How to stop sharing a server with strangers
Your online store is sitting on a machine with a bunch of other businesses you’ve never met. You didn’t pick them, you’ll never see them, and most days it doesn’t matter at all.
Then a bug like Januscape turns up and it matters a lot. The stores that got burned by it didn’t screw up, they did everything right. Somebody renting space on the same machine just found a way through the wall to them. That’s the part that should bug you, because there was nothing they could have done differently. You can patch everything, lock everything down, and still get hit by a stranger you’ll never meet. That’s not carelessness, it’s just what sharing a machine is.
Look, the good news is it’s fixable, and it’s not the scary expensive thing you’re picturing.
Your gut says get off the shared machine and onto your own, and your gut’s right. The reason you haven’t is likely you figure that “your own server” means an enterprise-sized bill, or hiring somebody to babysit a box.
There’s a middle option called Cloud Dedicated, your own machine that we run for you. It’s yours, nobody else on it, and it feels the same as the hosting you’ve already got. The updates, the monitoring, the 3am mess when something breaks, that stays on us, not on you to figure out.
The moment it’s worth making the switch is when losing a day would really hurt, when people are counting on the server staying up, or there’s data moving through it you don’t want riding on some stranger’s mistake.
So the real question isn’t a tech question. It’s whether you’ve grown to the point where sharing a machine with strangers is a risk you want to keep taking.
If any of that lands, the next step is a quick call, and it really is quick. Three questions, and you’ll know where you stand by the end.
- Do you know what you’d do if you lost a few hours to something like this? If you don’t, that uncertainty is the thing worth fixing.
- What are you running now? We look at your current setup and real traffic, then size you to what you use instead of a tier three sizes too big.
- What will it cost, and how do we move you? A straight number with no surprises, and we handle the move so nothing breaks on the way over.
Januscape will be patched and forgotten by next month, but the thing that made it your problem won’t fix itself. Getting your own space is how you stop taking these stories personally.
Aaron Tevlowitz is a Partner Team Manager at Liquid Web, where he helps build and maintain strong partner relationships. Aaron has been helping business leaders design hosting solutions and drive growth for their companies since 2022.
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