Why 3rd Party Hosting
Hosting your database with one of the providers below means someone else is taking care of your FileMaker Server: of updating it, tweaking it, and managing backups. Unless you have reliable automated backups in your current setup, you should consider 3rd party hosting for that reason alone. Or get your own FileMaker Server: it's invaluable.
But hosting really shines for distributed teams. These providers have fast machines on high bandwidth connections, so they can offer your users a better experience than they'd have connecting in to your office.
And of course these folks all have experience with Zulu.
Speed
The key to successful hosting is that the server you choose be "close" to you. This can be partly measured by a ping test and you'll want to ping the server you hope to use: if you're getting around 30ms pings I think you'll find it pretty peppy. More than that and you'll see some slowness. Of course what is acceptable to one person may not be to another.
But just because one person's connection to one server is slow (or fast) doesn't mean yours will be. Call the provider you're thinking of using, ask if they have a server in your part of the country, get an IP address for their server and ping it. Ask them how if you haven't done this before.
Hosting Providers
Foxtail has fast servers on both coasts and they host a number of SeedCode demos and our development servers. Angelo there may know more about the technical side of hosting than almost anyone I know.
Point in Space has been hosting FileMaker databases since 1997 and are famous for getting it right.
Licenses
Zulu hosting is BYOL (bring your own license) so you'll buy a Zulu license from SeedCode and then tell your hosting partner you have one; they'll set you up with your own Zulu directory where you can register Zulu and get to work.
Want to be listed here?
Get in touch and we'll send you some information about installing Zulu on shared servers. Then get some experience with it, thrill a few customers, and have them tell us about it.
