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Grid Hosting Frequently Asked Questions

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Last Updated: March 13, 2009 1:36 PM

What is Grid Hosting?

Grid Hosting is a flexible hosting platform that matches performance with demand. If your site's traffic spikes, Grid Hosting responds by allocating more resources and keeping your site live. If your site starts small, but is growing, Grid Hosting grows with it so you don't have to manually upgrade and experience any unnecessary downtime.

Grid Hosting "pools" the resources of many servers and your site's content resides on multiple servers. This networked system helps achieve a high reliability—beyond 99.9%—for your Web site because if one server shuts down, only a fraction of the grid's resources are lost.

Grid Hosting has resources in reserve which are always available to allocate when necessary.

How does it differ from Shared Hosting?

Compared with Shared Hosting, Grid Hosting offers increased availability and scalability. Shared Hosting can handle a limited amount of traffic, beyond which the site becomes unreachable. Grid Hosting responds to traffic spikes by adding additional resources to your site, keeping your site live regardless of traffic.

Due to differences in Grid Hosting, it cannot offer support for some of the technologies that Shared Hosting can:

  • Access databases are not supported due to Access' locking scheme which prevents concurrent usage from different processes.
  • Front Page Server Extensions are not currently supported.
  • Java and ColdFusion are not currently supported.
  • Concurrent file writes to the same file in multiple sessions or concurrent threads. Example of affected resources: File-based databases and cross session log files (these issues are exaggerated in a Grid Hosting environment due to additional volume).
  • Storing data within the Application namespace and depending on multiple concurrent sessions accessing accurate data for the entire application.
  • Static Classes where sessions across the site (application) must have concurrent access to accurate data.

Can I upgrade an existing plan to Grid Hosting?

Currently, we do not have an automated system to upgrade an existing plan to a Grid Hosting plan. This capability is planned for a future release. However, you may upgrade your hosting plan to Grid Hosting manually.

Why should I purchase Grid Hosting instead of Shared Hosting?

Other plans require upgrading when you outgrow them. You can't outgrow Grid Hosting—your hosting plan grows as your site grows, automatically.

Are SSLs supported?

Yes, Grid Hosting supports SSLs.

Do I need to have server administration experience?

You do not need server administration experience. Grid Hosting is as easy to setup as our Shared Hosting offerings.

What components are supported?

The following are supported:

  • ASP
  • ASP .NET (2.0, 3, and 3.5)
  • PHP 4 and 5
  • MS SQL
  • MySQL

The following are not currently supported, but may be supported in a future release:

  • Java
  • ColdFusion
  • FrontPage Extensions

The following are not supported:

  • CGI
  • Perl
  • Ruby on Rails
  • Access

What databases are supported? Is their availability scalable?

Grid Hosting supports MS SQL and MySQL databases. Access database support is not currently provided.

Can I host multiple domains?

Grid Hosting supports aliased domains, but not multiple hosted domains.

Are there limitations to the type of software I can install?

The same limitations that apply to Shared Hosting apply to Grid Hosting.

Are FrontPage Extensions supported?

FrontPage Extensions are not currently supported.

How far can I really scale?

There is theoretically no limit. We will continue to add servers and bandwidth to meet demand.

Is there a concurrent connection limitation?

There is no concurrent connection limitation.

Will I be able to monitor the resources I am consuming?

You will be able to monitor bandwidth and disk usage. CPU, memory and page hit monitoring are planned for future releases.

Do I have manual control over my resources?

There are no plans for manual control over resources as the grid will automatically adapt to increased demand.

Will I have shell access?

Yes, Grid Hosting supports shell access.

Is there a control panel like Plesk or cPanel?

We offer our own easy-to-use control panel. The control panel is similar to the one we use on our Shared Hosting plans. Some of the features include:

  • DNS control
  • Domain management (add multiple domains).
  • Access to quick-install applications.
  • Access to database management.
  • File management tools.

Is there a quick-install feature like Hosting Connections?

Yes. We plan support for a subset of the applications that are currently available on Shared Hosting. More applications will be added in future releases.

Can I use the server for my email accounts?

You cannot use the server for your email accounts. Use our current email offerings for email support.

Is my site secure and protected from attacks? Do you offer a firewall?

We do the following to protect your information and maintain superior uptime:

  • Use best-of-breed equipment for routers, firewalls, and servers.
  • Offer full network redundancy.
  • Employ 24x7 dedicated prevention systems to ensure the network perimeter remains secure.

While we keep our hosting environment secure, we cannot protect against weak passwords and vulnerable scripting practices.

Will the control panel support multiple clients?

The current control panel is not setup to provide support for multiple clients.

Does Grid Hosting support streaming video?

No, streaming video is not supported on Grid Hosting.