Choosing a managed hosting provider rarely comes down to technical skill: most of them can administer a server. The difference shows at the first incident, and it was either written into the contract or left out of it. Here are the five clauses we most often find missing among clients who come to us from a previous provider.
1. Scope, as a closed list
A contract that promises “full administration of your infrastructure” commits to nothing you can verify. What commits is a list: system, web server, database, backups, monitoring, certificates, number of support hours, hours covered. And, in the same document, the list of what is not included: application development, support from the business software vendor, workstations.
A serious provider has no trouble writing this list: it is what lets them meet their deadlines without working for free.
2. Response time, in figures and by severity
“Fast response” doesn’t mean much. What can be measured is the time between the alert and the first action, broken down by severity level. A total outage doesn’t get the same treatment as a disk at 85%.
The second figure to demand is the target recovery time, and how it is calculated. A 4-hour commitment that starts when a ticket is opened the next morning protects no one.
3. Backups, with the date of the last restore test
Every backup is “in place”. The useful question is: when was it last restored, and on what environment? A backup that has never been tested is an assumption, not protection, and that assumption collapses the day you need it.
The clause must specify frequency, retention, location (off the server, ideally off site) and the restore procedure.
4. Access and reversibility
Two situations to avoid: the managed hosting provider who alone holds the administrator access, so you are no longer at home on your own systems, and the one who has documented no procedure, so leaving takes weeks.
Demand administrator access in your name, documentation that is handed over and kept up to date, recoverable backups, and no clause holding back your data if the contract ends. Reversibility is a test of trust: a provider who accepts it knows they don’t need to hold on to you.
5. External monitoring, and who gets woken up
A probe hosted on the server it monitors will go silent on exactly the day that server goes down. Monitoring must be external, with a written frequency and a defined alert threshold.
Then comes the question people forget: from what time is someone actually woken up? Support from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. is not enough for a site that sells. On-call cover has a cost, so it must be an explicit choice with a price on it, not an implied promise.
What sets a good managed hosting provider apart day to day
Beyond the contract, three signs can be seen even before you sign: they document what they find, they refuse commitments they cannot keep, and they explain their changes before applying them. A provider who announces “we handle everything, all the time, for next to nothing” is selling you peace of mind they will not be able to deliver.
The vocabulary helps you ask the right questions: what a managed hosting provider actually does, and how managed server hosting runs day to day.
Bertrand Demarcq runs DEMARCQ.NET, a managed hosting company founded in 1996: Linux server operations, security, high availability. Managed hosting from €120 excl. VAT per month per server.
Partner article – this content was published as part of a paid commercial partnership. It does not commit the Kami-Labs editorial team.
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