Simply comparing the monthly web hosting rates is misleading. If your site does not produce any income, then you might save a few dollars each month by subscribing to a cheap web hosting service. The value of reliable web hosting service becomes painfully apparent when the cheap web hosting service fails for periods of time during peak periods.

Consider this. Most cheap web hosting services claim 99.9% up-time. Even if they actually live up to the claim, 99.9% is not good enough. Here is a simple illustration. 365 days a year times 24 hours = 8760 hours times .1% = 8.76 hours of down time each year. Some of the sites hosted on our servers generate thousands of dollars per hour in sales during peak periods. Just one hour of down time can cost more in lost sales than the web hosting service costs each month. When the profit margins are high or the products are high ticket items, the cost of web hosting becomes incidental compared to the need for reliability.

There is an old saying, "penny wise and pound foolish". It is ok to use cheap web hosting services for personal and hobby sites, but it is an absolute mistake for a serious business web site.

We only use high quality servers, which are housed and maintained in a secure environment with 24/7 physical monitoring by trained technicians. The down-time for our servers is less than .0001% and most of this is from server maintenance, which is always done during off-peak hours. This level of reliability is expensive for us to maintain and I would guess that our profit margins are lower than the cheap, high volume web hosting companies, but for us the choice is simple. We cannot afford server down time and we do not expect our customers to tolerate it.

RackSpace Infrastructure

Our goal is to provide 100% reliable web hosting service. To accomplish this, we have contracted with RackSpace for provision and management of our server hardware, operating system, security patches, DNS, and network connections.

Domains are hosted on the best and most reliable managed dedicated servers in the industry. Since February 2001, RackSpace has consistently delivered a 100% uptime network. Our servers are on a Zero-Downtime Network™. RackSpace Platinum port monitoring is used to ensure that ALL SERVICES are working ALL OF THE TIME. RackSpace 24x7x365, Certified, 100% LIVE Fanatical Support™ gives us access to the best IT professionals in the industry.

RackSpace Certifications

RackSpace certifications and partnerships with Red Hat and Microsoft are a resource for us to collaborate on the best solutions, tools and procedures needed to deliver the hosting environment that our customers demand. Both Red Hat and Microsoft have certified Rackspace as providing the industry's highest levels of customer service and satisfaction with top-of-the-line operations, technologies, services and solutions. Most importantly, our relationship with this industry leader means that we have a highly trained team of specialists working to ensure reliable and trouble free service.

Red Hat Advanced Hosting Partner
Rackspace has been a staunch supporter of open source and the open source community since their founding and have extended this support to a partnership with Red Hat. They are the only hosting provider that Red Hat certifies as an Advanced Hosting Partner. The Advanced Hosting Partner designation means that Rackspace possesses the industry's highest levels of support and knowledge of the Red Hat Linux platform. This depth of knowledge is
essential to their ability to deploy, scale and manage mission-critical Linux hosting environments.

Microsoft Gold Certification
Rackspace’s Intensive Hosting received the Microsoft Gold Certified Partner accreditation for its expertise in Microsoft hosting, making it one of only six Application Infrastructure Providers (AIPs) in the world with this top-tier designation. To achieve Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status, Intensive passed rigorous evaluations by certified, independent auditors who determined that they deliver the highest level of fully managed services available on the Microsoft platform.

The Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Program provides recognition to companies providing Hosting & Application Services that have demonstrated a consistent, high quality delivery of solutions built on Microsoft technology and framework. The program only awards certification status for those specific hosted or application services that meet eligibility qualifications, proven service quality and operational readiness benchmarks.

RackSpace's close partnership with Microsoft allows us to collaborate on the best solutions, tools and procedures needed to deliver the hosting environment that our enterprise customers demand. In addition, this certification gives decision-makers Microsoft's assurance that Intensive provides the industry's highest levels of customer service and satisfaction with top-of-the-line operations, technologies, services and solutions.

Awards

Awarded Hosting Solutions Provider of the Year
Microsoft honored Rackspace in the annual Microsoft Certified Partner Awards with Hosting Solutions Service Provider of the Year. Rackspace was selected from among Gold Certified Partners around the world for its industry leadership and advanced use of Microsoft technologies to deliver customers superior managed solutions. Microsoft describes Rackspace as having "made a name for itself through its policy of providing Fanatical Support™ to customers" and selected Rackspace for industry leadership and advanced use of Microsoft technologies to deliver superior managed solutions. "There is a reason Rackspace is the fastest-growing hosting provider on the Microsoft platform. The company has rapidly adopted all the latest Microsoft technologies and solutions, including Windows Server 2003, Internet Information Services 6.0, SQL Server, as well as the Microsoft Solutions for Windows-based Hosting, and has deployed them consistently with their renowned Fanatical Support." Pascal Martin General Manager, Microsoft Communications and Mobile Solutions Group.

Partnerships

RackSpace's status as the only Red Hat Advanced Hosting Partner means they will provide us with the industry's highest levels of support and knowledge – the depth of knowledge and experience needed to deploy and support our mission-critical Linux hosting environments. Rackspace works closely with Microsoft to offer the highest level of support for its suite of hosting applications. Additionally, they work hand in hand with Microsoft to deploy emerging technologies such as .Net, MOM and Active Directory.

Rackspace partners with Dell to offer reliable and highly scalable managed hosting server and storage platforms.

Cicso provides end-to-end enterprise network solutions from the most comprehensive line of networking products available in the industry. Rackspace uses Cisco networking products exclusively and is a certified Cisco Powered Network.

Rackspace works closely with MySQL to offer the highest level of support for its suite of database applications. Rackspace is the only MySQL Certified Hosting Provider because of our extensive expertise in the deployment and management of MySQL technology.

We know that providing our customers with the best solutions possible means partnering with established leaders in the industry. Combining our highly specialized skills and resources of RackSpace managed hosting with the proven technology of partners like Microsoft, Dell and Cisco, allows us to collaborate on the best solutions, tools and procedures needed to deliver the hosting environment that online businesses demand.

Expertise

Rackspace specialists boasts multiple high-level certifications including:

RHCE Red Hat Certified Engineer – has proven technician-level competencies required to install, attach, configure networking services and security on servers running Red Hat OS as well as an existing production network.

MCDBA Microsoft Certified Database Administrator – demonstrates technical proficiency and expertise necessary to successfully design, implement, and administer Microsoft SQL Server™ databases.

MCSE Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers – MCSEs are among the most technically proficient professionals with expertise in designing and implementing the infrastructure for business solutions based on the Microsoft platforms and Microsoft Server Systems including Active Directory.

MCP Microsoft Certified Professional – professionals with the skills to successfully implement a Microsoft product or technology as part of a business solution; have hands-on experience with Microsoft products.

MCT Microsoft Certified Trainer – qualified instructors, certified by Microsoft to deliver Microsoft training courses to IT professionals and developers.

CISSP Certified Information Systems Security Professional – designed to recognize mastery of an international standard for information security [IS] and understanding of a Common Body of Knowledge (CBK) pertaining to the following: Access Control Systems & Methodology; Applications & Systems Development; Business Continuity Planning; Cryptography; Law, Investigation & Ethics; Operations Security; Physical Security; Security Architecture & Models; Security Management Practices; Telecommunications, Network & Internet Security. Even to be allowed to take the exam for this certification, candidates must have a minimum 4 years of direct full-time security professional work experience or three years of direct full-time security professional work experience with a college degree.

CCIE Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert – the most rigorous of Cisco's Career Certifications and identifies the upper echelon of networking experts worldwide. CCIE certification is awarded in four different technical specialties including Routing & Switching, Security, Service Provider and Voice.

CCDP Cisco Certified Design Professional – indicates advanced or journeyman knowledge of network design. CCDP professionals can design routed and switched networks involving LAN, WAN, and dial access services, applying modular design practices and making sure the whole solution responds optimally to the business and technical needs and is designed to be highly available.

Rackspace maintains an ongoing program of training, retraining and constant re-evaluation. Even with years of experience in implementing and managing hosting solutions, their Linux and Microsoft engineers are required to keep up internal certifications as well as third party certifications. All technical personnel are required to have topical certifications in their specified areas of expertise.