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How to make money by renting a server. Server rent

Every internet business needs hosting or server rental. Considering the fact that Internet services are a growing market, one can say 100%: renting servers today is a profitable business. The hosting business is full of vacant niches. And the well-being of an entrepreneur depends only on how quickly he finds them.

Who is interested in the services of a hosting company
What are the most popular services of a hosting company
What equipment is needed for a hosting company
What kind of staff is needed for a hosting company
What is the best room for a server rental business
What form of ownership to choose for a hosting business - LLC or individual entrepreneur
What kind of activity is needed for a hosting business
What licenses are needed to run a hosting business
Which of the hosting service formats to choose
How to promote your hosting company
Payback of the hosting company
How much does it cost to open a server rental business
How much can you earn from leasing servers?
Conclusion

Where to start a business like server rental

Renting a server as a business may seem like a dark forest at first. To prevent this from happening, you need to understand the basic theory.

Let's start small. What is server and hosting, and how are they different?Server - this is the same computer that differs from a regular home PC in its power and appearance. The server is more like a cabinet, consisting of server cells - units. Server cabinets are combined into data processing centers (DPC) and can occupy entire floors of buildings, and sometimes entire buildings.

Is a service for the provision of server capacities for use. The client connects to the server remotely and uses it to execute programs or store information. And the client's goals can be very different. From regular file storage to working with complex programs... For example, for the Telegram mobile application, a server is required so that all information is not stored on their smartphones, but downloaded from the server's storage. And when a call is made, a program running on the server comes into operation. The very same mobile app is only a shell.

You can provide hosting services both from your personal equipment and using someone else's. In the second case, you will be considered alreadyserver reseller ... Because, in essence, you will be reselling someone else's hosting. Conversely, having your own server, you can simply rent it out to resellers. Whichever you choose, it is now important to understand that the end product is hosting or hosting services. And whether to have your own equipment for this or resell the power of someone else's - it's up to you.

It's better to start your hosting business as a reseller. And only then, having a clientele, buy your equipment.

The decision to buy your servers is made after potential users have already been found. In this case, the server can save a lot of money, since there will be no primary hoster's margin in the value chain.

Therefore, it is the quality of services that can play a decisive role in the competition. How you deal with customers, what additional functions you provide for free, how you react to problems that have arisen, how quickly you fix them - all this will affect the popularity of your company and, accordingly, the number of your customers and their loyalty to you.

The main condition, of course, is the amount of disk space allocated to the client - the more it is, the higher the rental price. Also, the price is influenced by the number of sites that a client can create by subscribing to a particular tariff. You can offer several tariffs that differ in price, depending on different conditions.

But such a case will require more impressive preparation, so you need to familiarize yourself in more detail with what you will need in the future. Therefore, purchasing hosting for permanent use seems to be the most reasonable decision in the long term.

Therefore, you need to define tariff plans that will operate in your company. After you figure out all the costs, you will need to think about future income. You will receive them directly from customers who purchase places on your server.

The profitability of such projects is very high. And the last of the most important items of expenditure is the purchase of equipment. In total, you will need to spend about two million rubles in order to successfully start doing business. For a year, the money turnover can be sixty million, so you won't have to wait long for profit. As in the case of employees, it is not recommended to save on equipment, since the quality of your server will depend on it.

However, this is not entertainment, so you should take it very seriously when opening a hosting, having understood all aspects and drawing up a detailed business plan. Otherwise, you risk simply losing all your invested money. Today, there are already a decent number of ways to make money through the Internet, and you can get the most out of it if you open your own hosting. Over time, business is gradually moving from the real world to the virtual world, where new vast opportunities open up.

Therefore, first you need to prepare for the fact that various investments await you, which will not pay off immediately. Hosting as a business can bring in impressive profits, but it needs to be waited and achieved.

It is definitely not worth saving at this point, since the quality of the services that you are going to provide will directly depend on the quality of the work of your employees. Still, you will have to hire several people, since you definitely cannot do absolutely everything. However, how to open your own server without the support of other specialists?

The primary importance in deciding how to open your hosting is determining the way in which you are going to open your business in this area.

All interesting

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Each of us in our life is faced with the problem of counting our Money... And if in private life these operations can be dealt with even with a pencil and a piece of paper, then in any business process, no matter how large it is, strict accounting and full reporting is required to understand what is happening. For this, from time immemorial, various systems have been developed to control the flow of cash and materials.

With the advent of computers and other gadgets such as mobile phones, smartphones and tablets, and given the trend of removing the border between these devices - the most popular solution for business automation and accounting this moment is the software of the 1C company. It has solutions for any sector and allows you to solve any assigned task.

We come to the conclusion that any director, leader, manager or field operative wants to receive up-to-date data on the state of business processes. And any force majeure circumstances that affect this can cause considerable harm. For example, general manager did not receive the profit report on time, was unable to convince partners of the profitability of the business and did not receive additional investments.

Based on the foregoing, we need to ensure the continuous operation of the entire company, and in particular its IT infrastructure. To build such a system that can provide the required level of stability, it is necessary to understand what risks we will defend against and what we want to avoid.

Most common reason loss of data or their becoming inconsistent is a human factor. Further, one can classify a physical failure of equipment or a software failure and a phenomenon that exists only in Russian Federation, - raider seizures and illegal seizure by special services. Of the factors that can cause temporary unavailability remote access to the 1C system, the following can be attributed: problems with the Internet provider, power outages, as well as other force majeure circumstances.

Let's take a closer look at each of the risks and ways to protect against them:

Human factor - deliberate or accidental change of data in the 1C database. The only way to protect yourself from such actions is backup data. To do this, you can use two database servers, one of which will be used as the main one, and the logs of changes of the main database will be sent to the second. The simpler option is to create a backup copy of the current copy of the database.

As the proverb says, "administrators are divided into those who make backups, and those who make them on other hardware." This means that even the most branded hardware can break at the most inopportune moment. For example, when using RAID 5 and large hard drives (more than 1 TB), the probability of a second hard drive falling out when re-building an array increases exponentially. Yes, I agree with the reader that it is possible to use a service subscription for the repair and replacement of equipment within 24/8/4 hours. But the fact of downtime - and these are direct losses of the company - is obvious. Thus, we come to the concept of backing up both data (backups) and hardware. Ideally, we need a second server, which will be a mirror copy of the main one, in order to perform the backup procedures.

Any software contains any errors, and every product is being developed and updated. And here, of course, a failure can also occur. An unaccounted variable or a mismatch in file versions - and the whole system either works extremely unstable, or does not work at all. It is possible to protect yourself from this if you pre-test on a test bench with a copy of the "live" data. But at the same time, the test bench and the backup server should not be one whole. Otherwise, Murphy's law will be on your side.

Now let's consider one of the rare, but still existing risks in this country - raider seizures and illegal checks and seizures of equipment. Unfortunately, there is no correct solution to these problems within the office. Some take the server room to neighboring offices that do not de jure belong to this company, someone places all the equipment on the car and in case of problems the car simply leaves. It is possible, of course, to object: what about the means of cryptography? Data / partition encryption? But if we consider the reality of such a situation, then you should not believe that the guests will turn out to be gentlemen and deny themselves the use of physical force or moral influence.

Having considered the global risks and methods of protection against them within the office, we can move on to short-term, even more force majeure risks:

What happens in the office if web pages stop opening, will not be sent Email, phones won't ring, accounting department won't be able to send payments? The whole company will just stop. And the reason for this tragedy may be just the lack of the Internet. There are many reasons - from banal builders and evil competitors to global problems with one provider at traffic exchange points. In this case, one more Internet provider is definitely needed, and ideally it should be different physical environment transmission. For example, fiber optic as the main communication channel and Wi-Max / LTE as a backup. As a last resort, it is possible to use DSL providers, provided that the providers are different and the outputs to the traffic exchange points are different.

Continuing the theme of the builders, it may happen that the cable that feeds the servers with 1C databases, terminal servers, etc. will be cut. Also, in the event of any natural disasters, the power supply may stop. A UPS may be sufficient for short-term maintenance of servers. But if it is necessary to ensure a given level of availability, then one cannot do without a diesel generator. This topic can be continued further, combining under one denominator both fires, and flooding of the office with rain, overheating of equipment in the summer heat. All this is combined by the requirements for the premises and the building where the equipment will be located (international standard TIA-569, GOST R 53315-2009, CH 512-78).

Now, knowing everything that can happen with equipment in your office, it is reasonable to ask the question: “Is it possible to protect yourself from all of this right away? Can you provide yourself with guarantees of service availability 24/7/365? " We answer: “Yes! Perhaps". To do this, simply transfer the entire system to the "cloud". Let us dwell in more detail on what constitutes a "cloud".

A "cloud system" is a system that allows you to provide ubiquitous convenient access on demand, taking into account the necessary requirements of the SLA (Service Level Agreement). Here the word "cloud" is used as a metaphor for a complex infrastructure that hides all the technical details. So, for example, when renting the Business Server service, you get a full-fledged 1C remote server without unnecessary thoughts and worries. Now we will explain why this is happening.

The problems associated with the failure of the hardware components of the servers are solved by "virtualizing" the servers. And with the use of the latest technologies in this area, failure or maintenance work on physical servers will not be noticeable to users.

There is no need to worry if the backups were completed and if there is enough space for them. Using multiple centralized repositories backups, with the separation of access rights, allows not only to reduce the load and ensure data confidentiality, but also in case of failure of one of the backup storages, use the second one to create new backups and restore previous copies of 1C databases or user file data.

Based on the two previous points, it becomes possible to create a "hot" snapshot of the current system. This is useful for performing any test actions, be it installing new platform 1C or updating the DBMS, they will no longer cause any problems.

Since the creation of such a system requires an appropriate room and service personnel, then smart choice will place the servers in the data center, in a dedicated place with limited access... Using this solution, we simultaneously solve all issues related to stable Internet access, power supply, cooling, etc. For example, our virtual servers 1C and terminal servers are hosted on iron servers located in a Tier 3 data center.

But the article would not be complete and complete without the economic justification of the decision to place your 1C accounting system using the "Business Server" service.

For calculation, let's take a typical configuration for the main and backup server: 2 * Intel Xeon E5607 2.26 GHz, 4 * 8 GB DDR3 1066 ECC, LSI 9240-4i - 2 * 500 GB SATA WD RE4 (in a RAID1 array), 2 * 300 GB SAS Hitachi (in a RAID1 array). One such server costs about 100 thousand rubles. Also, don't forget about software licenses.

We need two server licenses and 15 client licenses to work with the server over the Network, 15 client licenses for connecting to the server through the terminal service - the cost of such a set will cost about 70 thousand rubles. For 15 users of 1C, a free DBMS such as Microsoft SQL Express is usually not enough, and it is necessary to use a full-fledged one. The cost of a server license MS SQL and 15 client licenses is about 120 thousand rubles. We do not take into account the costs of the Internet, electricity and other operating costs.

The cost of a 1C system in a client-server version with a connection of 15 users will cost:

18,000 +34,500 rubles - client license for 5 workplaces and 10 workplaces
72,000 rubles - server license (x86-64) "1C: Enterprise 8.2"

In total, we have 200 thousand rubles for the purchase of hardware, 70 thousand rubles for the purchase of OS and client licenses, 120 thousand for DBMS licenses and 124.5 thousand rubles for 1C application software for organizing the work of 15 users in the company's office. average salary system administrator to maintain this system in working order - 15 thousand per month, I mean the incoming administrator, not a full-time employee, wage which, of course, is much higher.

For using the Business Server service for 15 users, the monthly payment is 15 thousand rubles. For clarity, we will enter all the numerical indicators in the table and carry out a simple calculation of the payback.

The payback period is 31.7 months. Taking into account Moore's law and the growing needs of production facilities, during this time our system will become morally obsolete and will not be able to provide the required performance.

Read more about the "Business Server" service on the website

Over time, business is gradually moving from the real world to the virtual world, where new vast opportunities open up. Today, there are already a decent number of ways to make money through the Internet, and you can get the most out of it if you open your own hosting. However, this is not entertainment, so you should take it very seriously when opening a hosting, having understood all aspects and drawing up a detailed business plan. Otherwise, you risk simply losing all your invested money.

What is hosting

To answer the question: "How to open your own hosting?", You need to understand what hosting is in general. It is quite simple to explain this, because every person has already visited many sites.

But these sites do not exist on their own - they are based somewhere on the Internet, and they are based on various hosting services. Hosting is giving the client a place on the server where he can create his own web page.

Most often, hosting already includes various Additional services such as file server for data storage, postal service, and databases.

Hosting as a type of service

If you are thinking about how to open your own hosting, then you need to understand that you are not just creating your own business - you will provide full-fledged services. Naturally, in such a matter, such things as equipment, technical components, software etc. It is worth noting that any company that is going to open its own server is simply obliged to have high-quality equipment and everything related to technical side question.

Therefore, it is the quality of services that can play a decisive role in the competition. How you treat customers, what additional functions you provide for free, how you react to problems that have arisen, how quickly you fix them - all this will affect the popularity of your company and, accordingly, the number of your customers. and their loyalty to you.

Two types of hosting rent

The primary importance in deciding how to open your hosting is determining the way in which you are going to open your business in this area.

The easiest and cheapest way is to rent a part of the server from a large hosting company. In this case, you become a reseller, spend a minimum of money and effort, but also get extremely limited opportunities.

The second way is to rent an entire server from a large hosting company. You will have to invest more money, but you will get more authority, you can install your own hardware and software, reboot your server, and so on.

Buying hosting

But if you decide to purchase your own hosting in order not to depend on larger representatives, then you will have to spend significantly more money... But this is the only drawback, because everything else is solid pluses: you can buy equipment and software for yourself, arrange hosting at your discretion, and most importantly, you do not have to pay large sums for rent.

Therefore, purchasing hosting for permanent use seems to be the most reasonable decision in the long term. But such a case will require more impressive preparation, so you need to familiarize yourself in more detail with what you will need in the future.

Company formation and business plan

It is unlikely that you would come up with the idea of buying hosting as an individual, so the first step is to open your own company. You can register any form of enterprise at your discretion.

Much more important here is the hosting company's business plan, within the framework of which you will need to calculate in detail what your funds will be spent on. Considering the fact that opening and running such a business will necessarily involve the use of high technologies, you need to prepare for the acquisition of high-quality equipment, personnel who will serve it and many other items of expenditure.

There are enough nuances here that you should pay close attention to in order to avoid serious mistakes later that can lead to adverse consequences. A well-written business plan is the key to the success of any enterprise, including a hosting company. It is also worth considering that all documents must be obtained before starting an activity.

Choose a legal form and register an LLC or individual entrepreneur, as well as visit the tax office and add the company to the list of taxpayers. These are the main legal points that should not be forgotten for the official conduct of business. Without them, you will have to face fines.

Basic expenses

Hosting as a business can bring in impressive profits, but it needs to be waited and achieved. Therefore, first you need to prepare for the fact that various investments await you, which will not pay off immediately.

First of all, you will have to spend money on registering a company, since this process also costs money. Then you will need to find the office that you will be renting - here you can save money by choosing a small and inexpensive space if you do not plan on hiring a lot of people in the state.

However, how to open your own server without the support of other specialists? Still, you will have to hire several people, since you definitely cannot do absolutely everything. It is definitely not worth saving at this point, since the quality of the services that you are going to provide will directly depend on the quality of the work of your employees.

And the last of the most important items of expenditure is the purchase of equipment. As in the case of employees, it is not recommended to save on equipment, since the quality of your server will depend on it. In total, you will need to spend about two million rubles in order to successfully start doing business. The profitability of such projects is very high. For a year, the money turnover can be sixty million, so you won't have to wait long for profit.

Nowadays, most people understand what huge business opportunities it gives us global network... One of the promising areas is business hosting or website development based on the servers of a hosting company.

There are several ways to sell hosting services. The cheapest of these is reselling. It means renting a dedicated server from a hoster. You can also conclude a contract for the maintenance of your own server and the end user to resell the host's services.

The next way is to open a stand-alone data center. At the same time, given the current market trends, it is advisable to do this in a strictly defined niche. It makes sense to create proposals for developing and gaining momentum individual CMS systems.

A full-fledged hosting company operates in a separate room on its own equipment. Moreover, in our country there are no special permits and requirements for its opening. It is enough to register as legal entity, buy the necessary equipment. However, those who want to create a large data center should be patient, as the procedure for obtaining permits is lengthy and very troublesome.

Opening of a large data center

The owners of large data centers in construction should be guided by the requirements of the international standards TIA / EIA-942. This will ensure high quality provided services and facilitate the work of the center. However, own construction is justified only for very large companies... At the same time, there are certain risks here.

For the purpose of construction, you can hire a specialized company or system integrator... In addition, when creating a data center, it is necessary to solve IT problems. So improper planning can lead to equipment failures, overheating of the system. Therefore, the requirements for the qualifications of workers involved in the design and implementation of databases are constantly growing.

Opening of a medium and small data center

Mid-size data centers are often rented. At the same time, they have communication channels with limited throughput... If you are interested in: how to open your own hosting of a small volume, then keep in mind that having low-power equipment and poorly adapted premises, you will be able to provide a minimum package of services. At the same time, given the high level of competition, you will not have to count on a large influx of customers.

According to international quality standards, there are 4 levels of hosters' reliability. The lowest Tier 1 and the highest Tier 4. Competitive hosting should be guided by at least the Tier 3 standard: several channels of connection to the provider, connection of all equipment to two autonomous power grids, 2 stand-alone generators and UPS, the use of cooling devices.

According to the expert, in fact, in our country there is no commercial data center that meets the above standard, although some companies declare compliance, but this is not true.

Start price

To start in the reselling format, it is enough to purchase a package of services from the hoster (maximum $ 20 per month) and develop a website (depending on the type of complexity up to $ 1,000). The investment will pay off in a couple of months. Renting a dedicated server that can host several hundred small customer sites will cost at least $ 100 per month, and buying your own server will cost you $ 1,000, plus a monthly maintenance fee of $ 80 per month. The payback period for such a project is one year.

To open a small data center, it will take from 40 thousand dollars. These are 5-6 servers, switches, office and staff of 5-6 people, billing panel, software. The payback period is 5 years.

The construction of medium and large data centers is estimated at several million dollars. In this case, the payback is approximately 3 years.