IT Dept of .EDU domain seeks reseller options

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Posted by itdept, 01-28-2013, 11:11 PM
Greetings, the forum! This is my first post. I am in need of some basic facts and some considered opinions, and this seems the place. I hope I will be able to contribute something to the community in turn. I have been delegated to manage and develop initiatives for a .EDU domain. One such initiative that has been proposed is that of offering web hosting services. My department cannot allocate much funding from its already tight budget for such a project, so I have begun looking at basic reseller options. I suppose I have many questions relating to such options: * Are there reseller options available at discounted fees for .EDU domains? (If possible, we would like to extend the favor to sponsors, non-profits, charitable organizations, etc.) The idea is to offer typical services - domain registration, hosting plans, etc. - but we are open to exploring further possibilities. If particular end-users are granted the privilege of using our .EDU domain name for email, blogging, subdomains, etc., they must not violate our "appropriate use" policies. * Is it possible for a reseller to offer services such as private nameservers (not those of the reseller), shared and/or private SSL, etc. Would be better to ask what a reseller typically *cannot* offer that the primary seller can? As I expect there will be a volley of Qs and As over this discussion, I will leave it at that for the moment, but I do hope find a solution fast, as I am being pressed to make the proposal a viable one while I still have the ear of the Board.
Posted by servedby, 01-29-2013, 03:45 AM
Im particular that you can find flexible pricing for education with smaller providers through an inquiry. I wouldnt suggest signing up as a reseller, especially if you plan to enforce customized terms of service. It would be much simpler for you to obtain a [dedicated/cloud/colo] server with an automation control panel such as Parallels Plesk or CPanel so that you can control provisioning and use while paying solely for the bandwidth you consume. Offering name-servers is dependent solely upon whether youre capable of running authoritative DNS servers. If you feel comfortable in doing so then it should be quite easy to implement. If you are not you can either pay for managed name-servers or take the simpler route of utilizing another providers authoritative name-servers. I cant think of provider level restrictions with SSL certificates (per-se); however, you its generally a bad idea to mix multiple SSL web-sites on a shared hosting platform. As well, this would be another reason to operate within a dedicated OS environment.
Posted by DWS2006, 01-29-2013, 10:24 AM
Most resellers would fit your needs. Just be sure that your acceptable use policy covers everything that your providers does (it's okay to add additional rules/limitations but not to omit any).
Posted by Host4Geeks-Kushal, 01-29-2013, 06:13 PM
Check the offers section, your requirements are pretty standard and would be covered by most webhosts.
Posted by itdept, 01-31-2013, 07:06 AM
Thanks, everybody. Your answers have been helpful.