iWeb Communities: Blog

Some companies are still reluctant to outsource their server management although there is many benefits one could get from hosting companies such as iWeb.

Les Affaires newspaper has recently published a special report (in french) about servers for businesses that was talking about, among other things, iWeb’s services. The newspaper used, as an example, the case of a Montreal based company, Logiweb, which is really grateful to have outsourced its server management to iWeb : “Our objective, by using iWeb as a partner, is to focus on our specialization, which is the optimization of human ressources management, and to leave the other tasks to the experts“, explains Yves Forget from Logiweb.

Among the benefits of outsourcing, there is of course the advantage of being able to rely on experts, but also to avoid the hassle of finding qualified workers and to avoid paying for costly hosting infrastructures within the company. “Our servers at Logiweb costed us many thousand dollars in equipment and time. However, as for the servers we use for our customers, iWeb offers cost-effective services which allowed us to save on the initial investment“.

The Infoworld magazine also reported the case of the Bazaarvoice website who, having outsourced the management of its infrastructure, is able to manage its IT operations with only two employees out of a total of 200.

Furthermore, web hosts such as iWeb offer redundant services and a secure environment, far away from disasters. Logiweb story of a fire in their offices really well illustrates this situation : “Fortunately, all the servers who served our customers was in iWeb datacenter. We were therefore able to continue to offer all our customer a service without interruption even though our building was on fire !”

According to Infoworld, the fact that hosting infrastructures are increasingly complex also invites companies to outsource. Considering that the success on the Internet is sometimes unpredictable and that the demand for resources can quickly gain momentum, it is necessary for companies to adapt to the demand, and hosting companies are in a better position to help. Also according to Infoworld, promotional sites used over a short period of time are also a growing market whose needs are met effectively by hosting companies.

In conclusion, the benefits to outsource Web sites hosting are numerous, and we won’t hide the fact that we suggest iWeb datacenters to do it !

Always ready to broaden its horizons, iWeb is flying to Europe with nine other businessmen from Quebec for a Trade Mission, between march 28th and april 5th. The purposes of this trip is to establish contacts with european decision makers, but also to show how we can get things done.

The mission is organized by the Young Chamber of Commerce of Québec (RJCCQ):

?In a globalized business world, we are really happy to offer to ten young businessmen from Québec the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the European Union Model, to seize commercial opportunities, and to build a solid relation with european partners. The european market is perfect for Québec companies, and we believe that, after this mission, these ten businessmen will have the necessary skills and knowledge to help them conquer this market.? says Martin Thibault, RJCCQ president.

iWeb counts many european clients, and this trip is a great occasion to consolidate the company presence in those countries.

You can read the RJCCQ press release (in french) on the CNW website.

P.S. feel free to invite us if something is organized in Hawaii!

iWeb has been named ‘Most Reliable Hosting Company’ for December 2007 by Netcraft.com. Performance measurements are made at fifteen minute intervals from separate points around the Internet, and give customers an indication of the reliability of routing. For the entire month of December, iWeb’s servers were always up and there were no failed requests.

This marks the 4th time that iWeb has earned ‘Most Reliable’ in 2007.

The performance measurements are made at fifteen minute intervals from separate points around the Internet, and give customers an indication of the reliability of routing.

You can obtain more information about Netcraft?s rankings and consult the complete list on their website.

iWeb was named “Top Web Hosting Provider” for the month of January 2008 by TopHosts.com. TopHosts had also named iWeb as best host for october 2007. The rankings are based on the quality of customer service, the variety of offers, and innovative approaches in marketing.

According to iWeb’s CEO Éric Chouinard, “It is always an honour to receive such an award. We will continue to work on improving our services in order to continually surpass ourselves. We had a great year and are planning to continue on this path for 2008, so stay tuned.”

More details are available on TopHosts’ website.

It’s not the first time (and should not be the last) that it happens, but it always gives great satisfaction to learn that iWeb has made Netcraft’s top ten of reliable web hosts. For the month of november, our datacenters had no outage, and failed a tiny 0.03% of requests.

Netcraft is known as a reference in terms of reliability measurement for web hosts. The firm uses many performance collectors to compile datas for all registered hosts. Last july, iWeb reached the top of the chart for a third time this year.

You can obtain more informations about Netcraft’s rankings and consult the whole list on their website.

iWeb has just received an award from Web Host Directory for its dedicated server services for the month of November 2007. This award was granted because iWeb “offers a high quality network, directly linked by BGP offering excellent performance for game servers, web servers and all applications that require high throughput and no loss of packets”. Web Host Directory also recalls that iWeb is one the few public webhosting companies, and that it “has proven to be a trusted company due to the loyalty of his customers”.

Web Host Directory is a site dedicated to the web hosting industry, aiming to present in a neutral way, different product offers available from hosting companies. It is not the first time iWeb has received this prize. You can obtain more details about this award on Web Host Directory’s website.

The famous TopHosts.com site has named iWeb as October’s best Canadian web host. Top Hosts’ ranking purpose is to identify the most efficient hosts regarding customer service, product offerings, marketing and technology adoption.

iWeb has already receive this prize many times, and is looking forward to repeating this exploit in the future. As Éric Chouinard explained : “The staff at iWeb is honored to receive this prestigious award. The whole team has worked very hard to achieve this, and we will continue to provide the best service possible. In fact, we have just kicked off our new fiscal year by announcing the opening of a new data center, it will be ready to open in a few months, this will help us maintain our high standard of service.”

More details are available on Top Hosts.

Martin Leclair, Chief Operating Officer at iWeb Technologies, has just been interviewed by the people at FindMyHost, for the MyHostNews web site which is specialized in reporting news from the hosting industry. The site’s editors declared they were impressed with the overall offering of iWeb for many years, and thought it would be interesting to ask some questions about the recent changes in our dedicated servers offers.

These new offers, as M. Leclair explained, includes “faster FSB, higher cache memory and a improved processor conception (for “single” or “multiple” core) which improves performance while consuming less power generating less heat”. iWeb’s cofounder also reiterated the company’s commitment to ensure there is no bad surprises, data losses, or services interruptions.

Here’s the whole interview :

iWeb has offered dedicated hosting for awhile now. FindMyHost has been impressed with your overall offering for many years. Can you tell us of any improvements or new plans you have added to dedicated since we last interviewed iWeb technologies?

For the past few months, we’ve been through a major transition with a complete revision of all of our offers! Indeed, for most Web hosts, the processor is the main unit of comparison between offers, and iWeb is no exception to this rule. We have almost 20 dedicated server plans with Intel processors besides the AMD offers and we intend to keep our pricing structure the way it is; which is appreciated by the customers. We chose not to go with the gradual integration of new processors, as to avoid a high level of mismatch when customers compare the offers. By changing 100% of the processors in every offer, the streamlined approach keeps it easy for customers to measure, understand and maximize the value of each offer.

As the majority of people may already know, the processor improvements of the past few months were made on several levels. Faster FSB, higher cache memory and a improved processor conception (for single or ?multiple? core) which improves performance while consuming less power generating less heat. The improved processor conception is mainly what makes the recent standard comparison unit obsolete (the power of the CPU in Ghz), Foreseeing the market’s conversion to this new paradigm in the near future, iWeb has completed the technological migration and elaboration of these new offers.

Please note that this answer reproduce what we once published on this blog.

What is ‘Bad Surprise Insurance’ and how can it help your customers?

iWeb dedicated server plans comes with a administration plan (level1) that help a client reduce the management costs related to their servers and opt for security provided by daily backups, monitoring and software work. Administration levels 3, 4 and 5 include an insurance against ?bad surprises?. If your server is inoperative because of viruses, worms, defective software or any unforeseeable event and that immediately reinstalling both your server and its operating system is necessary, iWeb will reinstall your server and make it operational free of charge within 4 hours following your request. This service is offered 24/7 without reinstallation fees and without deducting administration time from your monthly package. The server is reinstalled as we initially delivered it to you. The 4 hour delay begins when the customer authorizes the reinstallation.

I noticed you offer managed backup services; can you elaborate as to how a customer of yours can utilize this? What I mean is, does your support team handle everything?

The client must ask for the backup service to be configured on his server and must specify the directories and files that will have to be backed up. Each day, a backup script is executed in order to take a snapshot of the data. The client will receive a daily email confirmation of the backup. Only the data that has changed from the previous snapshot will be updated. Most of the log and system files will be excluded from the backups. The snapshots are saved for a period of 14 days. The client can restore files from day 1 to day 14. The client is responsible of reporting any errors that would be reported in the daily reports.

iWeb also offers Managed Services for an additional cost. Can you give us the main differences between the Level 1 and Level 5 plans?

All dedicated server plans comes with a level 1 management plan so there is no additional cost. If a customer wish to upgrade his management plan to level 2 to 5, a minimal fee is added depending of the plan. Our different management levels come with different features, among them there is the amount of supported software work time allowed per month to the server from our technicians, the amount of backup space allowed to you also varies depending on the plan you choose. For example, customers with an level 1 management package can get 15 minutes support for softwares and operating systems supported by iweb per month compares to 2 hours/month for level 5 customers. For level 5 customers, monitoring + 24/7 Intervention is included. We have different management possibilities therefore any customer can find what best fits their needs.

We invite you to visit the managed services section to learn more about all the packages offered by iweb.

I enjoyed the video tour of your data center. Can you give us an overview of the backup, fire suppression, and security tools on site?

iWeb operates two datacenters featuring 30,000 square feet of floor space in buildings owned and operated by the company. The hosting facilities answer the clientele’s specific needs while respecting a series of criteria concerning accessibility, security and availability. In terms of security, both datacenters are equiped with a VESDA (Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus) systems and a Preaction Fire Protection System for fire suppression. Regarding power backup, our redundant installations can count on 3 generators and a total of 1715KVA UPS capacity. Our datacenters are also equiped with Biometric Sensors, Cameras and Secured Access for maximum security.

The interview is also available on MyHostNews website.

We are proud to announce that we were rated ?Most Reliable Hosting Company? for the month of July 2007, by UK based Netcraft, an Internet service and data provider.

This is our third appearance atop this survey this year. This award is a testimony of our dedication to provide truly innovative IP hosting solutions and premium professional services to our growing global clientele.

Netcraft rates hosting companies on a monthly basis according to failed requests and connection time. It measures and makes available the response times of fifty leading hosting providers’ sites. The performance measurements are made at fifteen minute intervals from separate points around the Internet, and give customers an indication of the reliability of routing.

Read the complete press release here.

Éric Chouinard, Cofounder and President of iWeb, answers questions about everything that surrounds iWeb and presents a small visit of our iWeb-CL data center on the tv.branchez-vous.com site. Branchez-vous was one of the pioneers of the French-speaking Internet. It is also the main independent information portal in Quebec and Branchez-Vous.tv is one of the first independent web TV from Quebec.

The interview is available at this address:
http://tv.branchez-vous.com/fr/ (available in french only)