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T35 Hosting Interview with Web Hosting Professional

Based in the US and headquartered just outside NYC, T35 Hosting’s original mission was to provide a free hosting service that would enable anyone and everyone to publish online for free. This mission continued for 14 years and the company garnered more than one million customers during this time. Alex explained more about this:

“T35 Hosting was started in the mid 90’s – with the goal of giving everyone the idea to publish content online for free. For those that were involved in the digital space at the time, that was around the time of Geocities, Tripod and Hypermart. T35 Hosting ultimately grew to host over a million customers before finally discontinuing the free hosting division in 2011”.

Check out the full interview here: https://webhostingprof.com/blog/t35-hosting-review-and-interview/

Why T35 Hosting Has Been Using InterServer for 15 Years

Why T35 Hosting Has Been Using InterServer for 15 Years

Data center colocation services allow business owners to keep their own servers and equipment in purpose-built computer rooms. Also known as colo, a colocation facility provides the building, physical security, bandwidth, power supply, and cooling systems. Their clients can then lease the space by the room, cage, cabinet, or rack. Today, data center workloads are increasingly shifting to colocation facilities rather than privately-owned data centers. In addition, business owners who need to migrate their IT infrastructures to the cloud will require solutions that ensure zero downtime. At T35 Hosting, our web hosting company has been using InterServer services for 15 years and counting. Below are some reasons why they are our preferred colocation facility!

Well-Equipped Colocation Facilities

InterServer’s customers get to choose from 42u and 48u server racks and even purchase full size locking cabinets. The facility also offers UPS (uninterruptible power supply) and generator backup systems to keep our equipment operational during a sudden power outage. In addition, these systems help protect our servers against power surges.

InterServer is one of the few colocation providers that own roof rights at its data center. This means that T35 Hosting and other tenants can mount antennas and satellite dishes atop the building to access fiber networks and/or airwaves.

Fast and Friendly On-Site Services

Located in Secaucus, New Jersey, InterServer’s Teb2 Datacenter is staffed by highly skilled Linux and Windows Administrators. Their on-site technicians can resolve issues that we may face and monitor our data center servers 24/7. In addition to processing incoming shipments, InterServer can install operating systems, racks, and stack servers into our colocation space. One of the biggest benefits of working with this colocation provider is that they provide FREE initial racking and stacking solutions. New equipment delivered to the data center will be racked and plugged in according to their customers’ specifications at no cost.

With proper administrators on site, this practice has given T35 Hosting peace of mind knowing that there is always someone qualified to perform OS trouble shooting, network configurations, hard drive replacements, KVM plug-ins, reboots, console checks, and much more!

Round-The-Clock Data Center Access

Companies that move their data off-site are typically concerned that they might get locked out and do not have perpetual access to their server stacks. Fortunately, InterServer’s ground level building is always open, and we have access to our hardware at all times.

Flexible Billing Options

Colocation service providers should always offer transparency in its billing processes. Consider working with facilities that bill your power usage based on metered power or distribution of power circuits. At InterServer, they offer month-to-month billing options and long-term contracts. T35 Hosting loves the idea of using their colocation services monthly without any commitments, which has worked very well of us over the years.

About InterServer.net

Now that you are familiar with what InterServer.net has to offer, here is some background information about the managed colocation provider. The company was co-founded in 1999 by Mike Lavrik and John Quaglieri. Their mission was to offer affordable data services while maintaining a high level of service and support. Today, InterServer is recognized for its quick servers, dedicated servers, colocation services, and virtual hosting solutions. In addition, they own and operate two datacenters that are located in Secaucus, NJ and Los Angeles, CA.

For more information about InterServer, feel free to visit their website: https://www.interserver.net.

HostSEO.org is now part of the T35 Hosting Family!

What’s happening?

Although HostSEO.org was always part of T35 Hosting (with billing always done through the T35 Hosting billing system), we will now be discontinuing the HostSEO.org brand and unifying the services under T35 Hosting.

How does this affect me?

For existing clients, nothing will change. Your hosting will remain the same as will your billing. For new clients, you will be purchasing all services through https://www.t35hosting.com going forward.

Why is this being done?

By unifying under the T35 Hosting brand (which has been providing hosting for over 20 years), we can offer a better and more standardizing experience for our clients – including top-tier hardware and improved customer service.

What do I have to do?

Absolutely nothing. The HostSEO.org domain will now redirect to T35Hosting.com but otherwise all services will remain the same.

What if I still have questions?

As always, feel free to open a helpdesk ticket and someone will get back to you right away.

How to resolve: check_mysql has determined that there are corrupted database tables (eximstats)

Did you get the following message/alert from cpanel?

check_mysql has determined that there are corrupted database tables

mysql-eximstats-crash

First, you want to rule out that you’re not having serious server issues like a failing HD (test with smartctl) or OS/kernel crashes (review OS logs). To see the exact database causing the issue you will want to review the mysql log. On a cpanel server, this will be found in /var/lib/mysql/.err. The most common issue is the eximstats database that can start corrupting from an abrupt restart or crash (which is more common as it gets bigger).

The error you’re looking for will look something like this:

2016-03-15 17:14:26 30634 [ERROR] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Table ‘./eximstats/failures’ is marked as crashed and should be repaired

If you see anything related to /eximstats/ you can repair the database/table or simple drop it and re-create it with the below command:

mysqladmin drop eximstats
mysqladmin create eximstats
mysql eximstats < /usr/local/cpanel/etc/eximstats_db.sql

Alternatevly, you can also do it from the mysql interface like this:

mysql
mysql> use eximstats
mysql> delete from sends;
mysql> delete from smtp;
mysql> delete from failures;
mysql> delete from defers;

Once done, restart mysql (with something like: service mysql restart) and you should be all set.

T35 Hosting on Wikipedia

Better late than never? T35 Hosting has finally been featured in Wikipedia – go check us out!

t35-hosting-wiki

Have some content to add about our early dates? Just send it our way and we can suggest it to be added to the Wikipedia article.

Bitcoin Accepted Managed Hosting

bitcoin-hosting

At T35 Hosting, we’ve been accepting bitcoin as a form of payment on all of our shared and dedicated hosting plans. However, we still get a lot of questions about bitcoin, so let’s take a deeper dive and help shed some light on this revolutionary form of currency.

What are Bitcoins?

A bitcoin is a type of digital currency that is created, used and held completely electronically. No single entity controls it and it can be used worldwide with no geographical or political borders. Bitcoin was the first type of what’s now known as cryptocurrency.

Who makes Bitcoins?

Bitcoins are “made” via process called mining. Unlike most worldwide currencies that are either tied to Gold reserves or controlled by the government, Bitcoin don’t have a central authority to regulate them. There are a total of 21 million bitcoin that can ever be mined, with over 15 million of them already mined. As more and more are mined, the mining process becomes more difficult, this regulating the currency. Coinbase, a digital wallet and exchange for Bitcoin has a great write up of current circulation and prices: Coinbase Charts.

Why accept Bitcoin?

As of 2016, almost 10% of Fortune 1000 companies now accept bitcoin including: Overstock.com, Dell, Expedia and much more. Accepting Bitcoin for our hosting plans allows our customers to pay us in whatever way is most convenient for them. It also facilitates international exchanges and allows clients outside of the U.S. to easily pay for hosting without incurring international transaction fees and other complications.

Where can I get Bitcoin?

With mining aside (since that is a very complicated process), the best way to get Bitcoin is to purchase and trade them on Coinbase. Clicking there from our site will get you $10 of free bitcoin after you buy $100.

What hosting plans can I buy with Bitcoin?

T35 Hosting accepts Bitcoin as payment for any and all of services we offer. This includes Managed Shared Hosting Plans, Dedicated Servers, and Domain Name Registration.

Magento vs. Volusion vs. WooCommerce vs. Demandware

We often get asked about which eCommerce platform is best. Although we often recommend Magento (and specialize in Magento Managed Hosting), each platform has it’s pros & cons. so let’s take a deeper dive and take a look.

First, let’s take a look at the eCommerce market place, comparing the platforms used by the top 1 million websites.

ecommerce-usage

As you can see, Magento continues to be the leading eCommerce provider (and has gained market share every year for the last few years). Being owned by eBay gives Magento tons of funding in developing updates. In fact, their current Magento 2.x is perhaps the biggest update to Magento since it was first released. Additionally, being open source makes it affordable (free for non-enterprise) and ensures that the code is not proprietary and easy to work with. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of the most popular platforms.

1. Magento

Open-source, owned by eBay. 14% market share. Just released a major update (Magento 2).

Pros

– Open-source (ie: free).
– Very popular: Tons of themes, plugins, addons, etc.
– Very customizable.

Cons

– Backend can be overwhelming for novice users.
– Requires a developer to do periodic updates, fix bugs.

2. Woocommerce

#1 WordPress addon for Ecommerce. 10% market share.

Pros

– Integrates with WordPress.
– Very easy to use.

Cons

– Limited addons/plguins.
– Somewhat customizable, but still limited.
– Not suitable for high traffic sites.

3. Volusion

15 years in business. 6% market share.

Pros

– Very easy to use.
– Doesn’t require separate hosting.

Cons

– Not customizable.
– Limited ability to change anything.
– Hosted by Volusion.
– On-going costs.

4. DemandWare

Enterprise-level Ecommerce. 1% market share.

Pros

– Enterprise-grade – meant for millions of transactions.
– Battle-tested by several fortune 500 companies.

Cons

– Limited plugins/addons.
– Requires a full-time developer to use & maintain.
– Very pricey.

Final Comparison

magentoVSwoocommerceVSvolusionVSdemandware

As you can see, Magento often winds up being the most flexible and cost effective choice. It’s for this reason we created a special managed shared hosting plan specifically optimized for Magento: Magento Shared Hosting.

What you need to know about PHP7

1. What is PHP7?

PHP7 is the next major update to the PHP programming language that powers most of the internet. It’s upcoming release will mark over 11 years since the initial release of PHP5.

2. What happened to php 6?

PHP6 was (and still is) a very large and highly publicized project/branch of the PHP project. It is not related to the upcoming PHP7 release and risked creating confusion for both the developers and users alike. A vote was taken from 7/23/2014-7/30/2014 to determine the name of the successor to PHP5 (latest branch being 5.6). PHP7 was selected with 58 votes vs. only 24 votes for calling it PHP6.

3. What are the benefits of PHP7?

Performance improvements and security are the underlying goals of PHP7. In fact, PHP7 has been tested to perform twice faster than the current latest PHP branch (PHP5.6). Specifically for WordPress, the same server can handle more than double the requests/second with PHP7.

php7-wordpress-testing

4. Backwards compatibility: Is my script/site compatible?

Being a major release, there is a big potential for older scripts to break or not work properly. Amongst the bigger changes in PHP7, asp-style tags (<% %>) will no longer be supported, so you would have to make sure all the php tags follow the proper format ). Major CMS’s like WordPress, Magento, etc.. already use coded that is compatible with PHP7 so no further action will be needed. However, it’s always useful to keep in mind any custom themes or plugins you installed in your CMS and checking to make sure those are still being maintained and updated.

5. PHP 7 Release Date

PHP 7.0.0 was released on 12/3/2015 and then updated to PHP 7.0.1 on 12/17/2015. However, it will take some time for the major hosting platforms to start supporting it. At T35 Hosting, we plan to roll out PHP7 within the next couple of weeks as we finish our own internal testing to make sure none of our clients are negatively impacted. cPanel, the leading hosting platform, is planning on rolling out support for it by the end of February, at which point it will be much easier for web hosts to implement.

Website Offline or Overloaded due to Exposure/Traffic?

Huge exposure for your business can be the best news ever – but only if your website can sustain the traffic. We’ve had several clients who got TV exposure that instantly brought their site traffic from hundreds of visitors per day to millions. Earlier today we had just that kind of situation where a small site got exposure on several nation TV networks and brought their traffic to over 100 hits/second. Luckily, we never oversell our servers and always have reserve capacity to handle these kind of situations. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with most other web hosts and we’ve gotten tons of SOS calls from clients over the years in these kind of situations.

So how does this all look like at the server level? First, apache takes the brunt of the initial hit since it’s the first server-level interaction the visitor makes (before php exectures and mysql loads).

This is how it looks with over 100 requests/sec:

apache-stats

Here’s how it looks over-time:

apache_accesses-week

CPU usage impact:

cpu-day

Memory usage impact:

memory-day

Bandwidth impact:

mrtg-spike

Most businesses don’t get to pick and choose when they get national attention. It pays to be prepared and not to miss your golden opportunity. Luckily this user was on T35 Hosting and was able to take advantage of the national attention and is now in buy-out talks to sell his business for millions. Although, these kind of situations are rare, it pays to be prepared – you never know when your business & website will take off.