In order for the world to see your website it has to be hosted on a computer that is always connected to the internet, available day and night. It is important for you to have a hosting provider that provides reliable, quality service. You can be assured that Comstar takes the necessary actions to provide excellence in your hosting experience.
Let’s start with the connection to the internet backbone. Comstar is connected to a SONET fiber optic ring. This provides for high uptime reliability. If a break were introduced in the internet connection, traffic would automatically route in the opposite direction to our upstream provider. Your site stays up even if a backhoe were to cut into the fiber run.
Next, consider electricity. A web server needs electricity to run. Mice on treadmills might be a good electrical generation idea for some, but at Comstar we have installed a 45 kW natural gas generator. In the event of a power failure the generator is up and running automatically within about 30 seconds. Additionally, every server is connected to an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), which is capable of sustaining the equipment for much longer than the needed 30 seconds. Your site stays running even if electricity is out over a wide area or extended period of time. With the generator connected to the city’s natural gas facilities, there’s no need to wait for fuel trucks to keep the generator running.
Then consider the hosting computers. Comstar does not buy off-the-shelf computers to host your website. We specify computers that are designed to improve the hosting experience. Every web server has redundant hard drives configured in a RAID array. If there is a failure of one hard drive, that drive can be removed and replaced. The remaining drive keeps a complete copy of the data to rebuild the new drive. Hard disks can be replaced quickly reducing potential downtime. In the event of a disk failure, your site stays up, or comes back up with only moments of downtime.
Additionally, with Comstar’s WebStar Small Business, WebStar Business, and WebStar eCommerce hosting packages, your site security is taken one step further. With these hosting services, your site is backed up nightly, and removed to an offsite location weekly. In the event of a major computer failure, the entire contents of your site can be restored from backup.
With this attention to detail in our hosting environment we have been able to eliminate most problems that plague other hosting providers.
For even greater levels of comfort, Comstar can provide its Business Assurance Web Hosting. This takes our already high level of service and adds even more protection for your site and data.