Question : Home hosting or hosting service?

Hello all,

     I was looking for some advice regarding a hosting solution for a project I am working on.  I require two computers, both of which require coldfusion and SQL Server 2000 installed on them.  

Computer A serves the front end pages to users and collects data into its SQL Server.  

Computer B's database is a replicate of computer A's database (synchronized on a nightly basis) and Computer B's coldfusion server is used to run analysis (nightly) on this replicate database (don't ask my why coldfusion is required for the analysis, just take my work for it that it is).  

My main question is this:  is there a good, affordable, hosting service where I can set this up?  Or would I be better off buying to computers of my own and setting it up that way?  

 I need a high level of customization regarding the coldfusion servers (using non-standard datatypes, etc) and I need (as aforementioned) to be able to synchronize databases on the computers (plan on using windows scheduler to run a batch file nightly which in turn runs http://www.swissql.com/products/database-compare-synchronize-tool/index.html).

Do these requirements mean that I can't use a hosting service and have to do it myself?  
The front end of the site (computer A) will get a large amount of traffic so I need a good internet connection.

Can you please recommend me an appropriate hosting service (if there is one); or give me some pointers on how to due this myself (appropriate machines to by, appropriate/affordable internet connection, etc).

I know this is a little vague, any information you can offer would be much appreciated.  Thank you very much in advance.

Answer : Home hosting or hosting service?

Sounds like you're on the right track. I was thinking about that analysis machine and it doesn't seem like it's a great idea to have it on a shared host. As you say, a combination of shared and dedicated is probably your most cost effective setup.

however ....
You could use a shared host to serve pages (and deal with the potential high traffic volume) and a local machine on your home network for your analysis assuming that the traffic between the 2 would be smallish. Without knowing the size of your dataset, it might even be possible to download the file on a regular home use broadband connection. Since the analysis box is mostly just downloading, the asynch speed issue of broadband may not be an issue. Just toss the box in the dmz, point it at the shared box and you're ready to go.

as I said, canadawebhosting has been a great host for me and they do both dedicated and shared. As for you being in NY and the host not...well that's what makes the net neat eh. My server is about 1500 miles away from me...but could be 15,000.