Uptime

Hi,

I'm looking at bringing my company's websites over to DH and I was wondering about what type of average uptime does DH have? I was reading through some posts about a major outage last week and then someone talking about security being kind of weak (which could lead to multiple types of attacks that would result in server downtime). So, are those type of things out of the norm and DH is super reliable or is DH not reliable for having your website up 98%+ of the time?

I think DreamHost's uptime is about the same as most shared web hosts. That is, that most downtime people experience is the result of bad neighbors on your server taking up too many resources.

That said, I was pretty happy with my uptime while I was purely on shared hosting and I've been even happier since being on DreamHost's new PS service.

I think people's happiness depends on their financial exposure to downtime. If every hour of downtime costs more than a month's hosting, then you'd best pay a little more and get a less shared option, IMHO.

Can you give an example of what they say is weak about our security? Our security is very good, but of course would like to know what concerns people have.

As Lesman mentioned, uptime in DH is same as other shared server. Please do not compare shared server with dedicated server.

Sometimes we suggest new customers to take a look at this
http://wiki.dreamhost.com/DHSOTM

Those are existing customers in DH. You can visit their sites and have a rough idea.

This thread was discussing certain security issues.
http://discussion.dreamhost.com/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=curious&Number=90941&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=14&part=

I'd worry more about users transmitting their passwords in the clear by using FTP. But I dunno many hosts that prohibit the use of FTP, which would solve that problem.

Just use SFTP and SSH to manage your hosting. It's really the most secure way and by doing so, your security is actually superior to most web hosts.

Actually, DreamHost is one of the few shared hosts that gives you SSH and SFTP access, so in that way their security is actually superior for those who take advantage of it.

Well, if you read that thread, there is actually no mention of a particular security problem. We provide sftp, which you should use rather than ftp since it is more secure. If you install any php code, you definitely must keep it up to date. That user's best bet would be to first remove any viruses he might have from his own computer, upgrade his scripts, then change his passwords and be sure to only use sftp. If his problem was due to DreamHost security practices, there would be many more people with that problem.

Thanks. You all have resolved my fears. :D