Hosting: January 2007 Archives

Paul sent this around this afternoon Raid for idiots Very funny, but also easy to understand!

With my business partner we run a hosting company, as most regular readers know. We offer a range of internet related services including hosting, domain registration and the like. (This is not an advert - it's more of an explanation) Over the past few years we have taken (and made) a lot of phonecalls - 9 out of our 10 fulltime staff spend a good part of their day on the phone. While some of the conversations may amuse hardcore geeks, others are simply bizarre. About two years ago I got a phonecall in the afternoon. It was a gentleman's voice with a rather strong regional accent. After doing the obligatory "Good afternoon Blacknight" I couldn't have possibly been prepared for his question: "Where can I get a combine harvester?" Naturally I presumed that he'd got a wrong number, so I tried to explain who we were... Bad idea! "You're an internet company?" "Yes" "So where can I get a combine harvester online?" "I don't know. Have you tried looking at the Golden Pages?" "I already did. That's how I got your number" At this point I wasn't sure if it was someone pulling my leg or a seriously confused gentleman, so I gently suggested that he try to search on Google and assured him that we couldn't be of any further assistance. A few weeks ago one of our staff got an even odder phonecall: "Good morning, Blacknight. How can I help you?" "Do you sell bras?" "Sorry?" "Do you sell bras? You know... ladies underwear.." "Em ... No. We're a hosting company" "But do you sell bras?" She somehow managed to gently extricate herself from the call .... People ask the oddest questions ......

If your website is slow then people will either get annoyed with it or simply not visit it. Bottom line - you can lose money.
I met Donncha in real life for the first time a few months ago and one of the things that I was anxious to talk to him about was Wordpress' speed or lack thereof, as both my own sites and those of clients etc., seemed to suffer from performance issues.
This site has been known to do over 100 gigabytes of transfer in a month, so performance can become an important factor.
Donncha, who works for Wordpress fulltime, was adamant that WP itself was not to blame. As I had previously suspected the culprits were badly written plugins. Unfortunately this is one of the downsides to PHP.
It's simply TOO easy to write bad PHP code. If even I can release a modified plugin (and I cannot program to save my life) then you know what I mean!

Evaluating Performance
Prior to the reinstall on this site the number of SQL queries per page was outrageous, with some pages requiring well in excess of 100 SQL queries to render! If you look in the page footer now you can see that it's been cut back significantly.

Server Side Options
On the server-side I'm using MySQL 4 - simply because it ships with Ubuntu. The Ubuntu config includes some caching already, but the max clients setting had to be increased significantly, as the server would become either slow or simply unresponsive at least once every 24 hours. The fix for that was simply to "borrow" a config from a much busier server :) On a sidenote. If your site is really important to you and is a major source of revenue, be that direct (sales / affiliate sales / advertising revenue) or indirect (such as business referrals worth thousands of Euro) then going dedicated or at least semi-dedicated is the only sane option. You simply cannot run an important site in a shared environment.
Apache could be optimised further by simply removing unwanted / unneeded modules OR, as some people have suggested, by replacing it completely with a lighter HTTPD.
Php could be sped up using a caching mechanism. As none of the open source PHP caching solutions seem to be available as Debian / Ubuntu packages I have decided not to try this method as yet, however, if anyone has done so I'd love to hear about your experiences. Instead of upgrading the backend, and leaving loads of old files lying around the place, a clean slate definitely helps. Now, in my case, getting a "clean slate" was not intentional, however it has paid dividends. If you cannot think of a valid reason to use a plugin, then you can probably do without it. There is no reason to have more than a couple of plugins enabled. If you need tons of plugins then you probably should consider using something else or maybe writing your own software...
One of the plugins I find particularly useful is Brian's latest comments, however the "stock" version is rather heavy, as it generates SQL queries on each and every page load. Donncha "Wordpress" O Caoimh rewrote it so that it's a hell of a lot saner. (thanks!)
Another plugin that was worth enabling is Wp-Cache. The latest version includes some improvements supplied by Mr O'Caoimh :)
What both of these plugins do is create static files on the physical disk instead of relying on MySQL to do all the work. (This is one of the reasons why some sites such as search.ie or blog.blacknight.ie use the Perl scripts that they do!)
I'm not sure what else I can do at this point to speed things up, as I've effectively taken the number of SQL queries per page from an alltime high of about 110 to about 30 (or less) If anyone has any other suggestions I'd love to give them a go

Rather than try to reinvent the wheel and in order to keep in tune with the Open Source / Technical flavour of Skycon.... I've decided to give the talk on email filtering using MailScanner... Since that sounds very uninspired I'll see if I can come up with a sexier title. How about: Mine's big enough! - Filtering 50,000 users' mail using open source technology It doesn't have a great ring to it... OR Phishers and phuckers Neither exactly scream "inspired!"

If you're going to run an advertising campaign using Google Adwords (or anything else) you'd want to ensure that your website is actually online. It's even more important if you're actually advertising hosting.... Spotted this morning on Irish ISP Test:

Company Business-class hosting ....

Since I can't click on my own ads I typed in the address.. which led me to a page announcing:

Site has been suspended

Basic rules of selling hosting:

• Pay your bills
• Ensure you've enough bandwidth
• Don't make claims that can be easily seen through

Basic rules of online advertising:

• Make sure your site is online
• All of the other rules from above

The company name is not being mentioned to protect the em .. well.. there's no need to rub salt in the wound, is there ?

I'm off to LA at the end of the month to Domain Fest. While I've been really looking forward to the trip I'm now really excited, as I just got word that a cool conference just got even cooler !!

We are excited to announce that Michael Arrington, editor and founder of the definitive web 2.0 blog, TechCrunch, will top the list of the biggest industry names to speak at the first DOMAINfest Global. Prior to founding TechCrunch, Michael’s background in the domain industry is immense, having founded Pool.com and later consulted for domain industry giants like VeriSign and SnapNames.

Now that's interesting! The rest of the lineup is fascinating, so I hope I actually get to socialise with some of these people. So who do I want to meet? Jothan Frakes - obviously! We've been chatting online (and on the phone etc.,) for quite some time, but we've never met! Frank - whose blog I've been reading for quite some time Bret Fausett always has an interesting view on things domain related .... There are probably a lot of other people going who I should meet as well, but I guess I won't find out who until I actually get there... My big problem now is packing!!

In my day job (honestly I do have one!) I run one of the largest registrars / resellers of IE domains (the IE ccTLD is the domain name for Ireland). In the course of doing that I have spent quite a lot of time becoming accustomed to the rules and regulations that govern both the naming and general registration criteria of IE domains. In some cases I can understand why rules are the way they are, whereas in others I am completely baffled. I've written about matters affecting the various stakeholders in the IE namespace on several occassions in the past, but I don't feel that I have really tackled the personal domain issue in quite some time. Over a year ago I wrote a short "howto" on registering IE domains as an individual. While that article was not exhaustive it did attempt to cover some of the more salient points. Several months previously I had broached the subject of the personal IE domains. At the time I was focussed more on a separate 2nd level domain for this purpose, similar to the way New Zealand has geek.nz or the UK has me.uk. When I revisit the topic 18 months later my views have changed a small bit, but not that much. I still think that there should be a couple of second level domains available within the IE namespace. Why? Well, to put it simply, if there were a couple of separate "spaces" then the perception of "privilege" could be diluted without damaging the namespace's main root. If we work on the premise that a managed registry has several advantages for stakeholders (namely IE registrants and those of us involved in the industry) then being able to cater for the growing demand for personal, or vanity, domain names could be catered for without there being any conflict. The concept of the managed registry becomes increasingly important when you take into consideration the upsurge in online fraud and phishing which has become a serious headache over the last couple of years. By validating each and every application for a .ie domain, be that at the registrar/reseller level or within the registry itself stakeholders and the public at large can be afforded a higher level of security. Putting it more colloquially, an e-commerce site that trades using a .ie should be able to give you the "warm fuzzies", as you, the consumer, will have some assurances that the domain belongs to a real person or business. With .com it is possible to register thousands of domains while providing completely bogus registrant information. While the IEDR whois output can be problematic at times (it causes confusion for novices) they have made several improvements over the last couple of years, including the addition of a domain status field, which can show you at a glance whether a domain is "active" or "suspended". The "locked" status is a messy one, and is beyond the scope of this piece. Under the current rules only a select group of people may register their own name. If you are a published author, politician, public figure or sole trader (trading as yourself) you may be able to register yourfullname.ie However, if you are "Joe Public" or, as is increasingly the case, "Joe Blogger", you cannot normally register your name unless you play with the rules. Once people start playing with the rules a domain name space may run into issues and its perceived value could be reduced significantly in the eyes of both the general public and stakeholders (there's enough material on that kind of carry on for several articles!). If, on the other hand, a special space, such as me.ie were created with much looser rules it could help solve a lot of issues. When I last mentioned the subject I had a shortlist of pre-requisites that I felt needed to be addressed for a move of this kind to be viable:

• Automation
• Separation
• Price

Let's look at each one in turn: Automation In the latter half of 2006 the IEDR technical team led by Billy Glynn and working hand in hand with the staff of resellers implemented an API. It is now possible to send registration requests directly to the IEDR using an approved API. As the larger resellers adopt the new API they should see a reduction in their manual workload in processing IE registration requests in general. It also means that if you have done your coding in a sane and functional manner extending your implementation of the API to include a new second level domain would not involve excessive development time or costs. Separation By keeping the personal space (or any others that are created) separate from the top level it should be relatively easy to build up a public perception of the overall namespace's value and relevance. Afnic, for example, went to great lengths to encourage the wider adoption of .fr domains by private citizens last year. While their experience was not without its hiccups they managed to increase overall registration figures dramatically and with it the public's interest in the domain. (We are AFNIC members) Price While I don't like "race to the bottom" style pricing automated registrations would mean little or no manual intervention, so the costs to both the registry and the reseller/registrar should be minimal. If that was the case then the saving should be passed on directly to the public without any pre-conditions. This strategy would also allow companies that like to target a "premium" market to maintain their higher prices for the "higher value" product, namely the .ie at root level. It is my opinion that the combination of these three elements could lead to a veritable explosion of IE registrations if handled correctly. I may, of course, be completely mistaken, but I'd love to see the IEDR "give it a go", as I for one would give it my full support. NB: As usual these opinions are my own and may not represent those of Blacknight, though they probably do :)

And for once they're not mine :) Paul has finally got round to enabling comments on his blog - the aptly named weird.ie. Niall didn't jump on the bandwagon - he climbed onto it slowly - anti-blog style, so it's only a matter of time before we'll have the rest of the Blacknight staff blogging :) I've no idea what he'll blog about, so it'll be interesting to see

I love my staff's sense of humour. It would be hard working with them all if they weren't a fun bunch. They all know that I'm "into" domains in a big way, so Niall grabbed michelehastoomanydomains.com !! I don't have that many domains!! Thanks Niall!

I've mentioned webhosting.info's hosting stats several times over the past couple of years. While I still do not find them to be 100% accurate I would consider them to be a relatively good barometer of relative sizes etc., During the course of 2006 Blacknight's growth was steady and healthy (screenshot from domaintools) If you look at our overall position compared to our competitors in the Irish market, however, the picture is much more revealing: Paul spotted our new position at number 2 last week. As he mentioned we've just taken on a new sales manager, so hopefully if he does his job we'll continue to grow and I'll get my dream car one of these days :) I first registered blacknight-solutions.com back in July 2000. I didn't even pay for the first year's domain registration, as I won it in a competition (the hyphenated domain was a really bad idea by the way). Personally I'd never have imagined that six and a half years later we'd be in the top three! So what for the future? We've got lots of interesting plans in the pipeline and they'll be revealed at the right time (I hope!) on the company blog or main site. You might be asking yourself why I'm not blogging about this on the "official" Blacknight blog... Well the answer is very simple - a lot of it started here. Just over 3 years ago I started this blog (November 2003). At the time I was playing about with Movable Type and used the blog as a way of venting my random thoughts and frustrations:

Working for your own company is an odd experience. At times you lack inspiration and would like to throw in the towel. At other times you find yourself driving yourself forward in way no employer could ever imagine

November '03 A lot has changed since then.... First we hired Niall, who has since moved onto Google. Then we moved into our offices.... Then there was the staff expansion.. and more expansion and, well, more expansion... We're now running out of space in the office again! NB: Figures only reflect Com/net/org/info/biz They do not take into consideration ccTLDs, such as .ie, co.uk or regional / specialist extensions such as .eu , .travel

In case you are wondering where all the IP addresses have gone to the IPv4 Address Use Report for 2006 has just been posted.