For "secure" as in "how medical data should be protected" I wouldn't trust an external hosting service - unless you can find a very trustworthy one.

In some countries banks offer server space where your server is really well protected.

Thanks Moritz,
What I need is to run a perl script to process data file before showing results, which takes time.
Why do you think I need buy a server for myself?
If I take one, say what yahoo suggest, can I be free to create my directory system and can I run perl/cgi if they say it is supported.
Do you know if host's admin has typically an access to my data?

Well, if you don't control physical access to your server, the data isn't safe.

Do you know if host's admin has typically an access to my data?

Typically the admin has access to all of your data, if he wants to. Even if he doesn't have by default, he can gain access to it far too easy.

That's OK if you want to host a private bulletin board, but not if you have a lawyer's data on your server.

You *might* get away with this in a shared hosting environment if you only need to run it once a day, and you don't mind doing it at 4am. But even then you're quite likely to find your account disabled due to its excessive resource requirements.

This kind of application is really not well suited to a shared hosting setup because you will potentially be bringing hundreds of other websites to a halt while your code runs. You simply can't expect 1 GB of RAM and multiple CPU-minutes in a shared environment.

Here's what I suggest, depending on your needs.

1. If you need to do this processing once a day (or similar)

Why not run the processing on your own machine each day then upload the results to the webserver? Then you can use standard shared hosting. Of course, if the result set is very large this might be problematic too, but most providers will give you more leeway on upload bandwidth than on CPU and memory.

2. If every hit needs to do this processing, and there will be hits throughout the day

You can't use shared hosting. You can't use virtual private servers either. You need to get a dedicated server - a real physical machine with a CPU and memory that are yours and yours alone. Then you can do whatever you want with it. The provider will only care how much bandwidth you use.

This will cost you though - I think the cheapest dedicated servers start around $100/month.

Thanks thparkth
Every hit needs to run perl processing of the data file before the response is uploaded to the page.
What are dedicated servers? How to arrange it?

Dedicated servers are servers you rent or lease in someone else's rack in their data center. You get a particular class of machine and a particular amount of bandwidth. You can have it administered by the data center people, or you can be the only one with root access.

An example of dedicated managed servers is [htttp://rackspace.com|Rackspace]. They specialize in managed dedicated servers. It's all they do. The admin for the box would have access to your data, but Rackspace hosts for the US Marine Corps and many other highly sensitive organizations.

I'm not sure who to recommend for dedicated, unmanaged servers (ones you'd manage yourself with no other root users).

Another option is server colocation. That's what they call it when you buy the server, ship it to the hosting company, and they put it in their rack. You're paying just for rack space, power, and bandwidth. All the people do to your machine is physically secure it and reboot it by power cycle when you ask. They still have physical access to your machine, so it'd have to be someone you trust. Hurricane Electric does lots of colocation.

Perlmonks itself is hosted at Pair Networks. I've yet to use them myself, but I hear good things about them. Their site says they do both managed dedicated hosting and server colocation. Their site does a pretty good job of describing the packages they offer, too.

There are lots of other companies you could contact about either dedicated hosting (managed or unmanaged) or colocation. The above are just examples with which I'd be comfortable doing business.

For the ultimate in security, you really want to employ your own sysadmins and network techs and run your own data center.

When we decided to go the dedicated route, we purposely chose *not* to do it onsite—"risky," in a word. Data centers, run by legit companies, boost fire-suppression, video surveillance, emergency generators, etc. I don't want to try to do that. And, if you have root, you can keep the center staff off your machine.

Having said that, this makes you responsible for security. I rely on another Perlmonk who specializes in locking down servers—this is not stuff for newbies—you need a pro!

I am currently running dedicated servers with 3 companies, all in the cheap to inexpensive category. They are all fairly reliable, but the service runs from terrible to lackluster. Basically, unless you spend the big bucks for a managed server (where you don't usually have root), you are on your own and it can be a white-knuckle ride. To sleep a little better at night, we use Nagios to ping everything and notify us when things are heading south.

Data centers will usually load the system (we use Debian on all) and MySQL, and can offer firewalls, etc., but again, you need a pro on your end who will tidy everything up, lock it down, and then be available when then things explode.

And you will have to know enough about Apache to get things up and running or have someone do it for you.

Good luck.

But which one?
Also can I be sure that my data could not be retrieved by the host admin?

By definition the root account will have unlimited access to all data and all processes, so he can do whatever he wants to your data without you even knowing it.

It is all a matter of trust and good old fashioned contracts.

CountZero

A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James

The other people who have already posted are right when they say you can't do this on a regular (shared) hosting account. Most web hosts will figure out that somebody is using way too many resources, and they will suspend your account at the very least.

You should probably rethink how this page works. Perhaps you can run the script as a cron job, say once or twice daily, so that page requests would not be forced to reprocess the data, and could just spew the results.

Either way, to do processing required 1G RAM for 1-2 minutes, you probably will need either a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or a Semi-Dedicated (SDX) server.

I've gotta say that I'm curios what you have that needs to be private, that takes 1G of ram to process. Fixing that script up a bit will open up a lot more options for you in terms of hosting.