One of the great features of a Web Site is its availability. Even if your Business is closed for the weekend, potential customers are free make inquiries, view your catalog and even order goods and services when they want to.

When they are ready to act will your site be ready?

You want your site to be available 24 / 7. This requires a server that is connected to the Internet. This machine must be powered up and connected 24 / 7. Few people take the time to think about what is required to make this happen

It is not easy….

Good Hosting Requires Reliable Hardware & Software

Like your desktop or PC, a server has 2 vital components – the hardware (The computer) and the software that runs it. In theory, any computer can be turned into a Web server by installing server software and connecting the machine to the Internet.

However, a proper Web Server is no ordinary computer. It is an industrial grade machine that has a ton of RAM, and usually 4 (or more) processors. It is usually housed in a case that keeps the unit very cool at all times. It also usually has redundant hard drives, and is connected to some type of timed backup device such as a magnetic tape drive.

These machines are designed to be more or less bulletproof. Ours often operate without interruption for 7 or 8 years before they are retired!!

The most stable software used to run web servers is the Linux operating system, with Apache web server software. This is what we use. Unlike a normal PC, Linux has been known to go years without being rebooted.

Our hardware & setup are well above industry standards.

Good Hosting Requires a Fast, Reliable Internet Connection

Our servers are housed in a datacentre that is connected to an extremely fast and powerful network. The network connects to the Internet via multiple fibre optic cables that run at 1000Mbit/s connections from the worlds leading telecommunications companies. This allows for the high bandwidth that is required for even the busiest of web servers.

How fast is a 1000Mbit/s connection? It has about 700 times the capacity of a standard high speed internet connection that would be found in a typical home or business.

Speed is no issue.

Good Hosting Requires Security

What could happen if your site was hosted on a server that was located in the wrong place?

  • It could get hacked,
  • It could get stolen,
  • It could burn,
  • Your data could be lost or stolen
  • It could loose power

If your site is important to you, it is imperative that this doesn’t happen. Any of these could result in your site being down for many hours (or even days), which would cause you loose money in the form of lost sales, or lost leads.

Our machines are located in a super secure data center. Without boring you with all of the details,

  • Security to the building is 24/7. To gain access to the lobby a person must be on the Access List. Even if someone is on this, an ID card is still required.
  • There are multiple cameras which record all the entering and exciting of the building.
  • Once one passes through security, they may only go up to the appropriate floor.
  • Outside the suite in which the servers are located, there is a key card system as well as video monitoring. Everything is taped and recorded to a DVR. All points of entry to and from our suite as well as the data center itself are recorded 24/7.
  • Within our data center, we have a NOC ( Network Operations Center ) and the doors to the data center are locked. It is not possible to enter the data center without special keys,
  • Removing equipment from the datacenter requires a signature by a member of the datacenter staff. This ensures that no property is ever taken without our proper consent.

Suffice to say, security is tight.

Good Hosting Requires Good Technicians

Finally, and most importantly good hosting requires good technicians, and we have the best.

Maintenance and upgrading is the key to reliable web hosting. Timely installation of security patches, software upgrades and consistent inspection and testing of both the server hardware and the network infrastructure results in hosting that has very minimal downtime.

When trouble rears its ugly head (as it invariably does) the measure of how good you are is how fast things are restored back to normal. Our 10 year track record has consistently been exceptionally good.  Our server down time is on the order of 0.005%. About 26 minutes per year on average.

Our numbers speak for themselves.