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In know that the Expression team offers hosting which seems ideal on the surface (ensuring all features work with server side settings, etc).  Pricing seems reasonable as well.

However, I wasn’t able to see anything regarding a control panel to manage some server settings.  For example, I would like to ability to make a MySQL backup so I can load up a copy of production at home for testing.

Another consideration is growth.  If I grow out of a lower level plan, is it easy to step up to the next plan?  If the step up requires that I move to another server, will they migrate content for me?

Anyone have experience with the Expression Engine hosting service?  Are there other hosts that I should consider?  The 20% off Expression is appealing, but I want to make sure I’m not compromising on choosing the “right” host.

Thanks for any advice as I consider this product!

However, I wasn’t able to see anything regarding a control panel to manage some server settings.  For example, I would like to ability to make a MySQL backup so I can load up a copy of production at home for testing.

They are not using Plesk or any of the other big control panel software packages. Generally, you request such configuration changes through their ticket system, and they’ll take care of it manually. As to the backup: you can have EE do it for you, or you can easily install a tool like make use of the pre-installed phpMySQL.

Anyone have experience with the Expression Engine hosting service?

Yes. They are among the very best in the industry: fast, friendly, reliable, knowledgeable. I recommend them in a heartbeat to every one who listens.

The 20% off Expression is appealing, but I want to make sure I’m not compromising on choosing the “right” host.

Believe me, you can’t go wrong with EngineHosting.

You’ll have PHPMyAdmin, that’s how you’d make backups. 

For your other questions, I would contact EngineHosting directly, I think you’ll be extremely impressed. You might also search for posts here by Nevin Lyne, you’ll find them incredibly enlightening.

There is no compromise on choosing EH as your host. =)

Thanks for the help guys. I’m one of the aforementioned friends.

I’m curious if you can use an existing EE license with EngineHosting as I already have one. I am using it to host my own blog on a Dreamhost shared server. I’d love to be able to take advantage of the existing license and use it, along with Multi-Site manager to continue with my own site as well as the new one.

As I understand it, this would require both site to be on EngineHosting (if we chose EH as the host). Are there any issues I should be aware of when migrating from the old sites custom templates, blogs, categories, etc. to a new host along with Multi-Site Manager?

Of course. EH is, above all, “only” hosting. You can cetainly bring your own licence, so to speak, or install some other third party software.

Yes, the MSM requires all sites to reside on the same server.

Hi,

We are a web hosting provider, not something like a blogging service where you are locked into only running a single type/kind of web application.  Many of our clients are running other scripts along with EE, or some cases are not running EE at all (hard to believe I know) on their hosting accounts with us. 

As far as moving an existing ExpressionEngine install from one hosting provider, to another you can take a look at this Knowledge base entry, How do I move EE to another server?. 

We do provide secure phpMyAdmin access for clients, so you do not, and really should not, setup your own copy of phpMyAdmin, as there really is no need.  Though making backups you can of course use either phpMyAdmin’s “Export” function, or use ExpressionEngine’s own export function.

Web site files and database backups are done every 6 hours, on-site and as well as off-site, to our business continuation data center.  Though we still highly recommend you at least do your own backups before important things like doing script updates, or any major changes to your site.  Could mean the difference between you losing a few minutes worth of work, or up to 6 hours if you have to have us restore a copy of your database.

As far as moving from one hosting account level to another, in most cases this is nothing more than us activating your account on a separate load-balanced cluster of servers, and having our load-balancers point traffic to the new server location.  No IP address/DNS changes, no file migration, don’t even have to change where you sFTP in to your account to upload files.  In some cases we may move you to a new database server setup if you are moving between class of service, ie: Shared Hosting -> Shared Hosting Pro, or from Shared Hosting to dedicated server/load balanced solutions.  But our staff will work with you on schedules, and fully inform you of what we are doing, and why.

Our services are a little different than your average hosting provider, so our control panel is a little more minimal currently compared to what some are use to.  Our staff pick up where the control panel leaves of.  Our web site explains this as well, but I will recap here.  Your web site traffic is handled by multiple web servers (load-balancing), and our services are highly separated, so web server clusters are only handling web traffic, our email server cluster is only handling your email, sFTP access, file storage, apache log storage, and log processing is all handled by separate, specialized servers.  It’s extremely rare you will find this type of physical separation of services outside of corporate data centers, and likely one of the reasons we keep gaining both small and large clients alike from some of the more “known” names in the hosting industry 😊  Our key points of focus are performance, stability and security, and we are constantly investing time, and money into providing these at the best possible levels, regardless of the hosting plan you have with us.

If you have further questions, please feel free to contact us directly.