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Groundhog Day

02 Feb 2012

If anyone remembers when I set the business up around 18 months ago, I had lots of fun and games with suppliers - and trying to get things sorted out.

Well - it seemed like Groundhog Day (Feb 2nd) had arrived early just before Christmas as I was neck-deep in work I had an email from the data centre who host and manage my web server….

For a website designer and developer, the choice of where you host your websites is of paramount importance to the success of your business - and that of your clients. However, when faced with a nearly 50% increase in costs (or a dramatic drop in the level of support provided) you have to review what you are doing. I can't absorb that sort of increase in costs - and I certainly don't want to pass it on to my clients. At any time this increase in costs would be difficult to pass on - but in these economic times it is daft to even contemplate it. However, nor am I willing to compromise on quality of support - or quality of data centre infrastructure.

So amidst all the work I was undertaking before Christmas (and planning for the New Year), I decided I needed to find a new web hosting supplier. It wasn't a decision taken lightly. But, after a lot of research, review-reading and telephone calls I settled on a new supplier and arranged to visit their data centre. They asked if I'd also like to meet the support staff and visit their head office. "Well, that seems quite open" I thought.... so duly accepted. The reason I found this revealing was that - I've been to data centres before - and whilst the DC itself has money spent on it, the same isn't always true of the offices and environment that the staff work in.

Well - the visit to this supplier's offices was a pleasant surprise... fantastic views, great environment - altogether a professional atmosphere. This was also true down the road at their data centre - where everything was exactly as it should be.

So I commissioned a server with them. Infact by now all clients have been migrated across to the new server. I ran the server for a few weeks with only a few websites on it as a test - and it performed fantastically. So I then put a massive project plan in place for migrating all client websites across. This was an enormous amount of work - at a time when I was already busy - but as I've said - you can't compromise on the quality of your hosting provision.

I've had cause to use the Technical Support provided a few times since the server has been online - and they have performed exceptionally well - giving me confidence that if I need them in the future - they are there 24/7 at the end of a UK phone line.

Its probably worth pointing out that my clients are now hosted on a MUCH fast server (at least 4 times faster in terms of paper specs) - meaning that all things being equal - their websites will load fast and be more responsive to their web visitors - and the search engines. (Google places an emphasis on the speed of the site now when ranking a site).

So - great news all round. There remains one question… my new server is "Carbon Neutral" - as is the company I host with, along with their entire operation. I have the option of placing a Carbon Neutral logo on my website… what do you think? Use the comment form below, please….!

In other news...

We're sending out an email next week with some exciting news. I will blog about that later this month - and give you the much promised list of recent website launches (which gets longer and longer, as I forget to do it each blog!)

In the meantime, have a great weekend!

Peter

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