There are so many different factors to take into consideration when choosing a host for your company’s next project or web app. And there’s a lot of peril in making the wrong decision.

Some of the most painful situations occur when:

1. An unreliable host is chosen. That’s when the servers may go down, costing your company vital traffic and, as a result, potential revenue.
2. By dropping your company’s public sales and marketing info, a hosting site can actually cause your company’s profits to decrease. Multiply this over the long term, and an e-commerce site could face major losses.
3. Along with a direct drop in profit, SEO ratings will be negatively affected as well. If your site is lost in page two or worse in the search results, your competitors can jump ahead of you in line.
4. Security issues and datanapping can occur if an unsecure host is chosen.

How can you choose the proper hosting service? Continue reading as we dissect exactly what you need to know in order to make sure your awesome apps and projects stay with a stable host.

This is the first step when choosing a hosting service: define your company’s needs. Is speed and search rank a priority? Or do you want stability and potential for longer-term growth? Each host has its own strength and weakness.

After setting down your priorities, you will be a step closer to knowing exactly which hosting company to choose.

But there are other considerations to make before choosing your host.

One big factor: which variant of ColdFusion your company uses.

CF Enterprise vs CF Standard

Finding the proper balance between those factors can be difficult. So, it is very important that you are clear on exactly what you need.

How Did We Pick the Best Hosts for ColdFusion?

The “best host” has to fulfill the needs listed above, while also embracing ColdFusion with the sort of dedication that inspires confidence.

When putting together a “best” list, one walks a bit of a tightrope. I readily admit what draws me to a particular company may not be all that enticing to you. But I put myself in the position of a CIO making big decisions — often stressed out and sometimes underappreciated. What matters most to ?

I’ve been told by many that they pay as much for peace of mind as they do stability or speed. But there’s no reason to favor one over the other. Some balance of all the factors above offers the best value for your company.

After you have determined what your base factors for hosting are, you need to decide between In-House hosting or Managed Hosting. This depends on how you plan to have your servers arranged.

In-House Hosting is where all servers and networking equipment are owned and operated by your company itself. This costly option has become the domain of big players, with millions of users capable of logging in at once. If you’re in that range — lucky you! But then again, you wouldn’t even be debating which hosting service to choose, now would you?

Managed Hosting is a dedicated server or cloud server owned by a third party host. These are then offered to you as a client for a premium. You’re essentially renting virtual space for your company’s online presence.

So which one is right for you? Let’s make a pros and cons list for each.

In-House ColdFusion Hosting

• Pros:
• Actual control over company-owned and -maintained servers
• Keeps sensitive information secured within the company
• Internet connection not required for data access
• Cost-effective for companies not concerned with uptime
• Cons:
• Higher initial costs
• More manpower and money needed for maintenance, upgrades, and day-to-day operations
• Dedicated space is needed for servers
• More vulnerable during natural disasters if no external backup is available

Managed ColdFusion Hosting

• Dedicated server place is no longer required
• Cloud hosting is great for smaller companies who may outgrow their infrastructure
• Scalable and flexible
• Connectability lets you access from any place that has internet capabilities
• Easy backup
• Speed limited by internet connection
• Third-party hosting sites can have direct access to sensitive information
• Loss of internet connection means no access to data
• Dedicated solutions can be more difficult

Co-location ColdFusion Hosting

There is another form of data hosting. Co-location (shared) hosting is when your data is stored on a server at a third-party location. These servers can be accessed directly on-site or remotely. Shared hosting offers a hybrid of advantages and disadvantages from In-House and Managed hosting.

Yes, that is the main thing that Adobe’s ColdFusion experts and developers promise with CF 2020 . Many are touting the development platform’s newfound love of cloud computing. From multi-cloud abilities, allowing users to pick and choose cloud hosting services at a granular level, to an agnostic stance about which service you use, the newest version of CF promises to have more cloud capability than its predecessors and competitors.

According to Amazon:

AWS is a secure cloud services platform offering computing power, database storage, content delivery, and other functionalities to help businesses scale and grow.

AWS can be very helpful for ColdFusion developers.

GCP is a cloud platform that boasts using Google’s core infrastructure, data analytics, and machine learning. It is completely serverless relying strictly on cloud dynamics. They pride themselves on leading the industry in price performance.

Digital Ocean is a cloud computing platform that focuses on simplicity. Both simple to use and simply priced, Digital Ocean can provide for your ColdFusion needs. The community at Digital Ocean recommends running ColdFusion through Apache Tomcat or Apache HTTP Server.

One of the fastest-growing cloud service providers is Microsoft Azure. It contains more cloud server regions than any other service provider. It is trusted so much that 90% of Fortune 500 companies trust their data with them.

Hostek is an Adobe ColdFusion hosting partner. They maintain a team of ColdFusion experts on hand. They also offer Fusion Reactor, a ColdFusion Monitoring platform, along with their services.

• Their support system offers three different ways to contact them:
• You get one month free trial.
• There are a wide array of technical specs with additional add-ons for purchase.

Docker is not CF hosting site.

It lets you run cf server on any cloud hosting device.

What is Docker? According to the folks at Docker.com:

Docker is the company driving the container movement and the only container platform provider to address every application across the hybrid cloud.

Related: Mark Drew offers an enlightening perspective on how to get started with Docker in our podcast, Getting Started Fast with Docker .

Adobe ColdFusion has offered a list on its website with the noted partners for ColdFusion hosting services. It’s worth listing them here.

Coalesce Solutions works with your company to create a bespoke solution tailored to its business model and ambitions.

Coalesce depends on ColdFusion and AWS to build compliance-centered application server solutions to support their requirements as a PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) Level 1 Service Provider, as well as those of their customers operating in highly regulated environments with requirements such as PCI, HIPAA, FISMA, and FedRAMP.

Website: https://www.coalesceservices.com/migration-acceleration

Already mentioned above.

CFDynamics provides hosting services for ColdFusion developers and webmasters that need high-speed delivery and a stable development and hosting platform.

The ColdFusion-centric hosting service tries to pack in as many logical, useful services as it can into its packages.

This ColdFusion hosting service has been around since 1995.

Website: https://www.media3.net/adobe.cfm

Vivio is a ColdFusion Hosting partner offering remote IT Server Management. Vivio creates hosting plans on an individual basis giving control of IT infrastructure and costs.

Website: https://viviotech.net/coldfusion-hosting/

Newtek has provided ColdFusion hosting solutions since 1997. Newtek is also a provider of regulatory compliant solutions, including HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOX, FISMA, and more.

Website: https://newtekwebhosting.com/coldfusion/

When deciding on a host for your Adobe ColdFusion, remember to keep your company in mind. There are many providers available. Be sure to take note of exactly what your needs and restrictions are. Doing so will allow you to make the proper choice for all your ColdFusion hosting needs.

What hosting service do you avail of? What factors led to you making that decision? Join us in the comments below.

Michaela Light is the host of the CF Alive Podcast and has interviewed more than 100 ColdFusion experts. In each interview, she asks “What Would It Take to make CF more alive this year?” The answers still inspire her to continue to write and interview new speakers. Michaela has been programming in ColdFusion for more than 20 years. She founded TeraTech in 1989. The company specializes in ColdFusion application development, security and optimization. She has also founded the CFUnited Conference and runs the annual State of the CF Union Survey.

Originally published at https://teratech.com on September 21, 2020.