B10WH

“How do you understand “Cloud Hosting”? What kind of infrastructure and platform do you imagine when someone mentions Cloud hosting?”, asked in the popular web hosting forum Hosting Discussion a member named HostColor. The forum user suggested 6 “fields” to be filled with answers: Operating system; Virtualization; Software; Network; Data center; Other features.

“You should include instances in your list also”, responded Conor Treacy a “Community Advisor” at HostingDiscussion board. “Remember a TRUE REDUNDANT cloud will be in multiple data centers.  For me, I see too many hosting companies attempting to run their own cloud, or offer cloud hosting, and operate out of a single data center facility. Yes it likely does satisfy the requirements to be “cloud” but really, the purpose is to have instances in various parts of the world to serve the data faster”, added Conor who also said that it costs more to do this, but “when you’re dealing with enterprise sites, you get what you pay for”. He mentioned that he does not pretend to know all about the cloud. “It’s too new and seems to be more “concepts” to many places than anything else”, said Conor.

An user with a name XeHost posted that “The cloud sounds great in theory but to implement proper cloud hosting infrastructure is very expensive”.

“I shall disagree that a true redundant Cloud shall be in multiple data centers”, responded HostColor and added that this is only an option. The user who opened the thread said that “operating infrastructure in different data centers is a different concept - CDN, something which according to the user, businesses did many years before the concept of Cloud computing to emerge. “If you use global redundant network for Cloud hosting service, you don’t need to have infrastructure in different physical locations, unless you really need some kind of localization similar to Google local search. If you are service provider, you do not need this”, said the user.

Can you define “global redundant network”? If you do not need to have data in different locations, if a data center goes offline (like they do - it’s not UNCOMMON), how does the data stay active for viewers on the web? Doesn’t the data need to be replicated to an outside machine SOMEWHERE?”, was the Conor’s response.

“I’ll throw my hat in the ring here”, said a HostingDiscussion user named “Bmdub”. HE said that he has been in the hosting business for over 6 years. “I’d compare cloud hosting with the shared hosting methodology of the late 1990’s to early 2000’s. Today however, Cloud Computing has become a much different animal. There are higher levels of security, performance and manageability that are defining what cloud computing truly should be and is becoming right now”, explained the forum member and summarized his understanding of Cloud hosting in 6 key points.

1. OS: I really think the OS selection is based on the capabilities of the provider and their ability to support those needs with experts. In my mind, Cloud Computing should offer both Microsoft and Linux based operating systems.

2. Virtualization: This is a piece of the puzzle. Right now, VMWARE, Citrix and Parallels are the only companies providing what I’d say is an easy to deploy platform to offer a scalable and secure computing platform. In the future, the underlying virtualization technology will matter less when API’s and customization become more prevalent. At this moment, I’d say that Citrix and VMWare will dominate for quite some time because of their financial capabilities and their general acceptance as reliable products. Although Microsoft and Google will have something to say about that.

3. Software: Id say any development platform should be built to live in a multi-tenant configuration and can easily scale across multiple processors.

4. Network: This is a big thing and the cloud most certainly should have more than 1 Tier-1 (Verizon,ATT, Level3) provider connected to it. As someone mentioned earlier, geo-diversity- or federated cloud- will build a truly resilient network for maximum uptime. Look for this from hosting.com in 2010.

5. Datacenter: Tier3 or better data center. Multiple carrier access, N+1 or better power and cooling. 24×7x365 support.

6. Other features: Well, API support, geographic load balancing, easy to use customer interface (Self Service).

A meaningless post, I believe followed, in which a user said “Some hosting companies claim that there are using a Cloud Hosting structure. But sometimes… it isn’t”.

Here came HostColor again to respond to Conor ans said “I’ll give an example. Having a good and stable connections with 2 or 3 major U.S. carriers + NTT and another one to Asia and 2 more to Europe… will be enough to say you have a “global redundant network”.”

Conor responded by saying “So “global redundant network” is not the same as a “global redundant site” then. You’re just looking at multiple carriers for the data. If the data center goes offline (network issue, power issue, someone trips over the power cord (ahem - rackspace), or the electric room catches on fire (ahem - the planet), or the basement is flooded (uhh.. can’t remember the datacenter, but it was in Chicago) - so those items don’t necessarily play into the roll of a redundant NETWORK - these relate to the SITE in particular”.

He also said that for him the idea of redundant means a multi-location site where if someone’s websites go offline at one place, they will be up in another. “This is what has been broadcasted on a number of places offering cloud and how stable and superior Cloud really is. Where in fact it’s nothing more than shared hosting with the ability to increase processing power, disk space, memory etc all on the fly”, added Conor Treacy who represents a company named “Hands On Web Hosting“.

A HD use from UK’s web hosting provider CSN-UK.net joined the discussion. He said that the concept of cloud computing isn’t new considering the concept goes back as far as the 60’s, though the way in which it is being used by providers. “The whole point of cloud computing is from a hosting standpoint to provide speed, stability and redundancy across as wide an area as possible in order to increase the benefit for the potential client base, done by virtualization”, posted CSN’s representative.

“However brining in the point that Conor made, the whole point of a cloud network is to provide a redundant network across multiple locations in order to avoid many of the problems of traditional systems and combine them with the benefits of the similar VPS technologies. Otherwise the effectiveness of the cloud within a single datacentre is simply to provide an expandable VPS solution mirrored across multiple machines as essentially it would have similar redundancy for many of the issues that cause us as providers downtime”, added the HD member.

He explained that the use of multiple transit providers does little to nothing to provide redundancy if a primary switch on the network has a malfunction for example or any of the examples provided above, as such the virtualisation layer of the cloud network ensures that the data is mirrored across multiple sites and an alternate site would take or share the load with other sites in order for the users site to remain available and unaffected by the malfunction or natural disaster. “Where my knowledge is lacking is the information from scripts that are held in RAM or being processed which could lead to corruption, though there are a number of solutions I’m yet to read that in-depth to any particular approach”, said the CSN-UK.

“Sure! There’s only one thing that I would like to point out and it is that having infrastructure and redundant network across multiple locations IS NOT part of the “Cloud” concept. However I shall admit that if a company operates 2 or more facilities in a CDN, which is part of a cloud platform and/or service is something that shall be appreciated from its customers”, said HostColor, a user who represents a quite popular web hosting company Host Color.

This is the last post to the thread “Your Notion Of Cloud Hosting?“. Follow the link to see how does it continue and what do other HD members think about Cloud hosting.

“After encounter an issue that the server can’t reboot into safe mode”, posted today forum member “Onemancrew” in Web Hosting Talk. He explained that the bug appears when the he tried to reboot his server into safe mode. After the login screen was shown , after a few seconds automatic reboot would be done, and “no matter what you will do , you will not be able to boot your server into safe mode”.

“Yes, if you wonder your self , after you install Plesk Control Panel over Windows Server 2003 you can forget your safe mode” adds “Onemancrew” and also says that the bug exist from version 7.6 until version 8.6.

The WTH member has posted in the forum thread that he hasn’t checked version 9.2 yet. But he added that he was “99.9% sure that this bug also exist in 9.2 version of Plesk Control Panel”. The bug in this version according to “Onemancrew” is that when installing Plesk Control Panel on Windows Server 2003 the control panel user can not reboot their server in Safe Mode. He also says that the OS will make automatic reboot after showing the login screen.

“Parallels doesn’t worth your money. They don’t care about customer, all they care is about releasing more and more products but the word “quality” is unknown for Parallels developers”, states “Onemancrew” and makes the suggestion “Don’t use Plesk Control Panel” and provides the argument that “If application make the platform to stop working correctly then such software need to be abandoned”.

He has also created a new post shortly after the original thread was being opened and said that the ridiculous matter here was that Parallels demanded to get money for opening support ticket despite the fact that this is 100% Plesk bug. According to him the software producer’s policy is “to get money even about bug fixes”.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous. This is not how a software company need to treat existing customers”, said ”Onemancrew”.

What did WHT members respond?

“This is the reason I switched to cPanel, I was having issues left and right with Plesk and their support team was never very helpful or I had to pay out the ass to get them to just look at it. cPanel support is superior for any software company that I’ve come across”, said Canadian member of Web Hosting Talk named “Certis”.

Here comes a WHT member with a nickname “Drew_Parallels” who responded thathe wanted to let the community know that he saw the thread and alerted Parallels development team. “They’re investigating the bug now. As a possible (though not amazing) workaround, would be to set the Plesk Management Service (plesksrv) to Manual or Disable mode. Then you should be able to start up in Safe Mode. Unfortunately, Plesk has to be started manually after that. I’ll let you know as soon as the developers get back to me”, says “Drew_Parallels” and ads “Sorry about the bug”!

A few members of WHT who joined the thread thanked to Drew and showed their understanding.

The thread continues with “Onemancrew” who posted “The BIG question is WHEN?”. He adds that he is asking the right question here because Drew wrote that the Parallels developing team was working about a bug fix.

“But again, the question is when the bug fix will be released for the public ?  It’s ridiculous that such BUG exist for 3 years! And until now the QA team didn’t find it. What does it mean that QA team didn’t find such a bug?  It’s means that SWsoft doesn’t have any QA team.”

“The word QA is unknown at SWsoft Company” (SWsoft is the old name of Parallels), wrote ”Onemancrew”.

Another WHT member “Dynamicnet” addressed Drew and said that he posted his questions. “Like the post above, it has to do with QA (not only in software development, but also in writing KB articles). For example, http://kb.parallels.com/en/6656 could not have gone through quality assurance. Aside from easy to catch spelling errors, there are 21 hard coded patch files without any documentation”, writes ”Dynamicnet”.

“Say you want to upgrade from Clam Anti-virus 0.95.2 to 0.95.3 using http://kb.parallels.com/en/6656 you have to contend with /src/hsphere-clamav.patch which is hard coded for 0.95.2 without any instructions on how to recreate the file for use with 0.95.3. Similarly there are 20 other hard coded patch files blocking the way of other upgrades making http://kb.parallels.com/en/6656 worthless. Furthermore, http://kb.parallels.com/en/6656 makes Parallels look bad because it is yet another public proof Parallels does not take quality assurance seriously”, added the WHT member.

Follow the whole thread “The Bigest BUG inside Plesk Control Panel , The Bigest BUG that SWsoft/Parallels Want” in Web Hosting Talk.

Is your ISP ripping you off? Recently, my ISP decided to go the route of setting a download limit for all their data accounts. Unfortunately, this is a trend that seems to be on the rise. Many of the major ISP’s in the US are now limiting the download limit, and their justification for doing so is really quite odd. The most common points that are brought up about the download cap are:

1 - Few “normal” customers will have to worry about coming close to the limit.
2 - It helps ensure that the network is not overloaded.
3 - Reduces the likelihood of customers using file sharing services.
4 - Allows the ISP to easily manage the number of connections to a hub.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for companies making a profit from a service that they provide, but in my case, the cap is an extremely difficult thing to have to work with. I’m lucky enough to have a very good relationship with one of the leads for my ISP. He’s a great guy that is trying very hard to defend a policy that is really indefensible. You see, my ISP just bumped up the download speed available on my current tier to 25mbps. Now that’s a pretty fast connection, but they even offer a 60mbps connection! Of course the price for the 60mb connection is almost $100 per month. Add to that, the bandwidth cap was only raised 50gb per month and you begin to see the point. The odd part is that they did not increase the download cap limit after increasing the speed.

I called my contact immediately after receiving my first warning of coming close to the download cap. I explained to him about working from home, and some of the basics that I use my connection for. My next question to him was to ask if there was an unlimited service plan that I could subscribe to. He replied that there wasn’t, and probably never will be. We tossed around many different ideas including the possibility of using a business package, but even those are not unlimited. Finally settled on a potential solution of putting in a second modem and bridging the connections to form one. This would in theory double my download limit as well as double my available speed. Unfortunately, it also means doubling my current bill.

This type of solution is not by any stretch of the imagination ideal. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to even see if it’s possible because the line strength of the cable coming into my home is not strong enough to support 2 modems, and so I’m forced to wait until they can send out a tech to drop a second line into the house.

Now all that being said, the most irritating part of this entire situation is the fact that there is no other viable alternative for me to switch to. Sure there is a DSL provider, but the best speed they can offer is a 7mb connection and it is also capped.

All this got me to thinking about why an ISP would choose to implement such a policy, especially considering the fact that they maintain that less than 1% of their entire customer base comes close to their designated limit. Now in my particular case, they charge $1.50 per GB downloaded past the limit. Granted this might not be such a huge hardship if you only go over a few GB, but if you were to go over 35GB, that would add an additional $50 to the bill.

There are all sorts of services available to those that have broadband connections. Netflix has the option available for instant streaming of available videos. This option alone is quite interesting, especially if you choose the 1080p version.  Each 1080p movie will run anywhere between 27 - 40gb per movie! That’s almost half of my allotted quota per month for just one movie! Then you have streaming internet radio services, and streaming video.

As evidenced by past leaps forward, there are sure to be more things that will become an integral part of our online lives. Those things are almost certain to utilize a broadband connection like never before. What happens then? Will a class action lawsuit be required in order to force ISP’s to retool their packages? What ever happened to the United States being the most technologically advanced country in the world? In the Netherlands for example, virtually every household is wired directly with fiber! No download limits, no caps, and blazing speed. What about getting the government involved?  Some kind of overlord to bring the various ISP’s in line?

There are so many facets to this issue, none of which make much of a difference until the customer has some kind of leverage to make their ISP’s listen. I fervently hope that day is not far in the future.

When we say “Ethics” we usually address questions about morality. In business the term “Ethics” (Business Ethics) refers to a form of applied ethics that examines ethical principles and problems that emerge in a business environment. Term “Ethics” applies to all  aspects of business… even to web hosting business, despite that many hosting providers obviously disagree with this (a conclusion we would make when carefully review their offerings, customer service and the way they promote themselves on the market).

I shall say that as any other markets of intangible business activities web hosting is quite unethical business. In general the web hosting market is more a competition of promotional techniques than a competition based on quality. The unethical competition was introduced into web hosting industry by the largest web hosts like Yahoo (the first major web host to introduce “unlimited disc space” in offerings) and many others who begun using disputable business practices to get customers and to fight competition. One of those practices is to give a hosting company a name which is very close to the one of already well-established market brand.

This was the case with RackShack, a popular dedicated hosting provider at the beginning of this decade. It attracted a lot of attention not just because of its aggressive dedicated server offerings, which included zero set0up fess cheap hardware and very poor technical support, but also because of manipulating the consumers by exploiting the concept and the name of an already well-established and very popular web hosting brand such as RackSpace.

Beginning with a conclusion that web hosting is in general unethical business - with both web hosting providers and their customers being unethical - in this “Have you say” story” B10WH will point your  attention to an ordinary discussion titled “Is it ethical web host practice?” which is taking place Web Hosting Talk forums titled. It was opened by a forum member signed as Jon.

“I’ll try to give my account as objectively as I can. I’m pretty upset/disappointed with my web host right now. What I want to know, is Is this how web hosts should treat their customers?” says Jon and explains that he went on vacation for 10 days, checking online for orders and was surprised that he hasn’t received any. He added that he was always on public computers and he had his emails forwarded to his Yahoo Mail.

When he got back for vacation, I found that I couldn’t access his e-mails directly and he also saw his website was “gone and in its place was a bunch of pay per click adds, with a note on top that the domain was expired”. Jon thought he had paid up for another year, and that decided that his web host would never treat him like. So he assumes that someone was pirating his website.

But when he has contacted his web hosting provider the company’s representative told him that he has paid his web hosting plan but his domain was for some reason left unpaid and expired. The Credit card Jon had on account with the web host has also expired.

At this point he would decide that it was obviously his fault that his domain wasn’t renewed in time. However Jon went to Web Hosting talk and said:

“At this point I’m somewhat tiffed that they would not only take down my site, but replace it with pay per click adds, but think “hey, certainly they tried to contact me. My email address I have on file with them must be out of date”. So I go into cpanel to update it, but no, it is current. They never even tried to contact me, not even sending an email.”

Jon explained to WHT members that his website “had no traffic for a week and a half” and at the time he opened a thread in the forum his site still “wasn’t showing up on Google searches”. “My traffic is down to 1/3 of normal. Seems I’ve heard that Google penalizes sites that are entirely made up of pay per click adds, and I think it likely that my site has been penalized because of my web hosts actions”, said Jon and asked “It’s impossible to determine how much this will end up costing me. I feel that when you hire somebody (i.e. a webhost) they should be on your side, not stab you in the back. I don’t know if what they did was illegal, but I certainly think it was unethical”. The he asked the forum members - “What is your take?”.

What have you said?

“Maniakaz” a WHT user from Lithuania responded: “If it is domain that expires, you should have received warning emails. At least I do get them from GoDaddy: warning, your domain expires after xx days, click there to renew it. Maybe these emails went to “spam” folder? re-check. Or ask a host if they did sent these emails. I think, you may want to change registrar to something more reliable, like Godaddy. And your host’s practices are weird. I can’t call it unethical: if client knows he will not receive any domain expiring email - customer should decide”.

Another forum member “Rumsfo” responded with these three sentences - “I assume uptime that is very important issue for the Google as for any other SE. I assume you need to move to another web hosting service and ask for the refund. I assume that would be fair enough”. This comment wasn’t very much on the topic, but the next one posted by member “Bihira” was pretty specific.

“Most hosting companies don’t use the email address in cPanel as the main contact for customer accounts. More than likely they have a billing script, you should look for this script and update your email address there. Also it’s pretty normal for registrars to put up ads on expired domains (e.g. I bilieve GoDaddy does this as well). Not saying it is right, but it’s unfortuantly the norm. Also I would never recommand GoDaddy as a registrar, just check out nodaddy.com for horror stories. Though generally it’s better if you keep your webhost and domain at seperate companies”, explained Bihira. The WHT user added that “there isn’t nothing your webhost could of done”, and explained that since Jon had an unpaid invoice for his domain the web host couldn’t renew the domain name before receiving a payment. “As they get charged a fee everytime they renew / register / transfer a domain. So they need to wait for you to pay the invoice” said also Bihira.

Another member with a forum name “fobic” singed as Chris said that he was “with Bihira on this one”. “To put it bluntly, you didn’t pay your domain renewal so it expired. Expired domains commonly show the registrar’s parking page - the ads page you saw is most likely the standard page for whatever registrar your host uses”, said Chris and added that the web host should have tried to contact Jon about the domain expiration and about the expired credit card on account. “I’m betting they did email you about this. For some reason you didn’t receive their emails and that’s unfortunate, but ultimately it’s still your responsibility to keep your details up to date and pay your bills on time” concluded Chris.

“NeutroHost [Nix]” posted that since it was a domain name issue, it was probably not the host’s fault. “The reality is that most webhosts resell through a domain name registrar like Enom or Namecheap and the ads are placed on your website by the domain name registrar when your domain name expires, not the host” said Nix and added “I can understand your frustration with the matter though, but it’s been the norm for a long time”.

“Sorry to hear about your troubles. Did you find out if your host tried to contact you? I would think at the very least the domain registrar send out a notice, unless your name and email address isn’t on the domain. You should make sure that your the registrant contact for any domain you own and keep the contact email address up-to-date at the domain registrar”, said “SphereWebHosting” in their post.

Then a pretty harsh but true comment came. A WHT member named “ieee488″ said:

In all likelihood this is what happened. All domain registrars that I have used, and I have used about 6+ different ones, they notifiy you 60 days, sometimes 90 days in advance that your domain is expiring. That you didn’t get an email tells me either those emails went into your spam folder or you used a different email when registering your domain.

The person Jon should be pointing the finger at is HIMSELF.

The “ieee488″ added that before Jon start throwing words like ‘unethical’ he had better know what he were doing and understand the actualy workings of webhosting and domain registration. “Otherwise, you look like an idiot”, said Ieee488. and added “My take is that you stabbed yourself in the back unless you for some reason pay for webhosting and domain registration combined”.

Jon obviously got affected from the last comment and responded: “This is why I posted the experience and asked if it was unethical, as it seemed to me. It’s also why I didn’t identify the web host. There is no need for name calling. I appreciate the comments about contact emails other than on cpanel. I’m sure that messages didn’t get sent to my spam folder, but I’ll look for other places they may have my email address on file”, said the troubled site owner.

“Jon, a hard lesson learned, unfortunately. IMO, (and I know many hosts will hate me for saying this), but I would never register my domain via a web host. I want complete autonomy for the domain registration. Register all your domains directly with an authorized registrar, and then buy your hosting from a web host. Keep them separate. And then make sure you stay on top of your domain renewals to ensure you don’t go through this grief again”, said someone with forum member “Vito” and his opinion was one of the best to the thread.

Then “ieee488″ came again posting in aggressive style: “I repeat. No need to use the word ‘unethical’. You should have asked what could have happened and just leave it at that. I have no use for people who hide behind “what do you think?” after they have just accused someone of being ‘unethical’. Gutless.”, was his next post to the thread.

A WHT member “HostColor” suggested in the next post that that Jon must not be disappointed and must not blame his web hosting provider. “You are responsible for the domain name as it is yours. Even if the hosting provider didn’t send a notification you still had to take care of the domain renewal. It is your web address, your property”, explained “HostColor”.

THe user added that the domain registrar was probably the one to point the name servers to page different from Jon’s index page and displayed ads there. “This is another way for domain registrars to make money of expired domain names”, added the WHT user. His final suggestion to Jon was “Just keep everything into account. A reasonable question would be “Why did I miss to renew my domain name?”

These are only a few selected opinions expressed from WHt members in the thread titled “Is this ethical web host practice?“. I would say that it shows very clear that not just the providers are those who act unethical in web hosting industry. In fact Jon didn’t been unethical and didn’t harmed its web host’s reputation by posting company’s name in the thread in which he expressed his disappointment of the service. Although Jon haven’t been responsible enough for renewing his domain name on time he was decent in his WHT thread, something that is ethical in an unethical market.

“How fast Linux is going?”, “Who is doing it?, “What developers are doing?”, and “Who is sponsoring it”. The answers of these an many other questions can be found in the latest report released by The Linux Foundation. It provides details about the development of the kernel which forms the core of the Linux OS. The foundation said that the development of the Linux kernel is a “result of one of the largest cooperative software projects ever attempted”. According to the Report, the regular kernel development releases deliver stable updates to Linux users, each with significant new features, added device support, and improved performance. “The rate of change in the kernel is high and increasing, with over 10,000 patches going into each recent kernel release. These releases each contain the work of over 1,000 developers representing around 200 corporations” says the Report.

Since 2005, more than 5,000 developers from nearly 500 different companies contributed to the Linux kernel. The kernel, thus, has become a common resource developed on a massive scale by companies which are fierce competitors in other areas. A number of changes have been noted since this paper was first published in 2008. One of them is that a 10% increase in the number of developers contributing to each kernel release cycle. The rate of change increased significantly and the number of lines of code added to the kernel each day tripled. Since 2005 the kernel code base has grown by over 2.7 million lines. For the last 4 years Linux established a robust development community which “continues to grow both in size and in productivity”, as “The Linux Foundation” reported.

The Linux kernel is the lowest software level which runs on a Linux OS. It is used to manage the hardware, to run user programs, and to maintain the overall security and integrity of the whole operating system. This is the kernel that, after its release by Linus Torvalds in 1991, inspired millions to join the development of Linux OS and applications for Linux as a whole. The kernel is a relatively small part of the software on a full Linux system. Many other large components of the OS come from the GNU project, the GNOME and KDE desktop projects, the X.org project, and etc. But the kernel is the core of the OS which  determines how well the Operating system works and is the piece which is truly unique to Linux.

The Linux kernel is one of the largest individual components on almost any Linux OS. It features one of the fastest-moving development processes and involves more developers than any other Open Source project. The Linux Foundation said  that since 2005, kernel development history is well documented, thanks to the use of the Git source code management system.

The Linux Kernel Development

The Linux OS kernel is developing by the community on a loose, time-based model. New major kernel releases occur every 2 to 3 months. The model has been formalized in 2005. It works fine for the Linux users because they get all new features into the main kernel with a minimum of delay. The model is based on the concept that the pace of  kernel development should be as fast as it is possible. Another advantage is that the distributors of the Linux OS shall apply a minimum number of external changes.

A significant change in the most recent release of the kernel that Linux Foundation reported in its latest paper is the establishment of the linux-next tree.

“Linux-next serves as a staging area for the next kernel development cycle; as of this writing, 2.6.31 is in the stabilization phase, so linux-next contains changes intended for 2.6.32. This repository gives developers a better view of which changes are coming in the future and helps them to ensure that there will be a minimum of integration problems when the next development cycle begins. Linux-next smooths out the development cycle, helping it to scale to higher rates of change”, says the Linux Foundation report.

It also explains that after each mainline 2.6 release, the kernel’s “stable team” - currently made up of Greg Kroah-Hartman and Chris Wright - takes up short-term maintenance to apply important fixes. The stable process ensures that important fixes are made available to distributors and users and also that they will be part of the next major releases. According to the foundation the stable maintenance period lasts at least 1 development cycle and. However for specific kernel releases it can go significantly longer.

Who Is Moving Linux Ahead?

The numbers show that 18.2% of Linux OS is written by people who aren’t working for any company, and 7.6% is created by programmers who don’t affiliate their contribution with any business entity. Others who write Linux are paid to contribute to the OS. Here are some of the companies which contributed more than 1% of the current Linux kernel: Red Hat: 12.3%; IBM: 7.6%; Novell: 7.6%; Intel: 5.3%’ Independent consultant: 2.5%; Oracle: 2.4%; Linux Foundation: 1.6%; SGI 1.6%; Parallels 1.3%; Renesas Technology, amd etc.

More information can be found in the Linux Foundation’s report - “Linux Kernel Development“.

The most stupid question in web hosting industry probably is the one like “Which Are Top 10 Shared Hosting Providers?”. It is so stupid, that actually there is no answer. But thousands of money-making chasers give a birth “Top Hosting Directory” every single day. And that’s why there are a bunch of top or best web hosting site and directories out there. Some of them even receive high ranking in search engine result pages and bring thousands of dollars to their owners.

B10WH was there 4 years ago. But we decided to change the concept. At the same time we still pay attention to those who spend a loft of time to build the next top web hosting list. Today in “Have You Say” we will target your attention to a discussion in web hosting talk titled “Top 10 Shared Hosting Providers - What Are Your Thoughts”.

“Hello. I am new to WHT and a grad student at University of Texas. My purpose for joining is to gain research for a thesis I am doing titled “Internet - Where it all begins?” My focus is on the hosting provider side of the industry considering it is a $19 Billion dollar industry” says the WHT user “HostingResearcher” in a thread. He explains that the research that he found has lead him many different directions.

“There are many sites to tell you who the top 10 providers are within the industry, however they provide no background data on why”.

“It seems there are many website that tell you who the Top 10 providers are within the industry, however they provide no background data on why”, says the forum member. He also explains that there are some sights that provide user reviews, “however small sample data”. “This need for data brings me to you all” posts HostingResearcher and asks the questions ”Who is the best shared hosting company?”, and “What makes them the best?”.

He also asks Web Hosting Talk members to help him to gather this data by responding via this quick survey. HostingResearcher calls WHT members to rate between 1 and 5 the web hosts’ - Service Offerings, Pricing, Customer Service, Market Perception, Experience, Quality.

What have you said?

“There are no “best” hosts. The top sites are mostly affiliate payout sites, pretty worthless what’s best for me may be terrible for you and vice versa - it all depends on what you find best and how the host works with you and/or for you”, wrote “njoker555″.

“There must be some consistency from one provider to the next. It seems that most of the shared hosting providers offer similar packages for space, control panel, bandwidth, support, and pricing. If you had to purchase a shared hosting package today, then who would you look at first?”, responds the “HostingResearcher”.

Another WHT member “SoftsysHosting-Rick” says that most of the top 10 that you’ll be looking at will be the hosts who pay good sum of $$ for getting up in the list. “However, as njoker mentioned, it all depends on your usage and it will be really difficult for you to come up with a list of say top 10 or top 20 hosts - the reason is simply that top 10 hosts differ from requirements to requirements”. ads the forum member.

“Hence, what I’d suggest you to do is to first gather different kind of requirements amongst customers and thereafter come up with top 10/20 hosts for each specific requirements. These requirements can be in terms of platform of hosting (Linux/Windows), type of hosting (shared/reseller/vps/dedicated), kind of hosting (website hosting/database hosting/email hosting/backup/all), etc. I believe, you will need to do quite a good amount of research and thereafter come up with your requirements after which you should be looking at customer inputs for their best host matching specific requirements. Fortunately, you are at the right place and you will get good amount of data/help from folks here”,  explains “SoftsysHosting-Rick”.

“CodyRo” a forum member with 478 posts (at the time when they joined the conversation) said that it’s going to be very tough to make a conclusive list.

“For instance you have some smaller companies that people are very happy with, but their customer base is not nearly as far reaching as the larger hosts. As a result it’s going to be very difficult to get a consistent answer - especially on forums such as these where the small / medium sized hosts often have a decent following. Also things such as quality are merely perceptions and opinion. It’s going to be difficult to gather enough hard data based on that criteria”, explains CodyRo.

Ldcdc (Dan of WHReviews), on of the most fanatical WHT members with status “Community Liaison 2.0″ who has 17,997 posts in Web Hosting Talk said it would be quite fantastic indeed and commented that anyone who wants to categorize the top share hosting providers needs may have to do their own research using the forum and some of the so called “top web hosting directories”. “How accurate it will all be, would end up being an endless debate. I know it for a fact that on one of them, some of the reviews were planted by the host itself, so the defense systems of these sites (those that actually have such) are not perfect. Then again, what is perfect in this world”, writes Ldcdc.

The next poster “NetDistrict” adds that he doesn’t think that people would need to look at how large a any web hosting company is. “This is less important to what the hosting company can offer the customer the quality, support options and prices of the hosting company”, posts NetDistrict.

The last in the line Host Color posts that they think that the price of web hosting services should be explained and the prospective customers must know what they pay for.

“There are companies that sell cheap, but don’t use redundant network or even a SLA. Others are very stable in terms of network and facilities but their support is not that good. From my point of view the quality of customer service is crucial in our industry. The communication with customers must be well organized and automated. However a high level of automatization is not just about buying software. It depends of how any web host manages different processes”, ads HostColor.

Thread is still open - http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=873969. You may join but, following the discussion and posting meaningful is a must

“I think a good way to start off this forum section is to determine what cloud computing means to everyone, I know there are a lot of different views and it should be interesting to see them.”, says HP-Kevin in a thread titled “What is Cloud computing?” in WHT. Members named “Karbon” adds that he is “curious as to what is it as well” and ads the he never have heard of it. “Is it where you host in the clouds?” writes the WHT member and adds “joke, don’t yell at me”. This are only one of many examples that show that the average web user is still unfamiliar with the concept of cloud computing and cloud hosting in particular. Wikipedia offers an explanation of the term “Cloud Computing”. Web Hosting Talk also has a detailed explanation in its Wiki section. So we will not go over the “Cloud”. Most important is to see what people think of the Cloud computing.

“Interested as well in knowing what cloud hosting is and does”, this is another Cloud newbie post in WHT. As always happens the first one who know more on the topic emerges, this time on the 4th place. His nickname in WHT is Plutomic-Andrew and he offers an explanation about “Cloud”.

Cloud is…

“Cloud hosting, in one form or another, is the clustering of multiple physical hardware nodes together to act as a single server, with nearly unlimited resources since it can be continually added to seamlessly without adversely affecting the applications running on the cloud currently” says Plutomic-Andrew. He adds that such a single cluster or grid is then broken down into individual VEs or Virtual Environments.

“Each VE is a self-contained LAMP stack running on top of any OS the customer would like while having access to the computing power of multiple processor and multiple GBs of RAM to perform its computing tasks. In most cases depending on the architecture of the cloud, each VE can expand dynamically to withstand the influx of heavy traffic or in other cases storage demands. These demands are typically caused by a site being dugg, slashdotted or in one way or another gaining more exposure than they would under typical daily circumstances”, writes Plutomic-Andrew and becomes the first to know something about Cloud computing. However it is very tech explanation and most forums users probably lost themselves on the 3rd row.

A proof of this is the Karbons remark - “Ah, I feel stupid now. I should of known what it was. It’s basically a server cluster”.

“Its really exciting I cant wait to try it out for my new project, but I do have some doughts. He adds that on his course he was taught that “the cloud will be when all applications and data are stored on the web and we simply connect using “terminal Pcs” in effcet moving backwards”.

… a Buzzword

“To some ‘the cloud’ is the answer to everything - to others just an overhyped buzzword… We (UK2group) takes it very seriously, and I see this taking over most of the dedicated server market within the coming 5 years. It is very far from mature though - one of those things everyone talks about but really only a handfull actually provide. Buzzword or not, it is bound to change some of the mechanics of the hosting industry”, says WHT member with nickname “eming” and becomes the first self promoter in the thread who underlines that his company takes Cloud computing seriously. He how ever provides a URL ( to some ‘the cloud’ is the answer to everything - to others just an overhyped buzzword… We (UK2group) takes it very seriously, and I see this taking over most of the dedicated server market within the coming 5 years. It is very far from mature though - one of those things everyone talks about but really only a handfull actually provide. Buzzword or not, it is bound to change some of the mechanics of the hosting industry. EDIT: take a moment and read this article published today from Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123802623665542725.html - it will help give a better understanding… ) to Wall Street Journal’s article that should clear the air around the clouds, according to him.

“Thats a great explaination”, posts WHT member named himself “you86″ and ask the questions “Will all these hardware nodes in queue? What will happen if one/two will broken down? everything will stop working?”.

It is just marketing…?

HP-Kevin who has opened the thread about Cloud computing responds to Andrew’s Cloud hosting explanation and asks him “Can you name some/any company out there that can provide you a VE with a “self-contained LAMP stack” with nearly unlimited scalability? Or even scalability beyond the resources of a single physical hardware node?”.

“What you have explained is what I find many people expect from “cloud hosting”, but I disagree, and I am not sure the functionality you have described yet exists. So far I am with Tim on this, and its just marketing”, posts HP-Kevin.

An example of a Cloud

Plutomic-Andrew responds to HP-Kevin by saying that “Most all cloud computing environments will allow you to use more than one physical piece or hardware for computing power”. He gives an example with AppLogic of 3tera., and says to “you86″ that depending on the architecture of the Cloud the services can be re-provisioned and started on other physical equipment in the cloud.

“True, but AFAIK even applogic does not allow you to scale one wm across more than one physical hypervisor”, responds user “eming” - Ditlev Bredahl, CEO, uk2Group.com.

“There was a good article in the Financial Times last Thursday about cloud computing… it’s definitely picking up momentum”, posts “dazmanultra”. “Jonrdouglas” says that hybrid clouds let anyone to run “what is generally code that runs only on Windows, in the same directory as your files you generally run on Linx What”.

According to “HostedFTP” it is a huge market and the expectations are to be a $100 billion industry within the next 10 years. “Amazon AWS S3 amd Ec2 is the major player at this time. Many companies are already moving into the cloud as it is very inexpensive to host”, says HostedFTP.

“I am involved in a SaaS based software project that my partners and I are hoping will grow exponentially for us over the next few years. We are working on some contracts now and I really think that it will be in my best benefit to launch our software on a cloud so that we can quickly and easily grow as needed”, says VertexBilly and ads that he has just contacted 3tera to get their sales info and learn more about what they can do “to help us launch this”. “I am not sure if we are ready for this infrastructure and cost yet (as we would do our own cloud in house) but I really do think that for companies that are working on a similar SaaS type business model as us that a cloud based infrastructure is probably the way to go and not just hype”, explains the WHTmember.

… Waste of time + Extra Costs

Nathaniel which forum name is “logikstudios” posts that his personal thoughts on the cloud are potentially a waste of time on a major skill. “Look at it like this. Look at all the current providers out there. They are WAY! to expensive for 95% of the users and you can’t really benefit the use of them. I was looking at moving a project to the cloud and thought to myself, to get the same type of power we require now was going to cost us £250+ extra a month(approx 2.5 x the amount). I can see websites/companys possibly having there own mini clouds setup, but interms of of processing power and storage (nothing more really than a super server with a DAS), its going to have to come down alot! before it really kicks off i think personally, maybe around VPS pricing”, says Nathaniel.

“I would class cloud computing as basically making your documents available to you anywehere, microsoft is really trying to get the lead on this by launching live services like Azure and Live Skydrive, profile and whatever else”, responds “FortressDewey” and adds that if he needs to view a file he just emails it to himself”.

A “Web Hosting Talk” forum member with nickname “hwmcneill” says in his first post that he have just come across the thread which he found interesting and he would like to comment on some points made.

“AmirKhan” raises the point that it is a platform for the “no software” approach. This, as far I am concerned is correct. In a sense the two processes have occurred in parallel thus creating the virtual cloud concept. “You86″ asked about what happens when a node breaks down and I might add runs into capacity problems. These instances are handled by normal overload chaining to other live servers. In the case of breakdown, that is the autochaining is incapacitated, the use of virtual client technology (VCT) can have the browser detect non-response and switch to a predetermined priority list of servers. Thus even if the “central server” fails the VCT component keeps operations running with a gap in operations equivalent to less than 1 sec (depending upopn sys bandwidth).

“HostedFTP” mentions that clouds are expensive to host. Well each node or server can be hosted like any other. The configuration is in the software so a cloud can be made up of servers located anywhere in the world. Sharing such resources and making use of online applications rather than multiple redundancy sw at the client end saves an enormous amount of money in outlays. And any updates at the nodes affect all users making “roll outs” extremely low cost. Logikstudios raises the point of high costs but I am not sure what these refer to so I cant comment. Certainly higher users make the whole thing cheap and so the cost issue can be an issue of not having enough users to justify the initial outlays. “DHD-Chris” mentions clouds as being a facilitation of global access to docs etc. Yes, this is also part of the support functions i.e. data processing, transmission and storage with web document rendering being essentially a dialogue in a browser combining storage access and transmission”,posts hwmcneill. He adds that this is just his initial response to thread and he is going to rustle up some notes to provide a follow up on this. He also says that he will provide some examples of his own experience in Cloud computing field.

… Concept Still Unclear?

“The concept is still somehow unclear for me”, writes “HSNM”. “What I can see is a matter of distributed computing that handles the problem of connecting different pieces together to let a single service run in an abstract way”, say the forum member and explains that Google calendar can be an example which uses cloud computing. According to him “the Internet is a big cloud by itself”.

… Its About Distributing Servers And Loads Between Many Computers

“I guess one can look at it from several angles. For me its about distributing servers and loads between many computers and in some cases geographic locations. It adds ability to dynamically or at least quickly scale out. Allowing to handle spikes in server loads as well as adds a layer of redundancy”, comments “dariusf“. He adds that the problem he sees with it is two folds, one is the cost for larger requirements.

“It does cost more then getting part of a rack and installing a bunch of servers. It removes the layer of server management and support and this could be a very large cost of the operation when you have to maintain multiple servers, clusters, load balancers and other networking hardware. So perhaps the overall cost will be lower”, explains the WHT member. The biggest question he has at this point and he just didn’t have much time to investigate is the question of user session replication on the application layer between the virtual nodes.

“With at least ColdFusion one has the option to store user session specific information on the database and in this case every node in the cloud would be able to hit that database cloud and the session for the user. Its slow and not as elegant as doing something like Jini and buddy under Java, which ColdFusion being in essence java and running under the JVM can use. Doing session replication between the nodes with something like Jini would be the best solution but how does that work and what about dynamic new nodes added in the cloud?”

“Another question is the database replication. Does it get moved in to the cloud and then replicated between the nodes or does it stay out of the cloud and gets only hit by the cloud?”

“If it stays in the cloud, would one set a fixed number of nodes and then replicate between them or is there a way to dynamically replicate as nodes are created or removed based on the loads? Any ideas out there? Anyone has any experience with this”, asks the WHT member?

… Grid Computing Has Been A Hot Topic Some 5+ Years Ago

“So what is the ‘cloud’? What is the difference between a ‘cloud’ and the ‘grid’ and a ’server farm’?”, ask “andria”. “Grid computing has been a hot topic some 5+ years ago. In my understanding, Grid consists of server farms located on different locations. Connected with each other, acting as one”, writes the WHT user.

“I can recall that around 2000 there have been big headlines each time when someone would set a new record for the biggest server farm. Most of them were set up in scientific field. With grid computing or a server farm, you throw a task into it and it gets distributed across the place. So basically, to me, it looks like a cloud hosting company is doing nothing different. They are running a number of virtualization tasks on a grid computer (or on a single server farm)”, posts “andria”.

According to this WHT member each virtualization task gets certain resources allocated and that’s it. “I assume for hosting company this solution is somewhat easier to handle, since all resources are seen as one and the whole load is also put together. There are no boundaries of a single server. On the customer side only those who need clusters would profit from this. A VPS customer could not care less if he is getting 1/20th of a single server or 1/20.000th of 1.000 servers. So, to me, the ‘cloud’ seems to be either a single server farm or a grid network of server farms”, concludes “andria” and asks “Or am I wrong? So why call it a cloud?”.

The Dominator - Cloud hosting exists!

The last word (May 5th, 11.45 am EST) has the WHT member with name “The Dominator”. “Cloud computing exists, but most end user customers don’t get it - coders have no idea how to code to use extra nodes on the cloud, and cloud computing is so vaguely defined - it depends who you talk to - we sell lots of dedicated servers direct through discussions with customers, and customers ask me is my server cloud computing?”, explains “The Dominator”.

He adds that in the last 2 years most cloud (grid) computing data centers had major outages. The user says that the “future is coming” and he expects computers to connect to some form of Clouds, but data centers to “take a bit longer to transition to grid models everywhere”.

Still Unclear?

If I had to make myself clear of what Cloud computing was, from the above conversation, I would loose myself. So folks, the best you can do, if you need to know what really cloud means is to spend a few hours reading in Wikipedia, WHT Wiki and other library resources. Then stop and think about what you have read. And if you still do not understand the “Cloud”, stop thinking about it and just use it.