1stFlash.com FAQ 4

Web Site Hosting

So What Makes Hosting With Us A Better Proposition?

Here are some FAQs to consider:

Where Is Your Hosting Located?

Our hosting facilities are located in Toronto, Canada and Fort Lauderdale, USA. Through the appointment of Authorized Data Center Partners, we are expanding our hosting into several additional countries. So stay tuned for further information.

Is Your Hosting Facility Reliable And Scalable?

We ensure that our customers' sites are up and running 99.9% of the time. We stand behind our Service Level Agreement (SLA) and monitor results 7/24. Sites hosted with us run on the latest IBM Netfinity servers, running with multiple CPUs and RAID5 storage. Our servers are fully redundant to exact the highest availability for our customers.

We have researched all the different server technologies in the market. We have partnered with IBM, and use their Netfinity Internet Servers, with hardware architecture specifically designed to meet the high speed requirements of today's Internet technologies. Our IBM web servers use mirroring technology. This essentially means that there are 2 hard drives, and they exactly match each other. In the event that one hard drive fails (as we all know, hardware can fail) the other will pick up, and the downtime will be less than 2 seconds. On a larger scale, we have implemented HA+ solutions (High availability). This technology is similar to mirroring, but on a larger scale. Essentially, if an entire server fails, another designated server will pick up its functions, resulting in a downtime less than 1 minute.

Can I Use The IBM Logo On My Web Site?

Another important feature available to qualified clients, is IBM's brand leverage. Through our partnership with IBM, qualified sites can have their site accredited as "An IBM e-Business". Since their site will be residing on IBM hardware and utilizing IBM data center software, qualified clients can have the IBM "e-business mark" on their website. The IBM e-business Mark is considered a potent marketing alliance. A 1999 survey* revealed that 43% of the Internet end-users surveyed indicated they were more likely to conduct business on sites featuring the IBM e-business Mark. Further, the survey also found improvements in the end-user perceptions of sites caring the mark in the areas of innovation, speed and reliability. This research finding is a powerful testament to the perceived value that IBM's technology brings to the e-business world.

* Survey conducted by IntelliQuest Inc. for IBM Corporation, August 1999

What About Your Network?

Our network is running on a 100Mb 'switched' Ethernet network. A 'switched' network virtually eliminates all data collisions, which results in zero data loss. This means faster results from our servers to the users who are coming to the sites.

Are Your Servers Capable Of Meeting Demands As Internet Technology Evolves?

We offer database driven sites, chat rooms, conference boards, Real Audio/Video streaming and many other new exciting technologies. While implementing all these technologies, we have 2 major concerns, speed and reliability. The approach that we take is that each new service gets its own dedicated server. None of our servers here are responsible for more than one function, this keeps the processor power spread out across our network. Having an individual server for each service results in faster delivery, less load on the machine, and easier maintenance. We are committed to continually upgrade our hosting facility as demand requires.

If A Problem Happens, Quick Response Is Essential.

Our Help Desk and Network Management teams monitor our hosting environment 7/24, using industry-proven problem management tools. Through our Data Center, we currently host thousands of web-solutions located in over 85 countries. Our hosting environments are engineered to ensure that our clients will not run out of critical resources.

Are There Any Extra Charges For Web Site Traffic?

Our shared hosting platform has been developed to offer maximum value to all of our customers. Shared hosting means that there is more than one site on each server. In order to ensure that no one site monopolizes all of the bandwidth, there are virtual traffic regulators in place. These traffic regulators kick in to ensure no one site "hogs" the bandwidth of the others. If your site is in the top 2% of sites and requires dedicated bandwidth, we also offer dedicated bandwidth and dedicated server packages as well. You can upgrade to these packages as your needs grow.

Why Are Some Companies Cheaper Than You?

Remember, it'simportant to compare apples to apples. We offer a complete hosting package without any extra hidden charges. Most hosting companies put limits on the amount of monthly traffic you can get or disk storage you can use. Many companies make their money on bandwidth charges, lock-in agreements, and hidden up-charges such as set-up fees and annual maintenance and support. There are also no hidden advertising schemes that help offset the hosting prices offered by many companies. You will not be subjected to ad stuffing, pop-ups, tool bar ads, banner ad placements or other traffic siphoning tactics deployed by many web hosts.

From a technology perspective, we offer scalable database solutions at no additional charge. MS SQL 2000, a highly regarded relational, database management system (RDBMS), is included in most of our packages. Many hosting companies charge substantial premiums to deploy MS SQL 2000. It is comforting to know that as your site grows, if you choose to migrate to a more sophisticated database such as MS SQL 2000, our environment can accommodate this migration without any challenge.

Does My Hosting Fee Include Backups?

While you will find companies that charge extra for backing up data daily, the reason many companies don't charge for daily backups is because the actually don't do them! Of course you will only find this out when their server crashes. Our data center environment is equipped with an offsite backup automation system that creates daily backup files of all data each day, and then stores multiple copies of these files offsite.

What Is Content Acceleration And How Much Does It Cost?

Content acceleration is a service that is available to clients at no additional cost on premium hosting packages and above. This technology leverages off Cisco's file caching hardware and software system to significantly accelerate the rate at which content is delivered over the web. Content acceleration is an advanced technology that allows requested information to be delivered to an end user without having to retrieve it from a web server. By keeping all of this data in RAM memory, the content accelerator moves content much faster than even the most advanced web server. The tradeoff here is that since requests are not actually handled by the web server, the server statistics reports will not reflect all of the traffic generated by the site.

How Secure Are My Transactions Over The Internet?

We take several extra steps to protect our clients information. Our Data Center supports 128-bit SSL encryption on our servers. 128-bit encryption is over 300 septillion times stronger than standard SSL encryption. It is so strong that it would take a hacker one trillion times, one trillion years to breakeven with today's most advanced technology!

If I Choose The Windows2000 Platform, Will This Expose My Website To Hacking?

We support both Windows2000 and Linux operating systems (O/S), which are the two most popular hosting operating systems on the market with over 90% combined market share. They also represent the two most prominent targets for hackers. That doesn't mean that they are the only systems vulnerable to attack. UNIX, OS/400, AIX and other less visible O/S's have all been the targets of hackers. A general rule of security is when you build a system of controls; someone will try to break it.

Even 128-bit encryption has its theoretical breaking point but cracking the code is highly unlikely given the required resources needed. The key to reducing risk is the implementation of a structured security plan that creates multiple layers of control. This has been done for both our Win2000 and Linux environments.

Each of our data centers is resistant to hackers and denial of service attacks (DOS) by our IP design, firewalls and redundant network connections. Through the use of Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) we not only detect suspicious website traffic, we can detect the point of origin of most hacker attempts. This allows us to assist companies in tracking any attempts at hacking their site. Given the high priority of security on the internet, our technical staff constantly remains vigilant to the task of providing our customers with uncompromising security.

We subscribe to numerous lists that contain hacker information and up to date patches to correct holes in software that could allow an intruder. The company that we purchased the firewall from performs a 'hacker test'. This company has hired a team of professional hackers that try to break into our network to find security holes. They then alert us of the holes and they are corrected. The results of their last test were outstanding, and nobody got through. The most common way to enter a system is through hole created by CGI scripts. All scripts used at our Production & Data Centers have been created in house by our own team. Whenever the event arises that clients wish to use their own script, we will basically re-write it to ensure that is does not compromise us in any way.

From our Intrusion Detection Systems, through to our firewall and server side encryption protocols, we offer the highest level of control while not sacrificing performance.

What Other Measures Do You Take To Protect My Site And Data?

Our Standard Operating Procedures ensure that our E-Marketplace Affiliates' customer sites and data are protected. The following are the general control areas protecting all clients:

• Physical access restriction to our facilities and data centers.
• Restricted or "locked down" access control to web and data base servers.
• 7/24 hour monitoring of access control and all data center environmental systems. We also use two different types of monitoring services. We have technicians on call 24/7. There is a server in the LAN room that monitors all the other servers. Everything on the server is monitored, from power, hard drive space and even traffic. In the event of any aspect of any of our servers going down, we are paged by the machine via modem, with a specific code representing the machine that is down. This machine also monitors the high speed connection to the Internet to ensure connectivity at all times. WE have also hired an outside firm to monitor all our servers as well (in the event that our monitoring server crashes). This outside server monitors the exact same aspects of the servers inside servers and pages the technicians on call.
• IDS, Firewall and SSL128-bit encryption.
• Backup and Disaster recovery systems. We perform daily backups. At the end of each week, a copy of the backup tapes is taken off site to a secure location (in case the building burns down!). By having a daily backup system, in the event of a complete system crash, we have a back-up server waiting in the LAN room ready to go at any time. A full restore of the web servers would be put onto this machine, resulting in minimal downtime. Our test runs on this fault tolerance system resulted in the downtime being less than 1.5 hours, and the majority of the time spent was waiting for the data to restore off the back up tapes.
• UPS systems. Among the other fault tolerance systems, we also utilize UPS systems (UPS - Uninterrupted Power Supply). These are basically batteries, but on a lager scale. Every server is connected to a UPS, and in the case of complete power failure, all systems would stay operational.

Take A Step Towards e-Business Success Today!
Contact Us To Learn More About Power e-Marketing - Effective Web Site Design, Promotion, And Hosting - For Outstanding Visibility On The www.!

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