I have noticed a lot of chatter on Twitter lately on SharePoint Hosting and have recently signed up to host a WSS site.

Decisions to be made in process

There are a few decisions you have to make on what package you chose for hosting.

SharePoint Edition

There are currently 3 editions of SharePoint:

• Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise
• Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Server (the 2010 equivalent to WSS)
• Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

Some hosting providers will not provide each of these editions so bare this in mind.

Shared vs Virtual/Dedicated Servers

A Shared hosting package will typically only give you access to your SharePoint Web Application, as the SharePoint instance on the server will be shared across multiple external clients. This will mean you will NOT get access to SharePoint Central Administration web UI and certainly not direct access to the server which will mean no access to STSADM, inetpub, or the 12 Hive. This will mean that you will not be able to release any WSPs or custom development to the SharePoint instance.
They may be able to set up the SSP to give you isolated access, but this is unlikely unless they really know what they are doing with SharePoint (so please ask if you require access to configure Search, Excel Services, BDC, Form Services, MySites etc.). Typically if you want this kind of access (MOSS) you will need a dedicated server.
Dedicated Servers will give you complete access to server operating system instance (e.g. Windows Server 2003 R2 or Windows Server 2008). You will be able to remote desktop to the server and install whatever is necessary and deploy WSPs and customise inetpub and 12 Hive just how you like.

SPD/Web UI only customisations

There are plenty of things you can do to make a SharePoint site more advanced than it's vanilla start. Bare in mind that some things are going to be easier using the development path which won't be available with SharePoint packages. A great example of this is the amazing add-ons the CKS:EBE (Enhanced Blog Edition) 2.0 gives you for the blogging platform.

Bandwidth

Some hosting providers also put limits on the amount of bandwidth allocated to your package. Please bare this in mind...this will obviously depend on the traffic you will get to your site.

SharePoint Hosting Providers

There are obviously plenty of hosting providers out there. This list will provide SharePoint specific package offerings.

Labels parameters

---

---