Now I am managed

It's important to know what you're good at. Over the years I've used a whole range of hosting providers and in 2004 I started leasing my own dedicated server. I loved the control to have things set up exactly the way I wanted them set up and I loved being able to make administrative changes whenever I wanted (instead of having to wait for a system administrator to make the changes for me). Last year I realized that doing security upgrades on a machine in Texas was not an effective use of my time. I also realized that I didn't have enough clients to justify the monthly expense of leasing a dedicated server. I didn't want to be in the Web site hosting business. I started the process of looking for a new hosting company that would take care of system upgrades, have 24 hour technical support, be inexpensive (the trick to being cheap is to have a high volume of accounts), and generally be a good company to work with.

I did a lot of research and realized every single company that met my needs had at least one person complaining about it. Given that you can't please everyone all of the time I opted to go with the company that seemed to be the best match for my needs. Sometimes they drive me a little bit up the wall (and they've definitely had some classic screw ups) but they are quick to respond and very quick to fix their mistakes. And so I made the switch from my leased server at (what was then RackShack and is now) The Planet and moved my account to a virtual private server with Dreamhost. The tipping point in choosing Dreamhost was the fact that they are employee-owned and carbon neutral. I'm sure there are other companies that offer the same benefits, but they weren't high enough profile to hit my radar when I was doing my research last year.

It has taken me nearly a full year to work up the courage to actually dump my old server. Today I moved the last few things off the machine and made the switch permanent and final by canceling my account. On the one hand it seems a bit silly to be so invested in a machine, on the other hand, I learned a lot from that machine. From a remote install of Debian all the way through to recovering from malicious attacks (and having to re-install Debian).

As part of the cancelation process I was asked why I no longer needed the account. I wrote the following: 

"I am now doing virtually no custom Web application work and no longer need my own server. I have opted to go with a company that offers VPS on a Linux server (shell access is still critically important) with scalable RAM and hard drive space. This is better suited to my current needs. Thank you for the service you provided, it met my needs while I was a customer."

And with that I say goodbye to the server that was, for about four years, a home of my own in the Internet.