[thelist] Hosting Shangri-La and [LAMP + Flash] vs. Silverlight?

[Sales @ Lycosa]

I am looking for hosting Shangri-La, but can’t quite find it


My ideal hosting solution would be: Scalable, redundant, managed server with
physical presence in US and UK, 24/7 telephone support with staff who know
their onions, off-site backup, and a price tag that my wife would like ;-)
Windows or Linux. 

 

What hosting companies and server types do people use?

What companies do you recommend to use/avoid?

 

I have used Acenet for about 6 years, and their hosting is fine, and their
tech support (ticket) is adequate. They are US based, and I need a UK host
for the majority of my customers (for better rank in Google UK), and run a
smaller US hosting solution. I have a UK server with Tagadab, which is good,
quite fast, and a decent price. Telephone support during office hours, but
nothing really out of hours.

 

I tried VPS.net, running Centos / cPanel, and found it very slow. I really
wanted that to work, so that I could have a server in the UK and the US, and
scale them accordingly. I also found that I had to manually add DNS records
to their system to take advantage of their storage area network, so adding
accounts in cPanel/WHM became more time consuming. Also, they do not allow
emailing via scripts (without a quart of blood and your first born), so that
screwed up some of the functions in my ecommerce solution.

 

I am also trying a Windows VPS at Tagadab, which looks fine, but seems to
carry the same email script limitations.

 

I have looked at Rack Space, who seem to have a good reputation, and solid
support (on paper). Rather pricey, though. Are they worth the price, or has
anyone got any horror stories?

 

I have built all my applications in PHP/MySQL, but one customer needs a
Windows server, and is looking at Silverlight.

I am therefore thinking of running all my other websites on a windows
server, and maybe looking at Silverlight for development instead of LAMP +
Flash (I have an old version of Flash and can’t justify the £600+ for an
application that I use occaisionally). 

What exeperiences do people have of running PHP/MySQL applications on
Windows servers? Do they place nicely with the other MS tools?

Does anyone else use Silverlight? What are your thoughts on this?

 

 

Phil