There is a lot of confusion these days with all the new processor technology that has come out over the last few years. Intel has released a great amount of different technologies such as Hyper-Threading, the Core series, as well as VT technology. Now, I’m sure after reading these terminologies that Intel has coined you’re thinking “what does that mean for me?” Well I am so glad you asked!

As is universally acknowledged, fires in buildings are pretty awful things. But something truly awful, is a fire in a data center. I previously wrote a blog post about how America has the 4th most network integrated economy in the world. A fire in a data center can truly be catastrophic. The possible loss of data and equipment damage, plus the lives put in danger are truly frightening prospects.
Although, to move out of dark territory, there are amazing prevention methods to avoid this:

There are a few methods of waterless fire protection in data centers, as well as strategic structure preparation. The most common reasons for data center fires are:
- Accumulations of underfloor combustible materials, such as unused wiring insulation and connectors
- Paper storage and supplies within data center space
- Tape storage materials stored outside of the designated storage space
- Improper storage and maintenance of fuel for emergency generators
- Failure of personnel to adhere to stated guidelines
- Fuel system piping leaks
These are things that are easily remedied by not running wiring under the floor, but rather where it is visible and then basic vigilance in terms of data center maintenance and staffing. We are proud to say that at SingleHop, we absolutely demand all of these safety measures, as well has having a truly awesome (as in inducing gasping awe) generator system in the event of power disruption.

Also, there are state of the art and not quite so state of the art fire suppression systems. The older waterless fire suppression system was known as Halon. It was introduced in 1973 and was one of the first gaseous fire suppression agents. These systems are still around in some places, though not too much anymore considering it was banned in 1994, as it is an ozone depleting substance and requires a breathing apparatus (gas mask) when it is released in high concentrations.

We definitely don’t use Halon at SingleHop. We take pride in using a data center that is as up to date as possible and environmentally friendly. We use a gaseous fire suppressant known as FM-200 (Heptafluoropropane), which looks like this:

And:

This compound prevents this:

FM-200 is a great fire suppression agent used in more than 70 countries. FM-200 is insanely fast at suppressing fire, often in 10 seconds or less, and can stop ordinary combustible, electrical, and flammable liquid fires before they cause significant damage that make buildings look like this:

FM-200 is the fastest fire protection available, meaning less damage, lower repair costs, less disruption, and, most importantly, the protection of human life.

FM-200 can also be safely stored and used where people are present. It doesn’t require a gas mask like Halon. It’s stored in cylinders as a liquid and pressurized with nitrogen, meaning that it saves huge amounts of storage space.

To read about the consequences of data center fires and lack of adequate fire prevention mechanisms, check out these articles:

http://www.hostsearch.com/news/camer…_news_7073.asp
http://torrentfreak.com/prq-fire-tak…-sites-080216/
http://www.thewhir.com/features/alabanza-blackout.cfm

And the most extreme in lack of fire prevention, a two part series of articles regarding the before and after:
Before: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/haven.html
After: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5110244.stm?ls
http://www.eveningstar.co.uk/content…A01%3A43%3A230

Shared hosting is right for a lot of people! It’s a great way to save money for other things that might be more important to you, but keep in mind that there are restrictions. A friend sent me a link to this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sWFgRIDliY&feature=relatedcrammed

That is exactly what shared hosting is. Hundreds if not thousands of websites are crammed on to one server, and for 99% of them it works. If your site receives a lot of visitors though, or if reliability is important to you than you should upgrade to a dedicated server. Just like this video shows, profitability to the hosting provider relies on getting as many websites on one server, and many times resources run short.

Zak

Hello Everyone!

I know there’s a question that all of you are probably asking: How on Earth can SingleHop offer one month of service for only $1?

I’m writing this blog post to provide some insight into the answer to that question. Although it seems outrageous and inexplicable, we feel supremely confident offering this special, because of the extended levels of service that we provide. Our Management Services, Account Executives and Tech Support staff are dedicated to doing nothing but providing you with the best possible assistance for whatever you need.

In this post, I will explore the various technical aspects that you should consider when launching a shared hosting company. I won’t discuss marketing or sales tactics, because that is an entirely different conversation.

Many business people who want to start Web Hosting Businesses go for reseller accounts. Reseller accounts offer a very inexpensive and simple way to get into the business, requiring nothing more than a Pay Pal account and a reseller account at any number of providers. If this sounds like your plan, then you may want to continue reading.

Reseller accounts are great because they have a very low cost (low entry barrier would be the business term.) However, they don’t offer the control or security that one would need to really start a business. Here are some things to consider:

- In most reseller setups I have been able to review, the company hosts their billing software on the same server as their clients.
- That same server hosts the billing and customers of other hosting providers who resell for the same firm

This creates two very big problems. First, if another companies users abuse the server and take it down, you’re down, your support is down and your billing is down. Second, if some other user does something that results in the server being compromised, then you are also at the mercy of the hackers.

The solution for this would be to start a hosting business with two servers. The first server should be ‘locked down’ and should only handle billing and support ticketing. Ideally you would separate these two also, however it gets expensive then. The second server would be your first shared account server, and you would put your customers on it. This separates the two aspects of your business (administrative and customer websites) and decreases the likelihood of data breach.

Marketing, sales, design, and everything else aside, one could start a hosting business on the purely technical side by leasing two dedicated servers and building a website, installing a commercial billing system such as ModernBill, Ubersmith, Client Exec or many others (SingleHop uses the Ubersmith system, but that is an entirely different story on its own.)

The next thing you need is proper system administration. You need advanced system administrators to handle your servers and keep them running. Dedicated Servers are like pets, you have to feed them, give them attention, keep them alive or they will die. This includes pro-active monitoring of hardware as well as keeping software up-to-date. Since you don’t want to start with to much overhead, hiring an administrator to handle your servers on day-one would be a bad move. Instead, you should consider a managed server which basically means that your provider (be it SingleHop or whoever) will use their system administrators to monitor and manage your servers.

I hope this short post helps anyone thinking of entering the market for Shared hosting.

Best wishes,

Dan