iWeb Communities: Blog

Cloud Servers
You can now rename your Cloud servers with the alias of your choice.

Montreal, QC, May 2nd, 2012 – iWeb ranks 107th in the 2012 edition of Branham300, the annual list of the 300 largest Internet and Communications Technology (ICT) companies in Canada, based on revenue. iWeb, who incidentally provides cloud computing infrastructure to several of the companies that made this year’s ranking, continues its climb, from 241st in 2006 to 107th in 2012.

“First things first: congratulations to all our clients and partners who made it into the 2012 ranking!” says Eric Chouinard, iWeb President and Chairman, recently back from a trade mission in Brazil.

The company’s 2011 revenues exceeded US $36M, up 24% from $29.5M in 2010.

“This year’s ranking suggests that the Canadian technology industry is in good shape, a very promising indicator for our future growth in the Canadian market,” adds Chouinard, who co-founded the Montreal-based IT Infrastructure company in 1996 with Martin Leclair. “We are delighted to be recognized among the leading Canadian IT companies, and we are particularly proud that our 24% growth rate compares very well with the ranking’s 11.75% average. It would be great to break into the Top 100 next year! ”

According to the Branham Group, Canada’s ICT industry got back on track in 2011, as cumulative revenues for the Top 250 Canadian Tech companies combined to set a new Branham300 revenue record in 2011, increasing sales by 11.75% to $82.62B. The previous year’s growth was only 3.66%.

Since its inception, iWeb has created over 200 jobs, opened four IT and data centers in Montreal and, after being publicly-traded for eight years, completed its privatization in June of 2011. iWeb recently released a new “kinder” Cloud Server service, powered by its Smart Layer technology. Furthermore, it ranked 18th among the 42 Quebec companies who made it into the 2012 ranking and has no intention of slowing its financial or technological growth.

About iWeb (iWeb.com)

iWeb provides the on-demand server and cloud infrastructure that allows over 20,000 customers worldwide to deliver today’s Internet-based technologies and to create tomorrow’s online innovations. Since 1996, Montreal-based iWeb has been rated among the world’s top web infrastructure providers based on performance and reliability and among Canada’s fastest growing companies.

http://www.iweb.com

About Branham Group Inc.

Branham Group Inc. is a leading industry analyst and strategic consulting company servicing the global information, communication, and entertainment (ICE) technology marketplace. Branham Group assists technology companies and related institutions in achieving market success through its custom consulting services (Planning, Marketing and Partnering), and through its multi-client research subscription programs (Digital Health, Green IT and Cloud). Branham also produces an annual listing of the top ICT companies in Canada (www.branham300.com) and monitors over 450 Digital Health vendors. 
http://www.branhamgroup.com.

Contact:
Bernard Dahl
Media Relations / Public Relations
514-762-6468
bernard@presentis.ca

Montreal, April 4 2012 — Eric Chouinard, iWeb President and CEO, will be in Brazil from April 9 to 14 to present the company’s latest Cloud, web and Internet infrastructure solutions during Quebec’s Brazilian trade mission.

iWeb’s Brazilian client base has grown exponentially, from 11 clients in 2006 to nearly 1,100 today; this represents nearly 10% of the Cloud hosting company’s client base. Also noteworthy, iWeb’s 2011 revenues grew to U.S. $ 35 million.

“Brazil has quickly become one of our most exciting markets; Brazilians are seizing opportunities within their market, and they are using our infrastructure to provide international levels of performance and reliability”, says Eric Chouinard, who will be participating in his fifth trade mission since 2008. He added that “Something very special is happening in Brazil, the entrepreneurial energy among tech companies is unbelievable – I’m eager to experience it firsthand!”

This pan-industry trade mission is organised by Québec’s Ministry of Economic Development, Innovation and Export to promote cooperation in the fields of technology and science.

About iWeb (iWeb.com)

iWeb provides the on-demand server and cloud infrastructure that allows over 20,000 customers worldwide to deliver today’s Internet-based technologies and to create tomorrow’s online innovations. Since 1996, Montreal-based iWeb has been rated among the world’s top web infrastructure providers based on performance and reliability and among Canada’s fastest growing companies.

http://www.iweb.com

Contact:

Bernard Dahl

Media Relations

514-762-6468

bernard@presentis.ca

Montreal, April 4^th, 2012 – iWeb announces the launch of its new Cloud Server service, powered by its Smart Layer Technology, engineered to be “kinder” and easier to manage by customers, who increasingly require Cloud platforms and servers which are easy to use, quickly deployed and provide capacity and performance on demand – billed by the hour.

“Our customers asked for cloud services, and we heard them loud and clear. We also heard horror stories from businesses that had been charged outrageous amounts for data transfer fees using other cloud platforms. So we decided to build a kinder cloud; one that won’t drown your business with unexpected charges” says Martin Leclair, President of Products and iWeb co-Founder.

Designed to meet the high customer demand for scalable server hosting solutions, provisioned on demand and billed on an hourly basis, the iWeb Cloud Service allows customers to utilize the resources they need, when they need them most and for just as long as required.

“By extending our SmartLayer technology, we have developed a highly performing cloud offering that will exceed the needs of most customers, who can now build their hosting infrastructure using both the new Cloud Server and the Smart Server, which share the same high performance local network”.

The iWeb cloud is a natural progression for the company, which has focused on expanding its highly resilient infrastructure with a high degree of automation. The past two years has seen dramatic growth at iWeb both in terms of customer growth and in terms of the investments made to build highly automated and integrated solutions.

For a limited time, the new Cloud service offers unmetered traffic  and no data transfer charges within the iWeb network and out to the internet. Competitively priced and backed by iWeb’s 24/7 hardware, infrastructure and network support, the new Cloud Service is available directly from iWeb.com and through iWeb’s extensive partner and reseller network.  

About iWeb (iWeb.com)

iWeb provides the on-demand server and cloud infrastructure that allows over 20,000 customers worldwide to deliver today’s Internet-based technologies and to create tomorrow’s online innovations. Since 1996, Montreal-based iWeb has been rated among the world’s top web infrastructure providers based on performance and reliability and among Canada’s fastest growing companies.

http://www.iweb.com

Contact:

Bernard Dahl

Media Relations / Public Relations

514-762-6468

bernard@presentis.ca

Version 2.0.3.0

Control Center

• Upgrade to the Control Center to add feature enhancements.

Smart Layer

• Smart Servers now benefits of two new automated tasks in it’s provisioning and closing processes;
• Fixed a problem where the reinstallation of a Smart Server would not complete when the Smart Firewall was active.

Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows remote desktop protocol has been discovered that could enable unauthorized code execution on an un-patched server.

We strongly advise anyone who uses a Windows server to update their server operation system with the MS12-020 patch, released by Microsoft.

You can get more details at this url: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms12-020

If you have any comments or queries, do not hesitate to contact our technical support team.

Version 2.0.2

Control Center

• Fixed a bug that allowed the assignment of an empty alias for a Smart Server;
• Fixed a bug that made it possible to reinstall a 32 bit operating system for a Smart Server that had more than 4 GB of ram.

R1Soft

• Fixed a bug that limited disk space allocated to R1Soft backups for servers with large disks.

You may have heard through the grapevine that iWeb will soon launch a new product: the Cloud Server.

A beta version was launched a few weeks ago that made a limited number VMs available to Smart Server customers right in their Control Center. Continue reading »

iWeb has confirmed that Bruce Knooihuizen, until recently Chief Financial Officer of Rackspace, has joined its Board of Directors. We’re thrilled to be able to count on his experience, knowledge and intuition! We are very happy with the addition of Bruce Knooihuizen to our Board of Directors, his experience in building some of the most successful and profitable cloud and telecom infrastructures will add depth to an already strong management team.

A veteran of the telecommunications Industry since 1980, Bruce was named CFO of Rackspace in 2008, and played a key role in taking the Company public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:RAX) later that year, in what was the biggest IPO in the history of Internet Hosting Industry. At the time of his departure, Rackspace had seen its value grow to nearly $4.9 Billion USD.

Prior to that, Bruce had overseen the growth of Dobson Communications Corporation, in Oklahoma City. Valued at nearly $5 Billion USD at the time of its sale to AT&T, Dobson’s revenues had grown from $34 million to a $1.4 Billion.

Read the official press release.

Here is a new article written by our guest blogger, Charles Lacroix. This time he shares with us his test results on load-balancing with Smart Servers.

I recently had the occasion do a lot of tests on my Smart Servers. I installed several webmail software, I tested  email relaying via the private network. I also experimented with reverse proxy and load balancing Continue reading »

When it comes to choosing an adequate solution for hosting your project, many options are available. Dedicated servers and VPS are two of the most common hosting solutions.

Depending on your project however, there are several reasons why you should consider a dedicated Smart Server instead of a VPS. Continue reading »

The Spamhaus organization has granted iWeb a star. It’s a little bit like getting a Triple A rating but for fighting spam :)

Most importantly, it means that we currently have no SBL listings for our IP space! We were recognized by the Spamhaus Team as a proactive no-spam-tolerance network.

This is quite rare as Spamhaus listing process is very strict and thorough. That is something we are very proud of.

Continue reading »

Debian is the OS of choice for many of our customers. As of February 2011, Debian’s latest stable release is version 6.0, code name squeeze. When a new version is released, the prior stable version becomes oldstable. As of 2011, this is version 5.0, code named lenny.

iWeb currently only offers Debian lenny as an install option on Smart Servers. Many of you requested that we supported the latest Debian distro named squeeze. Continue reading »

Version 2.0.1.0

Version 2.0.0.0

Smart Layer

• Smart Servers are now benefiting from higher performance thanks to the various adjustments made to the new version of Smart Layer.
• The problems encountered by some customers related to the automated installation of R1Soft under CentOS, have been solved through the integration of a patch released by R1Soft.

Version 1.1.19.0

Billing and customer accounts systems,  domain names registration website

• Both Funio and iWeb are now autonomous in their operations. Funio now handles its own billing systems and customer account management.
• The domain names registration website has been upgraded and is now fully operated by Funio.

SOPA and PIPA are respectively two bills in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate.

SOPA is the acronym of “Stop Online Piracy Act” and PIPA stands for “Protect Intellectual Property Act”.

The goals of these two bills are to stop copyright infringement on the Web in the United States, originating especially from foreign countries, according to American legislators. Continue reading »

Hi all! Today is a great day as Funio becomes autonomous and will manage its own operations.

Funio’s new system for managing customer accounts, the new domain names reservation system, the knowledge base and all the other new features previously announced were put into production as of 7 am this morning.

The following changes, which will affect Funio’s shared hosting customers, are effective immediately: Continue reading »

At iWeb we strongly believe in freedom of speech. In the vast majority of cases we do not interfere with the contents that are hosted on our customers’ (and their customers’) servers.

But there is Zero Tolerance when it comes to illegal activities and especially anything related to children exploitation. Spread the word! Continue reading »

A couple of years ago we published this nice roundup. It is always amazing to see how fast technology evolves and how obsolete computer equipment can become.

Now that 2011 is down the drain and a full 30 years have passed since the IBM VM Machine, we thought you’d appreciate us to update and republish it.

Check out the updated ending, enjoy and comment! Continue reading »

Great news to kickstart the new year 2012! Netcraft, a firm which measures reliability, availability and performance of networks, has once again ranked iWeb as one of the web hosting companies operating the most reliable network. Placing fourth in December, iWeb regularly made Netcraft’s Top 10 in 2011. Continue reading »

After what has been a very exciting year, the entire team and family at iWeb wishes you a very merry holiday season.

More specifically, we wish you success, health, wealth, happiness and a bit of luck (if you need it) :-)

Thank you for being an important part of our 15th and busiest year’s successes, we look forward to working with you in 2012!

Together we can keep making the Web a better place for everyone, one project at a time.

Until then, Cheers! Happy Holidays and all the best!

The iWeb Team

P.S. iWeb is available 24/7 during the holiday season. If you need anything please contact us: http://iweb.com/contact-us

iWeb’s co-founders, Eric Chouinard and Martin Leclair, discuss iWeb’s 15 first years in business and Smart Server’s 1st anniversary. Continue reading »

You are an entrepreneur or you work for a company that offers web hosting services to its clients? You will certainly be interested to hear more about our new reseller program.

By reselling iWeb’s dedicated servers, you will be able to offer value-added services, such as fully-managed hosting, shared hosting, vps hosting, virtualization and so on, without having to manage and invest in costly hosting infrastructure, like datacenters and network. Continue reading »

It cannot be repeated too often, it’s important to pay attention to our habits when it comes to security on the internet.

At any time, whether at work or at home, whenever you use a password protected connection, you must be very cautious about protecting personal information.

This is especially important if you offer server management services to many clients. Continue reading »