Dedicated Server Reviews

In case you missed the hundred-or-so mentions on the WHIR over the last few weeks, HostingCon 2008 was last week. And we went to considerable lengths to cover the event from every angle - news, blogs, features, WHIR tv. While we're not quite finished posting HostingCon-related material, I finally finished my own event blogging campaign today. So, I thought it might be a good idea to post a recap of our coverage, in case anybody missed anything that might have interested them.

It seemed to me that the best way to organize the information would be divide things up by format, and then work backwards through the coverage by day. And I suppose I should mention that I'm only go back as far as the start of the show itself, and not go too far into the "HostingCon is coming up" type stuff, as that would be a little redundant.

(I've also left out a few posts that don't need to be recapped, such as the now-irrelevant "win this tv!" post or the self-referential "more blog entries to come" post.)

NEWS

Wednesday, July 30

HostingCon 2008 Wraps Up Today

Tuesday, July 29

Zeus Adds License Agreement Program

AtMail Adds Cluster Ed. Email Server

Monday, July 28

HostingCon 2008 Kicks Off

BLOGS

Friday, August 8

Message Systems Protects the Network Edge

Waxing a little glib, I recap a conversation with Barry Abel of Message Systems, which is on hand at the show promoting its Edge of Network email platform.

Thursday, August 7

AtMail Brings Clustered Edition to Show

Recapping a conversation with Corey Bissaillon of AtMail, who describes the company's clustered edition. I leave out some of the nuts-and-bolts details, which I promise to cover in an upcoming feature.

MailSite and Your In-House Exchange Alternative

I talk to John Davies of MailSite about the company's hosted email application, and he describes a model for distributing it that includes offering it alongside the more expensive Microsoft Exchange as a privately branded in-house alternative.

Wednesday, August 6

Microsoft Spreads the Word on Hyper-V

I talk to Microsoft's John Zanni and Michael van Dijken about their HostingCon mandate of getting hosting providers up to speed on the facts regarding Hyper-V the recently completed hypervisor virtualization component of Server 2008.

Tuesday, August 5

MailChannels Makes the Most of HostingCon

A conversation with Ken Simpson of MailChannels, winners of my informal "coolest swag" award. He discusses how the Nerf guns the company was giving away at the show combined with a compelling product offering to create an enormous amount of interest in MailChannels, and a highly successful visit to HostingCon for the company.

My Hosting M and A Presentation Revealed

Tom Millitzer recaps his "Flip That Hosting Company" presentation from Wednesday afternoon, and offers to send a copy of his presentation to readers if they get in touch with him directly.

Wednesday, July 30

Exhibiting Wraps Up With Giveaways

My last post from the show itself, I recap our TV giveaway, take a bit of a good-natured dig at Ping Zine and spark a bit of debate (a few interesting comments on this post, for sure).

Wendy Pearson and Verio's New Marketing Effort

I speak to Wendy Pearson, the newly appointed director of marketing and communications at Verio, who describes the effort to re-launch the company's marketing strategy - with a particular focus on really defining what the company means when it says it serves the "SMB" market.

Sealing the deal

David Snead recaps the last-day keynote panel he moderated, discussing some of the key points that emerged concerning the sale of a hosting company.

Tuesday July 29

iNET Interactive and the HostingCon 2009 Details

I talk to Kevin Gold of iNET Interactive, the new owners of the HostingCon event, about the company's plans for HostingCon 2009, and what they intend to do with their presence at this year's show.

The Parallels Fast Track Program

I sit down with Serguei Beloussov of Parallels, who describes some of the ideology behind the company's "Fast Track" program which is designed to help ISVs get involved in developing applications designed to be hosted by hosting providers.

The Case for a Professional Association for Web Hosts

I talk to Paul Hirsch, who is at HostingCon on the behalf of the Association of Internet and Hosting Service Providers, the latest effort at putting together an industry-wide association focused on providing smaller hosts with some of the resources they might not have on their own, as well as providing the industry at large with a voice, both internally and in the business and political worlds.

Paid RBL's?

Following the first session he moderated at this year's event, David Snead discusses the risks that Spam poses to your company, from a legal perspective.

Monday, July 28

Building a Buyer-Friendly Host

Here, I discuss a presentation by Adam Eisner of Tucows, who discusses some of the obvious failings of the sales efforts at a lot of hosting companies vis-à-vis their websites, and offers up a few easy solutions and some more thoughtful advice for selling.

Social Media and Web Host Marketing

Following a sometimes-dull, sometimes-very-interesting panel discussion on marketing, I pose a few questions about one of the sticking points of the session - the value of the social media space to web hosting providers as a marketing vehicle.

The OpenSRS Booth and Tucows New Brand Strategy

After snapping a couple photos of the newly branded Tucows booth, I discuss what I've heard about the company's plans to re-brand their reseller services with the long-standing OpenSRS name.

Where's the Hosting Association?

David Snead starts things off with some general info about the nascent hosting association and its presence at the show, and explains what you can do to get involved.

Exhibit Hall Setup Shots

Here, I post up a few of my photos of the Exhibit hall during the set-up phase.

Ads Where You Don't Expect Them

An early-morning post about my room key having an ad for HiVelocity Hosting on it. Pretty cool little promo.

FEATURES

Tucows Eyes Resellers with OpenSRS

At the back of the HostingCon 2008 exhibit hall, directly adjacent from the WHIR's own Networking Lounge, lies a rather modest-looking, 10' x 30' booth decorated with a playful illustration of a '50s-era ice-cream man.

WHIR tv

Video Feedback

Here's some feedback from the exhibitors and attendees from HostingCon 2008.

There will be more WHIR tv coverage of HostingCon to come, so stay tuned.

Flickr Feed

Check out our Flickr photo set from HostingCon 2008.

And that's about it. From this point on, this particular blog will be returning to regular non-HostingCon coverage.

A few days ago, I read a fascinating article in the New York Times, about people who are flipping web sites for a living. They find  poorly designed or poorly marketed sites, buy, update, and resell them for a small profit. Not long ago I read a similar article, about guys who find under-performing web sites, and upgrade them for a share of the site's profits.

The article uses the house metaphor - buying, renovating and selling fixer-uppers for a profit. But I think such activities are more in line with the business specialty of 'turnaround artists'. And I think this is one trend that will stay with us for a while, providing an opportunity to people who can design, market or otherwise make web sites more visible and profitable.

Here is why:

1. The US and EU economies are in a slowdown. Business income is suffering, and site proprietors will be looking to get out or improve performance.

2. With unemployment rising and incomes dropping, hobbyists will also have less money to spend on sites and follow the same path.

3. Web businesses with shrinking cash flow are more willing to engage in profit sharing, instead of simple contracting or hiring to get the job done.

4. Technical people will have more time for such ventures, because slowing economy means lower employment, fewer working hours, less work during working hours and greater urgency to find source of additional income.

So if you have the skills, maybe this is the time to start hitting the virtual pavement for such opportunities.

I know what you're thinking.

Okay, I don't know what you're thinking. Or who you are. Or anything about you, specifically. But imagine you are thinking this: "did you talk to anyone who didn't have the word 'mail' in the name of their company at HostingCon?"

The answer, my dear hypothetical question-asker, is, "Absolutely. I talked to Message Systems."

And the point I'm trying to force home with my ham-fisted wit here is "there sure were a lot of email solutions floating around at HostingCon."

If you were there, you probably already knew that, being as difficult to miss as it was. Call it an affirmation of the fact that the real value in the hosting business these days lies in the delivery of hosted services - that, and he fact that email is by far the most broadly accepted of those hosted services.

Anyway, among the many conversations I had at HostingCon was one with Barry Abel of Message Systems, which actually was a bit of a departure from some of the other mail-related conversations I had that week, apart from the daring exclusion of "mail" from the company's name.

Message Systems' primary product (particularly in relation to the hosting space) is the company's email application server for Linux, Edge of Network, or EON. It's a software package that can be installed on your existing hardware to manage delivery, as well as provide traffic shaping and any number of anti-spam controls.

The anti-spam technology from Cloudmark, for instance, can be deployed within the message systems platform to provide filtering, along with grey list data and other email checking technologies from a variety of sources.

The system is operated via a web-based interface. And its major selling feature is its ability to process at an extremely high capacity, according to the company.

Much of it offered in bulleted points, the product information on the Message Systems website is a little bit sparse. Fortunately the company offers the means to arrange an online consultation via the site, which would likely be the ideal venue for satisfying whatever other curiosities you might have about Edge of Network.

FAQ’s on Dedicated Servers :

1. Where are your Server based ?
Ans. Our Dedicated Servers are based in Chicago, IL and Montreal, QC, Canada

2. Data Center Network Connections and Uplink Information Dedicated Servers
Ans. We have 2 x 10 Gbps uplinks for our Datacenter. All servers have 100 Mbps Nic card and they are connected to 1 Gbps switch. These switches are then further divided into two at 1gbit which is a major advantage when it comes to redundancy.

3. Internet Service Providers to our DataCenters
Ans. Our ISP backbone providers are Level(3), Abovenet, Savvis, PCCW, Telia and Cogent.

4. What Brand of servers/Chassis do you use for the Servers?
Ans. Our Servers are only setup on Branded Dell Hardware, SuperMicro and Asus. We always ensure high-quality standards are maintained at all times.

5. Hard Disks ( HDD ) Options
Ans. SATA / SCSI and SAS Drives are main options that we provide. SATA drives are standard options, however in order to opt for SCSI and SAS drives, we request you to contact our dedicated server department.

6. RAM Options
Ans. Our Servers are equipped with DDR2 FB-DIMM RAM as standard Option. The other Options are ECC FB-DIMM and SD RAM

7. Uptime Guarantee on Dedicated Servers
Ans. We guarantee 99.96% Uptime on all our dedicated servers.

8. Backup Solutions with Dedicated Servers
Ans. Backup Solutions are not included with the basic Dedicated Servers. However, we can provide additional backup solutions on a remotely located server which can be accessed through FTP with unlimited bandwidth feature and cron setup.

9. RAID Configurations on Dedicated Server Hosting Packages
Ans. We provide the following RAID Configurations :

RAID 0 ( Needs 2 Identical Drives )
RAID 1 ( Needs 2 Identical Drives )
RAID 5 ( Needs 3 Identical Drives )
RAID 10 ( Needs 4 Identical Drives )

10. Operating Systems :

On a Dedicated Server, we Support the following Operating Systems :

Linux - centOS 4.5
Linux - CentOS 5.x
Linux - Fedora Core 5
Linux - Fedora Core 6
Linux - Fedora Core 7
Debian 4.0
FreeBSD 6.2
RHEL 4
RHEL 5
FreeBSD

Windows2003 Web Edition
Windows2003 Standard Edition
Windows2003 Enterprise Edition

11. Control Panel Options

On Linux Dedicated Servers, we support the following Options :

cPanel ( WHM ) with Fantastico
Plesk 30 Domains
Plesk 100 Domains
Plesk 300 Domains
Plesk Unlimited Domains

On a Windows Dedicated Servers, we support the following Options :

Plesk 30 Domains
Plesk 100 Domains
Plesk 300 Domains
Plesk Unlimited Domains

However, you can also install and configure any other control panel as per your requirements.

12. Money-Back Guarantee on Dedicated Hosting packages

In case of Hardware failures, we do offer 30 day money-back guarantee. For any other billing related questions, please email our billing department at billing@bodhost.com

13. Terms of Service

Please have a look at the following link in respect with our Terms of Service :

http://www.bodhost.com/terms_conditions.shtml

14. Service Level Agreement

http://www.bodhost.com/service_level_agreement.shtml

15. Load Balanced Servers

We offer Load Balancing Servers on Linux as well as on Windows Dedicated Servers. These can also be setup through Cisco or Juniper Netscreen Firewall systems.

Moving your Dedicated servers data is not difficult if you plan accordingly.

A complete migration of a website involves transferring the website data itself,it means all the HTML and possibly PHP and MySQL files and CGI programs. For this you will also need to modify the DNS (Domain Name System)information for the website and for the routing of the website email. DNS (Domain Name System) keeps the information that translates IP addresses to human-readable domain names. For any Website migration, the two important DNS records are the address (A) record, which says the browser the IP address of the Web server, and the mail exchange (MX) record, which guides mail servers how to route the email.

When you wants to migrate your Web site to another hosting provider, you will need to update DNS to point browsers to the new location of your website. However, it can take as long as 12-48 hours for DNS updates to propagate to all DNS servers on the web.

Many times your domain name has been registered through a 3rd party domain name registration company. When you move the website, your domain name and company remains the same, and only your Webhosting company changes. If your domain name originaly came with hosting, you may need to contact your old hosting company to see if you can separate the hosting package from the domain name.

The keys to a successful migration are preparation and planning. Before moving you should inform your users or customers of the forthcoming upgrade. Prepare a “server down for upgrade” page for your old website. Please note the IP addresses of your new and old servers; these will come in handy when DNS is still in flux.

First decide the time when you wants to upgrade, meaning when your server is least busy. If you have website statistics, use those to determine the best time. To reduce down time, it is best to make the DNS changes several hours before you actually move the domain. As long as your mail server is running on the new server, you will not lose any email messages. If you have a static website, you can copy over the data before you switch DNS and no one will ever know your hosting provider changed.

The DNS changes you will need to make involves updating the MX and A records to point to your new server. For that, you will need to access the control panel provided by the domain name registration company from which you obtained your domain name. new MX record will need to point to the new server. For example A records, MX records can take some while to propagate through the Internet. To avoid mail loss you will need to check your old mailbox at least once a couple of days after the move. You will also need to use the IP address of the old mail server rather than its domain name, as you won’t be able to rely on mail.domain.com to check the old mailbox, as that will point to your new server. Depending on how much control you have of your old server, you could shut down the mail server after modifying the MX records, in which case incoming mail would queue up until the new mail server is running, at which point it would be delivered without problems.

How to move a website files?

Once you have changed the DNS information, after that it’s time to tackle the data itself. HTML and PHP files are not hard to move; just use a good FTP program and copy the data from one server to the other. If you have SSH access to both of the servers you can copy the files directly. If you don’t, you will have to download the files to a local machine and then upload them to the new server.

How to move Database from one server to the another?

1)Moving databases is a bit difficult. For example if you are using MySQL, there are many ways to copy over the data. One is to do a dump of the data into a file and then copy that file to the new server and populate the new database. To do this you use the mysqldump command:

$ mysqldump -p -u username mydatabase > mydata.sql

Once copied onto the new server your can populate your new database with the mysql command:

$ mysql -p -u username mydatabase < mydata.sql

2) If you do not have SSH access to your servers than you would not be able to use these MySQL commands, but you can still use a tool such as phpMyAdmin which handles MySQL administration over the Web. phpMyAdmin has excellent dump and restore features, though for the restore there is a maximum upload file size of 2,048KB. You can use compression to maximize your chances of squeezing all of your data into 2MB.

3) If you lack SSH access and you have too much data for phpMyAdmin to handle, look into a MySQL synchronization tool called SQLyog Job Agent (SJA).

4) If all of the above fails you will need to ask the support team of your old hosting company to dump your database for you. Then you will need to ask the support team of your new hosting company to populate the new database.

If you have a website with dynamic data, such as an e-commerce website, you will need to make special provisions for the DNS update delays. As the DNS changes propagate through the Internet some people will see your new website and others your old. This could cause problems for you. Imagine if a customer placing an order on your old website after you have moved all the data over to your new website.

You can deal with this problem by 2 different ways.

First, stop taking orders from the old website once you have started the move. At the checkout stage display a polite notice asking customers to come back in a couple of hours, after which they should be taken to the new website. If you don’t have that kind of control over your website then the best thing is to close down the old website by replacing its index.html with a notice saying the server is down for upgrades and will be back soon. An alternative solution is to use a synchronization tool like SJA to make sure any changes made on the old website get propagated to the new one.

Finally, watch out for incompatibilities between the software on your old server and that on the new. Try to make sure that any difference in versions of crucial software like MySQL and PHP won’t cause any problems.