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Technical quality of our web hosting services

Hardware

Due to the stability requirements we only uses branded Hewlett-Packard or DELL servers, networking products from Juniper and Cisco companies  to operate all services and network elements from Juniper and Cisco, or to provide power to the APC's smart PDU.

The selection of all hardware is based on:

  • requirements for reliability, security and scalability
  • years of experience with high demands on our backend platform
  • attempt to be the least dependent on external support contracts, the aim is to always have available backup hardware in stock to minimize downtime caused by hardware malfunction

High availability technology

All customer data is stored on mirrored storage cluster. The primary cluster is located in DC Tower data center and secondary in Casablanca data center. Data is backed up several times a day within the primary cluster and its contents regularly flips on the secondary cluster, which is ready for providing data in case of problems with the primary cluster.

Services running on Windows operating system are run on Hyper-V cluster, that ensures high availability of our services. On individual physical servers, Hyper-V technology virtualizes individual servers that automatically migrate to other physical servers in case of HW outage. This is aided by Live and Quick Migration functions.

Operating systems utilized

Provider uses both Linux and Windows Server 2012 (and Windows Server 2008) with Hyper-V technology on their servers and customer servers. A common feature for both platforms is a very quick and sophisticated update of all systems to ensure the highest possible degree of stability and security for our customers. Another common feature is the relatively specific set-up of our systems, that takes advantage of our long-term experience with web hosting services operation and that constitutes a valuable know-how of our company.

Data centers, connectivity and security

We operate two independent and physically remote data centers in Prague (DC TOWER, Casablanca), that provide the vast majority of our services. We also have several other data centers in Europe. Larger number of data centers provides customers a unique security of their data and significantly reduces the risk of unavailability from the Internet in the event of failure of one of them.

The primary data center is DC TOWER, the secondary data center is Casablanca. Both data centers are among the top in Europe and offer the following basic parameters:

a) Connectivity

The capacity of our Internet lines is always sufficiently oversized compared to the real operation needs. At present, the capacity of our lines is used at  5% in peak period. 

  • network connection to the Czech Internet (NIX.CZ) backbone with a capacity of 10 + 10 Gbps; we use two independent connections to two remote NIX.CZ nodes
  • Provider's network connection abroad with a capacity of 1+1 Gbps; we use two independent connections to in two physical locations and from two independent entities
  • direct link between the two Provider data centers with 1 Gbps throughput

Seen the topology of our network: http://napoveda.active24.cz/idx.php/0/058/article/

b) Security, parameters, space and connectivity

  • location of servers in locked racks, which can be accessed only by authorized Providers personnel 
  • modern air-conditioned rooms with two independent refrigerant branches, controlled temperature and relative air humidity
  • backup power sources (connected to two different PRE substations), three diesel generators with fuel for 24 hours and UPS systems
  • spaces with automatic fire protection system (FM 200 gas)
  • spaces with electronic security system and physical security
  • flood risk exclusion due to the location of data centers

To avoid the negative effects of technical infrastructures of other clients (network congestion with infected systems, etc.) we also use standard methods such as:

  • use of a central firewall (failover connection)
  • protection by local firewalls
  • physical separation of customers devices into own VLAN

Operational safety is ensured in all respect by full redundancy of all the technologies used.

For a web hosting provider of our relevance, the utilization of the autonomous system (AS) provided by the regional registry RIPE is a must. We have a sufficient amount of IPv4 addresses and an unimaginable amount of IPv6 address, IPv6 protocol is fully supported on our web hosting services.

Server administration

Our administrators continuously check if all existing systems run properly and proactively remove any possible problems in 7 x 24 x 365 mode. Technological Equipment of the Provider and the uninterrupted physical presence of data center personnel, enables that the solution of all non-standard server conditions is started immediately after their formation.

SLA - guaranteed quality of service

Because the quality of our services is at an above-average level, we can guarantee it to our customers. All of our services provide customers with a money back guarantee in case their availability is lower than defined.  Specific SLA parameters are listed for each service, in general, the better service the customer uses, the more stringent they are. 

The average uptime of our services in recent years has never been lower than 99.991%, which for the customer means that the average unavailability of our services has never been higher than 4 minutes per month.

We can offer a second variant of the guaranteed quality of service to managed servers customers, namely to provide a guarantee to solve the requirements or possible defects at defined times. 

Customer support

Our call center is also operated in 7 x 24 x 365 mode. The call center provides systematicaly trained operators who are able to solve customer requirements through three channels at any time using:

  • phone
  • email
  • chat

The customer has the possibility of choice of means of communication with him at any time to resolve his claim.

All operators are involved in the evaluation of the level of communication and customer satisfaction.

Robust call center system allows prior processing of VIP customers requests (including the GOLDEN telephone line directly to administrators) and routing individual requests by their content to a specific operator according to his skill. At the same time we ensure compliance with the required service level of customer support. (phone call answering guarantee or a chat reception within a defined time, guarantee of an email response within specified deadline).

Specific customer support quality parameters  over the last 12 months:

  • 81 % of phone calls are answered within 10 seconds
  • 88 % of e-mails are answered within 12 hours
  • VIP customer gets an answer within an average of 30 minutes directly from the system administrator
  • 97.5 % chat interactions are initiated within 10 minutes

Customer center

Customer Centre ACTIVE 24 is a comprehensive administration tool that does not only give information about ordered services, user information, payments, news or server operation, but also the possibility to actively manage services performed for the customer. Our Customer center is one of the best tools of its kind on the market, most of the necessary actions can be performed by the customer without communicating with the customer support and without technical knowledge. An example might be:

  • establishment and maintenance of mailboxes on your domain
  • establishment and maintenance of virtual servers on your multihosting, virtual managed server or managed server
  • editing DNS records on your domains
  • One click installer management (Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, ...) and more

Our Customer Center functions can be tested without registering at: https://customer.active24.com

Technological innovation

As a technology leader in the Czech Republic, we deploy and support a range of technological innovations that are not only beneficial to our customers, but often to the entire Internet community.

Below are a few examples from recent years:

 

Our company is a leader in many innovative technologies.

We started to support DNSSEC as first in the Czech Republic, we are the second largest domain registrator in the Czech republic and we are between the largest in the world in number of domains secured with DNSSEC. We thus significantly reduce the risk of fake web content or mailboxes misuse.

FTP authorization as a solutions developed by us, allows you to restrict access for editing web content from a specific state or defined IP addresses secures your websites against unauthorized hackers.

Also the use of combination of DKIM and greylisting helping to combat spam is quite rare in commercial operation.

Membership in important organizations

We are also active in organizations that are important for the proper functioning and long-term development of the Internet in the Czech Republic. Our employees are particularly active in the following associations:

  • CZ.NIC
  • NIX.CZ
  • CSIRT.CZ