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Virtual Private Servers (VPS) aren’t adequate for most website owners.

A lot of shared web hosting customers, who exceed their stay on a shared platform are often being forced onto what is called a Virtual Private Server or VPS for short. What is a VPS? As defined by Wikipedia, VPS  is a method of partitioning a physical server computer into multiple servers such that each has the appearance and capabilities of running on its own dedicated machine. Each virtual server can run its own full-fledged operating system, and each server can be independently rebooted.

Virtualization is a great thing, but attached with it is a huge learning curve for the average website owner. They are sold on the fact that something called a “VPS” will solve their issues, which isn’t entirely true — it often leads to confusion, frustration and doesn’t always solve the issue.

On a traditional web hosting platform, you have a single server (web, email, mysql, etc all on one machine) that hosts hundreds of web sites. What often happens is that there is a sudden surge of traffic to one or a few web sites and the server starts to come to a crawl, affecting service to hundreds of other customers. So what you’ll find is the web hosting company will set out to find these “abusers” and will either upgrade them or ultimately terminate them — all for the best interest of their “non-abusive” users.

The abusers are often classified as “resource intensive web sites” — and those websites absolutely NEED virtual private servers!

I’ll touch on a few common issues that I’ve seen from direct exposure in the VPS market and from frustrated users of the virtual private server platforms.

Ease of Use & Comprehension of the Technology.

What VPS lacks is the ease-of-use and easy to understand workings that shared hosting provides. The notion that “I just upload my site and it just works” with shared hosting is not necessarily there with virtual private servers. There are companies who have tried to battle this with throwing in a “fully managed” feature (some extra charge for this, some don’t). This adds an extra layer that doesn’t have to be there and doesn’t always work well.

Doesn’t always solve performance & reliability issues.

Most that get virtual private servers are under the false sense that it will resolve their performance and reliability issues. This isn’t true. While the hardware node is virtualized and you are allocated dedicated resources, it still is a single physical machine.  You’re sharing all aspects of that machine. Issues such as overselling of the hardware node or a single user monopolizing on the disk I/O will cause considerable performance & reliability issues.

Added complications & worries.

Now that you’re on a “virtualized” environment you have your own sets of security vulnerabilities along with other complications, such as data backup, regular system maintenance, etc. As the provider grows, it will become increasingly difficult for them to manage and you run the risk of them not getting to your VPS. Overall, just a lot more things to worry about versus just running your web site. You’re also sold the fact that you can install your own server software, 9 out of 10 customers (based on my experience) never needed to.

After operating several hundred virtual private servers at previous hosting companies, and learning from the challenges that were faced, I am so glad that we do not have to put Uptimehost customers through this type of burden. Whether they’ve started with us or they’ve moved over from somewhere else. We’ve managed to maintain the easy to use and understand concept of shared web hosting and have applied a better than VPS/Dedicated hosting environment due to our clustered cloud platform.

Just another way our years of experience is working to benefit our customers. Until next time…

February 27, 2009 | Filed Under Rants

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Lots of Good Reviews from Uptimehost Customers!

I’ve been in the hosting industry for quite some time and have seen my share of positive reviews for the companies I have ran, but never have I seen the type of reviews that we’re getting these days with Uptimehost. Our customers are appreciating what we have built and it’s giving all of us here at Uptimehost that funny feeling in the stomach!

Here are some quotes directly from customers regarding the Clustered Cloud!

“I’ve been testing the cloud against the VPS that I am on now and it is  performing great at almost half the price! When the page views start flowing in, the cloud stays fast while my VPS runs out of CPU allocation and slows to a crawl. You and your team have done a great job on the infrastructure.”

“I feel like we just got off the special needs internet and on to the  advanced placement net.  I (and some of our readers who have ALREADY sent us emails that they’ve noticed the zippier site) now have a deep, geek-fueled love for UptimeHost.”

“I had been searching for almost 8 months to find a solid hosting solution for my blog.  Uptimehost provides a level of professional and personal service while delivering a quality of hosting that is second to none”

“When the VPS Node with FH was under a 6-7 load, it would literally slow to a crawl. The Cloud has far out-performed the VPS, hand-down, no questions about it.”

We know that we can’t make everyone happy, but we sure do try. Instead of receiving pure hatred type of reviews when running regular hosting companies, we’re receiving constructive criticism, stuff that actually benefits everyone!

“Some of your wording was obviously written by a programmer. For example, I recommend you change the form button Abort to Cancel.”

It’s a breath of fresh air and we’re loving it! These types of reviews only make us love what we do more and help us be a lot more productive! (Thanks for the grammar check Vern!)

Keep ‘em coming :)

February 24, 2009 | Filed Under UptimeHost

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Looking for FFMPEG Hosting? We’ve got it!

Are you looking to start up a video sharing web site or add some sort of video functionality to your web site?  Lately, we’ve seen a lot of YouTube clone, social networking and dating web sites looking to use the cloud asking us if we fit the bill and will be able to provide them with FFMPEG with their hosting on our cloud! The answer is YES!

What’s FFMPEG you ask?

“FFmpeg is a computer program that can record, convert and stream digital audio and video in numerous formats. FFmpeg is a command line tool that is composed of a collection of free software / open source libraries. ” (Source:  Wikipedia)

A list of modules that are supported: FFMPEG, FFMPEG-PHP, MPlayer, MEncoder, Flvtool2, Libogg + Libvorbis, Lame MP3 Encoder.

Scripts such as PHP Motion, Clipshare, Vidiscript, OSTube, AbleDating, etc will work on our cloud and because of our unique architecture, conversions of video are fast and load-balanced!

Experience the fastest ffmpeg hosting on the Clustered Cloud!

February 18, 2009 | Filed Under New Features, UptimeHost

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Uptimehost selects LiteSpeed Web Server for its Clustered Cloud

February 12, 2009 – Toronto, Ontario, Canada. — Uptimehost, a cloud computing based web hosting services provider has announced today that it has chosen LiteSpeed Web Server for its Clustered Cloud.

The company claims that after vigorous testing of its Clustered Cloud platform, LiteSpeed’s web server technology out performed the well-known Apache web server, resulting in the full deployment of LiteSpeed across the cloud.

“Our customers will experience improved performance, reliability along with improved security measures” said Kevin Moonlight, President of Uptimehost. “Not only will they see an improvement on multiple fronts, but as a company, we’ll be able to reduce the amount of hardware required. Reducing operating costs while being environmentally friendly.” added Kevin.

“I am so glad that LiteSpeed Web Server has being chosen by Uptimehost to power their high performance, highly available and scalable cloud computing based web hosting platform”, said George Wang, President of LiteSpeed Technologies. “and that it allows them to improve their service while achieving cost reduction.” added George.

About Uptimehost
Uptimehost is an industry leading white label clustered cloud based web hosting services provider catering to small to medium enterprises, web hosting resellers and to individual site owners. Located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Uptimehost was formed to deliver high-end managed clustered cloud web hosting that was able to adapt and scale to the growth of a customer on a single platform without the management complexity.

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Media Inquiries:

Rawlson O’Neil King
Principal, Rawlson King & Associates Public Relations
rawlsonk@rawlsonking.com
www.rawlsonking.com
613.868.1860

February 12, 2009 | Filed Under Press & Media

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Using Akismet to stop comment/trackback spam on Wordpress!

I’ve been using Wordpress for many years now and one of the things that annoyed me most was the amount of spam that would appear on the comments section of blog posts. It got very annoying, one wordpress blog had 30,000 comments, all spam, waiting to be “verified”.

I’ve come across this wordpress plug-in called Akismet and it’s done a swell job at keeping those annoying comment/trackback spam at bay!

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.

I strongly suggest that bloggers using Wordpress install this plug-in!  Click here for more information.

February 7, 2009 | Filed Under Rants

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Do you let your customers know that you’re reselling?

A lot of web hosting resellers face the difficult decision to tell their customers whether they are reselling or not.  In my personal opinion, in today’s cut throat web hosting market, it’s always good to stand out — and partnering up with a reseller hosting provider that gives you the cutting edge just may do that for your business.

Provided that you’ve partnered up with a reseller hosting provider that actually offers you something different than the others, for example Uptimehost (Sorry, I just had to), you should highlight the advantages that you gain against competitors by partnering with such a provider.

A lot of resellers don’t have time to worry about infrastructure and other nuisances that come with managing servers, most just want to provide their customers with a service that actually benefits their customers.  With that being said, you should tell your customers that you’ve partnered up with a web hosting provider that offers benefits that aren’t seen at other providers and that your team is focused on providing quality customer service versus messing with servers/infrastructure.

Customers are looking for providers that can actually provide them with solutions that they need for their business. Creating strategic partnerships that create value for your customers grouped with your ability to provide quality support will have your customers impressed and ready to pay whatever you charge.

February 6, 2009 | Filed Under Help Guides

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