Tougher economic times compel businesses to look for ways to cut costs while still maintaining the essential infrastructure and services they need to operate and grow their business. An excellent way to do this is outsourcing IT requirements to a third party hosting provider.

Hosting providers provide a safe home for information technology needs with their redundant connectivity, hardened infrastructure and bulletproof security. All this is supported by a team of dedicated IT professionals whose sole objective is to keep IT infrastructure safe and running smoothly 24×7x365.

A business of any size can derive a number of benefits from outsourcing IT infrastructure to a hosting provider. First and foremost, there are significant cost savings. Hosting in-house, for example, requires significant man-hours and qualified personnel, which does not come cheaply. Using the services of a hosting provider, on the other hand, reduces that significant piece of overhead to a single monthly fee.

On top of the cost savings, outsourcing IT infrastructure to a hosting company frees up internal resources. Instead of having IT staffers configuring servers or trying to handle tricky email issues, it makes much more business sense to have them working on high priority tasks related to the organization’s core operations – ranging from anything such as desktop support to application development. Working with a hosting company gives IT staffers the time and energy to do their jobs better. And in smaller organizations where IT expertise is scare, outsourced hosting puts mission-critical needs in the hands of knowledgeable professionals – exactly where they belong.

Outsourcing to a Web hosting provider also gives businesses peace of mind. Rather than having to worry about security threats, downtime or technical glitches, businesses can be certain that their infrastructure is in the hands of someone that understands exactly how to handle the intricacies of information technology in an online environment. This peace of mind is sometimes overlooked, but can be an integral component of a well-run enterprise.

Hosting companies also provide a very desirable degree of specialization that delivers performance levels local IT or design agencies can’t match. Hosting providers reside in world-class data center facilities and are devoted to a single purpose: the housing, security and protection of valuable content. Everything they do, from the software development to the construction of facilities is designed to provide an environment that is up and running around the clock. Local IT shops are built on a different area of specialization. They design, install and customize. Hosting and managing infrastructure is not their core competency and expecting them to be able to do this at a high level of precision is an unrealistic expectation. The logic is pretty straightforward: you would not ask a bicycle repairman to fix your car.

Finally, outsourcing to a hosting provider is akin to having an advisory service which does not charge exorbitant consulting fees. Businesses can consult their hosting provider on any matter relating to technology and get a knowledgeable answer. What are the pros and cons of hosting on Linux? Should I be outsourcing my email to a hosting provider? Should I be upgrading my dedicated server’s memory and hard drive? Is a virtual private server a better option for my growing business? These questions and many others fall under the expertise of a hosting provider and businesses can expect an informative answer. And conveniently, it is very likely that the hosting company offers the product or service that can address the needs expressed by the customer.

Hosting providers rent space on a server or an entire physical server to support IT infrastructure ranging from email and web sites to advanced applications and databases. The server renting business, however, also translates well into related expertise such as data backup and storage.

Backup and storage services do not just provide a home for valuable data and content, but they also guarantee protection against its loss or corruption. With the help of replication software and redundant physical infrastructure, hosting companies are able to keep duplicate copies of data that is retrievable in real-time even when a disaster strikes.

In a world where growing amounts of both personal and business data are being stored in an online environment, the demand for this type of service will only grow in the future. This creates a strong opportunity for the hosting business, which is ideally suited to serving this need.

Outsourcing IT infrastructure to a third party hosting provider is not only cost-effective, but ensures reliable and best in class performance. Web hosting companies are able to handle a wide range of IT requirements and businesses should consider working with them to improve their business processes or leverage the online world to create bottom-line value.

It was all the buzz. GMail experienced a hiccup and was down for a couple hours last week. I missed the whole thing. However; when I started checking my newsreader and twitter, email, etc. everywhere I turned people had been crying, “GMail is down! We’re DOOMED!“

I was quite surprised at the public outrage. I use GMail for my personal email. I’ve been using it for years without issue. I think in all those years I’ve experienced (personally) about 10 minutes of downtime. I had no idea it was down last week during the actual outage as I was working and didn’t try to check my email during those few hours. Even if I did, I would have felt at most slightly annoyed and would have came back to it later.

What’s surprising is how many stated they felt disconnected, unproductive, and were moving to another free email service, such as Yahoo. In this day and age of technology, there are countless ways to communicate, and while email is very convenient especially with those abroad, it certainly isn’t the only form of communication. Systems go down. Services fail. It’s just a fact of life in this world of computers, routers, networks, and email. One should always have a backup plan.

To Google’s credit, they explained, “We feel your pain, and we’re sorry” Which is all they can really do.

Today we find in our voicemail queue that someone overnight left a rather unique message. We were rickrolled.

Wikipedia definition of “Rickrolling”

Rickrolling is an Internet meme involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up“. The meme is a bait and switch: a person provides a Web link they claim is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the Astley video. The URL can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true source of the link without clicking (and thus satisfying their curiosity). When a person clicks on the link given and is led to the web page he/she is said to have been “Rickrolled”.

I love when our customers have a sense of humor. Here’s the message.

So… anyone gonna confess?

The green buzz is being exploited all over the web and abroad lately. What does it mean to be green exactly?

ok thats not what I meant, but kermit would be proud nonetheless. It means having little or no impact on your environment in short. Consider the materials needed for all the computing and server parts to the ridiculous sums of energy needed to run server farms 24/7. To be quite honest datacenters and server farms are one of the worst things to hit the environment in the modern decade.

Take a look at your homes electric bill and consider how cool it needs to be so your tv doesnt burn out if left on all day and night for years straight. The tv itself is chewing up energy and the a/c is working overtime to cool that system, fans and other systems are working nonstop to remove the heat. Now imagine your one pc in your home office has to remain online all day and night. Now imagine you have one thousand offices in your home, besides declaring bankrupcty since you cant afford the power, how is that remotely close to being friendly to mother nature.

We can and do look at ways to reduce our impact but our electric bill alone tells us when it comes to being green, datacenters have a long way to go. Some ways we try to reduce our impact are recycling hot water from coolers to use as heating for offices, using raised flooring and channels to remove heat and apply cooling better, reducing old ineffecient servers by using more virtualization and newer more efficient processors. The main drive for this happens to be profit margins though, not just being green.

Don’t let corporate spin masters make you think giant datacenters are helping mother nature. The fact is its good for business and thats why its being done. Consider that one cabinet of 25 servers in the sub $200 market, drawing 30amps of power 24/7 is now replacable by one monster vps node. Granted our monster vps nodes pack a lot of power under the hood and easily consume the power of 3 of those servers alone. 25 to 3 is a pretty significant power and cost savings.

So buy more vps hosting , mother nature will thank you for it. Ok probably not but we will, and it really does make a difference compared to the old standard of dedicated servers. Quite frankly the need for dedicated servers under $200 mo is dimenishing quickly thanks to virtualization technologies like Virtuozzo, openvz, xen, Vscontrol.

Why? Well, despite the fact that I work at the greatest web hosting company in the world, it’s because I am now an iPhone user.

I’ve held off for years jumping on the cell phone gadget bandwagon. The closest I’ve ever been to having anything that was “latest and greatest” in the cell phone world is picking up a new Motorola Razr two years after the first Razr came out (or getting my iPod as a gift several years after MP3 players became all the rave). Even then, I didn’t have a text message plan. I saw no need to text people when I could just call them.

That all changed last month when our oldest went and moved two states away after graduation. My husband made the case that it would be easier to communicate with her if we had some sort of texting plan. OK Fine. We started out with a little $5.00 – 200-texts-a-month plan. EXCEPT: I soon discovered they would use that up in the first week! I quickly changed it to an unlimited plan. Once the family got word we had the much coveted Unlimited Texting ability, miraculously one of my kids sent and received 150 texts the FIRST DAY we had the plan. I didn’t even know that was possible.

It took me a bit longer to catch on to the texting bug. I found it difficult to tap out texts to my kids or husband on my little Razr. Then I got my hands on my friend’s iPhone. He bought one last year when they first came out and I’ve always been intrigued by it. I found out texting on it is a breeze. The more I messed around with my friend’s iPhone, the more I wanted one.

On July 11, 2008, the day of the iPhone G3 launch, I became an iPhone user. And I’m loving every minute of it. I’ve become almost as bad as my children finding reasons to text family members and friends, and if I could talk my boss into getting some sort of text plan, I’d probably find reasons to text him too! (*cough hint hint *cough)

My favorite features so far:

• The built-in GPS. This is going to prove exceptionally useful for my forever navigationally challenged husband.
• The iPod. I no longer have to carry around my iPod and my phone. I now have both in one little gadget.
• It’s super easy to text with the qwerty keyboard.
• The ease of downloading and installing apps from the App store.. For example, Twitter; I love my twitter and now I can get updates super easy on my phone. I even downloaded an application that allows me to control iTunes on my computer from my phone.
• Internet and eMail access on the go from anywhere I have a signal, which so far has been everywhere.

Do you have an iPhone? If not, why? If so, what are your favorite features?

A question we often get asked is, “What is the difference between your VPS plans and your SDX (Semi-Dedicated) plans?”

Semi-Dedicated
Our SDX plan is basically one shared hosting account on a powerful server. What’s different compared to our standard shared hosting plan is that there far fewer accounts on our SDX servers. So you have more resources available to you. For example, if you have a fairly busy forum not suitable for regular shared hosting, you would want to purchase our Semi-Dedicated hosting plan.

SDX is not intended to be used to resell hosting since it is still a basic shared account. It’s intended for those who still want a shared hosting environment that packs a bit more punch. Our SDX plans are also good for a video share website.

VPS
A VPS (Virtual Private Server) is sort of like having a dedicated server in terms of customization abilities but without the extra cost (because it’s still a shared hosting environment). Our VPS plan offers full root or administrator access and you have full control over the settings and software on the server. Think of a VPS plan as having a partition on a large server.

You would have a choice of which OS (operating system) you wish to have installed. The choices are:

• CentOS (most popular)
• Debian
• Fedora Core
• Suse
• Windows<

You can also choose which version of MySQL, PHP, mail, etc. you want installed. (You cannot do this with Semi-Dedicated.) In addition, you get the choice on which control panel you’d like to use to administer your VPS. The choices are:

• cPanel
• Direct Admin
• Interworx
• Plesk

SDX plans come with cPanel only.

A VPS account can be used to resell hosting if you desire. In a nutshell, VPS plans allow you to completely customize the Virtual Private Server to suit your hosting needs.

This is also discussed in the JaguarPC Forums in this thread: VPS vs Semi dedicated

Both are powerful hosting solutions and JaguarPC provides both options at very reasonable prices. Check out these current specials:

• SDX Specials
• JaguarPC Free Control Panel’s Super Ram Bonus’s (VPS)

We’ve had a few customers asking how ‘Green’ JaguarPC Web Hosting is or if we have plans on ‘going green‘.

It’s tough to answer exactly how green JaguarPC is but I can tell you this:

JaguarPC promotes recycling. Personally I will never throw away paper, aluminum, cardboard, plastic, etc. We use our recycling service faithfully.

Our data center does the following to help:

• Use dry coolers to heat generator rooms and reverse flow hot water from the Data Center to heat staff areas. This means a gas/electric heating system is unnecessary.
• Pumps and cooling units have devices that use only as much power needed to cool the water based on how hot the water is. This lowers electricity usage as much as 40%.
• A well supplies the cooling towers which eliminates the use of chlorine. (Chlorine produces dioxins.) This also eliminates the use of electricity to pump the water to the data center from the treatment facility which will save a huge amount of energy and chemicals being consumed.
• Generators use 5% biodiesel
• Planted enough trees so it’s near carbon neutral.

Every little bit helps and we will continue to research and implement environmentally-friendly alternatives wherever possible.

I just thought I’d share this little tidbit of fun I just had with my cable internet provider. Here’s a bit of the back story:

Last night my husband logged into his laptop and it came up with a big yellow/blue screen saying he had spyware. There was no link, just big giant letters saying he was infected with spyware. There was no way out of it. He tried everything and finally gave up, formatted it, and re-installed Windows. Our kids were the last to use that computer so it’s safe to assume they are the culprits.

Today I had trouble using my cable provider’s SMTP services. This isn’t uncommon. They sometimes limit the number of connections so I didn’t think twice. An hour later it was still an issue. Then I noticed I had received an email from them stating they had to take action because our IP was used to send spam. Hm.. Laptop had a virus last night and today we’re told our IP was used to send spam. Coincidence? I think not.

Here’s the conversation I then had with my cable provider via phone:

cable guy: we can fix this, you just need to change your port. Open up Outlook and…
me: I don’t use Outlook, I use Thunderbird.
cable guy: oh well I am not familiar with Thunderbird, Hm, let me find my notes.
me: I am familiar with it, Just tell me the port please.
cable guy: 587.
me: OK port changed to 587, anything else?
cable guy: Yeah you need to authenticate with the server. If you let me find my notes on Thunderbird I’ll tell you how to do that.
me: I just need to check incoming mail first and that will authenticate.
cable guy: Um, no I don’t think that works. Hold on while I find my notes on Thunderbird.
me: I’m quite familiar with Thunderbird so don’t worry there. But I’ll just check incoming (I check incoming.)
me: Yep, that worked. I can send email again. Thanks.
cable guy: Wait, you can do that? Just check incoming first to authenticate?
me: ...

(Sidenote: If I had known that all I needed to do was switch ports I wouldn’t have needed to even call them.)

I was really surprised the cable guy didn’t know that checking incoming email will authenticate you with the server so you can then send email. It should be his job to know this. It’s not quite as obvious to the end user (and in fact our own customers here at JaguarPC may not know this), so he should have been telling ME that. Not me telling him.

But there you have it folks. If you check incoming email before sending, you will be authenticated!

There is often some confusion about what all comes with a web hosting package. Usually the misconceptions are based on the type of support that is offered when purchasing a web hosting plan.

Web hosting providers are a lot like property or apartment managers.

Lets compare. First, I’ll start with shared hosting.

Do you remember when GeoCities first came out? In order to get a free web site, you first had to pick your neighborhood based on your site’s content. For example, if you had a site about technology, you’d choose the neighborhood silicon valley. From there you’d choose a house. Each house was assigned a number and your website URL would then be geocities.com/siliconvalley/[housenumber]. GeoCities long ago did away with that format, and web hosting has come a long way since those days but the concept of shared web hosting is mostly the same.

When you purchase a shared hosting plan, you’re essentially renting space on a web server that is shared by several other web site owners all hoping to host a web site on a budget. The server space will come fully ready for you to ‘move in to’. Essentially, the electricity will be turned on, the fridge will be present for you to store your perishables, and water will run. The property managers (web host provider) will make sure you have a clean space to move your stuff into. It is then up to you you to move your furniture in and organize it however you want.

Web hosting providers generally do not provide support for coding, scripting, development, or design. Just as apartment managers generally don’t tell you where to hang your pictures, which furniture to use or where to put your things.

What if something breaks?

“Your analogy doesn’t work. My property manager will fix the stove if it breaks.”

If something that comes with your shared hosting plan breaks, lets say cPanel in this example, we will certainly fix it for you. But we aren’t going to cook your dinner for you and neither will your property manager.

“What about all the cool programs you offer for me to install? Like Wordpress? Do you support that?”

We can host a Wordpress site and we even offer an easy way for you to install it. Wordpress is a third party product. Think of Wordpress as the refrigerator in your apartment. It may come with the apartment but your apartment managers didn’t create it. You can put whatever you want in it. But your property managers aren’t going to keep it clean for your nor throw out the food that goes bad. That’s your job. The concept is the same with hosting a Wordpress site. You need to keep it clean and updated to the latest secure version. This actually applies to any software, script, or program you install on your website.

This doesn’t mean you’re completely on your own. Your ‘property managers’ are going to keep an eye on things (servers) and make sure your ‘neighbors’ (other customers) aren’t making life miserable. Kind of like a gated community: We’ll attempt to block intruders and abusive ‘renters’ who continually have a detrimental effect on their neighbors will be asked to ‘move out’.

“What about VPS. You do everything, right?”

Purchasing a VPS hosting plan is like purchasing a condominium. It’s still shared with others, but you’ll have more control over what happens in your ‘space’. Your hosting provider will provide you with the basics, and you can purchase addons such as a control panel, extra RAM, etc, but the concept of the apartment is still the same. What you do from there with your site space is up to you. Your web hosting provider will still keep an eye on things and make sure your neighbors are all playing nice, but the space you’re renting is yours to maintain and keep up to date.

“I get it. But what about a dedicated server? Surely you’ll do anything I want?”

Not quite. When you purchase a dedicated server plan it’s like renting a house. It’s bigger than an apartment, and you have all the control to do whatever you wish with the space. You can even invite your friends over for a party! But it’s totally yours to maintain and operate on your own.

Lets say you want maid service, lawn care, and extra security. You’d pay extra for these if renting a house, right? The same holds true for dedicated web hosting. You can purchase Managed Services of different levels depending on your needs and we’ll take care of things for you. I warn you though, we don’t do windows. (Get it??) (OK. OK. I lied. You can actually add on Windows OS for just $35 more on our dedicated hosting plans.)

“I only need an apartment (shared hosting). Can I at least pay you to help me out with some things?”

Sure. We can do script installations and even upgrades of third party products if you wish. There is a fee attached, but this type of support does not come standard with a non-managed hosting account.

In a nutshell, Web Hosting and renting an apartment is pretty similar. We’ll provide you fresh clean space to work with, and we’ll keep things running smoothly. We’ll even offer a few tools and perks to keep your new place shiny and sparkly, but it’s ultimately up to you to decide what you want on your site, where you’ll put things, and how.

It seems there’s been a bit of drama today in the web hosting world that’s being played on blogs. It’s times like these I’m very thankful to work for such a grounded and solid web hosting company.

If you, like me, don’t care for any of the hassle of wondering which web hosting company is going to run you off next, it’s time to come check out JaguarPC (if you haven’t already). We offer personal service from qualified professionals with our customer’s happiness in mind.

Remember those web hosting coupon codes I mentioned in my last post? Here they are!

VPS Coupon Code: New2008VPS

Reseller Coupon Code: Resell2008
Shared Hosting Coupon Code: BestHost2008
Semi Dedicated Coupon Code: SemiDed2008