JBM Interviews - Sammi ServerProvider

ServerProvider.com:
Hosting business was my first business,
started it when I was 19 years old in 97 and
will be my business for a long time to come, I
like to refer to myself as Sami the hosting
guy! :)

JBM:
Ok, its 1997 and you start hosting adult
sites, bandwidth was more expensive, servers
were weaker and some customers were probably
getting more traffic than they planned to.
What were some of the challenges you faced in
the early days?

ServerProvider.com:
Well during 1997, hosting was a very difficult
business. Linux was in the very early stages
of development, so a lot of problems with its
file system and etc.. specially when hosting
adult sites with a lot of traffic and the cgi
scripts that were usually written with perl it
was a lot of work. Another major issue was
that during that period of time, there were no
online control panel systems such as you see
today CPANEL , directadmin and so on. So the
system administrator was responsible for every
single task , from creating pop3 emails to
generating bandwidth usage reports and so on.

JBM:
Sounds like a lot of work, were customers more
demanding then compared to know, or less
demanding?

ServerProvider.com:
Customers were definitely more demanding then
because of that fact that Online control panel
systems simply did not exist. If they did
they had to be custom written for a specific
companies use. The technology advance has
simply changed the hosting business
tremendously. I believe that is also one of
the major factors in the sharp drop of hosting
prices.

JBM:
Lets talk email, as a host, how much of a
problem is spam? Incoming and outgoing?

ServerProvider.com:
Spam is a major issue. there are thousands
of spammers/hackers scanning networks for
SMTP/sendmail/qmail or even web scripts for
security holes. Ones they find it they can
start causing problems by sending off millions
of emails directly from your network which
could cause big problems with your upstreams
and at some cases get an ip or an entire class
of ip#s which were assigned to your network
banned from many major isps.

So really, you have to have your mail deamons
and SMTP and your system in general VERY tight
at all times... constant upgrading of
libraries, deamons and etc. because they come
out with new methods every day to break into
systems. There are deamons (softwares) that
can be installed on servers to block spam
going out or coming in, however the technology
is still a bit weak in my opinion.

JBM:
Has the new spam laws created a decrease in
volume from your perspective?

ServerProvider.com:
The recent Spam laws have pushed spammers from
operating from the US to other countries
around the world. Most spammers are now using
servers in CHINA/Russia/Pakistan to send out
their emails. In my opinion email spam will
only get worse and not better up to the point
that a new emailing technology is out there.
Microsoft has started working on this in the
recent months so keep your eyes open for some
new innovations.

JBM:
Back in the day, co-location of servers was
very popular amongst webmasters, is it still
done much, or is leasing servers the standard
now?

ServerProvider.com:
Collocation rates have taken a sharp dive due
to the fact that server companies are no
longer paying 3000 - 4000 dollars for a decent
server. They can purchase very well equipped
servers from $800 - $1500. Another reason is
the fact that competition has grown so much
companies are willing to not make any money on
the server rental fee so as you can see
dedicated server prices have dropped
tremendously. It was very typical of a
webmaster to pay $1000+ for a dedicated server
couple of years back.. but nowadays majority
are paying $100 - $400 for a dedicated server
thus creating no point of purchasing a server
and shipping it to your hosting company for
collocation purposes to save money. Hosts are
no longer aiming for making money on server
rental fees.

JBM:
When a customer complains, do you ever get the
urge to walk into the datacenter and take a
wrench to their server?

ServerProvider.com:
Not at all because of the fact that we are
here to serve the customer. That is what we
get paid for, to take care of the customers
business server maintenance/server
administration wise and give them the best
uptime / tech support to the best of our
abilities.

JBM:
That's very political of you. :) Webmasters are
a notoriously poor bunch of people, are
delinquent accounts much of a problem for you,
and over the years have you seen more or less
of them?

ServerProvider.com:
To tell you the truth we've only had a few
problems with that over the years. But to
answer your question due to our 100% automated
billing technology in place now, we get a very
few of those cases happening.

JBM:
So how does your automated system work?

ServerProvider.com:
When the client signs up for a hosting package
our billing software is integrated to
Authorize.net for credit card approval upon
credit card approval their accounts are setup
right away. Our billing software also
invoices the client 3 days before due date and
the client is expected to login to their
billing interface and pay their invoice up to
3 days after the invoice due date at the very
latest.

JBM:
Bandwidth prices have been plunging for a
while now, can we expect the trend to
continue? How long until you are paying me to
use your bandwidth? :)

ServerProvider.com:
I don't think you will see web hosting companies
paying people to use their services during this
lifetime :) ... To answer your
question technology is changing everyday .. so
yes its a good possibility that hosts will
offer more and more bandwidth on the
web hosting packages they offer their clients.

JBM:
Ok, how's the hosting business overall?
Growing? Shrinking? There seems to be more
competition springing up all the time.

ServerProvider.com:
Yes it seems there are 5000 new hosting
companies opening up for business everyday.
it is not an easy business by any means.. The
strong will survive; which is the case in any
business where competition exists.. It mostly
comes down to offering awesome tech support,
providing a reliable network and proper
marketing.

JBM:
Where are you located? Where's your
datacenter? And please dont say florida. :)

ServerProvider.com:
We are located in San Diego California.

We will be opening an office in Vancouver and New York, hopefully soon.

JBM:
Great, no hurricanes there. Ok, I've kept you
long enough, why don't we wrap this up by you
giving us a little sales pitch. :) Why should
everyone be using serverprovider.com?

ServerProvider.com:
ServerProvider.Com offers its clients true
24/7 tech support. Our 1888992HOST phone
number is forwarded to a tech on duty after
business hours.. We offer very competitive
pricing on all of our virtual hosting and
dedicated server packages and we put great
time, effort and money into maintaining our
network and all of our clients servers as up
to the latest standards... . Our goal is to
offer a stable environment for people to host
their sites at without having to worry about
their uptime or any other technical issues.

JBM:
Awesome, thanks for taking the time to share
your thoughts with us.

ServerProvider.com:
I personally thank the entire
JBM crew for providing such a great
webmaster community . I
thank you for the interview and wish the best
for JBM's new venture
justblowmeresources.com :)

Please pass on any suggestions or comments to Nick.