Internet Site Hosting overview

This overview of our basic Internet Site Hosting services (which we have been providing and supporting since the early- to mid-1990s) should serve as a general starting point for hosting your web site.  Since requirements vary with each project, customization may be required.  A commercial hosting package typically starts at CAD$720.00 per year (please contact us for pricing information because your needs are probably unique).

We reserve the right to change the following information without notice.

Disk space allocation:	100 MegaBytes (102,400 kB) Unlimited documents/directories
Electronic mail (SMTP, POP3, IMAP4*):	25 addresses (plus aliases) Intelligent forwarding options Automatic pre-scheduled eMail response options ("out of office" notices) Automated mailing lists (confirmed opt-in) Spam blocking (using a number of conservative blacklists) Spam filtering * IMAP4 is available upon special request
Domain name:	No annual DNS management fees when hosting with us One-time setup fee for each domain name Registration (includes InterNIC and other fees)
Internet Protocol:	Static and dedicated IPv4 and IPv6 addresses
Web server (HTTP):	Dynamic/immediate web page updates Customizable error pages Password protection (optional) Online monthly usage reports
Network News server (NNTP):	Dynamic creation/deletion of newsgroups Password protection (optional)
FTP access (as needed):	Full (read/write) access to web site documents Read-only access to raw log files Full (read/write) access to raw eMail messages
Other special features included:	Web-based online forms can be sent to your eMail Telephone and eMail support Knowledgable support staff

Does your company host the corporate web site using an existing internet connection? Contact us to find out how you can reduce expenses by hosting your site with us instead.

Contact us for pricing and estimates, and a copy of our contract.  If you don't have a web site yet, or need a new one, we can help - see our web site planning overview to find out how easy it is.

Full backups are performed on a regular basis, as a part of our disaster recovery precautions.  Backup tapes are cycled off site regularly as a protective measure against natural disasters and other unexpected destructive events.

Our Novell NetWare systems route to redundant OC-192 (9,920,000 kbps) internet backbones.  Compared with a T1 (1,544 kBps), T3 (45,000 kBps) or OC-3 (155,000 kBps) connection, or even a typcial modem (56 kBps), and complimented by the high performance of our servers, your web site is fast even during peak times.

Our up-to-date equipment includes more system resources than are required because we take your data, and its high-performance delivery, very seriously.  The success of your business depends on reliable systems that are optimized to handle heavy loads, which is why we use Apache Web Server on Novell NetWare:

• Apache Web Server is the best managed Open Source cross-platform web server projects in the world, and has gained the respect of web site managers from all regions of the world for its scalability, security, and total reliability, plus much more, ever since its inception in the early 1990s.  The product quality and flexibility provided by Apache far exceeds that of other commercial web server offerings, and we believe that this is partly due to the large number of open source software developers scrutinizing every aspect of it.
   
• Novell NetWare is the undisputed champion as the best performance file server, which makes it the ideal platform to serve web sites (all web pages and their images are separate files).  We also enjoy the low-overhead management features that only NetWare can provide in a dynamic and scalable fashion.  Although Novell NetWare isn't well-known for its capabilities as an internet server, it exceeded our own expectations by handling all ISP requirements easily and efficiently.
   
• Oracle is one of two database engines we've chosen because along with its seemingly limitless scalability (up to 512 PetaBytes, or 536,870,912 GigaBytes), it's also the fastest offering on the market (AltaVista.Com, Google.Com, and Yahoo.Com all use Oracle, and their response times are almost instantaneous).
   
• PostgreSQL is the other database engine we've chosen.  PostgreSQL is open source freeware which appears to us to be aimed at competing with Oracle, thus we find the performance and reliability it provides better than meets our needs in the testing we've done, and have found it to exceed Oracle in some areas.
   
• Mercury Mail Server is a high-performance RFC-compliant SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 server that integrates natively into Novell NetWare.  By utilizing Novell Directory Services, everyone benefits from its scalability, security, high-performance (due to instant user/address lookups), and flexibility with user/group/alias management of eMail accounts that follows our way of maintaining a large system through native NetWare management tools.  Since each eMail message is stored as a separate file (as compared to some other systems that store all messages in a single database which risk down time and data loss due to corruption) we enjoy greater overall reliability.
   
• Intel CPUs, motherboards, and network adapters have provided us with both reliability and optimal performance.  To avoid possible reliability problems, we don't overclock our CPUs (a common practice amongst hobbyists and video game fans who prefer speed and typically aren't as concerned about reliability).

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