Hosting 365

Iron Mountain have ‘lost‘ 2 truck loads of tapes in the space of a month. There’s a few reasons why this is a huge story and a significant hit to their customers business as well as their own.

The data on the tapes can be cracked, as they admit ‘using sophisticated equipment’, which really means someone with know-how can do it. Depending on what the data is, it may be used for all types of fraud by the thief, as well as the fact that the backup data copy is now gone and there a security hole to be plugged here until it is replicated again.

Of course if you have any sense you wouldn’t touch tape backup any more - it’s an antiquated technology. It rely’s on a poor medium, manual processes, and has logistical issues. Backing up on more reliable media like a redundant array of hard drives through a VPN in an off-site secure data centre makes much more sense. (heehee … and guess who can provide this for you? !!)
And the great thing about this Moore’s Law business is that the kind of system I just mentioned is not only FAR FAR better than tape backup, it’s also cheaper to do. Faster … more reliable … easier to access and restore … automated and secure : it boggles the mind that many CTO’s and SME’s still consider tape backup a viable solution.

I don’t think it comes as a surprise to anyone to hear that Irish SME’s find IT too complex, but the results of a survey commissioned by o2 are music to MY ears!

The results highlight that 21% of businesses are turned off by virus issues and 15% are fed up with spam.

Why is this good for us? Reference my last post about hosted anti-virus and anti-spam services taking this pain away for businesses. Of course an SME isn’t going to have IT resources in-house to maintain and update the security of employees desktops (unless it’s an IT SME of course) and therefore relying on an internal IT ‘handyman’ to manage this on top of his existing work is a process doomed to ‘delusions of adequacy’ from the start.

Why not outsource this pain? Give it to a company who invests in world-class systems and provides 24×7 support and uptime for your email … screening out viruses and spam? Of course I’m pimping our wares here, but the fundamental principle to mean is the logical choice. Aside from all the other benefits of on-site engineers, great infratructure and access-anywhere email services, the annoying spam and virus emails will be banished - and it’s likely a cost-benefit analysis would show massive savings over using internal email systems.

(Ken our financial guy might have something more numbersy to say about that!)

Hosted Anti-Virus is more secure and reliable than local machine software, because the virus never even gets to your PC and you are not responsible for regualr updates.

From Business and Finance

McAfee customers were left bewildered recently when their antivirus program began attacking legimate third-party applications as malware. The problem was caused by an update that McAfee issued for its popular antivirus software, with hundreds of executables wrongly flagged as W95/CTX, low-risk Windows 95 malware. Among the applications affected were Microsoft Excel, Flash, Google Toolbar and Adaptec drivers. McAfee published a list of about 330 programs known to have conflicts with the update, but experts have speculated that the true figure is much greater. Operating systems across the board were afftected by the mistake.

This is just one example of the many ways local Anti-Virus software can let you down. The primary issue of course is that unless you are in a highly controlled corporate IT environment, the responsibility for protecting your computer is actually yours - not the anti-virus software provider. This is because you must make sure the software is up to date with the latest definitions.

Hosted Anti-Virus is by no means perfect … since it really only protects your email … but the majority of incoming files to your PC do originate via email. If you protect your email service with a hosted anti-virus service, any infected mails will be detected and quarantined before they ever get to your machine, preventing any threat of an infection.

The auDA - Australian Domain Name Administrator - deregistered domain names matching the names of the two miners that were freed.

The auDA’s policy is similar to the IEDR except that it’s retroactive - as in, you can automatically register any domain, but as the policy states, you must be able to demonstrate a reasonable claim to it (trademark / registered business name).
Maybe this is a better model for the IEDR - let people register any .ie domain name, but if it looks suspicious, or if there is a compliant about it - request the relevant documentation from the registrant, and if they can’t provide it - delist the domain. This would allow the .ie system to be automated, making it a lot more efficient for purchasers and registrars, as well as reducing overhead work for the IEDR themselves (which in turn could help bring some price parity with the TLD’s, and grow .ie numbers)

So a system of ‘policing’ rather than micro-governance.

(From the Herald Sun)

Although called by many ‘arcane’ and ‘bureaucratic’, there are some benefits to the IEDR policies.

For example, a school rang our support line today wondering if there was anything she could do about an adult site with a domain name the same as the school she worked for. Realistically there’s not, as the name isn’t unique, although there’s no doubt the school had more right to it than a non-work-safe site.

Typically you can call your .com/net/org site anything you like. While some will argue that this is a right - you may not name your business with such freedom - it must pass the companies office screening procedure. Why should a domain name - which is essentially the same as a company name, trademark, or registered business name - be given unlimited leeway? At least the IEDR practice ensures some trademark and business name protection, and also assures against serious issues like adult sites taking names associated with schools. Aside from protecting business trademarks (since you have to prove ownership of the name you are trying to register), the policy also protects consumers from fraudulent people trying to capitalise on the brand value of other businesses.

Don’t take this post as a defence of all things IEDR, clearly there are other issues, and I’m sure they are working on these.

In short, the EURid allowed bogus and phantom registrars to game the system; many registrars took payment for .eu names they were unable to secure and are now refusing to refund the payment (they probably shouldn’t have charged the person until the domain was successfully processed anyway!); the EURid system collapsed under the weight of requests (how was this not predicted and extra hosting infrastrucutre leased for the first month?); and TONS of intellectual property, business names and trademarks have been stolen.

What’s inexcusable is that .EU represents the largest economy in the world, and with all the TLD’s and ccTLD’s introduced in the past few years should have had ample information on how to correctly define the process and provision adequate hardware.

I still don’t believe that .EU will take off, despite a lot of commentary that .EU will rival .COM, and that most registrations are for brand protection rather than new business. As I said in a previous post - what market does .EU service? Not Europe anyway - with all the various languages to cater for, ccTLD’s are far more appropriate; and certainly not the intercontinental / global market - which is serviced effectively by .COM.

By way of example … when was the last time you visited a .US site? And what’s the difference in .US and .EU?

For the past few months businesses could claim ownership of .EU domains if they had company registration or trademark documentation to support this claim - and 300,000 European Union wide did so.
On April 7th this pre-registration phase ends though, and anyone can register a .EU domain name.

Predictions are flying back and forth on how many domains will be registered, and how much of an impact .EU will have. To be sure in the first few months, many businesses will register a .EU to protect their trademark, and the hype will doubtless generate a few more sales, but in the medium-long term, what impact will the .EU TLD (top level domain) have?
First of all, where country domains such as .IE, .CO.UK, .NL and so on, do moderately well, that is primarily because they are VERY focussed on a specific nation. Whereas .EU is aimed at the entire European community - which is difficult to target on a single domain - because of the many languages involved.

I’m not sure where .EU fits in to be honest. As I said, a ccTLD (e.g. .co.uk) promotes the web site within a country - but where does .EU promote? .COM is arguably a better top-level or primary domain extension, as it’s generic and globally applicable. The .EU domain is really only useful for a company doing business ONLY in the EU and actually THROUGHOUT the EU (as oppose to within the business’s own country - in which case .be/.nl/.ie would suit better). And it’s more likely that a business would be international (EMEA / APAC) than just EU, as it’s actually easier do business with nations whose primary language is the same as the country of origin.
hosting365’s predictions on .EU registration numbers : the impact will be similar to that of .info and .biz : lots of hype, but the majority of registrations will be companies registering all TLD’s as a trademark protection exercise, and still using .com or the ccTLD as their primary domain.

We’re really pleased to annouce that we are launching (right now … this is the launch!) a ‘Free Blog Plan’ as part of our hosting services line-up!

The features are straightforward - the plan comes with Wordpress and K2 as default (K2 has a hosting365 logo and link to our site … but you are free to change the theme or customise the existing one as much as you like, and at no cost), 100mb of web space and the ability to use your own domain name.

So what’s the big deal? There’s already a number of companies offering free blogs - but to my knowledge we are the only one to offer totally free hosting, with no ads (our logo is there by default … but you can change this) AND at your own domain name. Using your own domain is probably the most important feature and key differentiator for the plan - as it’s a premium service for most other offerings.

You have to register your own domain name (plug: register365.com!) or change your DNS settings to our nameservers if you want to use an existing domain (all this information will come in a mail after you sign up)

Now … to pre-answer some of the questions. Why are we doing this? I’ve persuaded the CEO that providing this kind of service to the blogging community is a far better use of the marketing budget than print advertising etc. How can we do this? We’ve got this great data centre and infrastructure. Okay … if we suddenly get 10,000 signups we might have to hold new plans until we get more hardware to support it.

And I’ll pre-empt any questions about the signup process now - after you signup you will recieve an email with your account details (control panel access) and DNS settings. This using our existing hosting system and not a custom designed solution - so when you login to the control panel you need to install wordpress. It’s a one-click install that’s as simple as the normal Wordpress install so don’t panic!

The only real restrictions are that this is a blogging plan only. You can hack it to provide free web site hosting … but if you do that we’ll disable the account. Business Blogs and Personal Blogs are most welcomed!
So … without further ado … signup for a free blog !

Late last week we launched a new web site - phew! You’ve no idea (actually, most of you probably do!) how much hard work goes into creating a new site from designs to content. More importantly, we spent a long time discussing the new hosting plans and features.

Typically Irish hosting companies have provided a fraction of the specifications of our US counterparts, for comparable prices, and that’s probably driven a lot of Irish web hosting abroad - and to a point, rightly so. Obviously we think you should host your site in Ireland - so you can MEET your hosting provider, CALL on support during office hours and SPEAK to a real person that can help you.

BUT … we realised that it’s not enough to tell people they should host in Ireland because it’s better for their business; price / feature comparison’s were not in our favour. That’s changed now.

In fairness to the Irish hosting market, the resources just aren’t there to provide the same level of service as the bigger US hosts. And also in defence of Irish hosting companies, many international hosters vastly OVERSELL their infrastructure, making feature promises that would be impossible to keep should they be tested.

As I’ve said, that’s changed now. Wanna know why? We’ve built our own data centre. (I’ll upload pics in another post … my shaky phone cam quality doesn’t do it justice!) That means that we can offer really low prices and deliver on the features we promise. And yes, it costs us less than our competitors, but we’re passing these benefits on to you, instead of profiteering and buying company-Ferraris
So as of last Friday our new plans are competitive with US hosting plans - both on features and on price. Oh, and we also provide free, FREEPHONE support (during office hours) to ALL customers … even the ones paying 3.75 a month!

I hope this equalises the Irish & EU market a bit with the US, and of course I also hope it helps us continue to grow and get EVEN MORE competitive!

We’d love to get some feedback on these new plans and prices. Is it enough? Is it more than is required? Have we matched the price/feature set well? If you’ve any suggestions on plan specifications or individual features you’d like to see … please tell us!

The whole goal of this blog is to get YOU to TELL US what you want. We do our best to use our crystal ball, but wouldn’t it be great if our customers helped us do better? And from a customer point, wouldn’t if be great if you could tell suppliers what you wanted and then (within reason!) get it? We think so.

A lot of companies are guilty of over using the phrase ‘world-class’ when it comes to their products and services - ourselves included, so I know I’m in a glass house here! Businesses used to say ‘guaranteed quality’ all the time, but that’s a given now - if you’re service isn’t ‘quality’ you won’t have a business for long. Of course, we think we are world class so it’s okay to say it.
In terms of hosting companies and data centres though, what does world-class mean? We think to call a data centre ‘world class’, it has to have the following:

• Global peering for best IP transit
• Multiple fibre providers for both greater bandwidth and redundant connectivity
• Resilient power - electricity provision, UPS and batteries, and diesel generators
• Great staff - people with the knowledge and experience to run all the elements of a data centre
• Enterprise hardware - network hardware and servers that are capable of running 24×7 efficiently and effectively
• Bulletproof Security - cctv, access control, manned security, biometrics

Of course there’s a lot more, but these are the essential points.

Now, for a hosting company to call it’s infrastructure ‘world class’, we think it’s very simple - it has to own it’s own data centre to the above specifications. Not rent space in one, not outsource to one, actually own and operate one. Why? Because that means that the company has the abilities to fix any issues on-site in real-time (not through remote access or a third-party technician). It also means that the hosting company has really talented staff and a depth of skills (since there’s a lot required to run a data centre) rather than just being a sales outfit with minimal support and no access to YOUR server.

Of course the other benefit of working with a hosting company that has a data centre, is you can actually go and tour the facility, meet the people, see your server, and decide for yourself if the company is good enough for your business. I don’t think any firm should host a web site with a company they haven’t phyisically been to - it’s just too important to be done on-line with no viable proof of the hosting companies ability to deliver on it’s promises.

On that note … I’d like to extend an open-invitation to all readers to come in and take a tour of our facilities. Coffee and cake is on me!

For a more formal and detailed version, you can read about our data centre here.
What do you think? What does it take to be a world class hosting company? Give us your feedback and we’ll do our best to meet your suggestions.