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To completely understand what VDS technology is, you must first understand the hosting technologies in use by the majority of our competitors. Many web hosting companies use 'shared hosting' technology, which attempts to host as many websites as possible on a single physical server, all utilizing a single copy of the server software. The downside to doing this is that each of the websites hosted on these servers is in no way isolated from the effects of other users on the server. This problem is compounded by the security issues inherent to this type of environment, which allow a single compromised account access to all website files and customer information stored on the server. With shared hosting, there is a very high potential for performance issues, server outages, and other issues that can negatively impact your business.
VDS Technology
Unlike standard ‘shared hosting’, Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS) technology offers greater control, reliability and security for your business and website. VDS technology fundamentally provides you with your own UNIX environment, allowing each website to operate independently from all other websites on the same physical machine.
Within a physical machine, Virtual Dedicated Servers run their own server software inside an isolated file directory, providing complete autonomy for each website on the server. Because of this, security within a VDS environment is unparalleled to that of a shared hosting environment. Any compromise to a single VDS would affect only that website, and would not impact other customers residing on that server.
In addition to the increased security and isolation provided through VDS technology, VDS website owners have the administrative privileges to fully control their environment and may install additional applications and also create and host additional websites from within their VDS.
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Cogent Data Centers include an uninterruptible power supply and backup diesel generators that can keep each server running indefinitely without direct electric grid power. The centers provide active server and application monitoring, helping hands and tape backup capabilities. They are equipped with optimal environment controls, including sophisticated air conditioning and humidifier equipment as well as stringent physical security systems.
Cogent Facilities include:
• Uninterruptible power supply
• Direct connections to Cogent’s multinational IP network
• 24x7x365 network monitoring and security
• UPS and diesel generators for power backup
• Fire suppressions system and pre-action sprinkler fire protection
A Tier 1 Network
Cogent is a multinational Tier 1 Internet service provider consistently ranked as one of the top 10 networks in the world. Better performance and reliability thanks to an intelligent fiber optic network design Cogent’s transit and transport services run on our multiple OC-192 network that is optimized for the most demanding customers. Cogent guarantees that the network is non-oversubscribed and that jitter and latency are non-issues for customers.
Industry Leading Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Cogent offers one of the best SLAs in the industry, with full end-to-end coverage of your circuit. Current Performance Report:
• Network Backbone Uptime: 100.000%
• Customer Port Uptime: 99.995%
• On-net roundtrip latency 42.3 ms avg.
• Packet Success Rate 99.995%
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Reliability Features
Each of our servers has been built for redundancy to prevent hardware failure and to minimize the impact of a single component failing. Multiple hard drives are configured to use RAID, which allows data to be stored on multiple disks at once in the event of a hard disk failure. Each server has two power supply units in the event of a power surge damaging one unit. Additionally, each server is connected to our high-speed data network with two network interfaces, to eliminate the possibility of a disconnected cable bringing your website offline. Advanced “early warning” hardware monitoring systems allow us to detect when a component is preparing to fail, so that our engineers can seamlessly move your data to a “hot spare” system without ever going offline. This setup allows us to prevent the lengthy downtimes that are common among hosting companies when a hard drive or other component fails under heavy use.
Performance Features
Each of our Dell PowerEdge hosting servers is powered by the latest technology and are built for speed. Our server components are the highest quality available, not off-the-shelf components found in a standard desktop computer. Performance-tuned components, such as dual processors, give our hosting customers a boost of speed even under heavy traffic. ECC RAM prevents any failures or crashes due to corrupted memory, and SCSI hard drives provide the highest performance available. Even the network interfaces are optimized for speed, connected to the systems PCI-X bus to alleviate network bottlenecks and wasted CPU time spent processing network connections.
Dell PowerEdge Servers at a glance
Processors Dual 3.06 gigahertz Intel Xeon processors
RAM 4 gigabytes of fault-tolerant ECC RAM
Storage Multiple 10,000 RPM Ultra 320 SCSI hard drives per server
Connectivity Dual gigabit network interfaces in the event of a network cable or interface failure
Reliability Hot-swappable redundant power supply and cooling units for reliability
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Each of our hosting servers is backed up daily using IBM’s Tivoli Storage Manager, and our customers can request a restore of data for up to 30 days in the event that a file is accidentally overwritten or deleted. By utilizing the Tivoli Storage Manager system, our engineers have rapid access to your data and can help you bring your data back online in the event of an accidental deletion.
These backups are supplemented with a weekly snapshot of every server for use on our hot spare systems, which allows us to rapidly move your website to an alternate physical machine in the event of any type of failure or emergency. Each weekly snapshot is a fully bootable copy of the server; combining this with our daily backup gives us a complete copy of an entire server that can be accessed immediately and is always available to prevent any service interruptions.
For the safety of your data, these daily backups and weekly images are maintained in a fault tolerant RAID hard disk array with a total of nearly 15 terabytes of storage available for rapid data backup and restoration. By maintaining such a large backup system, Hyperdo's protection will be available to you no matter what the space requirements of your business may be.
Disaster Preparedness Overview
For security in the event of a catastrophe, our backup disk array is continually mirrored onto backup tapes by an IBM automated tape library, with the tapes stored off-site. These backup tapes provide an added layer of protection to your data for an unexpected “worst case scenario”. Additionally, spare servers and disks are available in a separate location away from our primary datacenter for emergencies, allowing us to provide website service to you even in the face of natural disasters or other major catastrophes that simply cannot be planned for. Combined with our environmentally controlled and secure datacenter, you can rest assured that your data and website will always be available.
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Cisco Catalyst Switches Features
The core of our network fabric is built on Cisco Catalyst switches, which link each server to our Cisco routers at gigabit speeds. Each Catalyst unit is built to automatically “failover” to a spare unit in the event of a failure, preventing downtime due to a disconnected cable or problematic network interface. Our Catalyst-switched network provides all of our hosting servers with two network connections, building a mesh of redundant connections with a 96Gbs switching fabric that has run with 100% reliability since its inception.
Cisco Catalyst 4900 Series Switches are designed and optimized for the data center and top-of-rack aggregation. They offer:
* Industry-leading wire-speed performance
* Low latency with Layer 2-4 switching
* Innovative security features
* Gigabit Ethernet uplinks
* Internal AC 1 + 1 hot-swappable power supplies
* A hot-swappable fan tray with redundant fans
Cisco PIX Features
Protection from network threats is provided by Cisco PIX units, which can block even the most determined attacker from affecting your website service. With a custom-built set of filters and dynamic threat monitoring, our PIX units automatically adapt to block even the most complex network disturbance attempts. Each  firewall unit communicates with our hosting servers to identify network issues and manage traffic to provide each customer with a dedicated portion of the total network bandwidth without interruption. Combined with firewall and monitoring systems built in to each of our hosting servers, our network is hardened to protect your data 24-7.
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Our Servers
