Hosting Industry Survey Results - Cloud Linux Inc....Wordpress hosting 36% Offer additional 1-3...
Transcript of Hosting Industry Survey Results - Cloud Linux Inc....Wordpress hosting 36% Offer additional 1-3...
HOSTING INDUSTRY SURVEY RESULTS
Conducted by
2016
Hello,
I am Igor Seletskiy, CEO of CloudLinux. Recently, we have conducted a comprehensive hosting industry survey and I am excited to share the results with you!
This survey was broadcasted to web hosting experts across the globe, with 714 responding to it. These professionals have shared their view on issues related to VPS, security, and other services and systems. The survey also covers topics related to customer expectations, business growth, as well as challenges associated with it.
I would like to thank everyone who participated in the survey!
Igor [email protected]
Respondents profile
Company size Role
714 Respondents
Respondents include…
27% of respondents do not have a VPS / Dedicated Hosting offering
16% of VPS / Dedicated Hosting respondents don’t offer shared hosting
34% of respondents offer Application hosting to their customers
27%
16%
34%
Stability of Servers, 43%
Server/Website security, 48%
More Power, 52%
Running Special Applications, 56%
Root Access, 58%
More Resources, 66%
Main reasons customer buy VPS/Dedicated Plans
Top issues hosting providers experience with VPS / Dedicated servers
Other 8%
Customer complains about server stability 15%
Difficult for you to keep servers stable 17%
Difficult for you to keep servers secure 22%
Customers need much support 45%
Low margins 51%
Too much competition 61%
" Difficult for you to keep servers secure and stable when the VPS is self-managed. "
" Lack of good software for VPS hosting. "
" Lots of manual work when preparing customized hardware configurations. "
" A lot of maintenance for us. No automatic roll-out of VPS servers, too costly to realize that. "
Some “other” reported issues are …
" To many low cost providers with horrible service "
" Abuse "
" Clients don't know how to manage servers. "
" Monitoring and managing VPS against abuse (spam, excessive resource consumption, etc.) "
" What issues?! :) "
65% of respondents said it is very or somewhat difficult to upgrade customers from shared hosting to VPS / Dedicated.
Over 70% of respondents are worried about VPS / Dedicated security. Also, over 60% reported that most customers are also worried about security.
Over 60% reported that customers worry about security. Top reported issues are:
13%
19%
25%
28%
37%
45%
48%
49%
53%
61%
67%
DNS Poisoning
Information disclosure
Privilege escalation
XSS attacks and similar
Comment SPAM
Website Defacement
Code/SQL Injections
Brute force attacks
Remote exploit
Malware infection
DoS/DDoS
Managed service is sold for an additional
fee
53%Managed service is included with
VPS for free
30%
Not offering, but planning to add 10%
Not offering, and not
planning to add 7%
Breakdown of managed service hosting offering
Hosting Insights: 2016 vs 2011
92%reported that
customers expect to have more managed
& preconfigured, easy to deploy
services than 5 years ago
67%reported that
customers expect to have more
control over the server than 5
years ago
Top 3 reasons respondents would resell a security product to customers
To offer better services
48%
To minimize support issues
To make money
“To provide better security for clients … to reduce the complains/possible abuse cases resulting in more
client satisfaction and less support issues. In the end,it is all about the client satisfaction.”
10% of respondents reported they are not interested in reselling security products
24% 16%
Joomla / Wordpress hosting
36%
Offer additional 1-3 applications
22%
Offer additional 4-10 applications
9%
Offering more than 10 applications
33%
Hosting Insights: Application Hosting
Only 34% of
respondents offer
Application hosting to
their customers.Nearly 74% of those offer it
as part of the shared platform
using Softaculous,
Installatron, etc.
Top reason hosters don’t offer Application hosting: No time to focus on it.
SolidFire 6%
Pstorage/Virtuozzo storage, 9%
Ceph 11%
NetApp 12%
Other (see comments), 25%
iSCSI 28%
NFS 58%
Other storage systems most commonly mentioned are:
SAN, AWS, ZFS, Local, Fibre Channel
Hosting Insights: Storage Systems Utilized
Business Growth & Challenges
57% of hosting companies report static or lower than expected growth in 2016
42%remain at static levels compared
to 2015
21%Over-performing
22%Hitting growth
targets15%
Underperform
Reported level of satisfaction with 2016
business growth
Business Growth & Challenges
29%To remain static
at the level of 2016
36%Over-perform 30%
Hit set targets 5%Underperform
Expected growth in 2017
Other 3%
I don't expect expansion 22%
Conquering markets in new countries 23%
Conquering new market niches 35%
Extension of a product range 38%
Attracting new types of clients 52%
Other ways include:Better marketing and product
advertising, better data centers, acquisition
Plans to achieve expansion in 2017
58%report they
intent to offer new products or services in
2017
New services will include:
• Docker / Container hosting• E-comments solutions• Larger hosting plans• SSL Certificates• Storage solution• Enterprise email solutions• Cloud Hosting• Openstack• Managed colocation• Hosted Applications• Security services• PaaS• Managed & unmanaged VPS
For a complete list, please request a
full version of the survey results by
emailing [email protected]
Business Growth & Challenges
Other 4%
Training 16%
Lack of talent 19%
Lead conversion 22%
Resources 34%
Sales expertise 35%
Money 39%
Marketing expertise 47%For accomplishing higher growth, hosting companies lack…
Top other 3 include:
• Lack of time• Economic situation• Competition
72%report revenue from existing customers is
the biggest contributor to
business growth
Business Growth & Challenges
4%
14%
15%
22%
23%
39%
42%
64%
Other
PPC
Email to list
Sales people (telemarketing)
Content marketing
Search Engine marketing
Social Media
Referral
Best way to reach new prospects and
generate leads
Business Growth & Challenges
64% of companies report they need little
to no help from a sales person to close deals
Sell online only35%
< 25% of deals need a sales …
25-50% of deals need a sales person 17%
50%+ of deals need a sales person , 9%
Almost all transactions need sales
persons help, 10%
Business Growth & Challenges
Reported sales person’s
involvement
50%report
advertising performs the same as in
201613%
over-performs12%
hits expectations
24%Underperforms
Effectiveness of advertising for hosting companies in 2016 compared
to previous years
Business Growth & Challenges
4%
5%
7%
10%
19%
19%
22%
27%
Forums
SEO
None
Google AdWords
Social Media
Other
Word of mouth/referral
Types of advertising
reported as the most effective
Word of mouth/referral is #1 in generating new leads
Business Growth & Challenges
Business Growth & Challenges
Effectiveness of advertising: another look
And finally …
If there was something hosters could change in the way they do hosting…most notable answers:
• Stop selling dedicated servers• High-availability shared hosting• Make customers pay more• Stop worrying about security• Improve marketing• No-support hosting• Have a great sales team• More defense from site hacking• Sell more add-on services• Add cloud services• Stop offering phone support• More effective advertising• Simplify offering for customers• Automation, automation, automation…• And “hire three more of you”...
“Decrease the number of emerging technologies which grow fast and that the clients don't
understand”
If interested, please request a full version of the survey
results by emailing [email protected].
Conducted by
Findings from this survey can be republished without approval request
but with the reference and the link to the source.