Virtual Hosting Options

Let me preface this with the statement that I am not a hosting guy. I am a software architect who runs a couple of software centric companies. So take this all with a grain of salt.

As I understand there are basically three ways you can obtain "virtual hosting"

1. Virtual Server - I would stay away from this for all but the smallest apps. It is shared kernel.

2. Virtual Private Server - This actually is more like a high grade version of VMWare (Xen) and it works really well. Everything is dedicated from you point of view and you can do some great management tricks like install a new node in about 5 minutes with zero downtime. Your application may reside on a box with other clients, but they will guarantee you a minimum amount of CPU. The machines on which they do this are all paralleled out like crazy with dual quad cores at least. It actually works out well. Getting a couple of VPS's on different boxes can be a very solid setup. You have instance fail over with the ability to scale up or out quickly.

3. Clustered Slice - I don't know if you will get this one for J2EE. We looked at www.engineyard.com. The idea is that you want a database machine hooked up to a SAN, a web server configured with failover redirectors and up front caching, and app servers with lots of cpu and memory. However, a configuration like this is really expensive for a simple site. The idea is to buy shares or slices of the cluster. This type of configuration requires that the hosting company know the technologies really well.

Of course you can always go dedicated, and you guys will have to decide whether it makes sense. I personally like being virtual because we can add nodes so quickly (slashdot insurance). You need to make sure you have a good hosting provider to go with this option. You may not need that degree of flexibility as your load is probably more steady.

Providers

eApps - These guys have really become a very highly respected hosting provider. I continually hear them mentioned favorably by satisfied customers at ISIA and AJUG meetings and I know of several fortune 100s using them. Ultimately, I think these guys are running at a Sungard Data facility (local to Atlanta, which is nice) and providing support around those cabinets.

Engine Yard/Rails Machine - I am a satisfied Rails Machine customer. They are reasonably priced, performance has been good, and they have been responsive and knowledgable.

Rackspace - I recently heard that these were the guys to beat as far as hosting. They are a little more expensive and are completely dedicated. If you go with them, work to get the price down.

Amazon S3 - I know a ton of organizations who now store all their static content and backups on Amazon's S3 grid. It's very inexpensive and you have availability that it is hard for anybody to match (I think they are at five 9). There are now several tools available to synchronize this with your deployment processes.