Once in a while, great steps are made towards this ideal of instant content delivery. Most recently, the web gurus at Google proposed a method to increase the speed by improving commonly used internet protocols like SSL, HTTP and even Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). When you translate their ideas, it is theoretically possible to increase the loading speed of a page by about ten to fifty percent.

Let’s take a quick look at how this works. Before any real data can be sent across a network, like the content of a website, the client and the server have to talk to each other, exchanging several messages in the process. TCP is a kind of ‘language’ that can be used by clients and servers to communicate. Each time a message is sent by one party, it reaches the other with some delay. A reply is then sent back to the original sender – also with a delay. This delay is called latency, which we discussed in our “It’s all in the game” series. Since the inception of the TCP protocol in 1974, we have increased bandwidth a million times, but latency remained more or less the same with only some minor improvements.

Google is now working on what they call SPDY (pronounced speedy) standardization. This is a set of modifications to several internet protocols, all aimed at lowering page loading times. The idea behind the proposed modification for TCP is, like all good ideas, really simple: Just reorganize the language in which clients and servers talk, thereby reducing time they wait for a reply. Of course, in reality this is very complicated to do because of the amount of different devices already connected to the Internet. Still, it’s good to be moving forward in this area, which is why there’s a lot going on about SPDY – and not only within Google.

For instance, Firefox 11 will include preliminary SPDY support. Meanwhile, the IETF working group is developing HTTP/2.0, with the goal of improving the overall performance of the web – SPDY will probably be included in the new specification. A new SSL version is also being prepared and most of the SPDY modifications have been added to the Linux kernel in last months, with kernel version 3.2 already containing lot of SPDY code. But as always, you have to be careful in a firewall environment – you never know how things may work out.

LeaseWeb is of course very excited about the idea of speeding up the web and tracks the development of SPDY closely (our network also supports the modified TCP protocol). Unfortunately, it will be a while before the SPDY project is finished. It has to be able to boost modern day internet, while at the same time being backwards compatible with non-SPDY devices. That is where the real challenge lies, and is one of the reasons we’re also working on other solutions, such as our new CDN. In the end, all roads lead to Rome, but choosing which road to take is what makes designing global networks such an interesting job!

                          

Hi, my name is Shaina Prabhakar. After graduating with a bachelor degree in Information Science and working as a software development engineer, I relocated to the Netherlands about two years ago (I am originally from Bangalore, India). I have been working at LeaseWeb for almost the same time.

I currently work as a Senior Sales Support Executive. The core responsibility of Sales Support is order processing. We receive inquiries from customers via email, phone and our website chat. Through these channels we learn about the customer’s needs, industry, and expectations. Once we have a clear idea of the customer’s requirements, we direct the request to an account manager, who can then advise the best solution.

Once an agreement with a client has been reached, we process the order and enter it into our administrative system. If the order has to be delivered manually, we hand the specifications over to the provisioning team for deployment. It is very important that the order processing is 100% accurate – if not, the delivery will not be what the customer ordered, causing disgruntled customers.

This brings me to another part of my job: I am also a member of the Customer Relations team. We make contact with customers who send a complaint, and investigate any challenges they might have encountered at LeaseWeb. These cases generally lead to a thorough review of our procedures. If possible, we adjust our approach in such a way that the problem can’t occur anymore. Our aim is always to meet the customer’s expectations and achieve total customer satisfaction, which is only possible by listening to what customers say. You have to be proactive about such things, not just looking at what customers send to you, but also look at Twitter, forums and other social media.

One of the greatest projects here at LeaseWeb that I am a part of is aligning our ‘Churn Management’ to the company’s vision. When we get a cancellation request, we get in contact with the customer within 24 hours. Our goal is to understand the reason why he/she wants to cancel and find out if we can keep on doing business with him/her in a more satisfying manner. To achieve this we require internal cooperation within LeaseWeb, procedural tweaks, investment in time and more. Sometimes you succeed at finding a solution, sometimes you don’t. But whatever the outcome, it is a personal satisfaction for me to know that even if a customer leaves us, they left on good terms and would be willing to return back to us when need arises.

LeaseWeb is growing massively and is right in the middle of the hosting industry. Being a part such a company lets me gain a lot of knowledge, while the open culture and multinational work floors have helped expats like me to get accustomed to living in another country. By the way, we’re currently looking for a new colleague for the Sales support team. So if you’re interested, be sure to check the vacancy and apply!

                          

As you can read in the official press release, LeaseWeb has decided to sponsor this event. You might ask yourself why a major hosting provider would do such a thing. We could of course talk about the analogies the hosting and flight industries, and how both move big volumes of traffic each day around the globe. Or how all the different airlines match the various carriers a hosting provider works with. But to be honest: we do it because it’s just ‘plane’ awesome (bad word pun intended). There’s nothing quite like seeing people demonstrating acrobatic antics high in the sky, or watching a mighty machine soar by and learn of its history. Did you know various air forces and rescue teams will also give demonstrations? We could keep on writing about it, but it’s something you just have to see for yourself.

With over 25.000 visitors expected this year and more than 200 airplanes on display, the LeaseWeb Texel Airshow is the largest of its kind in the Netherlands. A delegation of LeaseWeb will be of course present at the event, taking customers with them to enjoy all the activities. And while the program isn’t finalized yet (we will keep you updated on the progress) the 2012 edition already promises to be a fantastic event. So see you all at the LeaseWeb Texel Airshow the 28th July!

                          

With our new and improved Ticket feature you are able to create a new ticket for our Support, Administration and Sales departments. After the ticket has been sent, you can track the ticket’s status and respond to replies from LeaseWeb.

When your ticket is updated you will be notified by email with a link to the SSC – which will instantly direct you to the new response.

LeaseWeb also automatically connects every ticket you send to your account. The communication is secured via SSL, so this is the safest way to provide sensitive information to our engineers.

When you reply, you now also have the possibility to attach files to your ticket.

What about tickets I have sent in the past?

Tickets (old and new) that were sent through email will not be available in the SSC (this is also true for emailed tickets that were sent before the launch of the new ticket feature). Tickets that are sent through the SSC will always be shown in the SCC. Of course you can still choose to send a ticket via email, but we recommend using the SSC. It is far more secure and gives you a great overview of all your communication with LeaseWeb.

As we are constantly improving the experience of LeaseWeb customers, all feedback is very welcome. Through the ‘Feedback’ option in the ticket section you can suggest new features you would like to see in the SSC. We are looking forward to your ideas!

                          

It’s our aim to make things easier and quicker for our customers, so over the past few weeks we’ve been rolling out CloudLinux OS into our web hosting environment. The new OS is designed to give customers increased control over their hosting.

CloudLinux is an operating system that uses lightweight virtualization to improve the performance and stability of the server. Using some of the latest technology found in cloud environments, it brings some massive benefits to a regular hosting ecosystem. The CloudLinux OS gives our web hosting, PaaS and SaaS providers the ability to manage resources available to their shared hosting customers in a reliable and efficient way.

In a shared web hosting environment, one web server is shared between users. Hosting companies benefit from enhanced security and stability within the Lightweight Virtual Environment (LVE) created by CloudLinux OS. System administrators can control CPU, memory and connections available to each tenant. The result is effectively preventing one site from slowing down or taking down an entire server, allowing hosters to substantially increase server density, bringing far greater efficiency to their business while delivering overall improved service to customers.

To celebrate the agreement, the two companies have a special offer for customers. Anyone who orders and installs a server with a CloudLinux license before the 1^st March 2012 will receive the first two months of CloudLinux free of charge. CloudLinux OS licenses can be purchased directly on our site and existing customers can license their existing infrastructure through LeaseWeb’s customer portal. Fancy finding out more about how you can benefit from the CloudLinux OS? Get in touch with us via sales@leaseweb.com.

                          

We have therefore compiled a list of the top ten common myths that contribute to wasted IPv4 addresses, and explain why they are misconceptions. This was actually only for internal use, but we thought we could share it with the rest of the world.

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – the myth that hosting a webpage on a dedicated IP address improves its pagerank has been around for some time within the hosting industry, but this is not true. There are a number of factors to consider when thinking about SEO, but a dedicated IP address is not one of them.
2. Hosting multiple websites – you may host hundreds (or even more) http sites on a single IP address. This is a common practice; for example, most Google services use shared IP addresses. In fact, there are no disadvantages of hosting multiple websites, especially as there are more websites than IPv4 addresses – so shared IPs are the way to go.
3. Hosting multiple services – hosting different services on a single IP could help to cope with scarce IPv4 addresses. Different services like ftp, email, web or dns use different ports and can therefore safely be shared over one IP address without any interference.
4. Secondary DNS – some people host primary and secondary name services on the same server, but some have a separate DNS server for each domain they host. Many registries require two different IP addresses to host a domain for redundancy reasons, but one server gives no redundancy at all. Therefore all LeaseWeb customers may use our secondary name servers for all domains they host. This way the name services are not only fully redundant, but you also save your resources and IP addresses, and therefore money.
5. Dedicated IP address for SSL sites – While SSL sites cannot share an IP address with other SSL sites, they do not require a dedicated IP address. You are still free to host one SSL site on an IP address that has other services, like DNS, email or non-SSL web.
6. Virtual host bandwidth usage – another common myth is to host different http sites on different IP addresses as this is the only way to monitor the traffic generated by each site. In fact, you can still host websites on a shared IP and have detailed traffic statistics for each one. For example, if you have apache web servers in place you may use modules such as mod_logio or mod_watch to track bandwidth/usage data.
7. Only IPv4 can be used – anything you host or that you want to be made available to anyone on the Internet requires an IPv4 address. Many people have several sites/virtual machines that have a very limited user base, like test environments or management. If you have any sites/servers that are used only by you, such sites or services may as well be hosted on an IPv6 address. This can even lead to improved security of services by making them unavailable to other parts of the Internet.
8. VPN access – you don’t need a separate IP address for each VPN line you host. If you decide to use Network Address Translation (NAT) and want to have multiple VPN customers behind shared IP address (es), you can host as many VPN lines as you want and you are not limited to the number of IP addresses you can have.
9. Virtual machines – you need a separate IP address for each virtual machine if you plan to sell them to different customers. However, if you use virtualization as a security measure to isolate different services, you should consider hosting at least some back-end virtual machines on private IP addresses and make them available only from the other VMs on that server. By doing this, you can completely isolate important servers hosting databases, file storage and management information, for example, from the internet and still be able to access them from other virtual machines.
10. Emailing – you can use IPv6 addresses to offload some email traffic from IPv4. In many cases you actually get better results by sharing IP addresses between different customer campaigns, therefore not requiring as many IPv4 addresses.

We hope that by shedding light on these common myths, we can help to solve some of the issues around the lack of available IP addresses. If you have any questions, comments or maybe even a myth that we haven’t heard of, do let us know! We’re available via our website and on Twitter @LeaseWeb. Alternatively, you can leave a comment or question below.

                          

You may recall that back in September we told you about LeaseWeb’s work to support the Sukaria project – the charity founded by one of our Customer Support Engineers, Janice Ritzer, to raise funds for children from the Indonesian Mollucan Islands. With the holiday seasons still going on it’s an especially nice time of year for us to be thinking of others who are not as lucky as ourselves.

This really hit home recently when Janice traveled to Jakarta. She took bags full of donated second-hand clothing to give to the children and met with a local representative from the project to discuss our fundraising plans for 2012. LeaseWeb will kick off the new year by donating computers to schools on the islands. By sending LeaseWeb’s old PCs over to Indonesia, we will be able to make a huge improvement to the teaching facilities currently available in the schools on the Mollucan Islands. This will enable pupils to develop a range of IT skills – most of which children of the Western world now take for granted. By learning how a computer works, a range of future job possibilities open up that would otherwise would remain out of reach for those children.

Visiting Indonesia was a fantastic opportunity for Janice to really get some insight – not only into where we can be helping out, but also to see firsthand how our support is already making a difference. Needless to say, she has returned with more passion than ever for the cause, and cannot wait to implement the computer donation project!

We will be updating the CSR section of the LeaseWeb website in January to reflect the work we’ve been doing for the project, so make sure you keep checking back for all the latest updates.

In the meantime, if you have any questions or would like to donate to Sukaria, email info@sukaria.nl or visit the LeaseWeb-sponsored Sukaria website.

                          

Twitter has provided us with a platform to address any issues our customers may have. Recently we managed to turn a couple of negative comments from dissatisfied customers into positive situations – all by communicating through Twitter. While some companies may feel cautious about negative feedback appearing very publically, in front of existing and potential customers, the reality is we were able to demonstrate that we are listening to and addressing any of our customers’ concerns. This has led to some really positive feedback, and not just from the customer involved.

The first example that comes to mind was a customer who expressed disappointment in the delivery of a product, which took four days rather than 24 hours as expected. The issue was brought to our attention by a negative message to LeaseWeb’s Twitter account. In response, our Customer Relations team immediately contacted the customer by email.  As this was indeed our mistake, we picked it up with priority and delivered an upgraded higher-end server to make up for the delay caused. We accepted his complaint, apologized for the inconvenience and remained transparent about the cause of the error. The customer was extremely happy with our approach and immediately removed his negative tweet without our request. Furthermore, he tweeted the below: “@LeaseWeb has gone above and beyond my expectations getting a new server ready for me! These guys are great!

We dealt with a similar example in the same manner when a disgruntled customer felt his services had been unfairly suspended; an issue arising from confusion over payment. However after he tweeted a complaint, given his clean history in payment we apologized and restored his services. Again, his satisfaction was evident as he tweeted after the issue had been resolved, saying: “@LeaseWeb Thanks to your great support I am back online again :) I never needed support with leaseweb but when I did, it was excellent!”

It’s these kinds of customer reactions that display just how powerful interaction through social media can be. Positive word-of-mouth is something you can’t buy; it has to be given freely to have any meaning. This means a company has to be honest, open and truly service minded.

So what are your thoughts on social media’s involvement in customer services within the hosting industry?  Do you see it as potentially inviting sticky comment, or a platform through which to positively engage with and assist customers? We don’t know what we would do without it! But we would love to hear your thoughts, so why not leave us a comment below or – if you’re a Twitter user! – tweet us @LeaseWeb and let us know.

also find (and follow) us here:

@LeaseWeb_News to stay current with daily news updates from the Hosting Industry
@LeaseWeb_Status Follow this account for status updates and alerts
@LeaseWeb_Sales Be the first to know about promotions for cloud, dedicated servers, colocation and custom/ hybrid solutions.

and off course don’t forget about our Facebook page!

                          

Thanks for reading our blog,
we are honored to be your host.
We would love to hear your thoughts
about the items we post.Be sure to come back
and find out what’s new,
because in 2012
we’ll keep the blogs coming too.

But for now,
as the end of December draws near,
we wish you a merry Christmas
and a happy New Year!

                          

The doors have closed on Game Connection Europe 2011, where the gaming industry was out in full force to share ideas and visions on the latest developments in MMOs, console-based games and mobile. Since 2001 GameConnection has been the place to be for video games professionals. It gathers key players from the game industry twice a year, in Europe and in the US, to help them do business together, connect, share and socialize in a lively environment.

This year, GameConnection was held in Paris. It was set up very much like a speed dating event, with 30 minute slots to meet and discuss business with a variety of companies. Most of the meetings needed to be confirmed via an online tool prior to the event (though it was good to have a few open slots to set up meetings with people you met on the floor).

Hosting for online games isn’t actively talked about within the gaming industry and neither are there a lot of speakers that give their opinion on this matter. But we noticed that there is actually a thirst for knowledge about the various hosting possibilities, which meant our agendas were filled all day long. Of course we also shared some thoughts over one or two beers in the evening. Here are a few insights we learned:

• The industry is going through lots of shifts, with most sessions talking about moving into the online/mobile space, or showcasing best practices from big players
• While spreading intellectual property across different platforms, publishers are not just porting their games 1-on-1, but thinking of creative ways to make full use of new technologies. Point in case: Assassin’s Creed Recollection. It’s wildly different from the original series, built from the ground up for mobile touchscreen devices:
  
• There is increasing movement in social and mobile games – gaming companies are changing their business models to fit in with trends towards location-based apps and social networking
• Many MMO companies are moving towards a free to play model, where users can buy extras in-game. Although these are only micro-transactions, this could represent a major revenue stream

As companies grow, it’s vital that they are fully provisioned with a stable network environment and use the right technology and infrastructure to improve their customer’s gaming experience. Repeat interruptions during gaming experience can mean suicide for game release. We’ve expanded on these ideas in previous blog posts, designed to give you all the information you need on how to choose the right service for a game’s requirements. Check them out here:

1. Reliable Hosting
2. Worldwide Connectivity
3. Fast Scalability
4. Efficient Pricing

Let us know what you thought of this year’s event and what else you took away from it! Leave a comment or tweet us (@LeaseWeb).