The Domain Name System (DNS) and Your Domain

External Service Provider Caveats

You need to do some up-front research and negotiation before you decide to put your content on an external server. Here are some caveats:

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  Have a clear agreement that states that you own your own intellectual property: the content that you put on the Web site, the domain name you register, etc.
  
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  Make sure you have access to server log information, including all raw data, and that you can access this data as frequently as you want. Many commercial host content services charge extra for access to the logs. You may be willing to pay the fees, but be sure they are within your budget.
  
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  Be sure you understand all fees in general. For instance, many service providers charge more if you exceed certain monthly bandwidth limitations. These costs can surprise you, especially if you begin by serving small HTML documents, then at a later date you decide to offer streaming multimedia. Also you can expect to pay relatively high rates for rented server disk space; in many case one year’s rental would more than buy an equivalent amount of disk. (You are paying not only for the capital cost of disk, but for connectivity, backup, server hardware maintenance, the ISP’s profit, etc.)
  
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  Ensure that you will be allowed to run your own CGI scripts or middleware products you need.
  
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  Be sure there is a clear understanding of the “exit strategy” for the day when you decide to move your content to another provider, or in-house. For instance, the service provider will give you free access to all content, scripts, configuration information, logs, etc. within one week of your request.