“Ua-hosting.company” or how to become a hosting provider from scratch and generate more traffic than the whole of Belarus

    Some time ago, at a notorious forum, an interesting discussion was started, a person from the Russian hinterland asked a quite sound, in my opinion, question:

    Kholodnyy Sintez:
    “Good day to the forum users. Really, I didn’t know where to create the topic, but for those like me I made a whole section, and thanks for that.
    In short, I live in a remote wilderness where business is being taken away and they are not allowed to do anything quietly ... and then an idea came to me to create a server for hosting services or something else.

    Interested in such questions:
    * What is needed for a start, what equipment, programs, etc.
    * What needs to be bought for a start
    * What budget can I get into
    ? to tell me what and how? ... "

    And of course, in the best traditions of Sercha, srach began:

    pavellift:
    “Cold Synthesis , can it be better to move?”

    voltamper:
    "TS, you should not succumb, if at all you do not understand this.
    Brutanut and generally remain without pants. "

    sladkydze:
    “Author, I support comrades who do not advise to meddle.

    Something here you can catch:
    1. Having knowledge in the field and experience.
    2. Having at least $ 10,000 on initial investments. And better from $ 50,000. The rest is raging in a puddle. ”

    [umka]:
    "It's like starting a car rental company, having a used VAZ 2106 as" initial equipment ". Well, plus a site, of course."

    And there were many such advisers. Yes, of course, it could be a desire to crush a new competitor, since most of those noted with such tips are existing hosting providers. If it weren’t for one thing ... These people were completely convinced that it was impossible to organize a hosting project without special knowledge or a large budget, only a few people gave advice on the matter.

    I immediately remembered how I started, and it became simply unbearably sad from such advice, because people were mistaken, everything is possible without a budget, and without basic knowledge. Because that's how ua-hosting came about. And then I will tell a small story of success and disappointment ...

    The goal was not to create a hosting project at all ...


    I discovered the Internet for myself in 2001, back in the era of dial-up, when access speeds were only up to 28 Kbps and I had to pay huge bills for the Internet and phone - about half a dollar per hour in the afternoon and 10-20 cents at night. Access to information was extremely expensive and I could only afford 10-20 hours of “online” per month and a small page on the free narod.ru as the first experience of posting information on the network.

    In 2003, the year, becoming a first-year student of the Department of Astronomy and Space Physics, Faculty of Physics, Kiev National University. Taras Shevchenko, in fact, never before having encountered web design and the concept of hosting (narod.ru does not count), I wanted to create a scientific cognitive project, or rather I realized the need for this. After all, the same books published several decades ago, but the information in which was conceptually important and relevant, were incredibly difficult to find, not everyone had access to a good library, especially far from scientific centers. For example, the 1969 edition on the theory of radiation transfer in the frequencies of spectral lines is still relevant today. Indeed, the solution of a number of problems in applied mathematical physics at the physical level of rigor is, perhaps, the basis for those

    Getting a scholarship in the amount of about $ 7 per month, I could only afford the registration of a domain name, which I did in the spring of 2004. I was able to launch the project much later - only in 2006. Conventional hosting was not suitable, only hundreds of electronic books were collected and created in 2 years, and most hosting providers of that time banned file archives when placed on shared hosting.

    As a result, a virtual server was rented:



    Moreover, the initial tariff plan was not enough, since the same squirrelmail, a mailer with a web interface, was very noticeable. It's funny that I didn’t even know in which directory it was necessary to upload the site files (public_html) and how to assign an index page. My classmate friend Cyril helped me understand this, who at that time had already created a website about free domain names, which was also very relevant for many webmasters of that time. Moreover, he essentially became the first “hosting” client, since there were much more resources on VDS than the project required at that time and the contents of the virtual north had to be paid back somehow.

    I was a complete zero in administration, but nevertheless already then I realized that it would be much cheaper to contact the administrator with a specific task (at that time the prices for constant maintenance were space - from $ 100) than to connect maintenance to a constantly, because a correctly configured server It can work for a long time without failures. Of course I trained and improved my skills. I still remember the phrase Valentine, the administrator and owner of “HostBizUA”, as it turned out:

    - If I installed FreeBSD for you, you would have already shot yourself, because in order to install a package in FreeBSD you need to know it from a to z, I installed CentOS because you can install any package with the command:
    yum install WHAT *
    --- --------------

    And he was right, working with CentOS was not at all difficult.

    And then I realized that high-quality support is possible even when one person provides the services, the main thing is inspiration and the right attitude to the matter, because Valentin somehow miraculously managed to answer the ticket within 5-10 minutes at any time of the day. The man literally lived on the Internet despite the fact that he owned a rather large data center. Soon he sold his brainchild, which, unfortunately, did not become any success without its mastermind. It's funny that until now the tariff plans on the site have not changed and even become much worse in price:



    The first dedicated server and bad experience with a channel without taking into account traffic


    With the beginning of the era of leased lines and higher Internet access speeds in Ukraine and Russia, VDS was simply not enough, the same media archive required more space and, most importantly, a channel of higher bandwidth. There was a need to purchase a dedicated server, and at the same time, to search for customers from the outside, as the project was non-profit and did not have enough profit from advertising and selling SEO links (then there was a very popular topic).

    At that time, I had already begun to understand something and could provide a quality service not only to friends, but also to visitors to the site, because many were interested in creating their own page on the Internet:



    Yes, I didn’t know very much, but I knew people whom I could ask for help to solve a particular problem if necessary, and I could correctly formulate the essence of the problem, which in most cases was already the majority of the solution.

    Soon, despite the fact that the site traffic was not high - up to 300 people a day, the first ten customers were found among users of the resource and over time the client base only grew, since the site visitors trusted me, because they were placed in the same place as the project . At the end of 2006, I was able to afford to buy a dedicated server and place it on collocation in the same data center where I rented a virtual one.

    Moreover, the offer at that time was very profitable, they promised a 100 Mbps channel excluding traffic for $ 76.5 a month, not only to the Ukrainian segment of the UA-IX network, but also to the foreign one:



    E2160 was purchased with four with hard drives of 250 GB and 4 GB of RAM, the server cost almost $ 1,000, but not only paid for its placement, but also began to make good profit (about $ 70 per month). However, the happiness did not last long ... As soon as I added a large media archive to the website and scored the channel in the shelf, they limited the channel to the world to 5 megabytes and left only 10 megabytes to Ukraine ... At the same time, Valentin changed the tariff scale to the web website, motivating it by counting on “fair” consumption and the channel is more expensive:



    The media archive had to be very limited, and the dedicated server lost its usefulness in this data center. At the same time, moving the server somewhere was simply not profitable, since the same Volia, one of the largest data centers in Kiev, began to offer dedicated servers for rent at the price of accommodation. Finally, the western business model began to work in Ukraine, when the server was leased almost for free, and only the channel was paid.

    Nevertheless, anything suitable on "Vol" cost much more money than the customers and the site brought, only their maximum tariff plan for 1399 hryvnias per month (about $ 280) was suitable, since a guaranteed outgoing channel at a speed of at least 100 was needed megabits excluding traffic:



    And in order to be able to afford it, it was necessary to increase profits by 4 times, further increase the client base, transfer clients temporarily to a reliable virtual server and sell the current physical one. The action plan is simple and clear, it was enough to just work.

    He was lucky with the server, after half a year of work he was lucky to sell more for money than were paid for it at the time of purchase, but cheaper than the average price on the market. So everyone was happy.

    But with the choice of a new hosting provider and the growth rate of the client base, less luck.

    Processor and memory are not the most important resource of a virtual server or why disk quota costs 0


    In May 2007, a provider such as vds64 entered the market, specializing in virtual servers for money that was quite adequate for that time. The equipment was located in the DataGroup Incom data center - a very high-quality Kiev site, which was very helpful and I decided to try their services. Actually, I analyzed the consumption of resources, I came to the conclusion that all my clients could completely fit in the Start virtual server for $ 20 a month:



    But I was not used to saving and decided to take Optima (resources with a reserve), for not quite small, as for a virtual server, money - 35 dollars a month. And what was my surprise when customers at some point started complaining that their sites were slowing down ... I checked the processor and memory, we do not use even half ...

    By the way, many of the providers today continue to breed marketing bullshit on the topic of small resources, convincing customers that a virtual server with less than 1 GB of RAM and resources less than 1 GHz is very bad, small and not enough, because you need to sell more servers. And then on this virtual server about 30 sites worked quite successfully and there were enough resources with a margin. But now this is not about that.

    The reason for the deceleration of sites was not a lack of processor or RAM resources, but because the disk array became overloaded. It is now well known to me that a SATA-drive provides only about 70 I / O or Read / Write per second (IOPS) operations at the best, and at that time it was a discovery for me, probably, as for the creators of “vds64 "For reviews about the slowdown of sites on their virtual servers have become global in nature. The RAID array did not save the situation. The storage, which was half full, was overloaded.

    Realizing this, he "asked" to transfer me to another node, less loaded by IOPS, switching to the even more expensive Portal tariff plan for $ 50 per month, so that the provider would not be so offended. It helped for a while. At that time, unfortunately, SSD drives providing tens of thousands of IOPS, unlike hard drives, simply did not exist for adequate money, and of course, that “vds64” would not solve the problem once and for all. This was more than obvious and I started looking for a dedicated server for rent, because I did not want to disappoint clients who trusted me, and problems and complaints arose more and more.

    I wanted Volya, I really wanted it, because it was the most optimal data center for my tasks. That's just $ 280 was not ... Of course, it would be possible to stretch 3-4 months for the proceeds from the sale of the server, but what should I do then if the project does not reach the payback? So it was impossible to take risks.

    An individual approach changes everything: buying services in a data center through a partner, and not directly


    In February 2008, there was a way out. It turned out that for almost a year now, their partner, the company “Data Hut”, has been successfully cooperating with Volia, placing there both their own equipment and offering data center servers for rent. And they are one of their largest customers, plus they have much more flexibility ... For example, outgoing traffic is unlimited even for a minimum tariff plan, and not only for a tariff for $ 280 (1399 UAH) and basic settings and maintenance are provided:



    Hosting your server cheaper than renting a server in a data center. In addition, a unique solution is offered - renting a server with a buyback, after 12 months the server is bought back for a hryvnia only and it remains to pay only for accommodation and traffic:



    In general, of course, this scheme is ineffective in the long term - customers forget that the equipment is out of date and sometimes malfunctions. But it warms the soul for those who want to own the equipment and the ability to migrate the server between data centers quickly. The guys adjusted the service so much that they were able to provide magical logistics with migration within an hour (they turned off the server, loaded, transported, connected), while they collaborated with several of the best data centers in Kiev.

    But most importantly, they offered an individual approach. The minimum server cost from $ 100 per month (499 hryvnias) and unfortunately did not meet my requirements, but it was clearly indicated that the Data Hut was ready to pick up an acceptable option. I needed a minimum of 4 disks and 4 GB of RAM, and the cost of the server should not have exceeded $ 90, that is how much money the project brought at that moment. And I decided to discuss such an opportunity by sending an application and explaining in detail why and what is needed.

    Alexander, the director of Data Hut, made the discount so necessary for me at that time and went to the meeting - temporarily reduced the amount of incoming foreign traffic from 30 to 20 GB, while leaving the outgoing traffic unlimited, provided the necessary parameters, helped with configuration and even porting customers. And when, due to my inexperience, I almost lost data (the server was configured with RAID5 in order to save disk space and I did not notice how the disk crashed and the array began to work in critical mode, resulting in the failure of the second disk) , spent a sleepless night trying to save at least something. And he succeeded. Unfortunately, there was no way to save databases from binary logs - the data was mixed up, the file system was damaged. But the files and scripts were saved, for the most part. Luckily, most customers backed up databases, since the backup was easy to download because of the small volume, but not all files were backed up due to the low bandwidth of the home Internet. Some kept copies on the same server, and some didn’t do any backups, relying on RAID, so people were glad of at least such an outcome.

    This incident taught me and my clients an important rule: there are people who don’t do backups and those who already do it.

    I was very grateful to Alexander and was so amazed at such care that I left him a response that day:

    "Thanks. I am simply amazed, in the good sense of the word, by the attitude of your company and you, as a leader, towards me, as a client. + the quality of services is really at your best! I only regret that I did not stumble upon your site before ... "

    This review is posted among the reviews of his customers to this day, indicating that I am the owner of such a portal, despite the fact that this portal, unfortunately, stopped development back in 2009, I had to devote myself completely hosting, there was no time later to work on the portal.

    Goodbye science, hello business?


    But then, in the fall of 2008, a hosting project, together with a scientific resource, was essentially a hobby and far from the main direction in work. After graduating, I worked at the department and was engaged in the distribution of ozone in the atmosphere, the study of the circumpolar vortex and its effect on the climate in Antarctica. There was a prospect to go wintering at the Ukrainian Academician Vernadsky station for half a year or even a year for more detailed scientific research. The only thing was that the Internet was completely absent at our station, and having a project on the network and quite a few live clients (at that time about a hundred) - I could not afford such luxury, even for the sake of scientific research and quite a good prospective salary - up to $ 2,000 per month. The truth is

    For the year 2008, despite the fact that it worked alone, I brought the level of service to perfection. No, of course there were problems, but they were solved very quickly and the clients had the most individual approach. Consultations were given even outside the scope of the services ordered. The result of these efforts was the first reviews:

    "The technical support is at the highest level, stability is also in the comfort of minor flaws with payment, but it is bearable."

    “Excellent (operational!) Support service.
    +
    good combination price / quality. "

    “I have been using hosting since June 2008. For all the time there have been no serious complaints against them. Already that site is not with which I then hosted. Of the positive aspects, I can name a good tariff plan at low prices. I have never seen better. Plus, a good support service, if it’s not clear, they will put everything on the shelves and help. The servers are really good and the speed is up to par. I didn’t notice any significant flaws in the hosting. ”


    People really thought that the whole team was working. In fact, until 2009, no one else talked to clients except me. However, sometimes there were punctures:

    “Three sites at this provider. This morning I discovered that the sites are down. Apache page. (This page is used to test the proper operation of the Apache HTTP server after it has been installed. If you can read this page it means that the Apache HTTP server installed at this site is working properly.) answers, is silent and the sales department in ICQ, did not find phones. The hosting seems to be supported by one person and he is also the sales department. ”

    It's funny that this review is already from 2010, when the hosting server was monitored by administrators and in fact hosting was already supported not only by me. But when you really had to deal with all of one thing — it was possible to avoid such situations, albeit at an expensive price — sometimes you had to devote work over 18 hours a day, which was a little uncomfortable.

    In general, I was not drawn to Antarctica, of course, it’s worth visiting at least once in my life and researching - it’s interesting and cool, but in our realities they imply a certain level of fanaticism, which I manifested in a completely different field, different from ozone research.

    I really enjoyed my hobby - providing hosting services and attracting new customers. Sometimes I just started to advise people on forums on issues in which I was already knowledgeable and felt confident, even without a thought to sell something, and sometimes with a thought :). Sometimes I entered into interesting discussions with the aim of learning something new and testing myself, or just kindling a throwing ... between the participants. After all, only then can you see the true face and level of professionalism, you need to anger ...

    I am not very smart in physics and I need to make more efforts to solve certain problems. Despite the fact that in programming a complete zero, at one time I managed to save half a year of work of colleagues by automating the processing of data on ozone. So I was not completely useless in science, but then it was impossible to do so. I clearly realized that science has long receded into the background and seriously I will not deal with it, since I can not devote either time or money to it. Yes, it is extremely sad to realize, but in order to engage in science in Ukraine, funds are needed. And the latter can be implemented in two ways - to go abroad and make a career as a scientist there, which takes quite a lot of time and effort (besides, it doesn’t always wash away), or build a successful business, which probably was interesting to many, but not to me. Need to be aware

    Both options did not fit. We were taught at the university the most important thing, as it seemed to me then, to think and learn independently. They told us that on August 31, 2003, after enrolling in the 1st year:

    “We will not teach you physics, we will teach you to think and be able to self-learn. Physicists are universal people and, having realized the essence, you can work anywhere. ”

    But there was no awareness. I never found myself after graduating in 2008 and working at the department for $ 150 a month, and even with dubious prospects to thunder into Antarctica or go a long way as a scientist abroad, was clearly not attractive. Moreover, I lost my fanaticism for science a couple of years before, when at the seminar of Professor Shulman we wrote down the equation of dust motions in the diffusion model of comet plasma tails of the same name for 1.5 hours. Yes, it’s incredibly cool that a person devoted his whole life to science, such people deserve deep respect, but I’m not like that, I couldn’t just sit and go with the flow and spend a lot of energy on dust. It was necessary to find himself, and for this to place himself in an unfavorable environment, because only then is it possible to overcome laziness, force yourself to do something and become better. True, but fact that people change only when the suffering caused by leaving the comfort zone exceeds the suffering from change. That is exactly what I wanted to do with myself.

    Adverse environment may be favorable


    I flew almost without funds to return in case of failure. In the beginning was Egypt, then Indonesia, England. In warm countries, I tried to find myself in diving, as it seemed to me then - a paradise profession. I remember, taking a course of a diving master guide, I was offended by my instructor because she dumped all the most "dirty" work on me, and yet in this way she showed me the difficult realities and costs of the profession. It's fun to fly in and dive for a week, but when you are a guide for a group of certified divers of different levels who have not always undergone quality training, but many of whom believe that everyone knows how (especially to drink the day before) is a completely different matter. It is necessary to gather everyone, bring it, bring 3-4 dives per day, and sometimes more, in very different locations and conditions and keep track of everyone. And so every day

    And even your own unconsciousness and gouging can have a huge negative impact, you can not survive yourself, get out, making a series of mistakes. God, thanks to my instructors for meeting me in my life and setting my brain. Most are not so lucky. Commerce absorbed diving and many have long forgotten about its purpose, the correct philosophy. I studied with Evgenia Peskova ( divemaster course) and Andrey Chistyakov(technical diving, from elementary courses to Trimix and cave diving), I make him an advertisement :). Thanks to them, I realized a lot and survived, developed the right attitude to many things, learned how to build logistics. Indeed, in technical diving - diving with the use of special equipment in order to expand the limits of amateur diving, including deep diving, which increases the risks, an incorrect attitude can cost lives. The principles and logistics used in diving are fair and useful, including in everyday life.

    Yes, it was not easy to learn technical diving, including financially. Initial courses cost a couple of thousand euros, and then I just had no reason to dive and study. But Andrei used the same individual approach as Alexander from Data Hut made it possible to perform additional dives at a cost price of 50 euros per dive in the deco-procedure mode. Yes, it is incredibly cheap, but for me it was a lot of money and I could afford to dive no more than once every 1-2 weeks. I spent all the money from hosting clients on training and improving skills, sometimes it was even problematic to buy food.

    I realized that you need to change something and work even more and more efficiently, when one day Andrei paid for tuition (several hundred euros) and Andrei said to Ale:

    “What will we do with this money? That's right, let's drink! :) "

    Revenues at the technical diving school were measured in tens of thousands of euros per month, and, of course, that they could afford it, deservedly allow. Andrei was well aware that my situation was disastrous and this phrase served as a terrible stimulator to change. No, not because I wanted to drink 400 euros, although sometimes this too - I will not give up good wine, but simply to be able to do what I love to do, including diving. And as soon as the income from my web projects became larger than the potential income of a diving guide, I took up the IT field with great zeal, deciding to leave diving as a hobby, at least for now.

    I decided to offer the services publicly, not being essentially a hosting provider and not having a staff, but having only a page on a scientific cognitive resource. He consulted people on forums and always tried to select individual solutions, and very often recommended even competitors, which led people to a direct stupor. After all, the goal was not so much on sale, but how to become better, to gain experience.

    Then my friend Dmitry, the co-founder of the future “ua-hosting”, joined the project, and the business began to gain momentum even more.

    In July 2009, we finally “opened” “ua-hosting”


    The understanding that the project went beyond the scope of the hobby appeared when we were unable to provide customer requests with increased requirements for hardware resources. The infrastructure was supposed to become more fault tolerant and productive, a second server was needed.

    The client, who wrote a request on the forum, did not want anything supernatural, she had a project dedicated to Latin American series, designed for housewives. Funds from advertising have not yet allowed to pay adequate money with a request for resources. In a good way, a dedicated server was needed there, because only a disk quota required 700 GB, and a channel about 50-70 Mbit / s. But the project seemed promising to us and we decided to help.

    We needed a second server, but we did not need so many resources at once. We offered Lena an individual solution, with the resources she needed, and for ridiculous money, at cost, or even lower, explaining our plan.

    As a result, we rented a second server, organized fail-safe DNS, and most importantly, a website was opened to provide exclusively hosting services, and after a while we earned a good review:

    Advantages: for me, this is one of the best hosting services. The most favorable tariffs, regular promotions and discounts, the ability to choose a hosting for your needs, and if force majeure agree on the terms of payment. And most importantly, I have not seen lower prices anywhere, despite the fact that the servers are all powerful and their uptime is more than ideal.

    Disadvantages: I searched for a long time, but I can’t find it yet. Hosting is more than the best. Well, perhaps, technical support occasionally responds with a little delay (not instantly).

    The author of the review: Elena is a lover of Latin American TV shows. By profession, an economist, by vocation - a webmaster. I host three providers at the same time: best-hoster.ru, kinghosting.net and these guys. So I can compare. By the ratio of price-services - ua-hosting - the best.

    Dedicated servers for rent or as competitors can be partners


    Data Hut, the company through which we rented servers in the Volya data center, at that moment possessed everything: its own administrators, hardware, and was a major partner of the data center. We knew how to communicate with customers and sell. In fact, they were very good managers, with their own hosting project.

    We lacked the experience and desire to work directly with the data center. Yes, and this was meaningless, I didn’t want to register legally - the turnovers were not the same, and working directly we would have a lower discount rate, because we would be a very insignificant client for the data center. But the most important thing is support, along with Data Hut we were larger and the data center more quickly and enthusiastically resolved our issues, and in the event of a delay in payment, our partner could always give us a reasonable delay. The final choice in favor of collaboration was made when Alexander offered us essentially the same level of discounts that the data center can provide directly, leaving all the bureaucracy and support to itself. And he was not mistaken.

    In November 2009, we already had 6 servers on lease, the monthly fee was about 6,000 hryvnias per month ($ 750), and we reached 10% of the level of discounts from data center prices. And 2 servers have already been successfully rented by Elena, a lover of Latin American TV shows, whom we helped half a year ago by providing most of the resources from the second hosting node.

    Essentially, we started using a business model for growing clients. After all, their success is our success. We did everything for this. Even those clients who had a dedicated server unnecessarily, already seriously thought about renting:

    Iv @ nhoe: Bought one of the maximum shared hosting packages. Pleased with the work of the site, the work of technical support and the attitude to security with this provider. I would like to express special thanks to the TS for the maximum assistance rendered in resolving issues. Yes, while still in his personal time. Although I am not yet a complete supporter of acquiring a server for myself, I am more and more inclined to this idea. And it is with this provider. I have to deal with such technical support.

    No, this was not an attempt to sell people what they did not need, on the contrary, it was an incentive to develop their projects, because when a dedicated server is not fully used - there is a need for growth, at least in order to recoup costs, people leave the zone comfort ... And after that you get used to working at such a pace and the project becomes successful, because success is not where you are lucky, but where you regularly work and in the right direction. The same Elena subsequently rented a server with a 10-gigabit connection for her project and her project brought her tens of thousands of dollars of income, while the person was doing what he loved, sincerely for the soul, and indeed - a webmaster by vocation.

    Subsequently, in the Volya data center, we were able to afford our own inclusions and simply added new client servers to the racks. We never limited the channel to customers, trying to save money, but on the contrary gave more than expected. In addition, the business model using general inclusion was more effective, because in reality unlimited traffic is marketing bullshit. It’s convenient for people to rent a server and not think about traffic, but clients are often using far from everything, which not only improves marginality, but also offers a service at a lower cost, makes it more accessible and increases demand. Although you need to be extremely careful with this, sometimes there are exceptions, but more on that later.

    A satisfied customer is good, but a very satisfied customer is even better.


    And while everything went magically, the best advertising worked - recommendations. We deserve the most important thing - trust, gained a reputation. Sometimes I had to communicate with clients on abstract topics and just give advice in certain situations. The result of the work was reviews on the network about us:

    Mantius: I started using this hosting, less than a day has passed, but more than 100 gigabytes have already been given and the flight is still normal, I will take the option for $ 127. I would also like to single out the author as a responsive person who several times very quickly helped to solve many problems, which, in general, are not required to be solved at all. In general, I’m ready to pay $ 127 per month only for such technical support, and the server is like that, you can say, as a gift =).

    Marts: Взял один из акционных серверов. Работает на ура, пользователи не жалуются, что долго грузится (раньше писали постоянно). Хостинг летает как пуля! Особенно радует, что сайты размещаются в ДЦ «Воля». Когда-то пробовал с ними работать — соединение по FTP открывается как на локальном компьютере. Скачивание или закачивание такое быстрое, что я не успеваю увидеть какой файл сейчас заливается + отличная поддержка. Я сервер никогда не пробовал в деле. Только ВДС. К тому же здесь шикарный канал. На ВДС то меня давили соседи, то я их. Здесь же такой канал, что всем хватит. Спасибо! Надеюсь, что так будет долго.

    The number of leased servers grew exponentially. Of course, there were also negative reviews, but mainly from hosting clients, when there was a misunderstanding in the consumption of resources and tariffing, which we could resolve only relatively recently by offering an understandable accounting scheme - payment only for site views, traffic . Nevertheless, we tried to smooth out such conflicts, explaining our position and what exactly the client was mistaken about.

    At the beginning of 2010, the level of services provided by us further increased. Now it became possible to install a new server almost instantly. We always kept the servers in reserve. That was very useful when the Odessa Data Center “hosting.ua” burned down in March 2010 , on that day we received 3 new large customers, includingFetida pharmacy chain (piluli.ua) with up to 100,000 unique users per day, providing them with a server with instant activation even before others were able to offer something. But the most important thing is attitude, we offered help to people even without payment. As a result, they work with us to this day and are confident in our reliability as their partner who will never leave in trouble.

    Continuous support and monitoring: how we began to work with the provider "SeCom"


    Our partner told us a year ago that it is not profitable for him to support our customers technically - a one-time payment of $ 10-20 per hour does not pay off salaries, therefore, we worked mainly with freelance administrators on outsourcing services, passing them customer requests and solving problems with them.

    But in May 2010, we found the best solution - a team of young specialists from Vinnitsa, which was just involved in supporting hosting providers and, in particular, provided dedicated servers for rent in the same data center as we did. We found them by accident, thanks to an incident with a new supply of servers stuck at the border. Our client urgently needed servers, but there were no free servers in the Volya data center, the necessary configurations were over. Then the colleagues from KirHost working with Volya through SeCom kindly agreed to transfer the servers they had already rented to us in our account and went to the meeting. And we thought, why not start working with SeCom more closely. They knew how to administer, and we knew how to sell. In addition, other small hosting providers have already successfully used their services.

    So the company “SeCom” began to provide outsourcing services for our subscribers, and later, when we became their major client - to conduct direct communication in our ticket store. Vyacheslav and Miroslav oversee the activities of those. to this day, and we are very grateful to them for such hard work.

    Legal registration and work with jur. persons


    Turnovers grew and in the summer of 2010 there was a need to start working officially. Although we were abroad most of the year (the advantages of remote work, you can work from anywhere), but we conducted activities in Ukraine, therefore, registration was necessary. So, 2 business entities were immediately discovered. The benefit of paperwork was a bit. Although for this I thank our homeland, although the process of registering activities left much to be desired. Ukraine is still not a country where you can open a business in 5 minutes and make it successful. For example, despite the registration, the jur did not want to work with us. persons, since in this case it was impossible to get a VAT refund. Fortunately, our partner owned LLC and we could conduct such clients through it, without extra costs for your own accountant and time spent on bureaucracy. Everything is official, paying all taxes. That's just to work with jur. persons with services for several hundred hryvnias were simply unprofitable even with such a scheme, the bureaucracy closed this opportunity. Operating expenses for papers and bureaucracy exceeded reasonable limits; they had to refuse such subscribers, or recommend them to work as physical. persons, which was not always possible already taking into account the bureaucratic requirements of their side. or recommend them to work as a physical. persons, which was not always possible already taking into account the bureaucratic requirements of their side. or recommend them to work as a physical. persons, which was not always possible already taking into account the bureaucratic requirements of their side.

    Nevertheless, by September 2010, our infrastructure already consisted of 29 dedicated servers, 4 switches and one router with 4 Gbit / s connected to the Internet:

    *** netgear-2 ***
    1-p --> гигабитное включение
    2-p --> гигабитное включение
    3-p --> гигабитное включение
    4-p --> ovod-switch-12 (1 порт)
    5-p --> switch-10 (8 порт)
    6-p --> гигабитное включение
    14-p --> ovod-switch-14 (24 порт)
    22-p --> ovod-switch-17 (1 порт)
    *** switch-10 ***
    2-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x21 (eth0)
    4-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x12
    5-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x
    6-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x11
    7-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x3
    8-p --> netgear-2 (5 порт)
    9-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x4
    10-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x14
    11-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x6
    12-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x2
    14-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x20 (eth1)
    15-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x10
    16-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x8
    17-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x13
    18-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x9
    19-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x23 (eth0)
    20-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x7
    21-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x15
    23-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-sua
    24-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x5
    *** switch-12 ***
    1-p --> netgear-2 (4 порт)
    4-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x24 (eth1)
    5-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x19 (eth1)
    6-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x22 (eth0)
    9-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x20 (eth0)
    10-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x21 (eth1)
    11-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x26 (eth1)
    13-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-a2
    17-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-a1
    19-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x22 (eth1)
    21-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x26 (eth0)
    22-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x23 (eth1)
    23-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x24 (eth0)
    24-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x19 (eth0)
    *** switch-14 ***
    8-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x28
    9-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x32 (eth0)
    11-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x33 (eth1)
    13-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x33 (eth0)
    14-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x32 (eth1)
    15-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x34 (eth1)
    16-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x34 (eth0)
    24-p --> netgear-2 (14 порт)
    *** switch-17 ***
    1-p --> netgear-2 (22 порт)
    3-p --> ovod:ua-hosting-x29 (eth1)
    4-p -> ovod: ua-hosting-x29 (eth0)
    5-p -> ovod: ua-hosting-x30 (eth0)
    6-p -> ovod: ua-hosting-x30 (eth1)
    7- p -> ovod: ua-hosting-x31 (eth0)

    The subscription fee for data center services, taking into account all the discounts, exceeded UAH 36,000 (4500 usd / month), the number of subscribers only grew and more and more large customers came, including traffic generators that were involved in video streaming.

    Work with large clients, Kinopoisk, cluster projects, work with the Utel data center, attacks at 10+ Gb / s, was it worth it to deal with them?


    Despite the growth, we still did not have our own administrators and sales staff, besides the two of us. In addition, officially we could not hire anyone. Unofficially - we did not need this. In the case of sales support, we were sure that we work better than a dozen managers of any provider. Outsourcing requests were processed by SeCom, according to an agreement between two business entities. Among other things, different tasks required specialists of various levels, we were able to find them and set tasks correctly.

    So one of the major clients had to combine about 17 dedicated servers into a cluster, the cluster was written with 0, a specialist with many years of experience in this field. As a result, the client received a fault-tolerant solution, implemented within a period of about a month, and for very little money (less than $ 4,000). It would be costly to keep a specialist of this level in our staff on an ongoing basis (the level of salary is about $ 2,500 per month), and then the cost of such a service would increase at times, so we saved money primarily for our customers. Among other things, specialists of this level should grow and develop, enrich experience, and this is impossible when tasks rarely arise.

    People trusted us and we always found solutions for them. And we were entrusted with very large projects, such as Kinopoisk. I contacted Dmitry Sukhanov through the Hostobzor forum when he was looking for a reliable partner to rent infrastructure in Ukraine. Alas, the Russian external channels were stupid, as a result, the Ukrainian audience could not normally watch movie trailers on the kinopoisk.ru website and a local solution was required for Ukrainians. On May 16, 2011, we entered into an agreement with Tatsiy Vitaliy Sergeyevich to provide infrastructure for streaming movie trailers for the Ukrainian audience of the Kinopoisk site. And later, for the entire audience, as soon as they began to provide services in the Dutch data center EvoSwitch. The collaboration was long, until October 2013, when, as it turned out,

    But while 2011 was on, and the customer base was growing rapidly. In the course of working with large clients, we encountered such an unpleasant phenomenon as DDOS attacks. There was no hardware protection in the Volya data center, we couldn’t buy such equipment - it was too expensive, and we started working with the Utel data center by renting a cabinet from them and a Juniper Netscreen 5400 to provide filtering of attacks at the hardware level , at least within 2 gigabits, which fit most of the attacks of that time.

    We protected against the following types of attacks:

    icmp-flood
    udp-flood
    port-scan
    tear-drop
    syn-flood
    ip-spoofing
    ping-death
    land
    ip-bad-option
    icmp-fragment
    icmp-large
    syn-ack-ack-proxy
    block-frag
    icmp-id
    icmp-flood threshold 100
    udp-flood threshold 1500
    syn-flood timeout 10
    syn-flood attack-threshold 5000
    syn-flood source-threshold 200
    syn-flood destination-threshold 5000

    And we naively thought that the hardware firewall is The best decision. But it turned out that from some attacks it should still be defended only programmatically or should not be defended at all, but cheaper to wait. Indeed, in order to withstand network equipment, it was necessary to apply distributed expensive cluster software filtering solutions.

    Very soon, we realized the phrase, from the manual to the hardware firewall, in practice:

    — Some DoS attacks are too complex for today's firewalls, e.g. if there is an attack on port 80 (web service), firewalls cannot prevent that attack because they cannot distinguish good traffic from DoS attack traffic.—

    The client got http get, DDOS on the 80th port and it was not a connection. The only thing we could do on the hardware was to limit the number of sessions to 1 ip, which was done. After that, the load fell from 110 thousand sessions to 10-12 thousand. At the same time, the Netscreen 5400 processor load was 88% (2% during normal operation). Therefore, during the attack, there were problems with the removal of SNMP, and we could only report the number of sessions (before the limit was turned on - 150 thousand) and the total number of filtered packets.

    ICMP flood protection 2177
    UDP flood protection 1390
    SYN flood protection 241528872
    SYN Flood (same source) 31637861
    SYN Flood (same destination) 968289628
    TCP packet without flags protection 5207
    Fragmented packet protection 21582144
    ————————————————

    For some time it helped, but not for long, the attack was intensified, more than 10 gigabits came to the root routers of the data center and the subscriber had to be temporarily disconnected, as the attack began to create problems for other customers.

    Alas, in such cases it was cheaper to wait out. Because the organization of an attack also costs money, the attacker cannot carry out the attack indefinitely. Sometimes filtering attempts can bring much more damage than the attack itself, which is what attackers expect. This is the recommendation that was given to the client and it worked, saving a lot of money for our subscriber. Later we learned that other large projects suffered from this botnet, and those who tried to fight didn’t overcome it anyway, getting an attack with a capacity of over 100 gigabits, spending tens of thousands of dollars on defense attempts and a lot of nerves.

    Moving to the Ukrtelecom data center or how to buy half a million servers


    Remember, I said above that operators sell channels cheaper, based on fair consumption and that customers often do not use the entire channel allocated to them fully? And that such sales need to be done carefully?

    The Volia data center did not think about it. They proposed a new “Media” tariff plan for traffic generators, where for every 100 megabits of outgoing traffic, a free incoming megabit to abroad is given as a bonus, which allows generating foreign traffic in even larger volumes, because outgoing traffic is free of charge under the tariff conditions, only incoming megabits and only a small port fee. The offer was excellent and worked like good marketing, until a file wash came to them.

    She generated over a hundred gigabits to Ukraine, thus receiving a huge channel abroad. Free on the ball. The data center bought a foreign channel for a lot of money and its reserve immediately ran out. Ordinary clients did not see any significant problems, but the streaming subscribers could not help but notice this. The flow rate to Russia decreased during peak hours from 2 Mbps to 400 Kbps or less. This situation has become regular, but most importantly, the data center could not find the cause, or did not want to look for it.

    Later, when they lost us as a subscriber (we moved to Ukrtelecom) and a monthly fee of more than 80,000 hryvnias ($ 10,000 per month), they found that the file washer bought about fifty servers in the data center and generated traffic distributed. Probably later they realized what was the matter, but simply did not want to lose them, as they purchased servers for them.

    But it was too late, in January 2012 we started moving everyone gradually to Utel, renting 2 cabinets, buying a good Cisco Catalyst WS-C2960G-48TC-L and 8 Gb / s on the Internet, because our customers already generated about 6 gigabit traffic during peak hours. And since we mainly had traffic generators - we did not use more than half of the space in the cabinets, therefore we gave this part to our partner - “Hut", so that they could place their subscribers' servers for more profitable money and our resources would not be lost. Now our servers were more than Huts, over 50.

    Buying iron is a separate issue. There were already no options, as well as money for so many servers at once. Fortunately, some of the servers belonged to our partner and we paid for the rent, gradually buying out, and for the rest we found a way out - we offered subscribers magic conditions for long-term payment (for a year, almost at cost). The supplier, in turn, gave an installment plan for payment for 3 months, since the purchase was wholesale. Customers who have worked with us for 2-3 years trusted us, and therefore most of them gladly switched to a new data center and a new scheme of working with payments once a year. In addition, Ukrtelecom has expanded external channels to the world by 200 gigabits for the upcoming EURO 2012, and the quality of the stream was simply magical - up to 20 Mbit / s and more (Ukrtelecom purchased the channel to provide streaming matches).

    Проблемы в работе с «Укртелекомом» и в целом с Украиной


    Ukrtelecom was good, but it suffered from terrible bureaucracy, sometimes it was impossible to quickly install the subscriber’s server in the cabinet or to carry out an operational replacement of components, since their managers left for lunch, left work at 5 pm (working day until 5), or simply fulfilled the plan on the installation of new servers today and did not want to strain. Sometimes our people were simply not allowed to enter the site, explaining the refusal by the need to obtain additional permission or access is allowed only for the 1st employee, but not the one who arrived. Nevertheless, adequate people worked there too and often problematic bureaucratic moments were resolved positively, albeit with the expense of our nerves and the nerves of our clients. It’s difficult to explain to the client that we cannot replace the disk because the data center employees are having lunch, and the engineer will not work without an act,

    Nevertheless, many of our subscribers treated such situations with understanding, because the price was magical and the number of our servers was only growing. In March, we wanted to expand the channel by purchasing an additional 8 gigabits, but they refused to connect us, explaining that the channel was reserved for EURO and they can only sell it with an additional cabinet, maximum 2 gigabits per cabinet, not 8, which is not suited us. Therefore, we had to place part of the subscribers for some time on the same “Will”, which had solved the quality problems by that time.

    At some point in Ukraine, searches and seizures of special servers became more frequent. services, inviting owners to the police and SBU, and we realized that rather unfavorable conditions were developing. We simply could not work with very large clients, although there were applications. After all, it was necessary to purchase several dozen servers for them at once and then, if nothing happens to the channels during the year and the servers do not remove the special ones. service for some other far-fetched reason, it was possible to go to 0 and start earning.

    Risks have become disproportionate. We started looking for a foreign partner, especially since more and more of our customers were interested in the possibility of hosting sites for adults, which in Ukraine were considered almost a crime, although everyone watched, including law enforcement officers. That’s how moronic legislation hinders the development of networks, Ukraine could become a mecca of the Internet with a greater level of freedom of the Internet space than in Europe, but it didn’t work out ...

    Looking for a partner abroad or how we found LeaseWeb and LeaseWeb found us


    There was a NewTelco company with its own data centers in Kiev and Germany, our partner in Kiev already successfully cooperated with them, but due to German law restrictions (the same adult sites are only available in paid access) it did not suit us, plus us good connectivity with subscribers in Russia and Ukraine was required, which was very expensive there. We didn’t want to buy our own iron - it’s almost pointless and stupid to depreciate it in Europe on our own, unless there is extra money that you want to throw away and invest with a payback period of 5 years, having received an outdated server park as a result and the problem of replacing it with new iron.

    Drawing attention to the Netherlands as the most liberal country, we began searching for a reliable service provider among the many operators of Amsterdam. The Netherlands really turned out to be the mecca of the Internet, all the channels converged here and there was good connectivity with both America, Russia and Ukraine, but the most important thing was clear and reliable liberal legislation.

    But with whom to work? There are so many data centers ... We really needed a reliable partner, because we have so many customers, moving them from Ukraine is not a small task. And even more - do not miss the quality and vice versa improve it, otherwise why move? How to convince customers of the need to move, not to lose them and make them even more satisfied than now?

    One of the largest data centers in the Netherlands - “EvoSwitch”, we immediately liked. In the meet-me-room of the data center all European backbone providers of the first level were represented, and also there were many peer-to-peers, a total of several dozen, which seemed to us a miracle.

    For comparison, the Volya data center used only TWO! uplink of the second level, which at one point became unavailable at the same time when the backbone provider of the first level that provided services to these two operators came down.

    The total capacity of the EvoSwitch inclusions exceeded 2 Tbps, versus 60 gigabits to the world on the Vol, and the AMS-IX exchange point was located nearby. But the data center only worked with large customers and only with colo. Our several racks there faded, it was necessary to immediately buy gage for 48 cabinets or work not directly. Unfortunately, we couldn’t afford it yet, because our servers could occupy only about 10% of the space at best.

    “LeaseWeb” - a company that works with individual clients and small hosting providers, essentially being the owner and creator of the data center, was also part of the Ocom group of companies, but specialized mainly in dedicated services. After reading the reviews on the Internet, they concluded that they are not a very reliable company, people complained about very frequent changes in working conditions, traffic and servers were quite expensive, prices were not lower than Ukrainian. What is the advantage? The question had to be postponed.

    But a month later, we rented a server through one of their partners for $ 339 / month, since LeaseWeb introduced a favorable offer for traffic (100TB series servers with a 1 Gb / s channel) and reduced prices. It was decided to organize a hosting node for customers who want to host sites abroad, in particular, clients with adult projects. So we started work. Highly successful.

    But after 2 months, the data center changed the conditions (I immediately remembered the review and previous experience with cheap traffic). For new orders, streaming from similar servers was banned, and some current LeaseWeb clients refused to do anything. The reason was commonplace. Online cinemas that came to the data center consumed the channel fully and 100%, and not 10-30%, as it was calculated, they differed in the unevenness of this consumption - at night the load was several times lower or absent at all. In fact, they consumed gigabits, and paid only for a third, this was the problem. So the data center decided to get rid of all such objectionable customers, although it would be much more reasonable to simply put a limit of 330 Mbit / s, thereby making the indicators cost-effective, to avoid failures and negative feedback.

    Shortly afterwards, a letter was written to us by Emrah Aydin, their development manager, who found us and was interested in the possibility of developing their services in Ukraine, was going to fly to Kiev and asked for a meeting:

    ======
    Hello,

    My name is Emrah, I am business development manager of Leaseweb. I think you are a customer of Leaseweb with 100TB servers, however I couldn't find your account in our system.

    I will be in Kiev between 11 and 13 April next week and I would like to use the opportunity to meet with the owner of UA-Hosting to discuss further business opportunities. We are looking for a partner to grow in Ukraine. Would it be possible?

    Emrah C. Aydin
    Business Development Manager - Leaseweb BV
    ======

    Although we were not in Ukraine, we planned to be in Kiev just at that time, because they said that a meeting was possible. I explained to Emrach who we are and how we work, told about our cooperation with another company, Data Hatoy, that if we place something with them, we will do it together, since we are not competitors , and first of all, partners who always successfully cooperate and together we are larger, have a greater level of discounts and advantages in data centers than working separately. He was glad to hear that such a very successful partnership had developed between us, essentially competitors.

    I also explained the reason why he could not find our account, since we did not rent that single server in LeaseWeb directly. He described the situation in Ukraine with channels and servers, that in the Netherlands, at their prices of 100 TB, few people would be interested in streaming servers, since they had a ban on this. And gigabit for a lot of money - at that moment about 600 euros, against 200-300 dollars in Ukraine, they will take only projects for adults, because everything else is possible in Ukraine and for cheap, and we do not have such clients yet, due to the limitations of Ukrainian and Russian legislation. However, he said that nevertheless, their low-cost servers may be of interest to our current customers and interest may appear if there is a special offer, the price tag is much lower than in Ukraine.

    I thought for a long time about whether to go to a meeting at all or cancel it. Is it worth spending our time and Emrah’s time discussing a collaboration that may not happen, because LeaseWeb is not very flexible. Not so long ago, “Hut” told us that at the request of their major potential client who wanted to immediately take 25 gigabits, “LeaseWeb” could not make a decent offer. The price all the same turned out to be much higher than in Ukraine, and not much lower than on their website, while signing a contract was required - an additional disadvantageous condition.

    We had to negotiate, representing the interests of 2 providers at once, since the director of Data Hut was in Thailand, and his employees did not speak the language fully or knew the language at the level of “English understands but cannot say anything”. Lacking sufficient knowledge of the legal aspects, we prepared in advance and drafted a rough outline of our conversation.

    A meeting


    We will arrange to meet in an informal setting for breakfast at the hotel where Emrach stayed. Literally after 4 hours, Emrakh had already booked a flight and he was almost late for him, there were much more questions than he expected to hear.

    1). Of course, it was necessary to get answers, at what prices and at what volumes can I count on? Both for traffic and equipment rental.
    2). Consider the possibility of leasing equipment and its conditions. Are they interested in colocation at all, or are they betting on rent?
    3). Find out how they get cheap traffic, how long can it last? Perhaps there are options to buy traffic on the side, but they only need to rent transport to the point where to buy it and where to rent / colocate servers.
    4). And perhaps the most interesting is the legal regulation of hosters in the Netherlands. Indeed, in Ukraine, among the main risks, one can single out the lack of clear laws and, accordingly, the arbitrariness of the police. For example, the entire DC can be taken out without trial - as evidence :). And what are the risks of seizure there?

    - Do I need to get some kind of license for communication services?
    - Do I need to certify a communications center, as in Russia?
    - What kind of permits do hosting companies need?
    - What customer data should be stored and how many years? Do I need to verify customer data? Receive copies of your passport, etc.
    - What is the procedure for obtaining state. customer data authorities? About the site? Site data? What are some examples?
    - Who can ask for this? Local Ministry of Internal Affairs? SBU? Who else?
    - How to close the site / seize the server? Who and how has the right to demand this?
    - How is the copyright issue resolved? Who is responsible - provider or user? Can I immediately sue or are required to notify the court?
    - Should the provider report users who violate copyright or other laws (the same spam or attacks)?
    - What content is illegal? Porn? Copyright? Spam?
    - What are the possible sanctions? What is the order of their application?
    - What are the hosters associations (such as our INAU) that they provide?

    Also at the meeting, we discussed the configuration of the equipment, which could be of interest to our customers in the first place and agreed that Emrah would later send a commercial proposal. It was not yet possible to get extremely good prices in Europe for gigabit connections, the data center clearly adhered to the band guarantee policy and completely refused to make a discount, given that not everyone consumes their channel, sold gigabit no less than 600 euros. Well, at that price they had a demand then, it made no sense to them to sell us cheaper. Although, in the long run, giving cheaper now, you could get a good customer base in the future.

    Signing a contract and starting work, migration of clients from Ukraine to the Netherlands


    After receiving a commercial offer after a while, we decided to sign a contract and start working with LeaseWeb. To begin with, we decided to start cooperation with the lease of 100 Mbps Unmetered series servers. Since it was precisely on such clients that we did not always have enough resources. For example, if a person wanted to rent a dozen servers at once, we needed to invest over $ 10,000 in the purchase of equipment and then continue to pay monthly for its placement, traffic, and food. And only after more than a year, it was possible to begin to receive any kind of income. But this was not a problem, but the fact that we did not have investments on such a scale.

    Another thing is the possibility of renting a server in the data center, when you can rent a server with an obligation not to refuse it for a long period of time and at the same time get a good rental price, as well as the ability to pay this server monthly. Thus, in essence, it becomes possible to receive large clients in unlimited volumes, provided that these clients use servers that can be easily resold in case of failure.

    The data center made pretty good conditions for us and in every possible way encouraged us to sign an agreement for a long time. Already in April 2012, we signed a contract for the first delivery of 20 servers for a period of 3 years. Yes, a long period for IT, but for the same E3-1230 the term is more than acceptable. Indeed, given the pace of cost reduction, the margin in the first time should cover losses in the last, if such a decrease in value occurs.

    We quickly realized the first batch - during the month of May, and realized that this amount was clearly not enough, we need more servers, much more. It was decided to expand the agreement to 160 servers with a growth plan for the year.

    Since the data center was truly high-quality - an order of magnitude better than what could only be in Ukraine, and most importantly - the legislation worked here, we strongly encouraged the movement of subscribers from Ukraine to our Netherlands, if they did not need a lot of traffic . The cost was lower, and the advantages were obvious, in addition, we increased our karma at the new site, providing additional sales. In the summer, we simply exceeded the plan, despite the holiday season. More and more new clients came to us and on average we sold from 40 dedicated servers per month - good performance for a provider with two managers and several admins from an outsourcing partner company. Such a sales pace was perhaps at a large data center in Kiev.

    We knew how to attract our customers, as the basis of everything was an individual approach and attitude, sometimes we just carried out additional server tuning, according to requirements, or simply consulted on setting up the necessary technical solutions, and made recommendations. Moreover, we have established cooperation with free-lance administrators who recommended us to their clients and received additional income for this. Got new experience and put it into practice.

    At the end of July 2012, we visited a data center in the Netherlands, having received an invitation. Management was very pleased with such a rapid growth rate and successful cooperation. We had the opportunity to inspect the data center, get acquainted with the technical base and discuss further prospects for cooperation. A year later, evaluating the benefits of the site, in practice, we were able to make a very good overview: "The advantages of accommodation in the Netherlands, data center EvoSwitch» .

    image

    But not everything was cloudless. By December, when we had sold almost all of our contract servers, the data center decided to make a sale by lowering the price for direct subscribers to a level lower than what was prescribed for us. It was just a complete collapse. After all, we had to provide servers to subscribers at prices lower than they cost us, and at the same time provide a decent level of support. Yes, SLA per hour directly cost more than the server, but we provided it for free, in the form of a bonus. But that was not the only way to keep customers. Moreover, the action grew from temporary to permanent, while partners did not have the opportunity to revise the price of already rented servers. For some period we had to live in fear that our customers would notice a drop in prices in the data center and begin to switch to direct service,

    Yes, we "hit." In fact, the data center chose a not-so-beautiful business model, when new customers received lower prices and old ones paid more in the long run. Everything is legal, because they themselves have signed up. Moreover, in the agreement, as it turned out, on one of the pages of the 50-page contract there was a clause on price indexation, when the cost of services grows by 1% annually. A very strange business model, the subscriber rents longer, but also pays more. I did not understand the logic.

    We also couldn’t fulfill the contract, not because the contract, but because the rapid transfer of the infrastructure to more than 150 servers was an impossible task for us and the data center knew this. We had to compensate for the losses due to new orders and for a long time to work in the red. The data center, of course, also partially made concessions, otherwise we would have simply closed. However, after this incident, all the new servers we ordered, in most cases, we signed with a monthly agreement, a maximum of one year. From now on, we approach the long-term agreements with great caution, since dump dumps cannot be taken into account, and sometimes they are simply necessary and your partner will not always think about you. After all, when the equipment is idle, it is profitable to sell it as quickly as possible, sometimes cheaper than the cost, since it is better,

    We reconciled with our fate and reduced prices to the level of the data center for new orders, because we couldn’t deceive our customers, it’s our problem that the servers began to cost us more and we signed up, the customers shouldn’t suffer because of this. Sales increased, but more and more often old customers asked for a change in price and we went to the meeting.

    By the summer of 2013, in just a year, the number of servers on lease increased to 500. We even managed to “knock out” good prices for gigabit connections for our streaming clients and completely migrate our clients from Ukraine. In July 2013, in just a month, we grew by another hundred dedicated servers, not only due to an individual approach, but also due to various promotions and the right marketing motivation.

    Expanding Borders: US Data Center


    For a long time, I was skeptical of the idea of ​​hosting servers anywhere else except the Netherlands. So why? In the Netherlands, excellent connectivity, perhaps the best in the world, loyal legislation , and the most pleasant prices for renting dedicated servers in one of the most reliable data centers, which is perhaps the most important. Nevertheless, some clients stubbornly demanded a second location, preferably in another country, there were also owners of rare paranoia, and for some, the audience was directed to the American continent and there was little direct connectivity to the USA, there were unique people who simply thought that it was better in the USA why it is better - they themselves did not know ...

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    In July 2013, finally “dying” from boredom and summer coolness, we nevertheless thought about whether to expand our presence on the Internet by adding a new reliable location, especially Jay Devine, one of the main managers in the USA, now more than six months he campaigned to visit “COPT DC-6-EvoSwitch / LeaseWeb (Manassas)”, without stopping vain attempts in the style of “well, order at least something, we also need customers”.

    As a result, we went to Washington, having begun successful work with another data center. You can find a detailed report on the data center and this trip in our article:

    Servers in the USA, data center “COPT DC-6-EvoSwitch / LeaseWeb (Manassas)”.

    The first 10-gigabit solutions for customers with online video projects, a fatal mistake of the partner data center


    In the same July 2013, we proposed a unique solution for the then market - video streaming servers with a guaranteed Internet connection at 10 Gb / s, convincing the data center of the urgency of such an offer.

    The proposal turned out to be so successful that within a month more than a dozen large video streaming projects worked with us, generating, as a rule, “shelf” traffic:

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    In our article on Habré, we announced the results and made several recommendations on choosing a technical solution, you should familiarize yourself with them can here: http://habrahabr.ru/company/ua-hosting/blog/191558/

    Over the years, we have accumulated considerable experience, were able not only to select the desired configuration for a particular case, but also to carry out the correct settings for optimal returns. We could offer a comprehensive solution for video streaming projects , both based on one of the popular scripts, and written from scratch - a cluster solution with a load balancer, which has remained since 2011 and was developed in-house.

    Moreover, we were the first to offer the configuration and license of Kernel Video Sharing to customers for free, because we immediately realized that this solution is better than self-written scripts and you can conclude a partnership agreement with the developer. The only negative is the rather complicated integration. But our administrators from our submission, because the task was and it had to be solved, successfully mastered all the intricacies of the implementation and installation of this solution.

    The data center, on the other hand, had no such experience, which is precisely why they did not offer exactly what they needed to direct subscribers. Or they simply hoped that due to this, subscribers would generate less traffic. Now it’s hard to understand what their plan was. But looking at the fact that we provide sales many times larger than themselves, they did not come up with anything worse than to collapse the price and arrange another sale.

    My attempts to prove that it’s impossible, that it’s bad, that the channels are more expensive, were in vain. Apparently there was too much reserve (maybe 500 gigabits, which I wanted to sell at least for how much), and then they just looked at marginality a little. Fortunately, we did not have long-term contracts, and we also reduced prices for our subscribers. Sales are still up.

    But after half a year, when subscribers in the data center ate the entire reserve and had to buy the channel for real and big money - the data center drew attention to the margin, it turned out to be negative. Most of the direct customers were “asked” to pay more, raising the cost to a level much higher than the original, as they considered that even the original price was underestimated or denied service.

    For us, as a major partner, they temporarily made an exception, because we had a good margin at the expense of other servers, and yet we were innocent of their decision, moreover, they warned us ... But it wasn’t easier. The situation was rather unpleasant, we understood that it was not good to be unprofitable for a partner and seriously began to think about a solution, especially since new customers needed 10-gigabit servers, but not at a price 3 times more expensive ...

    It was decided to contact one of uplinkers and clarify whether they can deliver the channel to us directly. They agreed, they were already present in this data center and delivered over 40% of the traffic through their networks. What we reported to the data center, since the data center bought from them a channel in much larger volumes and could receive a higher level of discounts.

    Within a month, a private cabinet was built for us and the first 80 gigabits were launched. The project was successful. Some of the subscribers were moved to a cheaper connection, and as a result, we were able to reduce the cost of the data center and start offering new servers at an affordable price.

    Additional managers and motivation


    The work of the manager is perhaps one of the most difficult. In our business, a good manager is not only a person who quickly and efficiently processes orders, gives recommendations for choosing a particular technical solution, but a psychologist who can provide support to a client in a difficult situation will sincerely empathize with him.

    It was very difficult for me to entrust the care of clients to anyone else, especially psychologically. Therefore, until the fall of 2013, I could not entrust communication with clients to anyone else. Nevertheless, I began to realize that with the increase in the number of servers - we just need more managers who will, albeit not as good as we, but pay attention to customers and process orders. After all, even with maximum automation, people are needed. The technical department solves technical problems, but sometimes even they need to be controlled. The two of us, unfortunately, will not be enough in the future.

    Since the fall of 2013, additional people appeared in the team. I cannot say that the level of care immediately became better or worse. On the way we were faced with new problems that still had to be solved. First of all, motivational. Yes, people received a decent reward for their work, but unfortunately this does not always and not all motivate. Sometimes people get something extremely easy, people don’t value what they have.

    Sometimes people just do not fulfill their tasks. People have problems with the so-called "follow direction". It is very difficult for an adult to follow the path given to him. We say: "this is the way, we are following it." We can give a way, open the door, but we cannot force a person to enter.

    Breakdowns happen for various reasons, but mostly they happen when a person does not have 100% commitment: somehow he wants it, if he had it, he would be happy, but if not, he can live like that. Do something? Here difficulties already begin ... Failure does not come from the fact that there is no possession of some subtle moments, but from the fact that the principles of fundamental successful behavior are violated. Slavery trash, technology violations in us sitting.

    We need people who perform simple, elementary things on a regular basis and then there will be a miracle. Because a miracle only happens where you are, albeit a little bit, but every day and in the right direction. And then a miracle comes. It is because of this that we pay special attention to development, encourage employees to learn something new, both during working hours and simply through life. After all, the logistics that we give as a result can be successfully applied everywhere. A good motivation, in my opinion, should always be the following phrase:

    How to motivate yourself to do something? No way - stay in the ass.
    - Artemy Lebedev

    Switch AMS1 data center - we did what our customers lacked so much!


    Providing premium quality services to thousands of subscribers, as a rule, it is impossible to achieve full customization. Someone wants a permanent IP-KVM, someone has a higher bandwidth channel, but with limited traffic, someone connects servers to each other on a local network or just be able to expand the channel at the right time. It happens that a person himself does not understand what he wants and already in the course of discussing the order comes to the understanding that nothing of the standard iron is suitable in principle. And it often happens, due to poor planning or excessive budget savings, that a server is needed "for yesterday", and not just a server, but a custom built solution.

    With a company like LeaseWeb, we, unfortunately, could not find a common solution. There was a different business model and other volumes. Solutions sharpened by standardization. Deviation from the standards was very expensive. We have repeatedly discussed this problem with our manager at LeaseWeb, who soon quit and opened his own transport company.

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    Having earned money and remembering the problem, Murat Bayhan notified us of his intention to organize his own site and invited us to cooperate, because first of all he needed orders and he knew that we could provide this. Successfully working together in the past, we agreed to work together, as we could fully trust this person. But we were immediately informed that we would not transfer customers from other sites, and we would only place new orders that really needed customization, since we did not want to spoil relations with LeaseWeb and let them in as a partner, returning the servers. Murat replied that he was glad that his past work still brings LeaseWeb dividends, because he had nurtured us, a reliable partner, and was glad that we were not changing the volume of cooperation now because of the better conditions for him.

    But there was another reason. In addition to the fact that Murat did not have huge working capital in the beginning - he is still not “LeaseWeb”, we knew that since the site is new - there will be problems and it will be better if fewer subscribers feel them. It would be better if Murat had the resources to solve it. As a result, this happened - in a few months DDU arrived in Murat 100+ gigabits, to which no one was ready. Whether it was an attack on a client or just the revenge of angry competitors is not important, but a sufficiently large number of subscribers suffered. Murat had to quickly change the network topology and install additional equipment in order to be able to stay up completely during such attacks.

    Nevertheless, the solution as a whole was successful and our customers are very pleased with this second site in the Netherlands. You can learn more about advantages and possible technical solutions in this article: http://habrahabr.ru/company/ua-hosting/blog/239253/

    1000+ servers: traffic generation by our subscribers exceeded 256 Gb / s!


    In October 2014, the total number of servers of our subscribers confidently approached the mark of 1000, only on the Dutch site "EvoSwitch", and the traffic generated by our subscribers reached a quarter terabits.

    A quarter of a terabit, is it a little or a lot? At that time, Belarus consumed approximately as much external Internet traffic.

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    Actually, as a lover of statistics, I did not pass by this significant event and published the news in our blog: Traffic generation by our subscribers exceeded the 256 Gb / s mark!

    Of course, most of the traffic is traffic generated by our 10-gigabit solutions, the total number of which exceeded 50 at that time. There are good statistics that indicate that when working with individual subscribers whose projects do not consume traffic to the shelf, there is the opportunity to save about 50% of the channel in such broadband solutions, which for the future could serve as a good background for building your own inclusion, with even more attractive prices for such customers.

    Of course, there is always a risk that a large traffic generator will come to the cheap, for example, a file cleaner, which once ordered 10+ ten-gigabit servers from us, but it is possible to work with such subscribers according to a different business scheme, cost peer-to-peer connections to providers-consumers of this traffic. Indeed, not only the generator can pay for the traffic, but also the provider that receives this traffic. With this individual approach, you can significantly reduce the cost of delivering traffic to certain areas. The savings can be huge. Perhaps we will be able to implement this project in the future.

    Ua-hosting.company today


    "Ua-hosting.company" is no longer a Ukrainian company and the team is becoming more and more international. Today, the project involves over 20 specialists from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada and Turkey. Administrators, managers, journalists and editors, programmers and designers work for you. We are constantly developing and improving skills. More and more new specialists are joining the work on the project.

    We cannot present you all now, but we will show at least some of them, “ua-hosting in persons”:



    We work for you and we love our work very much!

    Our work allows us not to be geographically tied and work wherever the Internet is. Some time ago, we worked from perhaps the most remote country on the planet - French Polynesia, it was then that I had the idea to write an article “Messages in depth: an amazing story of the underwater Internet” , because even on one of the most remote atoll islands in the world - Fakarava, over 5000+ miles from the "mainland", where the population is only a few hundred people and increases 10 times during the days of the mooring of a cruise ship, there was Wi-Fi. And we do not always appreciate it ...

    Over the past year, we have also organized joint visiting working sessions in Egypt, Indonesia, Singapore, the Netherlands, where we had the opportunity not only to work together, but also to have a good time. For example, for 2 months, our office was a house on the Red Sea in Dahab, where we managed to bring together most of the managers in order to improve teamwork skills.

    And despite the crisis in the world, we are growing, first of all, intellectually. After all, the crisis is new opportunities, an incentive to change approaches and is getting better. Yes, it was difficult for us to work in the last year, since basically our customers were from Russia and Ukraine and we had to reconsider the solutions for them, given the current economic situation (in some months customers returned us up to hundreds of servers). But now we are more confident in continuing to grow, including in the foreign direction, because our principle is an individual approach and customer happiness. We love our customers because they love us and are always happy to make them happier.

    In the near future, plans are not only expanding points of presence, introducing new services, but also returning to the roots - the beginning of work on our own web projects. After all, there are so few truly good specialized information websites, the purpose of which is not primarily to earn money, but to provide quality content. We, as a hosting provider, have a full technical base for this.

    In conclusion, I want to say separately about the reliability of solutions, as the main principle of success. Never save on what you can afford. I do not agree with the opinion of businessmen who write: "if you can not buy something, do not buy." Their goal is to earn money, no more. In my opinion, the project should be useful primarily for people, and money is only a measure of usefulness, and saving on the comfort of someone - whether it be a client or an employee - is not worth it. Yes, we could use Windows for work or provide low-cost servers for rent, we would rather buy them. But we, as soon as we could, chose the best for our employees, for example, Apple computers - because this is not only convenience in work, but also the security of our customers' data. And it seems that even the cat was able to appreciate the benefits of the Mac:



    As for the low-cost servers - this is not our market, we understand this and do not regret it. For example, we will never provide, like OVH, marketing bullshit:

    j1900 / 16 GB DDR3 / 1 TB HDD WD RE4 / 100 mbit / 1 IPv4 = $ 25 / m

    After all, RAM on such hardware is not very effective. And we always try to explain this to users on the Internet, giving rise to new, interesting discussions:





    This is what we are working for, not to “sell something cheaper and it doesn’t matter what, if only to sell”, but to always find magical decisions, be able to argue them. It is for this - because I have the constant opportunity to develop and learn something new, participate in such interesting discussions, share experiences with clients, and sometimes learn from their experience, and I love my work.

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