New bandwidth providers added to network.

The SharkSpace network added additional bandwidth providers and increased the amount of bandwidth that can be transferred through existing carriers. The SharkSpace network is currently using the following carrier/bandwidth providers:

Internap
SAVVIS
Global Crossing
Verio
AboveNet

The addition of Global Crossing, will help increase speeds to countries outside the United States.

Plesk web hosting? DirectAdmin web hosting?

SharkSpace currently offers the leading control panel Cpanel, but what about second and third in line Plesk and DirectAdmin? Currently neither are supported by SharkSpace, but they are in serious consideration. The user demand for Plesk and DirectAdmin is currently no where near that of Cpanel. Perhaps when they both reach the development stage that Cpanel is in, then there will be a good chance that SharkSpace will offer product lines featuring them.

Why not offer them now?
If SharkSpace offered them now, we would need to hire a specialty staff that is trained in their use. This would not be cheap, but would be manageable if there was high demand for the products. The problem is there demand is not currently that high.

Another reason is Plesk is more expensive than Cpanel, but has less features. I’m not sure how many clients would go on a more expensive package to have less.

The waiting game.
SharkSpace will someday offer all the leading control panels so every user can take advantage of the great service SharkSpace offers, but when that time will be is controlled by the product development and user demand.

SharkSpace cPanel Clustered Hosting is Coming!

The future of cpanel web hosting is only a few months away. There currently is a beta cpanel cluster that we are testing that has load balancing, multiple apache applications, multiple mysql applications and much more. To start, the cluster will consist of 10-15 servers, which will make downtime a thing of the past.

As our client base grows, so will the cluster size. The amount of servers that can be added is not limited. The setup will be similar to what large sites such as Google, Ebay, Amazon etc. use except it will function with the world’s most popular control panel cpanel.

How far off is the release date?
I don’t have an exact date, but if all goes well we would like to push a test version onto the market in 3-5 months. A stable product should be ready in 7-12 months.

Will this be affordable?
The answer is yes! The cpanel cluster packages have not been made yet, but they will start under $20/month.

Whats the next big thing coming to SharkSpace?

A very interesting question. We do have some big plans coming up for SharkSpace, but we can reveal them quite yet. I can although tell you about some of the things that are in the works now and are almost complete.

A new E-commerce only package that will include a dedicated IP address, SSL certificate and enough storage space and bandwidth to effectively run a business.

After that release (more…)

Where does SharkSpace stand on security?

One of the most important aspects of SharkSpace is our strong stance on server security. I will try to go in as much detail as possible about our unique system without giving away too much information that could come back and haunt us. (speaking of haunt, its Halloween! Happy Halloween everyone.)

To start I will go into the main aspects of the system. There is a firewall to block server ports, IP address etc. and to notify us of any unwanted activity on any of the servers. Next we have a brute force detection system that will block automated bots from trying millions of login passwords until they find one that fits your account. The system automatically logs all this activity and will block the bot from the server after (more…)