Windows based Hosting 2.0 for Shared Hosting?
I get a lot of questions about using the Windows based Hosting Solution 2.0 (this is also included in the latest solution, "Hosted Exchange 2003.1"), to enable shared web hosting. The most common question is, "Can the Windows based Hosting Solution 2.0 do shared web hosting?" Well, the simple answer is Yes. But its followed by, "it can do shared web hosting, but it doesn't to it out of the box". Now the confusing part is the can statement. This is because the HE 2003.1 solution provides an IIS (6) Provider and SQL Admin Provider that enables the creation of websites on IIS 6 and SQL Databases on SQL 2000. The HE 2003.1 solution does provide the components to allow for shared hosting of web, SQL, and FrontPage via MPS via the providers mentioned above, but there is a lack of namespaces and a web user interface that integrates the entire experience. (The debate about a web UI is a long running one. I'll tackle that topic later.)
Many hosters that have only 5-20 servers in their "data center" do not have a sophisticated User Interface already in production. In order for them to leverage the power of Windows, they need a web based user interface to allow customers to manage and attend to their own services. Currently, there is no web based user interface that uses all, and even extends, the features that ships with Windows based Hosting 2.0 or Hosted Exchange 2003.1. Even if a customer purchases Ensim, they will be using many of the Ensim defined setting for creation of websites and mailboxes and not what was provided with the solution. This may change in the future, but this is the current state as it pertains to MPS and the namespaces.
Also, the HE 2003.1 solution does not contain a provider for Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) provisioning. Although the solution team did develop a provider for WSS, it has not been released via a solution or outside of a solution (even if they did give it to out, it would need to be supported or release the IP so we could customize by an SI for customers)
So here is a quick rundown of the issues as to why the current solutions provided by the CS team does not enable a quick to product shared web hosting platform:
- No production ready web user interface for delegated administration for user, web, and database management
- No MPF namespace that provisions IIS 6 websites using the latest IIS provider and the best practices for delivering web hosting on Windows 2003
- No Resource Manager for IIS 6 or Shared SQL
- No administration tools to manage customer websites and resources
- No user quotas (Some customers maybe restricted to a number of user accounts. This relates more towards WSS and Exchange)
An alternative is using the Shared Web Hosting Deployment Guide. It provides a "How To" on using Active Directory, IIS 6, SQL, ASP.NET, FrontPage, and Windows Server 2003 POP3 Email for using in a Shared Hosting Scenario. It even includes a number of scripts, but this would not be suitable for customers that want to use MPS for Shared Hosting. It would also not be suitable for customers that wanted to delegate administration to customers. This is because the scripts need to be executed by a Service Provider administrator. And finally, even if a customer wanted to use this guide as a basis for deploying Microsoft products for use as a web hosting platform, the would still need to pay an SI to integrate the scrips in such a way that allowed them to go into production.
Finally, if a customer is looking to implement the WbH 2.0 (Actually HE 2003.1 is the updated version of the WbH 2.0 deliverables), they would need to hire a Systems Integrator (eQuest having a number of clients that have gone this route already) to provide additional software integration components to enable what was missing (listed above) in the solution. Now this isn't saying that these (WbH 2.0 & HE 2003.1) solutions does a poor job for Shared Hosting of IIS 6, WSS, and SQL, but it was simply not the focus for those solutions. WbH 2.0 was focused on Dedicated Hosting (using a shared infrastructure (AD, MOM, & SMS)) and HE 2003.1 was focused on Hosted Exchange (Yes Shared, but focused on hosting 10k GALS. This would be outside of the scope for smaller hosters).
Now I must point out, there is a namespace named “Rainier Dedicated IIS” namespace, but it was only intended for use as a sample and is only used by the Rainier Sample WebPages (Rainier was the code name for the Windows based Hosting Solution 2.0). The testing of it was also pretty light. The namespace has one core method that will perform the following functions:
- Create a new organization (AD OU)
- Create a new AD User
- Add the new user into the organizations Admin group
- Create the site directory structure – This method uses the IIS Site Namespace
- Create the IIS (6) website
- Enable Frontpage
One thing to point out is that these namespaces don’t support the creation of a website based on a UNC path. What this means is that you can only create sites where the content is stored locally. Now it's not a HUGE deal to add in this functionality, but it further displays why the solution isn't an "out of the box" package for shared web hosting.
Finally, the solution does not have an updated Resource Manager for IIS 6, SQL, or WSS. The solution also does not have a provider for WSS and neglects to provide a web based user interface to enable delegated administration to end customers. All of the pieces would need to be developed by each customer when deciding to leverage the solution. The HE 2003.1 solution does provide information for hosting WSS, but does not include a provider or namespace for WSS hosting. It does have a script embedded into the planning document, but this would not be sufficient to integrate into the rest of the solution components for production use.
Now I know I'm making this sound kind of bad, but I'm really not. After all, I was the PM that drove this so I should know what it lacks. Hey, even I can admit that my "baby" is ugly (not my real baby, because he's beautiful :) ) As I previously stated, the solution was focused on dedicated shared web hosting and it wasn't meant to be "self deployed" but was instead focused on providing a best practice for consultants to use during their customer deployments. The Windows based Hosting Solution/Hosted Exchange 2003 Solution, provides many of the tools and guidance for delivering a world class shard web hosting platform, but there are still many integration pieces that need to be development prior to going into production.
Now as I understand it, the next set of solutions will provide a lot more capability in the Resource Managers, WSS Provisioning, etc. I hope to have more updates on that soon.
Conrad Agramont, Senior Architect, eQuest Technologies, conrada@eqinc.com