A few months ago we released the SingleHop Private Network! I personally worked around the clock with our Datacenter Operations and Network Operations team in fine-tuning this very useful back-end infrastructure until it was as close to perfection as possible.

Our private network consists of both gigabit networking equipment in each rack and gigabit distribution switches — all supporting oversized payloads in ethernet frames. “Jumbo Frames” in the size of 9000 to be exact! With these increased payloads in each packet, data is delivered faster with nearly 1Gbps of throughput. Traditional network equipment only supports 1500 MTU, so the use of our private network for data synchronization, database replication or even copying daily backups to our backup nodes can now be accomplished 10 times faster than our public network.

We are utilizing the new private network for future multi server solutions, but are also offering a deal for current customers with dedicated servers and wiring them up FREE OF CHARGE!* Everyone should be able to enjoy the better things in life — why not do it at gigabit speeds?

*Private network connections of up to 100mbs only. 1 gbps connections cost $25 per server.

While this is not something that we would offer or host on our dedicated servers, last week Google graced the internet via a webcast showcasing their latest project, dubbed Chrome OS. This is the newest endeavor that utilizes their Chrome browser, which they have integrated into Linux to form an operating system. Many people on the internet have been foaming at the mouth to get a glimpse of this operating system after having seen Google’s mobile approach with the highly-anticipated Android. While I do applaud Android, I have to say that Chromium OS is a bust and the wrong direction for Google’s development team.

First off, let’s explain what Chromium OS is: a web browser. Google is pushing the idea of applications and everything residing on the internet in proverbial clouds rather than on machines. The target machines for this operating system are light-weight, cheap computers with little processing power (think ARM and such) and little-to-no storage space. It will be entirely impossible to install applications onto the operating system as there is no console, no package management system to the end user and no ability to willingly launch applications from an end user’s perspective.

Why would Google want to launch something like this? It’s pretty simple when you think about it, considering that Google gets most of their money through advertising. To login to Chromium OS you must provide a Google account that has Google Apps capability. Once logged in, you are greeted with the last session you had running in Chromium OS. Tabs open to the websites you left open, web apps you had accessed and all. Conveniently, Google Apps uses their own advertising services from Google Ads, so the potential cash-cow from integrating more users into their Google Apps system is highly sought after by Google.

You can edit your documents inside Google Docs, save them and then view them from your Android phone to make modifications. You can then login from any other Chromium OS terminal and your documents are there. It’s a pretty neat idea for cloud computing, but I am left wondering about privacy regarding all this information Google gathers. Google has had a troubled past with their End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) in regards to what information they use in Chrome, as well as having no control over the EULA presented to users by third party extensions to their apps service.

Furthermore, Chromium OS is really just a box that has nothing but a web browser — history has shown us many devices that attempted this and failed miserably. The biggest ones that come to mind are WebTV and the 3Com Audrey. The idea is great in that everyone wants a small device that does nothing but looks at web sites. The problem is that these small devices lack the necessary power to do anything fun while browsing the internet. With the way Adobe has handled Flash, the processing power might not have enough oomph to watch YouTube. With the exploits available in Flash, how long until these things get exploited due to not having the ability to update the OS without Google pushing the update? What about support for document viewing such as .pdf, .docx or .xls? You would have to upload those documents to Google from your device so that it is viewable in Google Docs. What if Google were to have a catastrophic failure — like Danger, Inc. had — and lose all data in their cloud? (Although, yes, I know this is highly unlikely.)

On paper, in a perfect environment, Chromium OS would be a great platform for everyone to use. It reduces the complexity of the operating system and makes the experience similar to something all of us know how to do: surf the internet. I just don’t trust a company enough to let them have all of my personal data. I’ll stick to waiting for what’s left inside Pandora’s Box.

I recently read a blog post on one of my favorite webhosting forums about a client who was terminated for SPAM from his hosting provider.  I am not talking about the stuff that is concocted out of god knows what then squeezed into a can with an eternal shelf life.  No, he was terminated for unsolicited emails coming from his server.  While I will never sympathize with SPAMMERS, this particular post intrigued me.  The poster — who we will rename Mr. Sucks2Bhm — was running a shared webhosting company on a dedicated server.  While he was doing this he signed on a few clients whose sole purpose in their pathetic lives was to spew out emails that contain remnants of nonsense to random people.  Effectively, his hosting provider’s IPS got blacklisted and he was immediately terminated, as a result of his clients.

Mr. Sucks2Bhm created the post because he was upset that he received no warnings about the SPAMMING issues and had his entire solution terminated as a result.  In cases like this, it is Singlehop’s policy to send out a warning to our clients if SPAM is being detected from their solutions.  In extreme cases like Mr. Sucks2Bhm, we will immediately suspend the server from having access to the internet and will send a reply to the client so we can resolve the issue.  If an IP of ours is black listed we will charge a fee to have it unlisted since we ourselves are charged a fee.

While I sympathize with Mr. Sucks2Bhm having no warning and everything wiped from his box, I ask who is really to be blamed for this current dilemma.  On one hand, I can understand the hosting company’s strong stance against SPAM and maintaining the integrity of their networks, but I do not think it is justifiable to completely wipe a solution clean without offering some option to Mr. Sucks2Bhm to remove his data.  Then I wonder, why did Mr. Sucks2Bhm not screen his clients more thoroughly before permitting them on his server?  Naturally, the SPAMMERS in cases like this walk away without any repercussions of their actions, while people like Mr. Sucks2Bhm find their business at a major loss of data and without a provider.

Luckily, here at Singlehop.com our policies are a bit different.  Although we are not as extreme as immediately terminating a server, we are still strongly vigilant against SPAM and provide a range of service options to our clients.  The tools we offer, such as ANTI-SPAM protection ($39.95/per year for one domain) and WHM Xtra for cPanel/WHM Fantastico ($4/mo), help to limit issues like these.  If you are a client providing shared webhosting on one of our dedicated servers, don’t make the mistakes of Mr. Sucks2Bhm.  Invest a little time when your clients order, the same way we screen clients: it’s always good to check IPs and do domain name lookups when obtaining a new client.  Also, think about your needs and ensuring the stability of your server/business by investing a little more into its configuration.  Don’t let a budget dictate what you should do with and what you should do without when it comes to security.  I always stress to my clients that funding management and security add-ons for your solutions are the best way to go if you are not monitoring your servers‘ activities 24/7.

I certainly wish the best to Mr. Sucks2Bhm and hope that his story motivates current and future clients to be more preemptive in dealing with SPAMMERS.

A few new additions to SingleHop’s offerings may have some confused. With similar, and in some cases identical, specs from the Xeon 3000 line and the Core2 Duo, making an educated decision on which chip is best for your dedicated server can feel kind of like a joke to which you just don’t get the punchline. You can scour the internet’s vast resources in attempt to find a solid difference between the Xeon E3110 and the Core2 Duo E8400, the X3360 and the Q9550, or even just one convincing enough reason why these parts should be any different in price. If you are solely considering processor specs and performance benchmarks, you won’t find anything funny.

The E3110 is the Xeon counterpart for the E8400. They are both factory clocked at 3.0Ghz, with a 6MB L2 Cache and a 1333mhz front side bus (fsb). There is literally no difference between them, the two parts even have the same CPU ID string, which is an identifying mark hard-coded into every Intel processor. However, the E8400 is close to being discontinued, while the E3110 is seated firmly for the moment at the low end of Intel’s server processor market.

What this means is that availability is high for the E3110, making it actually cost less than the equally outfitted E8400. In addition, the E8400 was released as a high-end Core2 Duo at a time when they were in high market demand. Because of this, the cost was quite high right out the door. Later, when the E3110 was released, it was intended to corner the lower end of the server market. Simply put, supply and demand with a little bit of market strategy presents us with a “low-end” processor in the E3110 that is identically capable to the “high-end” Core2 E8400 at a lower cost.

The situation is much the same between the Core2 Quad Q9550 and the X3360. Both are clocked at 2.83Ghz, and have the same size L2 cache, same speed fsb, except the X3360 is positioned at the high-end of its line, as is the Q9550. Because the X3360 is a slightly newer part, and its positioning in this particular corner of the market, it doesn’t enjoy the same cost-to-performance ratio that the E3110 holds over the E8400.

To clarify this point to whomever is interested, I recently ran an in-house benchmark of the E8400 and E3110 side-by-side. I used Passmark, (www.passmark.com) which is a very popular and easy to use CPU benchmark. Both servers were installed with Windows Server 2008 Standard 64 bit, on an X7SBL-LN2 motherboard with 4GB of ddr2 5300 RAM and a 7200 RPM Western Digital Enterprise-Class 500GB SATA II drive.  The hardware was mirrored perfectly in every way, and brand-new out of the box. The results are pictured here, which show the Xeon class chip and the Core2 duo performing identically.

One last thing to consider is the overall difference between a Xeon server processor, and a Core2 Duo desktop/workstation processor. There is a slight tweak to the instruction set with the Xeon line that makes it slightly more ideal for servers. An example of this is an instruction called I/OAT, which is dedicated to processing TCP/IP overhead, leaving extra system resources to handle other processing jobs. This instruction is found in Xeon processors, and not Core2.

The microprocessor industry is one that is constantly moving forward. Sometimes, performance gains from one generation to the next are tangible numbers and facts that we easily see. Other times, such as what we see in the X3000 line, improvements in more abstract ideas like fabrication and market design are the driving force in the next step.

While both the iPhone and Google based Android phones have been on the market for some time, the new Motorola Droid is the first phone with Android 2.0 The complaints of poor coverage on AT&T have long been established, and many on Verizon have been patiently awaiting a smart phone worth owning, as most would agree “The Network” is quite good. How does the Motorola Droid stack up to the iPhone 3G?
To find out, I have performed a real life page load test from a typical suburban living room. I have seen the both the iPhone and Android perform well in other tests, though these are often from urban locales, where you would expect above average signal strength. This test was performed in an average suburban living room, where both phones are receiving similar network strength.
First off, it is apparent the Droid screen is considerably larger. It is also of a considerably higher resolution, ( 3.7 in, 854×480 ) vs 480×320 on the standard iPhone 3G or 640×480 on the 3Gs. I will let the page load test speak for itself:

Clearly the Droid out loads the iPhone 3G, and does so while rendering more of the web page and scrolling faster. The Droid is not without its shortcomings, though these are expected to be resolved in the next few months.
For example, currently there is no multi-touch support in the browser. Android 2.0 does have support for this, as can be seen when using the application PicSay. This should be resolved either directly by Google (after the Apple law suit is addressed) or by a 3rd party browser application. Additionally, the current Flash plugins are not working on Android 2.0 Again, this should be resolved in the near future. Also, the scrolling between desktops is a little choppy, and despite measures of prevention, I have managed to make some phone calls from my pocket, to the disdain of the recipients. Also I have had some slow loading when pulling up text messages when moving from browser.
The benefits far outweigh the detriments though. The service is rock solid and gives 3G coverage where AT&T, T-Mobile and others cannot. Google Maps and Google Navigator are worth the price of admission alone. Time to put that GPS unit in the garbage! As more and more Verizon users pick up the Droid, and as more people move to the open source nature of both the OS and the unrestricted Marketplace, the Android platform will only continue to build on what is clearly a strong foundation.

There has been a lot of talk across the internet about Google’s latest web application they released known as Google Wave. With Google Wave being touted as being “social networking personalized,” I got interested in it and searched for an invite. Upon receiving my invite, however, I noticed that nobody I knew had Google Wave. This put quite a damper on what I could do with it and my ability to adequately put it through its paces.

Google Wave is best described as “e-mail evolved.” What I mean by this is that all communication that takes place in Wave is actually individual emails. The neat thing, though, is that while you are typing in a conversation other people can read what you are typing, you can read what they are typing, and you can add in extra media/gadgets as needed for your “wave.”

The best way to explain Google Wave is by a visual presentation. If you watch this video Google Wave Cinema: Good Will Hunting (click here) you will get a decent idea of how a Wave flows. Please be aware that this video does have some adult language so viewers be advised. You see the user create a new wave, then adds Will Hunting and uses various methods to communicate the story to Will Hunting.

As is, Google Wave is a great tool for collaboration between multiple people on a project. For instance, say with our company we started a new website to sell stuffed frogs. We could have a wave going between the people involved to gather ideas on what we should do. Then, when we hire a developer to create the site, they can be added to the wave. Once the developer is on the wave, they have the ability to play back the entire wave to get the “flow.” The developer, up to date with all collaboration thus far, is fully informed and integrated in the project’s process, and we’re ready to get the ball rolling.

As a replacement for social networking, however, I think that Google is reaching a little bit. There’s no real method to find new people within Wave unless you already know someone, it’s limited to gmail.com-only addresses, and as waves grow it becomes hard to follow what is going on. It’s a very neat idea but in practice it’s lacking. The interface is extremely slow and the real-time updating isn’t as nice as the YouTube video I linked leads you to believe. This is probably why it is still in beta and has limited invites available.

As if jumping out of an airplane once wasn’t enough… this past weekend Zak Boca, our president and CEO, and I went sky diving again. What can I say, it’s addictive. And a great deal of fun.

That said, it seemed appropriate to launch our new homepage and offerings this morning. We’ve been planning to do this for some time, but we wanted a perfect launch and a great deal of work went into getting it off the ground. So, with great pleasure and pride do I present to you the new and improved SingleHop homepage—featuring pictures of your favorite SingleHop employees sky-diving (including me!!!) and links to nearly a dozen videos of our fellow co-workers falling from 14,000 feet at 120 miles per hour… that’s fast. But want to know what’s really fast? I’ll tell you…

Our new line of Xeon servers is fast. No, seriously, check out our homepage to see some of our new offerings. Today we launched three new Xeon servers, one based on the Lynnfield processor architecture (which, in turn, is based on the Nehalem core architecture … but that is getting really technical … so I’ll stop.)

So, without further delay, it is my great honor to announce the official launch of four new SingleHop servers:

The Xeon E3110 with 4 GB of RAM, a 500 GB Hard Drive and 6 TB of Bandwidth for $159/month
The Xeon X3330 with 6 GB of RAM, a 500 GB Hard Drive and 8 TB of Bandwidth for $219/month
The Xeon X3360 with 6 GB of RAM, a 500 GB Hard Drive and 10 TB of Bandwidth for $239/month

And last, but certainly not least …

The Xeon 3430 Lynnfield with 8 GB of RAM (upgraded from 6 GB), a 1 TB Drive (for a limited time only, will be a 500 GB drive soon) and an amazing 10 TB of Bandwidth for just $249/month!

But wait, there’s more… and it’s worth reading about. The Xeon X3330, X3360 and X3430 all come with Free cPanel. Click on the “Get Coupon Code” buttons for your own personal coupon code.

But wait, there’s even more … well, not much more … after all, when Engadget.com says, and I quote, “The i5 is dominant in [its] performance and price range” about a server you’re offering, and then there isn’t much more we can offer … but, for those of you who took the time to read my blog post before November 15th, mention it to your SingleHop account executive and we’ll throw in an additional terabyte of bandwidth … making it 11 TB of monthly bandwidth, and a blog post well read. Now note, I haven’t told any of our sales people about this special bonus blog-only offer … so you will have to point them to the post. If you do, you’ll be rewarded with an extra terabyte of monthly bandwidth.

And that’s a wrap!

Dan Ushman
VP of Sales and Co-Founder, SingleHop

I don’t post as often as I should on our blog. I’ll be the first to admit it. But, today, I saw something that just gave me a real inspirational bump—a true honor for our company. The honor came from NetCraft, one of the oldest and most respected authorities on the internet. NetCraft monitors the reliability of the leading 50 web hosting providers and ranks them on their website. After several months of being in the top 10, SingleHop was recently crowned the #1 most reliable webhost around.

This is really significant because early in this year, as many of you may remember, we upgraded our entire network, essentially replacing all of our core routers, switches and systems with new Cisco equipment. This was a huge investment for us, and a massive undertaking by our networking and technical teams who worked double-time to insure a smooth upgrade … which they did. Now, almost 6 months later, we are ranked #1 for reliability – which many would argue is the key determining factor when choosing a hosting provider.

So, that said, check this out

SingleHop maintained exceptional uptime, exceptional connection speeds fast DNS lookups, 0% failed requests during all of October 2009. Now, that’s 100% uptime that you can count on.

I want to take a second to thank our excellent team for all their hard work… especially our data center operations guys and our networking engineers. Without their tireless work ethic, their “yes we absolutely can do that” attitude and their exceptional knowledge in their respective fields, we’ve been able to show the world that SingleHop is not only a dedicated hosting provider, but the most reliable dedicated hosting provider, as rated by a well know, trusted third party.

So again, thanks to the SingleHop team for making this incredible honor possible … and thank you NetCraft for keeping a watchful eye on the internet …

The best,

Dan Ushman, Co-Founder and VP of Sales for SingleHop

In early October, Daniel Salcedo, Andy Pace, and I traveled down to Houston, Texas for cPanel Conference 2009. cPanel was good enough to have us an exhibitor and we shared that privilege with several of our own vendors and a few of our competitors as well. Overall, we had a good time, learned quite a bit about Enkompass, the new Windows control panel that cPanel has been hard at work on, and also met the aforementioned vendors, competitors, and even a couple of our clients.

I did not get to attend many of the presentations that were given because I was busy manning our booth, but from what I heard from the people who came by to chat, the presentations were very informative and well put together. Hopefully next year I will be able to spend a little more time on that part of the conference. Because I did not get to see much in the way of presentations, the main highlight for me was meeting a couple of our clients face-to-face – in our line of work that does not happen as often as we’d like! The other highlight was spending some time with Beth Ann Robinson from GlobalSign, our new SSL vendor, talking about how our companies can really benefit each other, and I look forward to working with her for a long time. Keep an eye out for some great deals on SSLs in the very near future.

One of the other highlights of the trip was Pointdexter Jr. We decided we needed a little flair for our booth, so the night before the conference opened, we went and found an Australian Blue (he is actually green) Dumpy tree frog who would live on our booth and come back with us to Chicago and become our company pet.