Need Help with Web Space hosting

[Phalanx]

Im thinking about starting a small business in web space / website hosting and maybe game server hosting and im not to sure about what kind of things I will need to learn on and what sort of things people will look for in a website host / webspace host.
Can anyone give me any tutorials on where i can learn about such things?
Also, what sort of things will I require from my ISP for hosting web sites and what sort of specs will I need for a computer to act as a web host?
thx

[glc]

If you plan on hosting yourself, you need a commercial ISP - a fast SDSL account at minimum, and preferably a T1.

Let me give you a tip - get a reseller account from a commercial host and let them worry about the hardware and security.

[mairving]

As glc said, start with a reseller hosting account at a reputable host. From there as your knowledge and business grows, you can get a dedicated host or a colo. With reseller hosting, your accounts are one the same server as many others. With dedicated, you have the server all to yourself. You can get managed dedicated servers which are more expensive but the host helps you out with them. With a colo, you buy a rackmount server, something like a 1u from Dell and send it to someone that will put it in their rack and hook it up to their pipe.

It can be pretty difficult to do your own because you need a full T1 line ($500-600/month), a generator and good UPS's along with the server and spare parts, along with a place to put them.

You could potentially use a business cable line to do this which is much cheaper and a cheap server but business cable is not as reliable. You could be down for a couple of days as opposed to a couple of hours with a T1.