lot of the unlimited host's to cram hundreds and thousands of websites on a server) which does affect performance of site loading speed, uptime, reliability

joe
 
I let the resellers on my hosting oversell, but I don't give them unlimited resources.

This forces them to manage everything their customers are doing and only upgrade their plans when necessary.

Also because each reseller has their own IP, it's easy to move reseller from one machine to another should it be necessary (rarely) due to an overloaded server.

So I would say that Unlimited Accounts are bad, Overloaded Servers are bad, Overselling is NOT so bad if the capacity planning is done regularly.

Remember: A single site can overload a server if it is very poorly coded, or gets mentioned on a very popular site like slashdot.

If you get a site get too popular, on shared hosting you have to ask them to move to an alternate form of hosting, VPS or dedicated. This is something we don't like to do, but it is a necessary party of capacity planning. It's good to do this early as well, before you server suffers, not after it has suffered.
 
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I let the resellers on my hosting oversell, but I don't give them unlimited resources.

I myself do not oversell.

This forces them to manage everything their customers are doing and only upgrade their plans when necessary.
Also because each reseller has their own IP, it's easy to move reseller from one machine to another should it be necessary.

So I would save that Unlimited Accounts are bad, Oversold Servers are bad, Overselling is NOT so bad if the capacity planning is done regularly.

i dont oversell or allow my resellers to oversell, if they get near limited, i just upsell them a higher plan or their own VPS
 
Overselling can be dangerous in one way specially when you're about to run out of disk space on your main server due to it :eek:
 
Overselling can be dangerous in one way specially when you're about to run out of disk space on your main server due to it :eek:

agreed if you dont managed servers correctly.

as stated before we dont oversell, but we keep our servers at 70% with direct accounts, so this allows resellers some leeway in space. if needed we wil move accounts to other servers with he permission of the acount holders. so far no one has complained about this.
 
For resellers, I think having overselling enabled is crucial to getting your company off the ground. The trick is making sure your upstream (the company you are purchasing your reseller account from, is not overselling).

Either way, whether you have a reseller account or have your own set of dedicated/colo servers. Offering sustainable/realistic web hosting plans is the way to go.
 
we never oversell and dont allow our resellers to oversell, but keeping our servers at 70% capacity keeps the server running smoothly

The point I was trying to make is that if you as a web host is not overselling, then it is irrelevant whether or not your resellers are allowed to oversell. People often times run away from the term (overselling), but fail to understand that there is responsible overselling (with resellers) and irresponsible overselling (with the web hosts providing the reseller service).
 
I have no problem with allowing a reseller to oversell. After all, shared hosting (and thus reseller hosting) is oversold by its very nature: you get momentary access to all or a big chunk of the the server's spare computing power, and so does every other customer.

Hi Dan,

Without disputing the thesis about overselling in telecommunication industry, I disagree with the suggestion that "shared hosting (and thus reseller hosting) is oversold by its very nature". It is oversold with some hosting companies that are unethical in their business practices. I would expect the Mods of any reputable forum like HD to lead the community by setting some kind of moral standards and to educate the members, especially the new ones. You know that "overselling" (unlimited space and/or unlimited bandwidth) offers are not accepted in HostingDiscussion. By justifying them in this thread you are opening a door for setting double standards.
 
Hi Dan,

Without disputing the thesis about overselling in telecommunication industry, I disagree with the suggestion that "shared hosting (and thus reseller hosting) is oversold by its very nature". It is oversold with some hosting companies that are unethical in their business practices. I would expect the Mods of any reputable forum like HD to lead the community by setting some kind of moral standards and to educate the members, especially the new ones. You know that "overselling" (unlimited space and/or unlimited bandwidth) offers are not accepted in HostingDiscussion. By justifying them in this thread you are opening a door for setting double standards.

I think that the industry as a whole shapes up the standards, not a selected group of individuals. I also do believe there is a difference between offering unlimited resources and controlled overselling. While I am against the term either way you put it, I think most companies do oversell resources (even though they'd place a number on it), including telecommunication companies, airlines and others. There will always be a myriad of opinions present in any community, but it is not the job of board owners to dictate what staff members should believe in. We might disagree on things, but that's okay.
 
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.
 
For resellers, I think having overselling enabled is crucial to getting your company off the ground. .

I agree. Unfortunately those that don't are confusing overselling with overloading. You can overload a server without overselling, and at the same time oversell and keep capacity well below maximum. At the end of the day what matters is how many sites are on a server, not how they got there. I would rather be on a server with 500 oversold accounts than on the identical server with 800 non-oversold accounts
 
Actually if the hosting providers care about their customers, they should care about servers too.
So what a good hosting company does? - adds a new server, brings a better performance, eliminates overloads.
The mission is to find such provider and use their reseller features to grow your business, until the time comes to change to the dedicated server.
 
Actually if the hosting providers care about their customers, they should care about servers too.
So what a good hosting company does? - adds a new server, brings a better performance, eliminates overloads.
The mission is to find such provider and use their reseller features to grow your business, until the time comes to change to the dedicated server.
It's not east to find such a provider IMHO.
 
Actually if the hosting providers care about their customers, they should care about servers too.
So what a good hosting company does? - adds a new server, brings a better performance, eliminates overloads.
The mission is to find such provider and use their reseller features to grow your business, until the time comes to change to the dedicated server.

This is why we keep our servers at approx. 70% full, so they are not overloaded and if needed we will set up another server and move some accounts.
 
This is why we keep our servers at approx. 70% full.

What does that mean exactly? 70% of what? Are you buying servers that can handle 1,000 sites but putting only 700 sites on them? If so, who is paying for the unused 30%?

Business logic tells us that you set up a new server when the previous one is "full" at 100% -- however you may happen to define 100%. To say your "full" server is only 70% full is marketing fluff :)
 

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