iWeb Communities: Blog

If you get a new dedicated server, it’s very likely that you’d use it as a web server, or alternatively as a database server or file (assets) server. These represents the vast majority of cases.

From time to time though, we do see people using a server in very original ways, sometimes with bewilderment, sometimes with a blank stare, but most of the times amazed at the creativity. As a fun exercise, I’ve made a (short) list of creative ways on using a server. A few of them are useful and you could probably and run them on your machine, although my guess is that they’ll stay as as exceptions.  (more…)

iWeb has recently been voted one of the most popular web hosting companies by webhosting industry specialized website, Dedicated Server Directory

Part of the Serchen Network, this site lists all the webhosting companies in Canada and the United States. Every month it ranks the 25 most popular companies listed on their directory. (more…)

From time to time, we like to bring you some news about the evolution of our new data center. Since our last article a lot of work has been accomplished. The old factory we acquired in Ville-Lasalle, near Montréal is really starting to look like a full-fledged data center. (more…)

iWeb recently acquired from Zerowait two Netapp FAS960 filers for a 4 TB total capacity.

The two FAS960 will be configured as a cluster on our disks units, so if one of the two devices fails the other one will take over automatically.

This new unit will be used for our email clusters Jinn and Lumiva and will replace the NetApp F840 that is online since november 2004. The new unit will allow us to quadruple our disc space and more than double the performance. (more…)

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a technology allowing a higher level of storage reliability and performance from disk-drive components via the technique of arranging them into arrays. A RAID array is a configuration with multiple physical disks set up to use a RAID architecture like RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, etc. While the RAID array distributes data across multiple disks, it is considered as a single disk by the server operating system. (more…)

We are proud to announce that Ubuntu LTS 10.04 is now available for your dedicated servers.

As you may already know, Ubuntu releases an LTS version (Long Term Support) every 2 years and the last release was in april 2008.

We put all necessary efforts to offer you the brand new version at the same time as the official launch.

Version 10.04 offers the following benefits for dedicated servers: updated kernel to version 2.6.32, faster reboot and the latest versions of software.

This version takes advantage of many other changes, the full list is available here:
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/1004overview

Version 10.04 is also available for download in our mirrors section.

Contact us for more info.

Always concerned about the quality of our service, we have recently installed a second power-generation unit in our data center on Nun’s Island (iWeb-CO).

Our goal is to maintain a N +1 infrastructure, meaning that each piece of critical equipment is redundant and can be immediately replaced in case of failure, as it is the case with our uninterruptible power supply units (UPS).

The newly installed generator is a Cummins 1.75MW. These generators can take over in the event of a failure of the regular electrical power service normally supplied by Hydro-Quebec.

Here are some pictures taken during the operation:

Once again, for the 6th time in 2009, the iWeb network is reported as the most stable and reliable, according to the Netcraft ranking, which measures the reliability and network performance of web hosting companies. NetCraft ranked iWeb.com 6th in its rankings.

With this 6th rank in Netcraft’s top 10, we can state that iWeb’s BGP network is one of the best, or the best, in the web hosting industry.

Be sure that we work hard to improve one of the best Internet network in the world

Once again, iWeb is in the top 10 of the most reliable web hosting providers, according to the well-known benchmarking website Netcraft, which lists each month data on lost requests and connection times.

It’s the 5th time that iWeb is ranked amongst the top 10 of most reliable web hosting company in the world in 2009. It’s the result of our excellent network, of our products, as well as our team of 178 passionnate of web hosting!

We will receive a new A/C unit, a Liebert XDC of 45 tons capacity in a few days, and it will be installed in the iWeb-CL colocation zone. This will add up to the 4 other Liebert System 3 of 20 tons, for a total capacity of 125 tons. The new unit is planned to be activated at the end of October.

After the installation and the provisioning of this new unit, we will proceed to the planned maintenance and cleaning of 2 Liebert. We must stop them completely, during 2-3 days, for their total cleanup. Because of the normal usage of this AC units, their efficiency drop every month and those 2 units operate at only 50%, with temperate raising by a few degrees at the southern entrance of iWeb-CL. Temperature is now 24-25 Celcius degrees in this data center zone, but this is still below the ASHRAE norm which advises 27 degrees.

With the new 45 tons capacity of the Liebert XDC, we can stop those units, without raising the heat in the colocation zone in iWeb-CL, and even stabilize the small raise.

If you want to know more about the ASHRAE norm, you can read this excellent article at Data Center Knowledge.