What is a good host for DNN?  I have already tried one and had serious issues getting it installed and they wouldn't provide any kind of support.  I was thinking about WebHost4Life.  Does anyone have any experience with DNN and WebHost4Life?  I was wondering how hard it is to install with them and if there are any tricks that I need to know in order to get it done.

WebHost4Life's DNN Install:

Step 1:  Sign up for a WH4L account that has SQL Server

Step 2:  Log in to your new account's control panel.

Step 3:  Enter a support request to install DNN

The WH4L support team is pretty helpful, and will even debug apps for you if you ask nice for help.  You can of course configure the security, folders and database yourself following the DNN docs if you want.

Jeff

I called them and asked if they would install DNN for me and they said "no" that they didn't support any kinds of scripts.  That would be great if they would install it for me.  How is their performance?  Will they install DNN 3 or 4?

Update:  I just called them back and I guess I misunderstood.  They will install it and get it up and running but won't support it after that.  That's good to know.

Strange, they used to specifically offer installation in their presentation.  Though it's been a while since I've asked them so they may have changed.  They support .NET 2.0 so DNN 4 would work, though you may want to confirm whether or not they'll help with the install.

FWIW, it's not a big deal to install yourself anyway.

Jeff

One of the best hosts for DNN is PowerDNN (they're a division of MobileNow).  You should check out what people say about them in the DotNetNuke resource directory at http://www.dotnetnuke.com/tabid/702/Default.aspx .  They have amazingly fast servers.

Oh, and by the way, they completely support the entire DNN lifecycle.  They do module development, skinning, free installs, and have great support.

Do you know of any hosting company that offers something like 5GB for less then 35$ a month ?

Another question. Any body know of a cheap semi dedicated or dedictaed server ?
I found one for 69$ a month but they don't offer sql server.

Hey Liorlustig,
What exactly are you needing from your server in terms of bandwidth, storage, IPs, and such?  We can provide you with SQL Server as well.

Chances are, on PowerDNN/MobileNow, you won't need (or want to) go the dedicated server route.  All of the servers are ultra-fast, fully-redundant high-end machines.

By the way, they're a DotNetNuke Platinum Benefactor and they have excellent support and services for all things DotNetNuke.

If you'd like, EMail me at Tony.Valenti@MobileNow.cc and we can discuss exactly what you need.

Tony brings up a good point.  While WH4L is a decent and inexpensive host, the inexpensive part comes from packing as many sites on a server as they can.  Depending on the server and the other sites on it, you may get poor performance.  I haven't had issues, but mine are small sites with minimal hits (Clients I work with don't want a bazillion hits, they want a low number of targeted hits which produce better results).

Jeff

I have been with WH4L for about 4 months now and though their service is usually good, the perfomance sucks. I even requested to get moved to another server, which they did, but the increase in performance was minimal. Like Jeff, my site isn't looking for a gazillion hits, but when it does get hit, I would like it to load quickly. I can't wait for my contract to be up so I can switch to a better host.

0.02

ech01 wrote:

I have been with WH4L for about 4 months now and though their service is usually good, the perfomance sucks. I even requested to get moved to another server, which they did, but the increase in performance was minimal. Like Jeff, my site isn't looking for a gazillion hits, but when it does get hit, I would like it to load quickly. I can't wait for my contract to be up so I can switch to a better host.

There's a difference in initial load times on an app and performance.  If an app has cycled out of the cache, the next hit results in a recompile of the code before it's sent to the browser, and cached.  Even the fastest server response won't help dramatically for this specific issue.

Jeff

Hey Ech01,
When's your contract with your current provider run out?  I just got back from the datacenter and we've just dropped another high-performance box down there.  I took some pictures of some of our infrastructure which I'll be posting over at www.PowerDNN.com (they're one of our divisions) over the next couple days.

I can't leak too much information to you about it, but we have some really, really cool stuff planned for PowerDNN coming up soon that's _really_ going to change what people expect from a provider....

MobileNow wrote:

Hey Ech01,
When's your contract with your current provider run out?  I just got back from the datacenter and we've just dropped another high-performance box down there.  I took some pictures of some of our infrastructure which I'll be posting over at www.PowerDNN.com (they're one of our divisions) over the next couple days.

I can't leak too much information to you about it, but we have some really, really cool stuff planned for PowerDNN coming up soon that's _really_ going to change what people expect from a provider....

I'm sorry.  I looked but I couldn't find how much bandwidth your plans offered.  Also, do you give any modules with the plans or are they all extra?  Thanks.