The Saltmine Chronicles

I was pointed to this article about why web hosting companies suck. It's worth the read because it does point out a lot of facts about our current market. The author also presents a list of questions you should ask about your web hosting company and I'd like to take the time to answer them about our web hosting company.

“Do you own all of your hardware?”

Yes we do. In fact, we also run our own data center (and all the hassle that involves).

“What type of server hardware/software do you run, and what are the specifications?”

We're primarily a Linux shop here, running the lastest distribution of CentOS with Apache as our web server software. The actual server specs depend upon the server itself but they're all current machines.

“Who is your backbone provider and what is your overall capacity?”

We currently have three backbone providers, Global Crossing, Expedient and Savvis. I'm not sure of our actual network capacity since I don't deal with that part of the network but personally I have never seen us max out our network, unless we were under a DDoS attack, which is another question.

“Where are your servers physically located and are they securely housed?”

Our servers are physically located in two data centers, one located in Boca Raton, Florida (the current location of our offices) and another data center in Charlotte, North Carolina. We run the data center in Boca Raton; we rent several cabinets from a data center company on Charlotte. Both facilities require authorized access to gain entry.

“Can I have the name of your co-location facility?”

Erm … Mistah Wheelus will have to approve me answering this question. I don't have a problem mentioning it, but I don't officially speak for Pick // Internet Services.

“Do your servers have backup power? If so, what type?”

Yes. UPS on each box, and the data centers have on-site generators in case of power failure. I know that last year after Hurricane Wilma hit South Florida, we were down for about three hours durring the worst part of the storm, but a huge web hosting company down the street was out of power for a few days. We were running on generator backup for a week.

“Do you build redundancy into your infrastructure? If so, how?”

We have multiple network backbone providers so the network portion is covered. We also have servers located in two physically different locations so one being wiped off the face of the Earth won't wipe our company out entirely. We don't have full redundancy in our servers, but that is an issue we are currently researching.

“How quickly can you deal with catastrophic hardware failures?”

Pretty darn quickly, usually within the day. We've had several catastrophic hardware failures in the past (always servers, never with a router or switch) and were able to rectify the situation in a day or so. Like I said, we're currently researching methods to add redundancy to our server platforms.

“How much expertise do you have managing servers, and in particular hosting dynamic sites?”

Between Mistah Wheelus and myself, we have over twenty years experience in running web servers under Linux and Apache. We tend to concentrate on smaller sites and have some experience with dynamic sites, but nothing on the level of say, CNN or LiveJournal. Then again, if you have a huge dynamic site like CNN or LiveJournal you probably have the infrastructure in-house to run it.

“What systems are in place to cope with the added demand of dynamic sites?”

Buy bigger hardware? Really, it depends upon the expected level of traffic of the dynamic site and if you expect a huge amount of traffic for your highly dynamic site, then we might not be the best hosting company. Granted, we'll try working with you and seeing if we can do it, but that really depends upon the amount of traffic you get.

“Do you do daily backups?”

Yes. Of all our webservers.

“Do you backup the database?”

If you mean our customers, yes, it's part of our daily backup schedule. If you mean our database, then yes, that's backed up too.

“Do you run dedicated servers for individual tasks (sending email, database, web hosting, etc.) or does every action associated with every site happen on the single server hosting it?”

Yes and no. Web hosting, email and databases for each site run on the server the site is on, which hasn't proved to be a problem for anyone (on performance—there are other issues with email, but that, as Alton Brown would say, is another show), although we do have a separate email server that filters spam that we charge extra for. We also have separate servers for DNS.

“Are you able to meet the demands of enterprise level sites (do you run load-balanced servers, etc.)?”

Heck no. That's not our target market. It's a nice market, but it's not one we're in.

Heck yes!

But seriously, this answer hinges on what exactly is meant by the term “enterprise” and that's why The Powers That Be and I had a discussion about this today (let me reassure you it's nothing to worry about, just a difference of definition).

When I think of “enterprise” I tend to think of sites like CNN or LiveJournal or even Google—really huge sites run by the companies themselves since they have the infrastructure to handle such sites (although given that Google can dropship whole datacenters perhaps they've moved beyond “enterprise” and into the “deathstar” level (joke! It's a geek joke ... Enterprise, Death Star ... oh ... bother)). I'm thinking “insanely huge clusters of machines measured in square yardage.”

Mistah Wheelus has a different measure for “enterprise”—we certainly host sites for Fortune 500 Companies. Yes, we've set up (and currently manage) redundant fail-over servers for clients. And we've had sites that required load balancers (until said sites got bought out by Fortune 500 Companies and moved closer to corporate headquarters—hey, it happens). And as a company, we're not averse to large projects—heck, I think they're fun (I know I had a blast researching running a 100 machine cluster).

So the “official line” here is—yes, we are able to meet the demands of an enterprise level site (excepting for Google—that's way beyond mortal comprehension).

“Do you have systems in place to deal with DoS attacks?”

Yes, as best we can. I have quite a bit of experience in dealing with DoS attacks on the server level and some experience with mitigating it at the network level, but our network engineer, Dan, has more experience with the network side.

“How long have you been in business?”

Mistah Wheelus and I have been in this webhosting business since 1995 when we started in Mistah Wheelus' dining room (at the time, he had no garage, and besides, garages don't typically have A/C—ah, those were the days). I'm not sure when Pick // Internet Services was started, but it was within the past five or six years when we aquired it and started doing business under the name.

“Are your systems set up to notify your staff instantly when your hardware has a problem, or must your clients inform you of a problem?”

Both, but it depends upon the nature of the problem. If a server goes down, or is otherwise inaccessible, we do get notification. Problems with a website, say, a malfunctioning or buggy shopping cart, the customer will inform us of the problem. Network congestion … depends upon the severity of the situation in the data center.

“Do you offer phone support?”

Yes.

“Can your provide a significant list of clients hosted by you, particularly clients with very highly trafficked sites?”

Again, that's a question that Mistah Wheelus can answer.

So there you go. Not half bad and we can provide some answer to each of the questions but I do expect some clarifications will come from higher up in the company, if only for the questions that Mistah Wheelus can answer.