Can DreamHost support this site?

I will be starting a site for a high profile gambling company very soon. I want to be sure that DreamHost is reliable enough and secure enough to do what I need. While I understand this a very open ended question and post, do any of you see any problems with using a shared hosting profile for this type of site? The cheapest plan would certainly hold everything I would need, at least as the site grows... but are there other reasons I should consider dedicated or managed hosting such as Rack Space? This site may hold up to 100,000 registered users or more. While there's nothing in the shared hosting plans that wouldn't support that many accounts, I don't want to find out that there's some other variable that doesn't like that kind of traffic.

I currently have two accounts with DreamHost, and so far it's been pretty good, other than the slew of issues last weekend.

Let me know what you all think.

Serious gambling (like banking) sites don't host their server outside their own racks outside secure environment where only your employees (and maybe a few others selected) can physically access.

But in no way you should use a server where you are not the root (shared hosting).

There is 99.99% chance that DH will be ok for you.
But could you imagine a bank using shared hosting, even if it's enough for them ?

A drawback of shared server is that the resource is shared by users in the same server. To manage the group of users, DH may kill the process which uses too much CPU and memory resource. You may want to read this http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/Persistent_Processes

Other than that, I think you will be fine here.

Yes, I understand what you're saying.. this isn't an Online Gambling site, just an information site, but there will be registrations for different things.

Perhaps I could add code to encrypt e-mail addresses and names?

In reply to:
I want to be sure that DreamHost is reliable enough and secure enough to do what I need.

I personally would not consider hosting this on shared hosting, given the scale of what you are planning and the need for absolute security, but of-course the decision is yours to make.

Also, considering the (relatively) recent changes to United States law related to online gambling, you might want to consider a hosting company outside of the United States.

In reply to:
I currently have two accounts with DreamHost

You might be interested to know that the DreamHost TOS explicitly prohibits a customer from maintaining more than one hosting plan. I have no idea if they actually enforce this clause of the TOS, but it is worth knowing about...

"The Customer agrees to hold only one (1) active web hosting service plan at any given time with DreamHost Web Hosting. Signing up for multiple plans is grounds for termination of all additional plans without warning."

Mark

In reply to:
Yes, I understand what you're saying.. this isn't an Online Gambling site, just an information site, but there will be registrations for different things.

Perhaps I could add code to encrypt e-mail addresses and names?

Depending on your relationship with this company, you might present a couple of options and the cost implications to them. For instance, they should decide whether they want to pay for an SSL cert (and the requisite unique IP you'll need to buy). You should also try to educate them about the tradeoffs between shared vs. dedicated hosting.

The more they know about what you're doing and the more they're involved in the important security decisions you have to make, the better the business relationship will weather any problems that come up.

I should have been clearer.. .This isn't an Online Gambling site, just an informative homepage for a company, but it will be used to opt-in and out of emailing lists and stuff.

I would imagine the 1 account per customer would mean the customer actually holding the account. I personally own one account, while I have recommended DreamHost to clients and merely set it up for them. They would be the account holder.

In reply to:
I personally own one account, while I have recommended DreamHost to clients and merely set it up for them.

I think many here do something similar for their clients and I doubt this violates the TOS.

Re-reading my post above regarding the TOS, I see that it could be interpreted as slightly 'hostile'. This was not my intention at all and I sincerely hope that you didn't interpret it this way. I just thought that if you did have multiple accounts (which you don't), it would be useful for you to know in advance about that clause in the TOS, to prevent any possible problems in the future.

Anyway, I am sorry if the post came across the wrong way.

Mark

Nah, it's cool. Thanks for the info.

For an informative homepage with a mailing list, DreamHost would do fine. But if you're collecting names as well, then you might indeed want to think about hashing them in a database (not to mention SSL), unless you're going to need to retrieve them later. Ultimately, it depends on how much information you're gathering.

Then again, if this is a high-profile gambling site, I would think that paying $100/month or more for a dedicated/colocated server wouldn't be such a strain for them.

emufarmers.com
Very little to do with either emus or farmers!

Also, volume of email could get you in trouble here if you don't use proper polices for opt-in and opt-out.

There is also an outgoing email throttle to help make the place less attractive to spammers. - Not that you are one, just that I'd hate for it to LOOK like you're one.

Wholly - IS NOT MY PROMO CODE. Even worse, I don't get any credit for it. Use WhollyMindless for full credit. I'm really disappointed in someone.

Can DreamHost support this site?