Back in June, we announced that we would be increasing the disk space across our entire VPS line — and that this upgrade was going to be passed along to all our customers, both existing and new, at no additional cost. After weeks of hard work, I’m proud to announce that we have successfully completed the disk space upgrades — and prouder still that we did it more than a month ahead of schedule.

I should be clear — the fact that we performed the upgrade quickly doesn’t impress me so much.  What impresses me is the fact that we performed this massive upgrade so quickly, without compromising our exacting standards for uptime, customer care and service reliability.

It wasn’t easy.  Before our announcement we had done extensive testing. We had invested a small fortune in new equipment, and had devised the necessary workflow to get the job done right.  But no matter how hard you plan you can’t help but worry when the hard work actually gets underway. Over the course of just 58 days, we managed to test each and every box to make sure it met ServInt’s standards and get everything into production without a hitch.

We implemented the change in two phases:

1. All new clients were automatically turned up on new host machines (the giant servers we use to host our VPS and SuperVPS products) that were pre-outfitted with the upgraded disk space.
2. All existing clients were then carefully migrated to host machines reconfigured with new resources by ServInt’s network engineers.

We made that decision because we wanted to get as many people more resources as quickly as possible, and we didn’t want to make everybody wait.  Some of you may have seen your resources suddenly pop up overnight without ever having noticed the transition, and if you didn’t — well, that was the idea!

I’ve got pretty high standards for this company, and I don’t brag about our achievements too often — but in this case I really want to say that this was a fantastic example of intelligent engineering.  Our team worked long hours, as long as it took, at all of our data centers to bring you these features in a way that minimized interruption to our clients’ online businesses, and I’m proud of them.

Now that everybody has their free upgrade, we hope you can put it to good use. Look for even more free updates in the future — and thanks again for your business!

Follow Reed Caldwell on Twitter.

[Editor's Note: ServInt cast a wide net when looking to fill this role. We received hundreds of resumes and interviewed dozens of exceptionally qualified candidates. We were looking for individuals who were committed to -- and possibly a little obsessed with -- exceptional customer service. I therefore shouldn't have been that surprised when an employee from within our ranks rose to to the top of the pack and convinced us that he was the right man for the job. Jim is a veteran of our Managed Services Team and he easily stood out with his keen understanding of the day to day challenges facing our NOC. With his terrific analytical mind and wealth of ideas to further improve the division, I'm ecstatic that Jim is taking the reins of our MST and look forward to his leadership. -Christian]

I’ve been a computer enthusiast for a really, really long time. I started tinkering with hardware as a child, and by the time I was 14 I was running my own bulletin board, my interests continued on to more complex projects in highschool and college that eventually led me to ServInt. So, I think it’s fair to say that I’m passionate about technology, and as that technology has grown more and more complex over time, so have my personal technological interests.

As ServInt’s new Director of Managed Services, my job is to make our support even better. Here, in story form, is how I’m gonna do it.

I’ve been at ServInt for nearly 6 years, starting as a Tier 1 Support Technician on the front lines of our Managed Services Team. It was there that I got my first taste of the hosting experience. Diving headfirst into UNIX and trying to fix what were sometimes incredibly ambiguous quirks was  appealing to me. Needless to say, no two challenges are alike, and helping people overcome technical problems and get back to making their businesses thrive was – and still is – an incredibly rewarding experience.

While the challenge is definitely invigorating, what’s really important is ensuring that our support experience is as pleasant a process as possible for everyone. When it comes to your business, we get that there is no such thing as a small problem. Our clients come in at all skill levels, from hosting novice to server expert. Whether you’re capable of compiling a Linux kernel with a toothpick and chewing gum, or your an aspiring blogger trying to tell your story, our Managed Services Team will help you get up and running.

The ServInt MST is committed to tackling issues as quickly and as effectively as possible. At ServInt, we do everything we can to get it right the first time because for us we take service personally. Overcoming intricate issues is part of our collective DNA.

At the end of the day, my goal is to simply uphold the core tenets of our Managed Services Team.  Our job is to ensure every customer experience is efficient, fast, and most importantly, accurate. So sit back and relax, your server is up and running.

~ Jim

It’s funny, despite how much closer the Internet brings us, sometimes the tech industry can seem oddly impersonal. Well, we take things personally at ServInt. Our customers come to us in search of a partner, someone who has genuine concern –and in some ways a vested interest — in their success.

After all, few things are as personal as one’s livelihood, and all of us at ServInt take our role in the lives of our clients seriously. Our service and our technology power thousands of businesses around the world. People trust us with the foundation of their day to day lives online and they expect us to take that role seriously.

That’s why I’m proud to be one of the public faces of ServInt. I’ve logged plenty of travel time under my belt to make sure that people know we’re a living, breathing group of caring and hardworking people.

Tomorrow I have a fun stack of meetings up in Boston at LinuxCon, which is run by our partners at The Linux Foundation.

If you’re in town and want to sit down and chat, let me know!

Follow Christian on Twitter.

When I started at ServInt more than six years ago, one of the first lessons I learned was just how critical first impressions were to the customer experience. ServInt’s new Kickstart Team, a division of our Managed Services Team, is committed to making hosting a website as painless a process as possible. Here’s a little background on who we are and why we do what we do.

What is KickStart?

To best answer that, I’ll start with a brief story. A few years ago, I came across a new client that was canceling their service just two days after signing up with ServInt. We take our customer service commitments personally, so my first thought was “What did we do wrong?”

Being that technical support is often a customer’s first contact with ServInt, I assumed this client’s first impression of us must have been terrible. After digging into things a bit deeper, I found the real reason for the cancellation – administering a server seemed like too daunting of a task to this particular individual. The problem wasn’t ServInt, rather, it was the technology’s steep learning curve.

The message was clear. Web hosting isn’t always a walk in the park, in fact it can be difficult and frustrating for folks who are just getting started, but we had to ensure that those who were new to hosting knew they could come to us for help.

This is where ServInt’s new KickStart team steps in. Our goal is to get you through all of the initial obstacles of web hosting and to minimize that already-steep learning curve. We’ll reach out to you proactively, walk you through the basics of getting started, and try and anticipate potential stumbling blocks to help you get the most out of your server as quickly as possible.

You’re not alone; you can take comfort in knowing that there is always a friendly, knowledgeable, and professional technician just a phone call away here at ServInt. With KickStart, what could have taken you weeks to set up on your own can now often be accomplished with a single phone call!

We want that first impression to be nothing short of “Wow! You made that a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.”

ServInt has always been known for our world-class support, in fact, the service behind KickStart is nothing new. As the latest division of our Managed Services Team, the men and women of our KickStart team are further proof of our ongoing commitment to ensuring that each and every customer get’s the help they need. We wanted to really emphasize that you don’t have to be a 10 year veteran to have a thriving business.

To us, a customer is not just a customer – they’re an intimate and essential part of who we are as a company. KickStart is just another example of ServInt rising to meet the needs of its clients and I’m proud to be part of the team.

John Kam is the Technology Education Coordinator for ServInt’s award-winning Managed Services Team.

Photo by Cayusa.

A couple weeks back, I mentioned that I would be speaking at the HostingCon 2010 conference in Austin, TX. I also mentioned that I would post the presentation here for all to see after the conference and I want to make good on my word. The presentation is posted below (after the jump).

The title of my presentation is “Oh My God We’re All Gonna Die”. While the title is intentionally provocative, the message is, I think, pretty optimistic. Our industry is changing rapidly, while we’ll be forced to innovate and compete on a whole new scale, it will mean a leaner operation for businesses and better and more affordable services for end users.

Since there is no video of the presentation (sorry about that), I’ll try and sum it up as best as I can here.

In my view, the webhosting industry of today can be compared to the automobile industry more than 100 years ago. Prior to the assembly line, there were many competing fuel standards (much like the various web standards we have to contend with), there were no road standards or highways, the expectations and needs of your average car owner at the time were considerably less stringent than today.

When the big three automakers essentially equalized the industry, they destroyed a lot of peripheral businesses in the process, but we all benefited from the standards they introduced, the products they created, and the technology they helped cultivate. What resulted was a new, healthier, more vibrant industry where niche companies could still thrive despite the big guys’ presence.

Cloud technologies, and the behemoths entering our industry who dominate the space, are bringing with them an entirely new way of delivering hosting services. For businesses that are willing to do the legwork and innovate within the cloud, there is plenty of room to grow and prosper. However, those that have sat back, stacked racks, and tried to coast are going to learn very harsh lessons in the coming months.

I believe that what makes this cloud evolution so interesting is not necessarily the technology – after all, virtualization is nothing new – but the mechanisms surrounding it that allow it to flourish.

In other words, it’s not the cars themselves that are interesting or transformative, it’s the assembly line.

Without further ado: “Oh My God We’re All Gonna Die.”

I think it’s perfectly clear that this industry is changing before our eyes and all of us at ServInt have certainly taken notice. While I don’t have anything to announce just yet, you can rest assured we have some incredible products and services coming in the next few weeks that will put a lot of these arguments into practice.

In the meantime, stay tuned and keep your head out of the clouds.

Thoughts? Comments? Angry protestations? Let me know in the comments, on Twitter, or on Facebook!

Follow Christian Dawson on Twitter.

Photo by pangalactic gargleblaster.

As you may have heard, I’ll be speaking at HostingCon 2010 next week in balmy, beautiful, and weird Austin, TX. I love Austin and am really looking forward to mingling with friends and industry colleagues, but I thought I’d mention something about my presentation before I hopped on a plane to the Lone Star State.

The name of my presentation is:

“Oh My God We’re All Gonna Die: The Future of Webhosting…and What We Can Do About It.”

Now, I admit the title is a bit provocative, but I want to be clear that what I think is going to happen to our industry in the next few years will completely transform the landscape of the web.

What this presentation will spell out are what I believe to be the coming shifts in web hosting and web infrastructure in the next few years. Like the automotive industry more than a century ago, the web is a chaotic marketplace with competing platforms and standards.

Whether it’s Windows and Linux, WebM vs OGG vs H.264, or Open vs Proprietary, the movers and shakers on the web are still arguing over foundational issues. We are only now beginning to see a crystallization of standards, and along with it we’re seeing the entrance of technology behemoths creating and promptly capturing entire segments of the internet economy.

I’ll be out of the office for a few days after I give my presentation, but I’ll be sure to post it here for all to see as soon as I’m back and am looking forward to your thoughts and feedback.

Questions? Comments? Leave a comment below, Like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter!

Follow Christian Dawson on Twitter.

Gigabit speed

Today ServInt is announcing the availability of full gigabit (Gbps) throughput to all ServInt Dedicated Server customers for just $25 a month.

Of course, this isn’t the most revolutionary news. Though ServInt’s pricing on this service is very competitive, we’ve been offering this service on a custom basis for some time. Really, this announcement is a public signal that we see where the web is headed and are reshaping our products to fit those needs.

For the past 6 years, we’ve offered optional Gbps Dedicated Servers on custom dedicated server packages. All of us at ServInt see this as an evolutionary change in how the Internet utilizes infrastructure; we’re simply taking it one step further. We’ve invested in the necessary hardware to deploy this across our entire Solo Series and are really excited about the capabilities we’re opening up to our incredible popular Dedicated products.

In the past, we’ve actively decided against offering this as an add-on. We’ve always understood the responsibility that comes with generating Gbps traffic and we take that commitment seriously. We work closely with our customers on an individual basis to make sure that they can effectively use and deploy Gbps connections effectively and responsibly. ServInt still does that for customers every day.

However, over the past year or so, ServInt has seen a marked increase in the number of high-bandwidth clientele that can genuinely make use of Gbps throughput. These customers also tend to be better educated about the risks and rewards of ‘going gigabit’.

On the plus side, better overall performance is a terrific boon for high-traffic sites. However, some clients, frankly, don’t always know what they’re getting themselves into with this capability and sometimes wake up to a bill that’s 4 digits higher than they expected.

Now, I don’t want to minimize the successes of going gigabit, nor is my goal to scare folks away.

Recently, a ServInt client released a book that shot up to #1 on Amazon.com. The client was able to sustain a temporary 2 day traffic jump that took him over 210 Mbps. His site was fully accessible despite the uncharacteristically massive traffic surge.

So yeah, it can definitely make a difference.

As the Internet matures and broadband adoption leads to larger file sizes, ServInt has adapted to the ever-increasing bandwidth needs of the modern Internet. This announcement is simply further proof that we intend not just to keep up, but to stay competitive in giving our clients access to the best resources around.

When we make key product development decisions at ServInt, we listen to our customers and we listen to our market. Last year, in response to a rapid increase in bandwidth usage across our entire client base, ServInt dropped its bandwidth overage charges by 75%. Today, ServInt allows its Dedicated Server customers who know they need Gbps connectivity to choose it as a standard offering.

As always, we’ll be here with guidance and support. Our sales team will help you assess your needs based on your traffic projections to ensure you’re buying a legitimate solution (and not a bag of hurt) and our award winning Managed Services Team will make sure you stay up and running.

After all, that’s what ServInt is all about.

Questions? Concerns? Leave us a comment below, Like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter!

Follow Christian on Twitter.

Photo by Vermin Inc.

Earlier this morning I read a terrific article from cnet’s Ina Fried about the state of the “Internet Appliance”.

Basically, the Internet Appliance rested on the idea that there were, to paraphrase Ms. Fried, many “on-ramps” to the Internet (more specifically the web). These “on-ramps” would give relatively fast, simplified access to the web in order to access information.

There’s no doubt it was a great idea, but the execution was hampered by spotty, slow, and expensive internet access and a lack of justifiable content. The result was a swift and untimely death for the entire concept.

But fast forward to today and you’ll find the Internet Appliance is alive and well. While there isn’t a single product or category that can claim the “appliance” concept outright, most of us have and use these devices everyday.

Be it an iPhone or Android, a PS3 or a Wii, all of these devices have constant access to the web to some degree.

Looking again at Ms. Fried’s article, one of the most glaring examples of an appliance’s “revival” of sorts is the concept of the “Network Computer”.

Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison dreamt up the concept of a modern mainframe computer, a “thin client” that simply accessed a core computer for its computational muscle. In the 90′s, the idea fell flat. These network computers looked and acted like standard desktops, only they were designed to be used completely differently and simply didn’t have the muscle of your standard PC.

Today? Mobile “thin client” devices are everywhere and this space is slated to get a lot more competitive with devices like the iPad and the upcoming Chrome OS.

From the standpoint of a hosting provider, the needs of web users have changed dramatically since then as well. In 1999, web pages were largely static and couldn’t break. When all you’re doing is throwing an animated “hamster” gif up with a looped audio track, well, that could very well stay up forever without a hitch.

Today, even the most basic sites require databases. Whether it’s video sharing sites, online gaming, or even a simple blog with comments, it’s hard to imagine an internet that didn’t involve real time user participation of some kind.

That got me thinking, I know how my internet creation and consumption habits have changed in the past decade, but what about everyone else’s? For those who own and operate businesses, how has your company or business adapted to the modern web? For consumers, how has your experience consuming content changed with this latest generation of internet appliances?

Let us know in the comments, on Facebook, and follow ServInt on Twitter!

Follow Eric Morales on Twitter.

Photo by Steve Rhode.

All of us at ServInt want to wish our friends up North a very happy Canada Day!

Fire up your barbecues and (safely) light up your (legally obtained, I’m sure) fireworks. ;-)

We’ve always been vocal about our support for open source software and the communities surrounding the movement. After all, we wouldn’t be around without Linux and the myriad of open source components that help us run our business. This isn’t a simple reaffirmation of the obvious here, we are true believers and we want to show it. Below are a couple of the open source initiatives we’ve been involved in the past few weeks, with even more to come!

In April, we decided to double down and become Silver members of the Linux Foundation. We did it for two key reasons.

First, our entire product line is is based on Linux, so we felt compelled to help ensure that the platform is sufficiently protected and represented in the growing tech world. Secondly, we believe that real innovation comes from a level playing field.

There is no fairer platform than Linux.

A little while later, we also became official sponsors of the CentOS.org. Our VPS, SuperVPS, and Solo Series all leverage the power, and flexibility of CentOS Linux and we’re proud to put our money where our mouth is. We’re also hosting a CentOS mirror on one of ServInt’s Solo Series Dedicated servers, so those interested can download our favorite distro!

Finally, ServInt’s COO, Christian Dawson, will be visiting LinuxCon 2010 in Boston this coming August. If you’re in town, don’t forget to say hi!

In the near future, we’ll be announcing even more open source initiatives so stay tuned!

Questions? Comments? Let us know below, on Facebook, or on Twitter!

Follow Eric Morales on Twitter.

Photo by sidereal.