It's All Geek To Me - February 24th 2005

Hosting – from Sushi to Canned, it's just like Tuna by Ross Lasley Tuna is my favorite fish – ever since I was a kid. Probably has something to do with family trips to Montauk where I would see giant tuna on the docks surrounded by a crowd of Japanese buyers with little briefcases.

They used the tools of their trade – probes and test tubes – to determine the fish quality. The best of the best went straight to JFK for a flight to Tokyo where it was consumed as top grade sushi quality tuna. I thought I was so brave to eat this raw fish the first time and it was amazing, I really liked the taste and texture.

As a kid I also loved Sunday afternoons which often involved my mother hanging around in the garden – tuna fish sandwiches made frequent appearances on such days. I liked those too, but for different reasons - it was mostly the mayo and saltiness that had my attention.

So what does all this have to do with web site hosting? More than you might think.

Website hosting is like electricity – you'll never think about it until something goes wrong.

To start with, you must consider your needs – what are the real ramifications if your site or email service goes down? What will the impact on customers be if the site is slow or non responsive ? Do the best you can to assign a dollar value to those possibilities.

The first question in terms of website hosting is the fish quality – this involves both the equipment and the data center. KISS primarily uses Intel branded servers, and as you might imagine they do cost more than brands you have never heard of. The question for your web host is the failure rate they experience on boxes - “how often do your servers have hardware problems and what do you do about it?” The next issue is the data center, the physical place where this server is located. Data centers are judged on a few simple criteria – security, power, and the network.

Security is just as simple as you think it is – are the servers physically secured and behind appropriate alarm systems? Stop giggling , this happens more than you might think. When Verizon lost equipment from a data center last May many customers were impacted – at the end of the investigation it was revealed the problem was a propped open door and failure to use any locks – the thieves literally walked right into the server room through open doors.

Power is about the fact that all locations can lose power for extended periods of time – we all remember the great blackout of 2003 when most of the Northeast went dark.

And if the power goes out your data center should have the ability to keep the juice going indefinitely – battery backups supported by hospital grade generators. Again, your question is a simple one for a potential host – what happens if the power goes out? How often do you test your power failure procedures?

The network issue refers to the type of connection your data center has to the web – the critical thing being there should be more than one. This often is referred to as redundant or multi-homed connections, and is often the explanation for very inexpensive hosting. The price of two fat pipes is, of course, twice that of one. The question for you is “how many times since it opened has your data center lost Internet connectivity and what was the duration of each incident?” If the answer isn't zero, move on.

Ok – so with proper security, power , and a redundant network you've got a quality piece of fish there, and what happens next is critical to how it is going to taste when you get it.

Now we need to know if the kitchen is clean and how they run the operations.

Web servers need love and attention regularly – patches, updates, upgrades, and such – essentially you are asking if this very nice piece of fish is going to be kept properly refrigerated. Running servers that are not properly managed is like driving around with no seatbelt – most of the time there won't be any problems, but if there is an issue the consequences will be very serious.

The next kitchen quality issue is a management issue – most web hosts are in business to make money, and they do strive to expand their operations. Two medium pipes were an excellent choice to support 50 servers but now that we have 75 they aren't so good anymore. The question for you is about “load and utilization” - literally what percentage of the resources are used on average. At our offices in Eastham today our network utilization maxed out at 45.2% of capacity and on average was 6.4% of capacity. The numbers for this year on that same pipe show a maximum of 54.1% and an average of 6.7%. Here we plan for less than 50% usage , so when we hit an average of more than 50% utilization we'll make the pipe bigger.

I'm sure you've heard about all the junk mail and illegal content issues on the web, but you might not be aware that those issues are an important consideration for a web host – ethics. If your web host allows spam and pirated software to exist on their network they'll get blocked by others (like AOL or AT&T) and those folks are not kind or selective in their blocking procedures. They'll block the whole data center, preventing mail delivery from anyone there even though it is only 6 of 500 servers that are the actual problem. Your host needs a zero tolerance policy for these issues or you might end up getting punished for someone else's bad behavior.

The final issue is support – can you get people on the phone when you need them and are they responsive? The simplest way to check this is to ask the web host for some references (and yes, actually call them) as well as simply knocking on the front door. Before committing to a host, try calling support two or three times – how long does it take to get someone? With great fish and a well run kitchen you won't need these folks much, but things do go wrong even under the best of circumstances.

So without any knowledge of highly technical issues this information gives you a way to judge the hosting you need, and hopefully offers some explanation for the huge discrepancies in pricing. Dedicated servers can be had for as little as one hundred bucks a month, and the top end systems are more than a grand – A can of tuna is about a buck and a pound of sushi quality tuna will cost you about $40.

KISS News

Ross will be making a major presentation at the Winter/Spring BizWiz gathering organized by the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce. On Thursday, March 3, Ross will be speaking on Search Engine Marketing: Everything You Don't Need to Know. The workshop will run from 8:30 am until 10:00 am, and will cover the core basic concepts of search engine marketing, including organic search, tracking results, making improvements, paid inclusions and basic CPC strategy. Register online here.

Michael attended the Linux World Expo at the Hynes Convention Center last week in Boston. Although already an open source and Linux zealot, he's become somewhat unbearable in his preaching of their virtues since his return. However, he did come back with information on new software from the open source community that might be of aid to KISS. We're sure he'll be writing of this in his monthly Open Source column for IAGTM, so watch for more in March.

Tasty Tip

by Michael McGrath The three foodstuffs I got the most calls and most requests for in preparation for the Super Bowl (Yea, Patriots!) were chili, crabcakes and salsa. Family and friends were looking for that foolproof recipe for each, and I was happy to oblige. I posted recipes for chili and crabcakes on my website, http://capediningout.com, and saved the salsa recipe for this week's Tasty Tip. Making a good salsa is so easy you'll wonder why you buy the grocery store versions. This is especially so when you play with the recipe and make adjustments based upon your own taste and tolerance for heat. This recipe will make enough for two people to enjoy during your favorite hour-long television show. 6-8 ripe tomatoes (choose those vine-ripened ones you see at the market) 1 medium Spanish onion ½ of one green pepper 2 jalapeno peppers ½ bunch fresh cilantro 2 limes salt and pepper Dice the tomatoes and onion into ¼ inch pieces and place in a bowl. Be sure to get all the juice from the tomatoes, too. Remove the seeds from the green pepper and dice into the same size pieces as the tomatoes and onions. Remove the seeds from the jalapeno peppers and mince the peppers very finely. Be sure you wash your hands after handling them, and do not put your fingers anywhere near your face until you've washed up. Add the minced jalapeno to the bowl. Wash the cilantro, dry in paper towels, pick the leaves and discard the stems. Chop the cilantro leaves and add to the bowl. You don't have to chop too finely. Add the juice from the limes to the mix. Stir to blend well, and let it sit for about 30 minutes, covered, in the refrigerator. Taste it for seasoning, and adjust with salt and pepper to suit yourself. Put it back in the fridge for another hour to let all the flavors blend. Add more jalapeno if you want a hotter salsa. Perhaps you're not as big a fan of cilantro as this recipe calls for, and you'll want to cut back a little on that measurement. Maybe you like more tomato. Cooking is part experimentation, the object of which is to turn out food that suits your taste. I can assure you each recipe in my restaurant kitchens underwent numerous iterations before a customer ever ate the dish, and sometimes the first few tries were just awful. The process was fun, though, and that is the allure of cooking for me. This is the salsa I made for my daughters when they were young, and this is the salsa they make for themselves now. Hope you enjoy!