I’ve been at this interweb stuff for about 12 years or so now, and i’ve seen a lot of changes, especially in the Irish hosting market. From a few bit players a several years ago the industry has grown in leaps and bounds, and it’s now cheaper than ever to get your email, website, and even file storage and collaboration tools sorted. So who have I tried over the years, and what do I think of them? Here goes!
When I got my first job with a web design company (we didn’t really do development), each and every client site was hosted on its own shared hosting account with Esat. We also had a ‘portal’ we ran which was built using Coldfusion / MSSQL, and hosted on a shared windows hosting account. With each account we got 5 pop boxes, a dial up internet access number thingy, and enough space to host a basic, static site. We didn’t get any database space (apart from the MSSQL on the Coldfusion account), and we were paying around £300 (yes, Irish pounds) per account.
These guys were awful. Coldfusion crashed every week or so, and it took about half a day to get Esat to get the server up and running again. On one occasion they even managed to lose all our data, only to find it all again two days later.
We were also billed like crazy by these chaps – they reckoned we owed them about £10k at one point, even though we’d paid for every account by direct debit. It was eventually sorted out, but led us to look around.
They LOVED faxing stuff to us – nothing was ever sent by email.
I remember the day these guys came into the office to sell us their wares. Dressed up in brand new suits and looking very fresh in the face, these chaps hadn’t a clue what they were selling us. It was endearing to say the least, and we went with the same kinda deal as we had with Esat but for less money, i’d say around £225 per client per year. These fellas loved faxing too, but were a lot easier to deal with than Esat (cos they were smaller).
We did have a little problemo with a client who wanted to register a particular domain. It was fairly generic, we submitted the order with supporting documentation, and waited patiently for them to register the domain for us. Days later they came back full of glory, proclaiming the domain was registered successfully. Except they’d bought the wrong one by fucking up the spelling of the domain. And by that time, some other chap had snapped our clients’ domain up. Whoops. It was sorted in the end, but put an end to all the faxing.
I can’t remember at what point they were bought by someone and became Netsource, but I didn’t see the fresh faced lads ever again. Awww.
As time went on, having 100 clients or so with a shared hosting account for each one was starting to take its toll. £225 x 100 = shiteloads of money, so we started looking around for a dedicated server. Stephen McCarron arrived in the office one day in a lovely suit, and sold us a dedicated server. It was grand, but it was a Cobalt RAQ server which was actually hosted in the UK. It was fun having a dedicated server, cos I used to host some of my own stuff on it too.
We could set up MySql databases for the first time, and even sold someone an eCommerce website (in about 2000-2001). Unfortunately the person didn’t have any money to market their site, and burnt a shitload of cash, but that wasn’t our problemo.
A few little issues cropped up, which began with our first migration from the RAQ to new Linux server which was based in Dublin and ran the Ensim control panel. This was relatively painless, but then Worldport (where the server was based), decided to shut up shop. So we had to go through another migration again, and yet another control panel (H-Sphere). Client passwords changed again, and yours truly had to get in touch with each and every client to ensure they changed their login details locally to get their email. It was a total pain in the tits, and I left my job after four years at that point to set up my own company.
Novara staff were always helpful though, and I did feel a little bit sorry for Eoin when Stephen McCarron pissed off and set up Hosting365. Eoin has sold Novara now, so fair play to him for that.
When I needed a reseller account that could handle Coldfusion and would give me some MySql databases, all I could find were Hosting365. I’d heard mixed reports since they set up, and decided to give them a go. I think I even got a few months free after a bit of a haggle with them. Initially all went well, and I started building Fashion.ie, whilst gathering email addresses via an opt in form on the holding page of the site.
By the time the site was ready to launch, several thousand people had opted to be notified when the site launched (i’d done some promotion on Pigsback.com and a few other places). Delighted with myself, I launched the site on a Friday, banged out an email to the opt in recipients, and went out for a few beverages to celebrate. When I woke up on the Saturday with a raging hangover, I noticed the site was down. Database errors everywhere, and nobody picking up phones in the Hosting365 24/7 support department. After a few hours of no joy, and no response from Stephen McCarrons personal email address, I kicked off over at boards.ie and got banned for my efforts – my bad, but I was really pissed off.
Basically, they’d moved a database server, changing the IP of it and all that, but they’d forgotten to name the database server correctly. So instead of mysql2.hosting365.ie or whatever, my stuff was now on mysql5.hosting365.ie (or something!), and they hadn’t told me. Duhhhh.
Anyhoo that aside, H365 were grand for a while and I managed to get Babysitters.ie launched on there, and some other bits and bobs. Then I got a call from Michele from Blacknight.
The first time Michele Neylon from Blacknight solutions dropped me an email was the very day i’d had a rant over on boards.ie about Hosting 365 and the whole Fashion.ie debacle. In his usual diplomatic manner, he told me Blacknight were the best in the business in no uncertain terms, and offered me a test account to give them a lash for free for a few months. I accepted and gave it a go. Twas lovely and fast for a shared account, and ran Coldfusion and Mysql and everything I wanted.
As time went on I decided I liked the fact I could get in touch with Michele, Paul, or Niall at any time, and moved my sites over to a Blacknight Reseller account (I think). Then, as I set up my first limited company to run all my sites under one umbrella, I had a look at the Blacknight Solutions dedicated hosting option.
Our server configuration was an unusual one. I wanted Coldfusion to run with Linux / Apache, and use MySql / Postgres for our database needs. I’d grown to hate everything to do with Windows hosting, and Coldfusion and Windows usually go hand in hand. After a bit of fannying about because of how DirectAdmin had set up various things on the server, we manged to get the server up and running, and the sites moved over from the shared hosting account. Yay!
Apart from some issues with memory cards failing and having to be replaced, I was fairly happy with Blacknight as a dedicated customer, but as time went on my colleagues and I got slightly paranoid about their office being in Carlow, and their servers being in Dublin. Our server crashed quite a lot, partly due to the amount of memory Coldfusion hogs to keep going, and partly cos memory cards kept failing, and we took the decision to look for a company who had their office and servers in one place, and went with Digiweb for our dedicated hosting needs.
Since then though, Blacknight have launched an excellent VPS offering, and I now have an account with them and host some of my other personal projects on it. It’s great value for money and, as always, the support is excellent. This very blog is hosted on the aforementioned Blacknight VPS account.
I’ve also kept all my domains with them, and continue to push all new domain registrations via Blacknight. Apparently they have engineers on site with their servers most of the time now too, so it looks like their dedicated customers have nothing to worry about in the future.
From a customer service point of view, Blacknight are very good – quick to answer calls, and usually very quick to resolve issues.
The main company i’m involved in hosts all our stuff on a dedicated server with Digiweb now. All is going relatively well, but we’ve had one or two sporadic issues with connectivity, which now seem to be sorted. Had one or two issues with customer service too, but these were all addressed quickly and put down to growing pains which I can very much appreciate.
Digiweb are handy from a billing point of view for us as our office broadband connection is with them too, so we get one bill for everything. When they finally get round to launching a mobile phone network, this could prove to be very, very handy.
They’ve recently bought Novara, and seem to be ramping up their efforts, so it’ll be interesting to see how everything goes in the future for them.
Hopefully it’ll all go well, as server migrations are a pain in the rear end, and I never want to go through that ever again!
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
great post Hugh
Just on a point of clarification, whatever way Eoin Costello might have tried to ‘represent’ it – I was locked out of Novara – the business I had founded – in September 2001 by Eoin Costello after he didn’t like what arbitrators were telling him when we tried to dissolve amicably. I set up 365 in January 2002. Any pity you felt for him might well have been misplaced considering my departure was entirely his doing.
It’s also worth noting that the services you had from hosting365 are now part of register365.ie which was sold to names.co.uk in May 2008 – hosting365.com is now solely a managed infrastructure and datacentre provider.
Hey Stephen,
I’m sure you both have different versions of things, as disputes generally tend to do. Either way I don’t care, and i’m sure most of my peers don’t either
You’ve both managed to build hosting companies, and both managed to sell them (or bits of them), so well done to you both.
I felt pity for Eoin because he didn’t seem to have much technical know how, and seemed a bit lost. Alls well that ends well anyway
‘versions’ aside – your suggestion I ‘pissed off and set up 365′ is incorrect and misleading. Getting pushed out is not ‘pissing off’
And you’re right Eoin was and is utterley technically illiterate.
Ah Stephen, you know what I meant – i’m awful for the amount of slang I use. I say ‘pissed off and set up 365′, but others may say ‘gathered his thoughts and set up 365′. You know what I meant
Also, it’s probably not the best idea to have a go at Eoin from a literacy standpoint when you spell ‘utterly’ as ‘utterley’!
rofl – I’m blaming my spellchecker on the iPhone
I was calling out his technical ability not his spelling :p
Seeing as you see fit to prolong this matter Stevie and comment publicly thereby breaking the binding agreement you entered into when Novara successfully sued you in the High Court, I am forced to counter what you have said here and in other locations.
I took you out of a dead end job in the Dept and got you started in business. In fact it is reasonable for me to claim that I played a major part in the establishment of Hosting 365 having unwillingly provided the initial customer base to Hosting 365(extract from an IRC chat: Steve “there was a small bit of server custom at Novara, which I took when I moved”) and provided a business education to you(in fact for the first 3 years of 365 you implemented the business plan that we had drafted for Novara, get them in the door with cheap domains and upsell them).
From personal experience, one of your strongest personal attributes is the ability to look someone in the eye and tell them a bare faced lie without batting an eyelid, you should be proud of yourself :0). Your repeated claim that you were “locked out” of a technology company does not stand up(http://www.iol.ie/~stripes/circle/35/essays/35.0203.01.html). As you state I was completely non technical so you as the “CTO”(according to your LinkedIn Bio) being locked out by an “utterley technically illiterate” amateur is impossible but it is certainly a good story for public consumption (look at poor Stevie, locked out boo hoo). The only assets a hosting company has are its servers located in a third party data centre and you were CTO with fully, unfettered control over those servers throughout.
You are Ireland’s king of commercial spam having got your 365 business off the ground on the back of it, you removed and abused customer records from Novara for example http://www.eoincostello.ie/worldport.html . You removed money from the company we were both directors of without authorisation and this led to the dissolution of our relationship. This removal of monies by you was reported to the ODCE and Revenue Commissioners http://www.eoincostello.ie/Auditors_letter_re_IWD.pdf
No wonder you don’t want any outside investors in Hosting365 (reference your recent interview with the Sunday Times),you don’t want anyone examining anything. Also it is notable that there are no independant, non executive directors on your board.
As regards the claimed lack of technical ability, as part of my education in Trinity (I note that in his Linkedin bios Stevie refers to his time at St. Pats teacher school as Trinity, another twisting of the truth) I took the computer studies option, hand coding this software application http://www.eoincostello.ie/pdf_doc/final_year_thesis.pdf . In any case I am a business man first and foremost.
Just to put you on notice Stevie, every time you persist in publicly publish inaccuracies and made up stories I am going to put the reality on public record.
As usual Eoin, your deception, misrepresentation, blatant lies and insanity bubbles to the surface. I couldn’t even begin to counter the fallacies in the above post as it would tke to long and, ultimately, prove pointless in the face of your self-delusion.
You’re embarassing yourselves. As a former client of both of your companies I feel compelled to tell you to grow up.