Edit: EA Hosting Service is up and running at www.bestforextools.com. Prices are $20/mo for basic, $30/mo for advanced, $75/mo for Professional with full GUI access. Please email me or PM me with any questions. I need 4 files and Paypal payment before service can start. I offer cell phone support and backup contact information. EA Hosting is the only thing this machine does. IP Address is not published, website is with a different ISP, high security on the server running in a Datacenter that has 99.9% uptime guarantee with serious hardware to back it up.
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The service is going to start this week for beta clients, and officially launch Dec 1. I'm accepting 6 beta clients who will receive 20% of their bill for the lifetime of their contract.

I was hoping to start the service tomorrow, but I'm making additional modifications to increase scalability that take time. The current pricing is $30 basic, $45 for additional monitoring and web reports, and $80 for full GUI access and GUI file transfer. When we are able to increase scalability with additional software, the prices will drop to $20 basic, $30 with monitoring, and $50 for full GUI. 20% off for beta customers will still apply.

The pricing is based on how much resources are consumed by running MetaTrader. The server is very high quality rack mounted machine, not a desktop. The hosting facility is secured access, backup power with batteries and generators. Backup is also provided - but the goal is to not loose connection. The internet connection is 2 connections to the backbone: 3 gigE to GBLX, 7 gigE to Telia. (A typical DSL connection is 384 kbps, this is 3000 times as fast, has 1/2 to 1/4 the machines to cross, and will stay connected if one telephone company goes down.) Pictures are available for the datacenter facility.

We will monitor all MT4 installations to make sure the process is running. The monitoring/web access will monitor logs, confirm the system is responding, allow scheduled on/off times (in case the EA needs to be shut down over the weekend), and more services planned. The number of accounts and currency pairs available under each plan is limited, but as our system becomes more scalable the number of accounts and currency pairs will increase. The initial numbers are likely going to be:
Level 1: 1 account, 4 currency
Level 2: 2 account, 10 currency
Level 3: 4 account, 20 currency

After much market research, an expert concluded that we are the only EA hosting service to offer monitoring services. Within a short time, we may offer free hosting for accounts that allow us to work as an Introducing Broker with one of several brokers since we need a relationship with them already.

I started working on this because I needed a reliable connection and hardware to host EA. With a more dependable connection, additional trading styles to increase profits are also available, like stealth TP/SL levels. I want to provide a quality service for myself and others.

Please PM me with any questions, Beta slots are limited and first pay first serve. Website will be launched shortly before Beta period is completed.

I welcome feedback, suggestions and requests. If there is an interest in the difference between datacenter hosting connections or what datacenters are I am happy to explain.

I have had several interested people, most are waiting on opening a real account. A few people are doing due diligence as well. Again, I welcome all feedback.

The website is half done, and people can see the half done part if they like. I have been working on code though, and that is what I'm getting back to.

Very interesting idea.

What are you using for the monitoring?

I've been considering an offsite VPS myself. Can you outline what the benefits of your service would be compared to a VPS?

Thanks much, this sounds really neat.

Cheers,
CS

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I prefer to get my own virtual sever with a live ip ,I can remote desktop to server and can do anything I want. I can even use the server for meta trade and even host my own website same time and ftp. On top I get of web space start from 4gb and price start from 25 pm .
simple

sounds good like a good startup business idea. guess there is alot traders & programmers who would like to run their experts but for one or another reason cannot.

in my case my wife hops onto my computer when Im doing my 9-5, starts rebooting, closing MT4 etc my expert doesnt trade that often as it is!

I assume your machines would be running live trading accounts as well as demos ? I currently have a northfinance acc, you would have to have different MT4 setups for different brokers i suppose.

And if you also ran as an IB, which Broker firm would you use ?

guess i should wait for your site ...

Faizuu:
I am offering desktop access to MetaTrader in the third package. I am offering the prices based on paying for the whole system in a reliable setting. I am certain there are cheaper services run on DSL hosts using desktop hardware, or machines with too many users on them. Unlike most VPS software, you don't need to keep the window open on your home machine to keep the applications running. The applications run all of the time, even if your GUI client is disconnected. This is due to a much different technology being used. The services are very different, but I don't mind having one price compared to another - it is important to know what you are paying for.

Once I can scale up the performance using aggregation and other techniques for streaming quotes, the scalability will increase and my prices will drop based on being able to host more clients reliably.

If you want to host your own machine with me, you can mail the hardware and I can provide hosting for around $40-75 per month. You would have full machine access but no monitoring, no tools except what you install, no scheduling except what you enter yourself.

Edit: three more differences after looking at the service are #1 I won't be running hundreds of VPS servers, I will be running a few applications. I am not running VPS technology, I am running an environment - which provides better performance #2 I will be doing backups hourly not weekly. #3 Although MetaTrader4 does not consume a lot of resources, it does use a lot of Input/Output and the VPS may not I/O well.

The three main benefits are performance, reliability and monitoring.
Performance As I describe elsewhere in the thread I am not doing VPS virtualization, I am not masking I/O, I am not tossing as many users as I can sell on each machine. Once I perform bandwidth aggregation, I can have more users per server with less I/O and the prices will drop. That is why I'm not saying beta customers have fixed prices, they have a fixed discount. I expect my prices to go down once I implement MT4 specific optimizations - and a VPS will never have those shared with other VPS (it violates the model). I have been wrestling with the idea of offering a "sardine" service similar to the VPS on a separate machine, where I add as many users as the machine will hold. I would price that service around $8-12/month and it would exist on a separate machine only. The "sardine service" may be popular, but I don't think it would be worth one late trade per month.
Reliability VPS servers offer server reliability, but this doesn't always translate into application reliability. We are focused solely on MetaTrader4 and making the application stay up all of the time it is scheduled for. If MetaTrader crashes or is unresponsive, we load it back up again. There are ways with VPS in the Operating System to load MT4 each time the server restarts, but checking for frozen applications and crashes is application specific code.
Monitoring As mentioned above, we will inspect the process for all three levels of service to make sure it is running.
At the second level of service and above, if MetaTrader hangs and or quotes stop coming in, we will use automatic means of solving the problem when possible. If they are not successful, my cellphone will be alerted to the problem and it will be resolved.
We will inspect the EA logs for error messages and handle them appropriate to the error code. If your EA keeps sending invalid trades, we will do as you request - stop the EA, contact you by phone or email, ignore the error, close MetaTrader, restart MetaTrader or (paid by the hour) debug the application.
We will also offer advanced logging options to be included in the EA, so the EA tells us what is going on. The MetaTrader logs will also be monitored. Both the EA logs and MetaTrader logs will be available with filter options on the website. We also hope to provide weekly performance reports available on the website and through email if desired but this isn't a feature we have tested.

I think those are the main differences in technologies. We are also offering backbone connected systems for minimal latency (which will vary on VPS to VPS provider) and we might be able to offer *application level* uptime guarantees while datacenters only offer network guarantees and VPS systems would only offer OS level guarantees. My previous testing of VPS found that it was unsuitable for my needs since it added a 1/3 to 2/3 of a second application latency. That may or may not be true of the VPS services listed above or found other places. I'm running the applications as native to the kernel, with libraries translating calls to the kernel. Each application exists in separate user space. I can also put a "jail" around the application but I don't think this is necessary or desirable.

Honestly, I am building this system for me to use. I have... very high goals. I'm hoping to #1 *reliably* run in stealth mode so the broker won't see my profit or SL levels. Look at Phoenix - Development+Suggestions - MQ4 in Post#1 and notice the difference. The brokers are known for manipulating the datastreams of their clients to hit SL and TP. This is an Advertised FEATURE of MetaTrader http://www.metaquotes.net/manager "analyzing aggregate positions of clients and managing your own company's positions;" with "sending quotations to the general dataflow on the server;"
#2 I'm hoping to (after a month or three of development work) write an EA that reads the level 2 datastream from the banks and process it before the broker does. If I see a big spike from the banks, I place an order from the broker. This is only possible if I have absolutely the best connection - so that is what I'm buying for myself. I don't need *absolutely best* for stealth mode, but I do for "racing the bank".

I hope that clarifies my motivation - I am not trying to set up a Metatrader hosting empire, I'm trying to get high quality at affordable prices. The reason I picked 6 people maximum for beta is that it allows me to break even on monthly costs. 5 slots left.

With multiple accounts (level 2 service and above) you can have demo and real trading both active at the same time. With the Level 1 service you only have 1 account so it is a choice Demo or Live. I do ask nobody run backtests on the server because that isn't the intended purpose but it can also be done.

Each account would have a separate 'installation' of MT4, but you can see all of your installations (and no one else's) from the service. If you are using level 2 service, that is website. If you are using level 3 service, that is GUI or website.

I currently don't have any affiliations with any broker. I'm open to any requests for brokers we should IB with so you can have free (no cost to you) hosting. I was looking at FXDD, NorthFinance, MiG and Alpari as possible locations for my first MT4 account.

If I can set up the quote aggregation to work at the level of performance I want, then we would likely set up an aggregated connection whenever 3 client use the same broker and currencies. At the same time, it makes sense to set up an IB relationship as an option for a 4th client. I'm willing to do the leg work before so we can do IB pricing (free to you) but that requires knowing about it first. To get the free hosting, I will ask that you actually use the Broker for trading.

Regarding the website, I'm trying to set the service up first and spending most of my time on that so I can at least use the service for myself and test it. I will give all of my contact information, including TaxID, before anyone signs up on Beta.

Very interesting !

It's a great idea, we can go on holidays now

WWWWOWWWW

Thanks

So just to be clear about your service:

We send you our Experts, that we worked on and developped for months and made them really great and profitable. And you guys run them for us while charging us money for running them ?????
Am I correct?