The Best virtual web hosting ArticlesThis generally won't tell you as much as you'd like.
August 2005
Mon, 15 Aug 2005 13:46:33 -0400
Ubuntu Server Upgrade to 8.04 Hardy HeronWed, 30 Apr 2008 17:30:23 +1000
First of all I have to confess that I have been very busy over the last months or two and have not really been motivated to write. I have a few other projects happening at the same time — at work, at home, at church and at my other websites, and I apologise for neglecting this blog. Hopefully I will get back to writing here again. I am also hoping to write shorter pieces — maybe just 2 or 3 paragraphs — so I can make more frequent posts.
Now, something I have been doing over the last couple of days is to upgrade my Ubuntu servers to 8.04 Hardy Heron, which was “officially” released last Thursday. Now it has been almost two months since I wrote my last blog post, which was about switching from Gentoo to Ubuntu, and now most servers/VPSs that I am personally responsible for (except those at work) are running Ubuntu. Hardy Heron is a LTS (Long Term Support) release which I am hoping to build most my apps on for the next 2 weeks. Upgrading to it from previous Ubuntu releases is surprisingly trivial.
# apt-get update
# apt-get upgrade
# apt-get install update-manager-core
# do-release-upgrade
blah blah blah]
The first two steps are only there to ensure you already have latest updates for the current release. It’s quite possible that “update-manager-core” has already been installed. “do-release-upgrade” does all the bulky work — checking whether a new release is available, checking how many packages need to be updated, download, unpackage and install all packages + resolving potential conflicts, etc. And at the end it just reboots your server. Wait for a minute and two, connect back in and hopefully you will be running 8.04 Hardy Heron. I was lucky that it worked on all my Ubuntu boxes.
Do note that the upgrading script, which was written in Python, does chew up quite a lot of memory. I have one tiny 64MB (+256MB swap) VPS that almost got killed with OOM. So be prepared, but YMMV.
So far as a server I haven’t experienced with too much differences. PostgreSQL 8.3 was in but Firebird 2.1 wasn’t (although it should be included “soon”). Now, back to more code hacking.
Leaner is better: 10 ways for hosts to improve business efficiencyFri, 14 Mar 2008 22:38:40 -0400
Sangeetha Naik, the Co-Founder of Bobcares and Tobby Davasia, Member of the Executive Team in Bobcares, spoke on this topic in WebhostingDay-2008 work.SHOP.
Read the session presentation here
DRT Predicts Data Center ExpansionFri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 EST
May 9, 2008 -- ( <http://www.thewhir.com> WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Data center owner and operator Digital Realty Trust released the findings of a survey indicating that the vast majority of these respondents intend to expand their data center facilities in the coming year.
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General Impression
IX Web Hosting has been in business since 1999 and has recently made a
remarkable appearance with the opening of their new data center in Hopkinsville,
KY.
With a highly professional website and very attractive hosting plans, they have
managed to be added to the list of companies that web-hosting-top.com is
reviewing. As the months passed by, IX WebHosting continuously improved its
performance in both reliability and customer service, resulting in extremely
quick loading websites and high customer satisfaction and consequently mastered
to be rated by our review team.
With over 170.000 domains hosted is more then obvious their value!
Price & Cost Effectiveness
IX Web Hosting's plans give you an excellent value. Regardless of your needs,
their plans allow you to save money right away - but the savings are even
greater if you need to host multiple domain names. Their billing cycles run from
quarterly, semi-annual to annual and 2-year billing cycles, the choice is yours
on most plans. The longer the billing cycle, the higher the discount that is
provided.
When hosting more than one domain name (multiple domain names or sub domains),
you can host them all on a single plan (Expert Plan and higher). You will save a
great deal of money since there are no fees at all for adding, removing, or
changing hosted domains and subdomains. You can manage it in real-time via the
control panel.
There was not a single billing issue with any of our anonymous test accounts, we
have always been treated with great respect and fairness. There were no over- or
unexpected extra on any of our hosting accounts. What is more important - when
we requested a refund for 2 accounts, we were granted a full refund without
questions asked. 100% money-back - including setup fees. An impressive approach
towards customer satisfaction.
They will help you with CGI scripts, upload problems, even if you don't know how
to use FrontPage - we were assisted kindly via telephone and their Live Chat
service. This is an important aspect for a web master maintaining multiple
websites, as for a busy website, there is a constant need to change your site's
content and scripts used. Where else can you get 200,000MB web space for
$3.95/mo, or unlimited disk space with multi domain hosting for $12.95/mo,
paired with a zero-risk 100% money back guarantee.
Reliability
During our extensive hosting experience with IX Web Hosting, we have had hardly
any server outages. It would be a lie to say none of our 23 anonymous test
accounts have never been down - however, the uptime track record for our test
accounts is impressive.
The question is not IF downtime happens, the question is when it happens and how
quickly your hosting company can resolve the problem. Quick problem resolution
is a must, so your site will be back online in no time.
Our overall reliability experience with IX Web Hosting is positive. They claim
to provide 99.9% uptime for all hosted accounts and they have a guarantee on
their website proving their track record. We had 100% uptime for the majority of
hosted accounts, however - 2 out of 23 accounts only had an uptime of 99.2% due
to a server glitch. The glitch was resolved quickly (within 90 minutes), however
the uptime amount of these two accounts did not reach 99.9% this month. After
inquiring with their billing department, we have been reimbursed for the
downtime that occurred with two free months of hosting service. We found this to
be an adequate compensation for 60 minutes of downtime.
Data Center (toured)
As the title indicates, we have personally visited and "examined" IX Web
Hosting's data center. The importance of doing that is obvious. You might have
heard of the "story" that 80% or more of the web hosts are just resellers, and
another 10% are just co-locating in some other data center, without direct
physical access to the machines. Unfortunately, that story is plain reality. We
have personally verified that IX Web Hosting's data center facility actually
exists by paying them a visit in Hopkinsville, KY. As the 16th data center we
visited, it was a rather pleasant surprise that they actually HAVE the equipment
they list on their website, as well as the security mechanisms, firewalls and
CISCO state of the art routers.
IX Web Hosting currently employs five redundant fiber-optic loops to connect
their data center. The fiber-optic connectivity is provided by Bell South,AT&T,
Verizon and 2x bandwidth is redundantly served by Qwest Communications. They are
currently busy upgrading their connectivity for future expansion.
Customer Service
In my entire career as professional web master, I have never seen more
responsive and technically sound support staff. I am thoroughly impressed by the
technical skills of the IX Web Hosting customer care team.
Regardless of which artificially created problem I have prompted them with,
everything was resolved within 24 hours: PASIV FTP issues, CGI scripts with
programming errors, PHP coding issues, ASP ODBC database connectivity, MSSQL
Enterprise Manager troubles, domain-lock and expiration tricks - we were not
able to fool them.
The support provided can be rated as above excellent, especially the 24 / 7 LIVE
CHAT feature. We have submitted a total of 450 support requests so far in the
past several months, and on 400 requests the response has immediately solved our
problem. The other tickets had to be reworked to send more details to the
technician. We called in via Live Chat at 3am and 5am EST several times and our
requests were answered promptly and courteously. Unlike other hosts, IX Web
Hosting is providing It is a true 24 / 7 chat service.
Control Panel
The basis of their control panel is H-Sphere, however IX Web Hosting's
programmer staff have modified it heavily. Both LINUX and WINDOWS hosting based
accounts are provided and the control panel functions flawlessly with accounts
on both platforms. The control panel they provide allows you to add, remove and
manage your domain names, subdomains, FTP accounts, email accounts, mailing
lists, auto responders, email aliases, MIME Types, Apache Indexes, PHP / ASP
configuration, mySQL, PostgreSQL and MSSQL databases, SQL database users,
cancelling and resuming your subscription and reporting trouble tickets from one
interface. In addition to the comprehensive functionality listed above, they
also offer an online file manager, an web design program called Site Studio as
well as Web Mail. All these features along with the senseful customizations IX
Web Hosting's programming department has applied to the control panel software
have made us rate this category with an astounding 100%.
You will find now a brand new billing system, outstanding from all points of
view.
The usage of the control panel it's self is very fast and reliable. The
administration of your whole account is very user-friendly and IX Web Hosting
provides an extensive customer guide with detailed explanations on how to use
your hosting account.
Contact Information and Support
Phone
24/7 sales and support available.
+1-270-707-2051 International
+1-800-385-0450
Click Here to go to ixwebhosting
website.
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