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Do custom name servers really matter? We say no!

We often get asked the question “Do you offer custom name servers”, the answer is no and for good reason too. We’re very serious about our 100% uptime service level agreement. For example, if we ever decide to make any network level changes and need to make changes to our DNS IP’s, your sites which use those “custom name servers” will face downtime. Even if we have given customers ample amount of notice, it still leaves enough room for error that we’re not comfortable with the risk.

When developing our clustered cloud, we’ve kept resellers in mind and how we could provide it in a white label fashion. We provide customers with two sets of name servers. For those who don’t care can use our ns1.uptimehost.com and ns2.uptimehost.com name servers and those who want to stay anonymous can use our anonymous name servers found inside of the Cloud Manager — both of which are fully covered under out 100% Uptime SLA.

A lot of resellers have the common notion that having custom name servers such as ns1.companyname.com and ns2.companyname.com protects them from customers identifying them as a reseller or that they are larger than they really are. The truth is that if a customer wishes to find out that you’re a reseller, they can.

Even if you use a virtual private server (VPS) or dedicated servers with custom name servers, you’re still reselling. A simple ping or whois on the ns1.companyname.com will reveal the IP address, in which you can turn around and whois the IP, which will give you information of the company you’re using — giving enough information to the customer where you’re getting your hosting from and how you’re providing it to them. Try it yourself, use the WHOIS search at ARIN.

To an extent, even we’re reselling. We’ve built our clustered cloud, which we own and operate ourselves… however we do not own the data center or the network that we use. Does that make us any less competitive, I don’t think so. Peer1 does a great job with their network and their co-location facilities that we don’t have to constantly worry about maintaining — leaving us with more time to come up with new features and provide excellent service, which benefit our customers.

In closing, the web hosting partner that you rely on should help you have a competitive edge. Instead of knit picking little details such as custom name servers, elaborate on why the web hosting partner coupled with your company together provide a service that cannot be matched.

Until next time,

January 18, 2009 | Filed Under Help Guides

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Q&A: 10 Most Important Questions to Ask Your Web Host!

So I was browsing through the blogosphere and came across this blog post and thought that I’d save those who are interested in our services by answering them — so you don’t have to ask :)

Here are the questions that were on the blog post:

Q: How long has the web host been around?
A: Legally, we’ve been a business since January 2008. We’ve spent most of the last twelve month’s developing and coming up with new innovative ways to differentiate us from the rest of the herd. We officially started providing a service to the general public In January 2009, 1 year after development started. Don’t worry, our team has considerable amount of knowledge and experience in the hosting industry.

Q: Does the web host own its data center?
A: No, we do not own or operate our own data center — nor do we want to. We’ve selected a great co-location provider here in Toronto and Miami allowing us to focus on development and maintenance of our Clustered Cloud. We don’t want to be messing with BGP or if our data center is cold enough, the fine folks we’ve partnered with do a great job. Let them focus on what they are good at and we’ll focus on what we’re good at. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Q: How many hard Internet providers does the web host have?
A: We use Peer1 Networks & Saavis for most of our connectivity. Problem yet to be seen (knock on wood).

Q: Does the web host monitor its customers’ sites twenty – four hours per day? How?
A: Yes. We have several monitoring points across the globe. All of our guys are notified if there is an issue within 10 seconds.

Q: Does the web host provide 24 / 7 / 365 phone and email support?
A: Yes, we offer 24/7 e-mail support and offer 24/7 telephone support.

Q: What levels of redundancy does the web host’s architecture favor?
A: This is where we are superior to a lot of our competitors. We’ve developed a “Clustered Cloud”, which is basically a bunch of servers working simultaneously to serve pages, images, mysql queries, etc.  If one of our servers or several of them were to go down, crash and burn (knock on wood),  your site would still be working as our redundant load balancers would direct traffic to the fastest available server in the Cloud. We use dedicated MySQL servers and purpose-built storage systems. We’ve done everything we can to weed out single-point of failures.

Q: Does the web host automatically backup customer web sites in case of message loss? How often?
A: Our storage systems create snapshots of data every hour. We retain those backups every 2 hours, 2 days and 2 weeks for you to retrieve data in the event of data loss — every customer has real-time access to their backups. You can read more about our backup system.

Q: What is the web host’s billing method?
A: We accept Visa, Mastercard and all major credit cards through PayPal as well as plain and simple PayPal. We’ll also take cheques and money orders. We offer an anytime cancelation policy and also offer an anytime money back guarantee.

Q: Does the web host prepare the features that you need for your web site?
A: Our web hosting service is fully featured. I don’t think we’re missing anything. Which means, in most cases you’re going to be able to deploy your site immediately without any intervention from us. If we are missing something that you need, contact us and our development team can look into it for inclusion. No promises though :)

Q: Does the web host have the products and services to handle your growth?
A: I most certainly think so! That’s what we were built for. Our service allows you to start at the bottom (shared equivalent) and work your way up to the top (dedicated and beyond), without having to switch platforms.

The questions are basic, but fundamental when looking for a host.  If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to contact one of our specialists.

January 6, 2009 | Filed Under UptimeHost

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Protect your web site from being hacked!

In recent years, I’ve seen quite a few customers get their web sites hacked, deleted or tampered with, who then come back to the web host and say “what the hell”. They end up getting furious, and furious at the wrong people.

At UptimeHost, Jonathan, our security expert takes great steps to ensure that our servers are secure and there are no system level hacks that can affect our customers. However, most, if not all the hacks that I have experienced are the result of the lack of protection by the customer themselves!

For example: You’ve got the latest and greatest home security system, but you’ve been robbed because you didn’t bother turning the system on before leaving. You can’t turn around and then blame the security company claiming they didn’t secure your home.

Bottom Line: You are responsible for your own web site.

Before I rush into the different steps to take to protecting your web site from being hacked, without going into too much detail, I’ll share the basics of different types of hacks, their purpose and how they affect you. Most commonly, hacks include some sort of exploitation of bugs in a script or a web site, for example XSS, defacing or SQL injections. It’s important to stay up to date, and being prepared is the best form of protection.

So, here are some tips on how you can protect your web site from being hacked!

1) Keep your scripts & software up to date!
The installation of many web scripts have become relatively one-click and easy to do. What most people fail to understand is that it’s not just a 1-click, one time install and forget about it thing. The developers of these scripts are constantly working on fixing bugs, patching security holes, etc. Running older versions of the scripts opens you up to a liability, ensure you’re running the latest version of the script. If the script is no longer supported, re-consider your decision to using that script and try to find an alternative if you can.

2) Using secure passwords
You’ll be surprised at how many people use such simple passwords. It’s recommended that you use a combination of a letters, numbers and uppercase, lowercase characters. The longer and harder to type passwords are the strongest. Do not use dictionary words, family names and generally speaking… anything that someone can guess about you.

3) Third party scripts
Any code, such as plugins, widgets or custom codes that are found freely available on the internet are written by people under unknown variables. Depending on the programming skill of that programmer the code could be great or could be riddled with security holes. To be safe, research any code you want to use on the site that you haven’t done yourself. Use google to help you with that.

4) On a regular basis, check your logs!
You’ll be surprised at the amount of information you get by watching & reviewing your web site access / error logs. On a regular basis, look out for where traffic is coming from and what is being accessed. If you’re seeing repetitive attempts or failures, take measures to prevent those attempts from re-occurring.

5) Are you practicing “Safe Surfing?”
One of the most common causes of Identity theft is your own stupidity, sorry for being blunt! A lot of the times, the vulnerabilities which give others access to your vital information starts right from your own desk. If your machine is not secure and you’re not practicing “Safe Surfing”, you’re opening yourself up to hackers for both your web site and other more important things, such as Social Security/Insurance Numbers, Bank Accounts, etc.

Use virus scanners, clear histories, try not to store passwords in clear text files. Use public wifi hot spots with caution.

6) Back up your web site!
I can’t recall how many times I have heard different people almost shedding tears when they lose their data or get hacked. Honestly, they are all excuses. If you worked so many hours and have had it cost you so many dollars to develop, keep or whatever… don’t you think that you should have been backing it up? Bottom line, back up your work, back up your backups, you’re never safe.

Even though we provide backups, we still encourage all of our users to create their own backups and keep them in their posession. You never know what will happen, and in the end you can either thank yourself or blame yourself.

That should keep you protected for the most part. It’s always good to be a little cautious and ahead of the game… this guide should help you get started!

January 5, 2009 | Filed Under Help Guides

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Tweets, Tweets… we’re Tweenin’

After using Twitter for a couple of weeks, I’ve really fallen in love with the app. I couldn’t find a reason to not put it into our arsenal of communication tools. We’re now fully integrated into Twitter and have our own Twitter page (see http://www.twitter.com/uptimehost).

The main purpose of using Twitter was to enable us to have a off-network system status page in the event of an emergency. This will allow us to provide you with up-to-the-minute updates on any given issue. It also mirrors our blog posts every hour, which is pretty cool also.

What is Twitter?
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? (from Twitters website)

Wikipedia Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

January 3, 2009 | Filed Under New Features

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How to start a web hosting company

So you’re looking to start a web hosting company? Starting to research is the best way to get started and this article will run you through what you need to know to start a web hosting company using the UptimeHost Clustered Cloud-based web hosting service.

We’re going to keep it simple so that you don’t get overwhelmed. The truth is, if you have never done this before, you need to start thinking small and focus on the little details. A common mistake that is made by those looking to start a web hosting company is thinking they’ll get rich overnight — don’t be fooled. You could easily make this your full time job or more, but it requires patience, determination and some business sense.

Here’s a quick run down of what you need when starting a web hosting company:

Hosting Infrastructure
Here’s my plug! Sign up with us, UptimeHost! Our specialty is providing web hosting companies the infrastructure to run their business. Our Clustered Cloud-based web hosting service allows you to take advantage of a robust & scalable infrastructure, which will allow you to grow as you need, avoiding money wasted due to unusable resources. You only pay more, when you use more. Also, because of our unique technology, you do not have to worry about migrating from a reseller hosting account to a dedicated server and then to co-location. You’re able to grow your business with us on a single platform.We manage the infrastructure and act as your system administrators, you focus on building your business, supporting your customers and best of all, collecting money.

Professional Company Web Site
Hire a web designer to create you a UNIQUE web site that stands out from the rest of the competition. Creating a site that looks similar to your competitors does not help you in the long run. You may also be able to find web hosting design templates to help you get started.

Billing Software
Other than having the infrastructure to host your customers on, this is probably the next most important detail to starting a web hosting company. This is pretty much the life line of your entire business, it’s the thing that processes payments, provisions accounts, suspends accounts, etc. Some popular billing scripts that can be downloaded and purchased for reasonable monthly payments are Modernbill, ClientExec, WHM Auto Pilot and WHMCS. When using our web hosting infrastructure, you can integrate the server setup to any of those billing systems by using the WHM API.

Payment Gateway
Accepting payments online for a web hosting company is absolutely 100% mandatory, that is if you wish to be successful. Usually there are two ways to collect money online, the first being a Merchant Account, and the second being PayPal.Some Merchant Account providers are: PSIGate, InternetSecure, 2CheckOut, CCAvenue, Authorize.net and WorldPay.

Support System
A web hosting company must provide technical support, it’s a must. Simple e-mail won’t do and it is not recommended. You have to stay organized and be able to track incidents quickly and efficiently to reduce response times and the number of frustrated customers. A proper support system should include an e-mail/web-based ticketing system and an easy to use Knowledgebase system.Some popular support scripts are: Kayako eSupport, Cereberus, PerlDesk and DeskPro. Also, some billing systems come with built-in support systems. However, if you expect volume, I strongly suggest using a purpose-built system. UptimeHost uses Kayako eSupport.

Marketing
This is fundamental to any business really. Once everything is setup, it’s recommended that you spend a few dollars on establishing some precense on the world wide web. If people can’t find you, they can’t buy your service. Create reasonable packages that are competitive and use the following methods to market your business:

  • Submit your web site to the major search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc)
  • Submit your web site to directories (DMOZ, etc)
  • Buy advertising on popular web hosting/webmaster/web design related web sites.
  • Sign up to different webmaster forums and insert your signature with a link to your hosting company. Try to avoid spamming the forums, just be helpful to others.
  • Sign up for PPC advertising – Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, etc.

That’s all there really is to starting a web hosting company. I hope that this article has shed some light and has helped you in your journey to become the Internet’s newest web host!

Best of luck and we hope to see you on the Cloud!

January 3, 2009 | Filed Under Help Guides

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Getting closer to the public Grand Opening!

After a year of development and vigourous testing, we’re finally confident enough launching our Clustered Cloud-based web hosting platform to the public, available to anyone looking for a quality clustered web hosting provider.

This is a “turning page” moment for all of those involved and we’re all really excited here at UptimeHost.

Being in the industry for years, we’ve seen pretty much all there is to see with regards to issues that can come about for a typical shared/reseller hosting, virtual private/dedicated server or colocation customer. We believe we have taken those concerns, addressed them and have built a platform that promotes true scalability, flexibility and reliability without the hassles that come with managing your own infrastructure. Thus, allowing our customers to really focus on their business and not be frustrated with their hosting provider failing them.

January 2, 2009 | Filed Under New Features

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