[General] New Year, New Happenings

I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday season. With the holiday season wrapping up, it is time for us at AMS Webhosting to get ready for 2008. I want to take a moment and give my thanks and appreciation to all of those that have been with us throughout 2007. I know there were a lot of changes made in 2007 and I truly appreciate the patience and understanding that everyone held throughout these changes. Some of the changes we experienced through 2007:

· Server Upgrades – Throughout 2007 we did a lot of server upgrades through our server migration program. This was done with the intent to bring some of our older servers up-to-par with newer technologies and parts. The upgraded servers have faster processors, more RAM, more disk space and just provide for a better hosting experience. We tried our best to limit the downtime associated with these migrations, but I know that not all downtime was avoidable. We really do appreciate everyone’s willingness to wait through these downtimes so that we could bring you a better hosting experience.

· Updated all servers to cPanel 11 – cPanel 11 brought along a lot of changes to the control panel and backend software. A lot of the benefits are from an administrator perspective, but it also brought along new features for end users and laid the groundwork for future updates.

· Anti-spam and security updates – In addition to the server upgrades and cPanel 11, this allowed us to implement greater anti-spam measures on the server and implement new security updates that really help us keep the servers secure. More security features are planned for 2008 as we continue to balance server security with server usability.

· PHP 5 Upgrades – This was one of the last things we did in 2007, we now have all of our servers updated and using PHP 5 by default. PHP 5 took a long time to reach a level where it was accepted by the webhosting community. With a look towards the future, we decided to join in with fellow webhosting companies and make the move to PHP 5, while at the same time keeping PHP 4 available for legacy support.

2008 brings a new year and a new list of objectives that we want to bring our users as we continue our efforts to make your webhosting experience the best it can be. Some of the things we are hoping to accomplish this year include:

· Apache 2.2 Update – One of the first things we want to look into is bringing all of our servers up to the Apache 2.2 standard. Our servers are currently following the Apache 1.3 release cycle and they have worked very well. However the webhosting industry in general is making the move to Apache 2.2 and there has been reports of markedly better performance with Apache 2.2 over Apache 1.3. Our servers contain a lot of customized configurations, which can hinder an upgrade such as this, but this should not be used as an excuse to avoid the upgrade. We are going to move slowly with this, but it is something we are actively investigating and will get accomplished this year.

· Additional cPanel Updates – The cPanel developers have been hard at work to continue to improve the cPanel 11 offerings. There are currently some updates in the pipes for a new cPanel release. I’m not sure of an exact timeframe but these should be available very soon. In addition to these updates we have also been working on some in-house cPanel modules and we may start bringing those out and making them available with these new cPanel updates.

· Additional Security and Anti-spam measures – Our focus has always been on server security and providing the best security systems that we can offer. Our support and development staff are always working on new security modules that can be placed on the server to insure greater server security. The measures themselves are transparent to the end user but help our administrators keep the servers clean and secure. Several new security measures and anti-spam measures are currently being designed and should be rolled out sometime this year.

These are just a few features we hope to add throughout 2008. As new options become available our priorities may shift, but in any case I wanted our users to be aware of where things are headed in 2008. We look forward to a good and prosperous 2008 and hope that our efforts continue to improve your hosting experience with us.

Scott Mutter
Director of Administration