Blog
Forum
StatusiWeb founders honored
iWeb founders Martin Leclair and Éric Chouinard were both among the honors this week, recognized by professional development institutions who are helping shape the innovators of the future. Both receive awards recognizing their personal success as well as contribution to developing opportunities for other like-minded entrepreneurs.
Continue reading »
How to build applications in the Cloud
Yesterday was a big day for iWeb with the launch of our Managed Cloud offer powered by OpenStack and SolidFire, and we had the opportunity to talk at the “Parlons-en du Cloud” event. As promised during our “Architecture Matters: How to build Applications in the Cloud” talk, here are the slides we showed.
For more information or if you have any questions, leave a comment or contact us here.
iWeb First To Launch Managed Cloud Hosting Service with guaranteed performance and reliability
The service guarantees disk speed, system management, availability and other elements often stated as barriers to Cloud adoption.
MONTREAL, May 16, 2013 - Canada-based infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) leader iWeb announces the launch of a fully-managed Cloud hosting service based on OpenStack®.
The managed Cloud service is the first Openstack public cloud deployment in Canada and the first in the industry to provide guaranteed disk speed as a standard, a key element of overall system performance. The other key components of this breakthrough service are worry-free system management, rapid deployment, Cloud elasticity, scalability and soon, a robust application-programming interface (API).
“This service would not have been technologically possible even 12 months ago,” says Mike Gero, Director of Product Management. “When we looked at the market we couldn’t find a cloud that met all our customers needs. By engineering this cloud with the best vendors and technologies, we are delivering something I am sure customers will enjoy and competitors will envy. We truly believe this will meet our customer’s performance, availability and support requirements. Due to our use of SSD drives our standard disk performance is on average 2x that of other Cloud providers and the security of customer data is maintained with data replication and redundancy.”
Openstack infrastructure + iWeb’s network + Solid state disk drives (SSD)
= Guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS)
In-house, colocation, dedicated & managed hosting – comparison and examples
Hosting decisions can have far reaching consequences for a business and its customers. Our comparison of in-house hosting vs. the outsourcing options gives you an overview of the choices and some of the benefits and disadvantages of each, as well as some examples of when different organizations might be better suited to a certain type of hosting. We will consider the following:
- In-house
- Colocation
- Dedicated hosting
- Managed hosting
Hosting product survey – win 1 of 5 Google Chromebooks
Please take a few minutes to help us make the world of hosting a better place! Complete our hosting product survey and not only will you have your say on the future of hosting, you’ll also enter a prize draw to win a beautiful, ultraportable Google Chromebook worth $250. Contest Terms and Conditions.
iWeb on the road
It will be a busy year for iWeb in terms of events but we like to stay close to our clients and partners.
Here is a first list of events we will be attending (starting today), whether as a sponsor, a speaker, to present our products and services or simply to be a part of the audience and say hi to our friends and learn more about what is going on in the exciting world of web hosting.
Continue reading »
iWeb Joins OpenStack Foundation, Commits To “Open Cloud” Standard
Canadian Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provider becomes a corporate partner and one of top 50 sponsors of the OpenStack Foundation.
MONTREAL, April 15, 2013 – Canada-based infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) leader iWeb has joined the OpenStack® Foundation as a corporate sponsor with a commitment to developing open cloud standards and technologies.
The OpenStack Foundation supports a global community of more than 8,800 members representing 850 unique organizations across 114 countries and is responsible for continuing to promote the development, distribution and adoption of OpenStack cloud software. Continue reading »
Celebrating another month of 100% uptime
March 2013 saw iWeb record a 44 successive month with no network downtime, maintaining our position as the most reliable hosting in the world for more than three years. Don’t take our word for it – our uptime is independent measured each month by hosting performance analysts Netcraft.
Continue reading »
iWeb Invests Big in Customer Service, Adds Customer Satisfaction Guru to Management Roster
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provider confirms Elya McCleave to lead customer service, completing the first phase of the company’s transformation following its 2011 privatization
MONTREAL, April 12, 2013 – Canada-based infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) company iWeb has appointed web-hosting industry veteran Elya McCleave to the new position of Vice President of Services. Ms. McCleave will lead a multi-departmental team responsible for customer service, technical support and client satisfaction, to ensure that the client experience is at the center of the provider’s current range of hosting services, as well as their expansion into managed technical and professional services.
“‘Our customers are at the heart of everything we do at iWeb“ says iWeb President and COO Christian Primeau, whose appointment nearly one year ago was the first of several high-profile hires by iWeb since its privatization. “As our services, technological environment, capabilities and capacity grow, so too do the needs and expectations of our customers. Elya’s track record of creating customer-centric environments has made her a customer service guru in this industry.” Continue reading »
New range of engineered dedicated servers
iWeb is proud to present an entirely new range of engineered dedicated server configurations, the result of months of customer consultations, performance optimization and further automation in our Montreal data centers.
It all adds up to a wider range of more powerful servers, at lower prices, delivered faster than ever.
Continue reading »
Recognizing phishing attempts
iWeb, like any company with a secure website, is occasionally the subject of phishing scams that aim to trick iWeb customers into giving personal information via email or via an illegitimate form.
Phishing emails will usually ask you to send personal information in reply to the email or will contain a link to an illegitimate website where you are asked to sign in or provide personal information.
In order to protect yourself from phishing scams, please remember to examine the email header and reply-to address, and the destination of any links in the email.
Here’s how to recognize a phishing email and how to respond if you think you might have received a phishing email. Continue reading »
A different kind of computer virus
Are you in the dark about how the current surge in influenza activity can impact your business? Think beyond the hand washing instructions posted in public washrooms and look past the hand sanitizer dispensers in every building lobby. Consider more than habit-changing memos from HR about covering your mouth while coughing and sneezing. While those are effective in slowing down the spreading of such a contagious virus, IT directors really need to think outside the tissue box. There are two major factors (besides your own health) to take into consideration with regards to the flu’s impact.
Continue reading »
China no.1 for online security attacks
The last few weeks have seen reports suggesting that China is currently the origin of around a third of global DDoS attacks, Rupert Murdoch tweeting that his Wall Street Journal is being targeted by Chinese hackers, and an announcement by the New York Times that it has been the subject of months of cyber attacks, also emanating from China.
Read on for a summary of these events and a look at international organizations’ attitudes to the threat of espionage from competitors, employees and governments.
Live chat now available in the Customer Hub
We’re delighted to announce that customer support via live chat is now available in the iWeb Customer Hub, as part of a range of improvements to our popular live chat support. The Customer Hub is the part of the iWeb Control Center that contains all your account details, billing and support ticket pages.
By extending live chat from iweb.com into the Customer Hub, it’s now more convenient than ever to get assistance from a member of our support team while you navigate around the site and pose questions in the live chat dialogue.
What’s more, it’s now quicker to reach the most suitable support department for your question: when you click to chat live with iWeb, you can immediately choose to speak to a technical support, billing or hosting sales specialist depending on your question, taking you straight to the right person.
Continue reading »
98 reasons why the planet’s happy you host with iWeb
It’s not just your users who are happy you host with iWeb, the world is officially a better place for it.
Our electricity is 98% renewable generated. It’s one of the reasons we can bring you more reliable hosting at a better price than our competitors. And it’s part of the inspiration behind our sustainable investment approach and long term perspective.
It’s also one of the reason’s we’re lucky to be located in Montréal, in Québec, Canada. Montréal is a city with a history rich in innovation that’s home to many technology companies and the incredibly talented people that make them tick. All just 45 miles (72 km) from the USA border.
Read on for more details about green hosting with iWeb, which is 98% powered by hydroelectricity.
The buck stops here
As of February 4, 2013, the Canadian penny is officially being taken out of circulation. What does this mean for iWeb customers? There’s no impact if you pay your bill by credit card as all electronic transactions will continue to be processed to the cent. We do accept cash payments at our Montréal office but as you can imagine, it’s as rare as an old $2 bill (remember those?). Electronic payments don’t require rounding up or down so no need to calculate the potential remainder in your IT spending budget. ;)
Still, some people are curious to ask, “What impact will this change (pun intended) have?” Fewer coins in your wallet? The absence of ‘give a penny, take a penny’ coin relief bowls at cash registers? Increased headaches for hyper-detailed accountants?
French & special characters in Canadian (.ca) domains
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), the organization that manages the .ca top level domain, has at long last introduced support for the full range of special characters (notably french characters like è, é, û, à, ç, ë, and œ).
Under CIRA’s new regime, every special character variant of a registered .ca domain name will automatically become part of an “administrative bundle”. That means people cannot purchase variants of existing domains that vary in special characters only – a pre-requisit for preventing fraud, phishing and spam.
However, the special character variants are not automatically registered to domain owners, nor therefore are special character domain URLs resolved or forwarded to their standard counterparts.
That means that individuals, organizations and companies who wish to register and manage their special character domain variants will have to go to the effort and expense of registering the new domain.
So what are the reasons, benefits and trends associated with special character domains, which have already been available under may other top level domains (.com, .fr etc) for some time?
Reverse DNS management now available in the Control Center
Managing your reverse DNS (rDNS) is now possible since this new feature has just been added to your Control Center.
For customers unfamiliar with reverse DNS, Reverse DNS works by starting with an IP address, and checking records to see if it points towards a domain. Unlike the regular DNS system which will allow multiple domains to be served from a single domain, the rDNS system only allows one IP per domain. More details about reverse DNS are available on our knowledge base http://kb.iweb.com/entries/21869927-reverse-dns-or-ptr?locale=1.
You will be able to add, delete or view the reverse DNS for all IPs that you have on each of your servers. It is important to note that this feature is available for Smart Servers, Classic and Cloud customers.
For more details on how to configure Reverse DNS in your Control Center, we invite you to read the article for this purpose available in our Knowledge Base http://kb.iweb.com/entries/22038828-configuring-reverse-dns-in-control-center?locale=1.
Choosing a hosting location – where to host a server?
When considering where to locate your server, the best location will depend on the quality of the hosting providers available, their connection to the global communications network and the proximity to your target markets. You should also briefly consider the legal, political, environmental and exchange risks.
Here’s a comprehensive overview of server location factors, and some information to help you make the important decision about where to host your website.
Entrepreneurial anemia in Québec
This article originally appeared on iWeb Chief Executive Officer Eric Chouinard’s blog on business news website lesaffaires.com
In the early 20th century, economists confirmed a link between entrepreneurship and economic growth. It’s a self-fulfilling cycle; more entrepreneurs ensure the growth of the economy, and a growing economy fosters entrepreneurs! In tangible terms, this translates to increased individual and collective wealth.
That being said, Québec’s entrepreneurial index, as measured by the rate of business start-ups and intent to start a business, puts us at the bottom of the scale. Research done by the Fondation de l’entrepreneurship (FDE) suggests that there are 40% fewer entrepreneurs in Quebec than in the rest of Canada. That’s right, 40%! Continue reading »
Do I need a vulnerability assessment?
The CVE (Common Vulnerabilities & Exposures) database includes over 59,000 known information security threats. While the techniques used to access your data or alter website code vary greatly, a security breach usually has one of these aims:
- Database access and the theft or corruption of personal or sensitive data
- Altering website code in order to change what users see
- Intercepting personal and sensitive data
- Denial of Service (DoS) attacks that render services unavailable
If you’re thinking about having a security expert or your hosting provider evaluate your website or server vulnerability, here are a few questions to ask yourself in order to help you decide.
Unmetered hosting, traffic & bandwidth guide
Unmetered hosting means a hosting plan with unmetered traffic. The price you pay each month does not depend on the amount of traffic (data) sent to and from your server during the month. But unmetered does not mean unlimited.
In fact unmetered hosting plans are often very limited in the amount of data you can send and receive, because data is often transferred between your servers and the public web at a lower speed.
This blog post will look at the terminology of server traffic and bandwidth. We’ll also explain how to get a clear picture of exactly what you are buying.
ADVA FSP 3000 deployed
We’re pleased to announce the deployment of the high-capacity, energy-efficient ADVA FSP 3000 optical transport solution throughout our high-speed Montréal network.
The ADVA FSP 3000 is the most efficient, reliable and scalable solution available and will help us scale our network while maintaining our promise of 100% uptime.
Website design brief – 8 things to consider
Every website development project is unique, and therefore so is every brief. But there are some common elements to consider that will help you cover all the right bases.
Your website will be tailored to the needs of your audience and your organization’s goals – hopefully these are already pretty closely aligned. And like any project, your website project will require some trade off between cost, timescales and quality. So we can’t give you all the answers, but we can give you some inspiration and reassurance.
1 Goals
Start with the goals and objectives of your website – why are you are building this site? Think about goals from both your organisation and your users point of view. If you have specific, quantified objectives, you can include these.
Your organisation’s goals might include:
- Business goals (selling dog baskets in North & South America)
- Marketing goals (positioning your brand as leaders in easy-clean dog basket materials)
- Communications goals (providing details of upcoming dog basket expos)
An overview of the hierarchy of goals, with any supporting information, gives a designer the context and direction that allows them put their creativity to good use in terms of content and design.
Understanding what you want users to do or find on your website also helps you to plan the optimum, typical or desired journey through the site.
2 Brand
Make it easy for the designer to reflect your brand profile and personality. If you have a corporate style guide, complete with palette, 100+ logo use scenarios and punctuation rules to read as gospel, attach them to your brief.
If you just have an idea in your mind of how you want users to perceive you, try and articulate this. Perhaps provide examples of brands who occupy a similar or relative space in your market, or another market entirely.
If you have a defined value proposition, strapline or current brand advertising that can be adapted to your website, share it. The more creative direction you provide now, the fewer revisions you will need later. Continue reading »
When the cloud weathered the storm
The internet is about people and hardware as well as the information sharing they facilitate. Among the infrastructure impacted by hurricane Sandy last week, the web felt the disruptive force of nature. It also helped people to tell the unusual story of what happens when a hurricane strays north.
Its easy to forget about the work that goes on behind the scenes of the internet. The people and the hardware that host, power and facilitate the medium. We tend to think about the words, images, videos and data, and even the people who create them, and less about the infrastructure they rely on.
This is more true than ever in the age of the cloud. To the end user, cloud hosting is not about paravirtualized drivers and hypervisors but data accessibility and simple interfaces. For cloud-based services, the model is an opportunity for brands and services that make access to data and media simple, reliable and a little bit fluffy.
Clouds collide
The clouds making the headlines last week were more tangible. Indeed, they could be seen from space in satellite images published on weather and news websites charting the course of hurricane Sandy across the ocean to New York and New Jersey.
Sandy was bigger global news than many other hurricanes because it reached the north east of the United States. And the unprecedented demand for information this produced was met head-on, even fuelled by, an enormous variety of web reporting and footage. Continue reading »