SAN DIEGO (August 22, 2012)—M5 Hosting, a worldwide leader in customized, high performance Linux and BSD dedicated server hosting solutions, today launched M5 Cloud, a next-generation Cloud hosting platform designed to compete with industry giants, in both performance and affordability.

Cloud hosting, which offers exceptional value for start-ups, growing ventures, and businesses with a dynamic or seasonal need for servers, utilizes clusters of high performance servers and software automation to achieve unrivaled performance, flexibility and low operational costs. Moreover, the elastic nature of Cloud hosting infrastructure allows for easy absorption of traffic spikes and dynamic work-loads.

“Our customers asked for a reliable, high-performance, flexible Infrastructure as a Service Cloud. Cloud hosting requires sophisticated network infrastructure, high performance server hardware, and a team of exceptionally talented system engineers. We have spent a full year building and testing every component and configuration to deliver a very powerful Cloud solution that builds on our decade-long track record of stable, powerful, and price competitive hosting,” said Michael J. McCafferty, CEO of M5 Hosting.

M5 Cloud’s solution is among the most competitive in the marketplace today, even rivaling industry giants. For example, recent measurements show that M5 Cloud’s storage solution is at least 200% the speed of Amazon EBS and 400% the speed of SoftLayer’s CloudLayer SAN, and M5 Cloud’s costs are aimed to be 15% lower than Amazon Web Services. Moreover, M5 Cloud offers hybrid hosting solutions, which can provide dedicated servers in the same data center and network as Cloud instances. M5 Cloud is also unique in its use of the InterNAP Flow Control Platform for performance-based route optimization, which can dramatically reduce latency by routing around congested areas of the Internet.

The company has been planning its Cloud deployment for more than a year. Its purpose-built network infrastructure is highly available and designed specifically for speed and flexibility. M5 Cloud allows users to create virtual machines within minutes, using a convenient Web interface or a programmable API.

Other unique features of M5 Cloud’s solution include the industry’s highest maximum RAM capacity per virtual machine, automatic migration on hardware failure, and an out-of-band console. Moreover, clients can independent configure RAM and CPU power allotments individually. RAM ranges from 1GB to 80GB, and CPU from 1% of 1 core to 100% of 24 cores.

In July, M5 Hosting acquired over 13 miles of dark fiber, providing an additional 10Gbps of throughput between the company’s two data center facilities in San Diego. The additional capacity will enable the company to offer a wider variety of other specialty services, including multi-site load-balancing, multi-site clustering, and other multi-site services requiring low-latency synchronization of data.

Recently, my oven broke. The lower heating element stopped working, and the temperature would not go above about 150 degrees Farenheit in any mode except broil. I had Jen (my assistant) call someone to come and fix it. He shows up, turns the oven on, opens the door, feels some heat, saw some numbers on the screen, then turns the oven off. He explains to Jen that according to his “tests” the oven seems to be working just fine and asks for his fee for the service call. She comes in to my office to tell me his findings. Cheese and Crackers! I walk out to the kitchen to get the scoop first-hand.

I asked the repair guy how he arrived at his conclusion and he tells me about his “test”. I asked him if the oven got hot enough to cook food, and if he thought the temperature read-out was accurate. I can’t even describe the look on his face. I don’t even know what emotions it was supposed to convey. He turned the oven back on, and not more than 2 minutes later diagnoses that “the sensor” was “bad”. Not more than 5 minutes later he left with his service fee, a deposit on the required part and an appointment to come back and charge me more to put it in. In this case an extra minute of testing, with the goal of determining the answer to those two basic questions earned him more money and solved the issue.

At M5 Hosting, we often order cross-connects in the colocation facilities that house our infrastructure. We order them to connect our cabinets that are not in our main cages, and we order them to connect to upstream providers. These days everything is fiber optic cable, but for years it was CAT-5e copper cable. Anyway, I always suspected we had an unusually high failure rate for individual connections within one of the two facilities. We use redundant connections which allow for one to fail without any downtime so these occasional failures are not customer-affecting.

One night, as we were bringing up a new rack, we discovered that the cross-connects would not link at 1Gig but would link at 100Mbps. It was our standard procedure to fix the interfaces to 1Gig instead of allowing the switches to auto-negotiate the link speed. We walked over to the on-site NOC. They called the cable tech who ran the cross-connects earlier that day. The cabling guy says he “tested” the cables and was certain there was no problem. Because of his certainty, he said he would not come out right away to fix it. I got the guy on the phone myself: “How did you test the cables?”, I asked. His answer was stunning, “We connect a laptop to either end. If the little light comes on, we’re good to go!”. Shut the Front Door!

“Did you check to see if it linked up at 1Gig? Did you transfer any data over this connection? What was the measure throughput? Do you have any sort of meter to test or certify that it meets the CAT-5e standard?”. The answer to each of those questions was “No”.

It seems like people have heard about testing, and suspect that testing is important. But, it seems like many people forget why they are testing to begin with. Tests need to be rigorous enough to check the quality, performance, or reliability of your work. Your work is only as good as the test it passes before you deliver it.

Cheers,

Mike

The fiber, which runs approximately 13 miles, initially will provide an additional 10Gbps of throughput between the facilities, and can be increased to much higher speeds when needed. The additional capacity will enable the company to offer a wider variety of specialty services, including off-site data backups, multi-site load-balancing, multi-site clustering, and other multi-site services requiring low-latency synchronization of data. It will also pave the way for the company to introduce new lines of hosting services, which will be unveiled in the coming weeks.

“For more than a decade, our enterprise-level network and hosting infrastructure has represented a major competitive advantage. As we continue to grow and broaden our line of services, it is important we have the capacity we need to meet growing traffic demands, and the next-generation level of performance our customers require. This additional fiber helps us meet these needs by slashing latency and improving throughput,” said Michael J. McCafferty, CEO of M5 Hosting.

M5 Hosting maintains a high-performance, route optimized network. The network features redundant carrier class Cisco 6509 routers with powerful SUP720-3BXL engines and maximum memory to handle the full and ever-expanding global route table. Like all multi-homed provider networks, M5 Hosting utilizes BGP for fault-tolerant routing over multiple Internet connections. The network also relies on multiple Gigabit connections to Tier-1 carriers and direct peering with over 100 other networks.

Among other features, the company also offers switched power outlets for all dedicated servers, allowing for power-cycling of servers without the need for an on-site technician to physically access the server.

To learn more about M5 Hosting, please visit http://www.M5Hosting.com.

About M5 Hosting

As an industry leader in customized Linux and BSD dedicated server hosting solutions, M5 Hosting serves hundreds of small to medium sized business and enterprises worldwide. M5 Hosting specializes in managing unique client needs, ranging from supporting an individual project or building highly- available, distributed hosting solutions for mission-critical applications. M5 Hosting is based in San Diego, California and was founded in 2001 as a division of M5 Computer Security. The company has earned a perfect A+ score from the Better Business Bureau.

To learn more about M5 Hosting, please visit http://www.M5Hosting.com or call 1-877-344-4678.

BarCamp San Diego, part of an international network of “unconferences,” is an exciting, open forum for computer enthusiasts, industry professionals and others passionate about Internet culture, technology, and life online. Although there is no set schedule or organized speaker lineup, attendees will participate in lively discussions with key experts and other attendees. The event is built on the philosophy that anyone who builds or uses the Internet on a regular basis has something to learn and something to teach.

“BarCamp is an exciting gathering of smart and creative people sharing their skills and knowledge in a welcoming, engaged environment. They are the kind of people who make the content and services that eventually need M5 Hosting. We want to promote and encourage events like this in any way we can,especially by lending our time, talent, and treasure,” said Michael J. McCafferty, principal of M5 Hosting.

“BarCamp is and always will be a volunteer-led effort. Support fromcompanies like M5 Hosting is vital to our success and enables us to continue our mission of bringing together people who want to learn more about the Internet and online culture,” said Dan Tentler, organizer of BarCamp San Diego.

As a secondary sponsor of the event, M5 Hosting will be recognized at the event, as well as on the BarCamp website and t-shirts. M5 Hosting staff will also participate in discussions and may choose a topic on which to lead a presentation.

Earlier this year, M5 Hosting introduced a new data backup service powered by R1Soft Continuous Data Protection™ (CDP) technology. Customers are able to purchase the data backup service, which starts at $50 per month, as an add-on to their core hosting services.

In March, M5 Hosting began operations in its second data center facility, an 80,000 square-foot purpose-built data center located in the San DiegoSpectrum area of San Diego, Calif. Originally built to support a large defensecontractor and its government contracts, the facility has recently been updated with the latest in highly-efficient power and cooling systems.

The Better Business Bureau maintains strict accreditation standards, including requiring companies to commit to make a good faith effort to resolve any consumer complaints, advertise honestly, tell the truth, be transparent in business operations, honor promises, be responsive, safeguard privacy, and embody integrity. A complete list of accreditation standards is available at http://www.bbb.org/us/bbb-accreditation-standards.

“Our business is built on word-of-mouth referrals, and our growth has always been driven by satisfied customers. Receiving a perfect rating from the Better Business Bureau is a testament to how we have done business for years – with honesty, integrity, and authentic capability,” said Michael J. McCafferty, CEO of M5 Hosting.

Last week, M5 Hosting announced a deployment of APC switched power on all server racks, allowing one-click power-cycling on servers without the need for an on-site technician to physically reboot the server. M5 Hosting also used the upgrade as an opportunity to perform a physical health check on each server.

To learn more about M5 Hosting, please visit http://www.M5Hosting.com.

To view the full BBB report on M5 Hosting, please visit http://www.bbb.org/san-diego/business-reviews/internet-web-hosting/m5-hosting-in-san-diego-ca-171998304/

About M5 Hosting

As an industry leader in customized Linux and BSD dedicated server hosting solutions, M5 Hosting serves hundreds of small to medium sized business and enterprises worldwide. M5 Hosting specializes in managing unique client needs, ranging from supporting an individual project or building highly-available, distributed hosting solutions for mission-critical applications. M5 Hosting is based in San Diego, California and was founded in 2001 as a division of M5 Computer Security. To learn more about M5 Hosting, please visit http://www.M5Hosting.com or call 1-877-344-4678.

Switched power outlets allow for power-cycling of customer servers without the need for an on-site technician to physically go to the server. M5 Hosting support personnel and M5 Hosting customers can both reboot a customer server using a secure web-based interface, saving precious time.

Since the upgrade required each customer’s server to be physically moved a new rack equipped with switched power outlets, the deployment has taken M5 Hosting several months. The company worked with customers to schedule a convenient time to complete the upgrade, as customers typically experienced up to 5 minutes of downtime during an off-peak time selected by the customer.

“All of our customers servers located in racks equipped with APC switched-power systems are able to power cycle their servers with a click of a button in our customer portal. This speeds response times when our customers need help. With this technology, a human does not need to walk over to a rack, unlock and open the door, locate the server just to press a button. It saves time and money, and this is a significant upgrade,” said Michael J. McCafferty, CEO of M5 Hosting.

M5 Hosting is also using the upgrade as an opportunity to perform a physical health check on each server. Technicians are completing RAM upgrades and inspecting and replacing broken system fans, and check RAID array integrity.

Last week, M5 Hosting upgraded all customer data transfer allocations by at least 500 percent.

M5 Hosting maintains a high-performance, route optimized network. The network features redundant carrier class Cisco 6509 routers with the powerful SUP720-3BXL engines and maximum memory to handle the full and ever-expanding global route table. Like all multi-homed provider networks, M5 Hosting utilizes BGP for fault-tolerant routing over multiple Internet connections. The network also relies on multiple Gigabit connections to Tier-1 carriers and direct peering with over 100 other networks.

To learn more about M5 Hosting, please visit M5 Hosting

About M5 Hosting

As an industry leader in customized Linux and BSD dedicated server hosting solutions, M5 Hosting serves hundreds of small to medium sized business and enterprises worldwide. M5 Hosting specializes in managing unique client needs, ranging from supporting an individual project or building highly-available, distributed hosting solutions for mission-critical applications. M5 Hosting is based in San Diego, California and was founded in 2001 as a division of M5 Computer Security. To learn more about M5 Hosting, please visit www.m5hosting.com or call 1-877-344-4678.

The upgrades universally apply to all customers under existing dedicated servers and colocation agreements with 250GB or 350GB per month data transfer. Service plans that previously offered 250GB per month of transfer now enjoy 1.5TB per month of transfer, and service plans that previously offered 350GB per month of transfer now include 2TB per month of transfer. All new service plans include at least 1.5TB per month of data transfer.

“As a result of major upgrades to our network and new agreements with network carriers, we are able to offer substantially more data transfer to our customers for the same price. These upgrades are effective immediately, and come at absolutely no charge and no decrease in quality,” said Michael J. McCafferty, CEO of M5 Hosting. “We understand that in these economic times, many our customers need to do more with less – not the same with less, not less with less, but more with less.”

M5 Hosting maintains a high-performance, route optimized network. The network features redundant carrier class Cisco 6509 routers with the powerful SUP720-3BXL engines and maximum memory to handle the full and ever-expanding global route table. Like all multi-homed provider networks, M5 Hosting utilizes BGP for fault-tolerant routing over multiple Internet connections. The network also utilizes multiple Gigabit connections to Tier-1 carriers and direct peering with over 100 other networks.

Earlier this year, M5 Hosting began operations in its second data center facility, an 80,000 square-foot purpose-built data center located in the San Diego Spectrum area of San Diego, California. Originally built to support a large defense contractor and its government contracts, the facility has recently been updated with the latest in highly-efficient power and cooling systems. M5 Hosting also introduced a data backup service, powered by R1Soft.

To learn more about M5 Hosting, please visit http://www.M5Hosting.com.

To learn more about M5 Hosting’s high-performance network, please visit http://www.m5hosting.com/network.php.