B10WH

Do you want to know more about the attack against Web Hosting Talk? Or to meet some or those who made WHT the world’s leading IT hosting community? I think you would say “Yes”. So let me start the introduction to this interview like this.

“There are people who have significant influence in the fields of activity, they are engaged in – business, journalism politics, academic life, science, etc. Some of them are usually controversial figures, other are not. But most people who are involved in any form of community activities (including journalists, politicians, PR specialists) are often leaders and strong personalities who can lead others. The person you will meet below is definitely someone who has a strong character. He is Dennis Johnson (SoftWareRevue), the Community leader of Web Hosting Talk.”

I barely know Dennis… mostly from the short e-mail correspondence I had with him. However the above words are not a cheap compliment, they are result of my sense of him. Could it be wrong? Just read the interview and you’ll find out.

Hi Dennis, Good to meet you! I have spent some time searching about you on the web, and to prepare myself for this interview, but didn’t find too many articles, interviews, authoring works, or any other things that would help me. So I believe in this interview you should say some things about yourself, that you haven’t revealed before. If you ask me “Why?”, my answer is “because I believe you have many things to say”. So let’s start with this question.

I like the way your authoring style, I know from WHT newsletter. Do you know that you are good in telling stories? I mean very good. I have read you are graduated in “Electrical Technology”. Do you like reading? I’m curious what did help you to shape your writing?

I’ve always enjoyed reading – and writing. But had never considered they would be a major part of my job at any age. I have poems, short stories, songs, half-written novels and instruction manuals I’ve written scattered about in boxes, bags and drawers.

I had an insatiable appetite for literature as a child. We didn’t have the technology of today of course, so reading was my means of exploration. I loved reading anything. One day it may be Tom Swift in the Race to the Moon, Principles of Refrigeration the next, and then Principles in Psychology followed by Black Beauty. But I’d say what influenced my writing the most is my passion. I’ve always been a very emotional person. And I think that comes out in my writing.

I hope it is appropriate to ask you do you see yourself as a journalist?

No. I don’t see myself as a journalist. Journalistic prose can be a chore for me. I’m much more comfortable sitting around a campfire and sharing stories than I am addressing a room full of peers that are interested in what I have to say. I suppose you could classify me as a journalist based on my WHT Insider alone. But I don’t consider myself one.

I have asked you “Do you know that you are good in telling stories?” because being a Community Coordinator at WHT and having responsibilities to keep the forums clean and to enforce policies and rules makes you some kind of “Community Guard”, which is very much a Police job :). Do you feel like this sometimes?

When my 82 year old mother asks me what I do, I tell her I’m like the mayor of a city. And as mayor, I have to wear the Police Chief hat. Of course, around these parts, we call them Peace Officers. Sure, moderating forums requires enforcing the policies everyone’s agreed to. It’s something that needs doing. Just like moving and editing posts, answering member questions, encouraging discussion and maintaining the health of a community are all parts of forum moderation.

I have seen that you said in Iamdum.com that you “would love to have time to just surf and post”. And then you added “But, my hours are spent chasing spammers and scammers. And then there’s the bit about managing staff”. Let me ask you something. If you have to categorize members who violate WHT’s Rules, how many categories we will have? We obviously have “Spammers”, “Scammers” and then…

There’s lots of groups that make up a forum community. And some of them think our rules are unfair, because they’re not what they want. Spammers and Scammers can be found in any community. But, given WHT’s nature, we have some unique groups that can be problematic. Some members become so passionate about their community that they’re Overly Protective. That is, they can be seen as rude or disruptive because they want to prevent any harm. Before I delve into this too much, I think I’d like to hold off because I plan on writing a more descriptive measure on the topic. So let’s just say that “there are as many different types of members in a community as a forum needs”.

You said the above things in 2005 and added “I had thought that a larger staff would afford me the opportunity to have time to post as a member. But, lately, I’ve been finding that a larger staff is forcing me to manage a larger staff. Any time that is saved by having someone else respond to a reported post is off-set by time it takes to answer staff questions and concerns”. So how are the things 4 years later. Do you have time to browse and to talk to other members of WHT as well as to write more staff?

No. But my position has evolved. The current staff of WHT is great. It could be a little bigger, but they do an outstanding job of keeping the community in good health. I don’t do much of the day-to-day moderating. But I do more work off forum that I’m still not as engaged as I’d like to be.

How many hours per day do you spend working on WHT?

I’m down to about 4-10 hours a day. It really depends on how much time I need to spend on other iNET communities.

In a Hosting Tech interview you gave 5 years ago you said that you have retired but very soon you get bored and got down to new business. You have also “promised” to prepare “well written retirement plan next time”. I don’t know much about you, but from what I see and read about yourself, you don’t look like someone that would ever retire. Have you ever thought what would you do if we haven’t Internet?

I haven’t considered life without internet. I plan on being involved in some sort of Community Manager roll for a long time yet. You’re right – I’ll probably never retire. I still enjoy learning, and that doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. However, if we didn’t have internet, I’d be involved in some type of customer satisfaction roll.

Five years ago you said that “The admin side of WHT is a monster. A beast with an insatiable appetite. And a lot more work than members imagine”. Can you reveal more about the team behind WebHostingTalk? How many moderators manage the forums, how the WHt is organized and how does the todays Forum looks like compared to the WHT in 2004?

We have 30 staff members. We recruit members that have demonstrated a thorough understanding of forum guidelines, have shown to be non-confrontational and are active. Not everyone who meets this criteria is recruited, and not everyone recruited accepts. WHT is a unique community due to the fact that many members are growing their business through it. As such, we have a higher ratio of the spammers and scammers you mentioned above than other help based communities. It takes a strong individual to moderate the forum and not take the personal accusations personally. It’s simply the nature of the beast that moderated members are offended they’ve been moderated.

Why WHT never turned to a media? I mean traditional online media, the way TheWHIR is in web hosting industry? Haven’t you guys been tempted to broaden the frontiers of the WHT?

We have some new stuff planned for WHT. That’s about all I’m going to say about that. But I will say that it won’t be traditional online media. iNET Interactive has current and projected projects in that arena though. Stay tuned!

Tell me something about the consequences of the attack on WHT. I’ve seen on your recent newsletter that someone told you: “Because of your email, I’m going to take a serious look at our own disaster recovery plan because we seldom do off network backups. I think this would be a good topic on WHT in the future so that other web hosting providers could learn from others.”. So it sounds really weird, but it is obviously the attack has taught a lesson. There is something to be learned for many businesses our there… because I’m sure many of them haven’t build their own recovery plans…?

You mentioned my favorite thing about this attack. It’s a shame that it happened. But it’s made so many others examine their infrastructure that it’s eerily a blessing. Not only is WHT, and iNET as a whole, secure and unequivocally able to sustain itself should it be the target of destruction again, but so many others are safer. This was a malicious attempt to destroy WebHostingTalk.com. They failed.

Is WebHostingTalk loosing credibility and business because of the attack? I’ve seen some people to say that WHT team made a mistake in its statements. “Instead of saying that it could’ve happened to anyone, they should be taking their responsibility by simply stating they screwed up”, this is something someone said in a discussion about “Attack on WebHostingTalk” in LinkedIn. So do you think that you have taken full responsibility for something that you might not avoid?

I don’t see that we’ve lost any credibility. And I don’t see where we’ve avoided admitting fault with our infrastructure. We’ve said it was inadequate for today’s needs. But our current infrastructure is about as tight as it gets.

I’ve read that you have got your first PC in January of 2001. What is your technology level now? Do you have knowledge in coding, making web pages, or doing any other tech stuff, or you are involved in moderating and producing content only?

I’m comfortable with my PC. But I’m certainly not a guru. I can build a web page, but someone else can build a much nicer one much easier. I do some work on my own servers. But I get someone that knows what they’re doing when it gets too technical.

I’m curious which web hosting companies have use used until now and which was your first web host? You can share your opinion with their services if you of course find this appropriate.

The first hosting account I got was through Yahoo! That didn’t last very long. I needed more. Without naming names, because they’re no longer in business, I bounced from one Unlimited host to another before landing on WebHostingTalk.com. The community helped me with choosing a host. A couple months later, I got a reseller account. Then it was on to hosting myself. I have servers in three different data centers. I won’t name my favorite though.

Do you still own GetMeHosted.com?

Not exactly own. But I’m still around there. Frankly it’s more of a means to keep a pulse on the industry than it is to being a host.

Can you point your finger at any web hosting providers and to say “These are the best ones”?

I could, but I wouldn’t feel right doing it. Because of my position on WHT, I try to keep my personal opinions out of who to choose and not choose. Besides, there is no best host. For years, my WHT signature has included the line, “There is no best host. There is only the host that’s best for you.”

You said in an old interview that you liked philosophy. Do you have a favorite thinker/philosopher?

I can’t say I have one favorite.

You like playing guitar. I’m curious whether you are a Rock ‘N Roll fan and if “yes”, which bands are your favorite ones?

It’s hard for me to associate myself with one genre. But I suppose it might be classified more towards Rock ‘N Roll. I probably cover Pink Floyd more than any other group or artist. If I’m just listening though, I listen to more Van Morrison or Andrew Lloyd Webber. I have to give a shout out to John Prine though. Cuz that’s more like me when I sit down with Shelly (my guitar).

Now final question. I have read somewhere that you like cooking. If you have to bring all the WHT liaisons at one place what would you make for them?

That’s a large group. So I’d probably have to fire up the grills. Of course, if my dining room was big enough, I’d likely do some lasagna and/or spaghetti. One thing I’ll guarantee though, everyone will go home full.

Thank you Dennis. Good luck with you enterprises and wish you to have a lot of energy and to keep going!

Thanks for having me, Dimitar. It’s been my pleasure.

Siteground became another shared hosting provider that went “Unlimited”. The web host used to be number 1 ranked website in Google on “web hosting” search term for almost 2 years. It was known with its unrealistic offerings, which featured 200 GB disc space as a part of shared hosting plans.

However as many other oversellers, Siteground succeeded to attract customers and hasn’t failed to provide them with a decent service and good customer support. The company has been an advertiser of B10WH.com at the time when our web hosting media was more top web hosting list than an original resource for web hosting related content.

Salute Siteground! Unlimited sounds better than 200 GB disc space on shared server. Now the web host’s customers can not ask for their 200 gigs because no one know how much “unlimited” is?

Ping! Zine Web Hosting Magazine is one of the most influential media in hosting industry. I like it because it is quality and has a very nice design. Read what Keith Dunkan of PingZine said about the magazine.

“We print over 20,000 copies per issue, 85% shipped in US, 15% Canada, and overseas, we average 1.7 readers per copy bringing print readership to over 30,000 readers and have average 15,000 readers of the online version, bringing our estimated total to 45,000 readers per issue”.

PingZine is the longest running print magazine in web hosting industry. AS you can see from the above numbers it provides a great access to web hosting market and to the most influential decision-makers in the hosting industry. Reaching over 45,000 readers (in combination of print and online versions), Ping! Zine attracts audiences far beyond the traditional boundaries of host directories, portals, and forums.

Hewlett Packard announced that it releases a new blade server and storage system that aims to power the new generation virtual data centers and to be used for cloud computing class IT services and platforms.

Along with the HP BladeSystem Matrix (a a cloud infrastructure in a box) HP has said that the new HP LeftHand storage P4000 SAN is available as a standalone iSCSI SAN product or as a part of virtualized blade server infrastructure in a bundle called HP StorageWorks SB40c with P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance Software.

The HP’s announcement of the new enterprise IT storage solution came month after Cisco entered the blade server market with its new Unified Computing System for virtualized data centers, and a week after EMC introduced a Symmetrix V-Max storage system and new architecture. Cisco and EMC agreed to join forces to ensure their systems can easy to interoperate.

The first one to publicly utter the term “Cloud Computing” was Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt. That was almost three years ago, back in 2006. The first article about “Cloud Computing” in Wikipedia was published on March 3, 2007. Since then, more than 500 versions of the same article have been submitted. A long line of references have also been added to Wikipedia’s “Cloud Computing” page. It took me 216 hours to read them all, and 1 hour to forget almost everything I had read. But let me start by offering two different definitions of “Cloud Computing.”

The good definition – “Cloud Computing is a new, networking model of developing and using computer technologies. It is a paradigm in computer science in which tasks are assigned to a combination of connections, software and services accessed over a network.”

The bad definition – “Google, IBM, Salesforce, Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo and other corporations found another way to get even richer.” The above mentioned corporations were the first to utilize a major change in computing technologies. They began producing computer systems and platforms that are recognizable by high availability, scalability, load balancing, and the use of a large quantity of computer resources connected through a network.

Why We Need Computer Clouds

I met 24 year old Peter at an IT community event in Bulgaria. He and his partner founded a small dotcom startup company called Clixpy. Clixpy provides a web usability service that tracks everything visitors on any website do such as mouse movements, clicks, scrolling, form inputs and more. We discussed various aspects of online business and when we got to web hosting, I asked him what made him choose his web hosting provider. He said that he chose a specific web hosting provider only because the company offered scalable VPS Hosting and promised him that he can increase the account resources by a single click in his control panel.

When I asked him why he needs a scalable service for a startup project, he answered, “Well, Just imagine that a blog such as TechCrunch, for example, decides to post a review of us. We must be ready to handle the load and ensure that we will be online!” As you may guess, Peter’s company is one of the reputable grid hosting providers. His company doesn’t say it provides Cloud Hosting on its website, but promotes its services and products as “Grid Hosting,” with high availability and scalability among its features.

We obviously need to use more and more computer resources and it is getting harder to put them in a self-contained hardware system. There are several predecessors to the computer Clouds, such as Clusters or Grid systems. All of them represent significant efforts to consolidate hardware and software resources in order to power applications that require tens of thousands, and sometimes even millions of computing processes to be handled within a very short period of time.

Consumers increasingly demand the hosting of large files and web-heavy applications. This forces web hosts and providers of Internet based services to implement significant innovations in the IT infrastructures and the platforms behind them. These innovations may include building more sophisticated networks, setting up new data center architectures based on load-balanced systems, and utilizing various virtualization methods (platform virtualization, resource virtualization, application virtualization, etc.).

Let’s not forget to say a few words about virtualization because Cloud computing is unimaginable without it. For those who are not familiar with the term, “Virtualization” is a technology which refers to abstraction of computer resources. It is a very broad term, but when using it most people refer to “Platform Virtualization” techniques. These techniques include “Full Virtualization” (a complete simulation of the underlying hardware), “Hardware-assisted Virtualization” (simulation of a complete hardware environment using hardware capabilities such as host processors), “Partial Virtualization” (partial simulation of the physical computer), “Paravirtualization” (a software interface to virtual machines, similar to that of the underlying hardware), “OS Virtualization” (method where the kernel of an OS creates multiple isolated instances, instead of just one).

The virtualization technologies mentioned above make possible the transformation of computer clusters, the grid computing infrastructures wе use, into “Computer Clouds.” Some important keywords which are associated with the terms “Cloud” or “Computer Cloud”, include: “efficiency”, “lower costs”, “redundancy”, “modularity”, “low latency”, “Quality of Service (QoS)”, “virtualization”, “Software as a Service (SaaS)”, “Platform as a Service(PaaS)”, and “Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)”. Any computer platform or service that corresponds with most of above keywords can be defined as a “Cloud” type.

The technologies bridging the gap between computer Clusters we have known for years and new Cloud computing architectures, can be summarized with one phrase, “Platform Virtualization.” It is a technology concept which allows an operating system (OS) to be separated from the underlying platform resources.

The New Rivalry. Who Will Win?

Like any other type of computing, the Cloud concept creates competition of IT services and products in different markets. Those who succeed in producing comprehensive platforms and delivering them as online services (PaaS), will become global IT leaders in the new era of Cloud computing. Google, Amazon, Salesforce, Yahoo and Microsoft are now ahead of others in developing and delivering Cloud computing generation platforms. In the world of computer Clouds these companies, followed by a few other major corporations, are conquering the consumer markets by offering various IT services and products over the Internet. However, they will face tough competition from traditional telecoms, owners of the computer networks, and ISPs. Anyone who wants to provide Cloud computing based IT services must have unlimited access to a very stable, redundant network, which has to be reliable enough so endusers will be able to access remote hardware and software resources. The boom of Cloud based services depends on the development of the IT networks. And their owners will definitely try to grab as big a share of the emerging Cloud market as they can.

Cloud as Infrastructure & as Platform

The first ones to benefit from the above described major transformation in computer technologies are Infrastructure providers. Companies which produce computer infrastructure, computer systems and components, like Intel, AMD, Cisco, IBM, HP, and Apple, might team up with telecoms and networking providers to deliver computer infrastructures as a service (IaaS). To better compete as major Clouds, the above mentioned companies, telecoms and networking providers need to either invest millions in developing their own infrastructures and platforms, or partner with software producers in order to deliver Cloud based services. This is good news for software companies because it creates a huge market for Cloud computing platforms. Teaming up to compete with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon and other dot-com giants, competitors will need to adopt different kinds of platform virtualization environments. That’s the reason why many producers of hardware and infrastructure services are now spending a lot in building new generation computer platforms.

Here is the chance for companies that deliver platform virtualization, such as VMware, Oracle, Parallels, and Citrix, to take control of the Clouds. They deliver Cloud computing platforms (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) on top of underlying hardware architectures. They are the ones who really make it possible for businesses and end users to move to the Clouds.

I’m not sure how to categorize some of the above major corporations – place them among IaaS producers, to put them under the “SaaS label”, or to classify them as computing platform (PaaS) providers. Companies like IBM, HP, and Apple, for example, will continue to be IT entities that could deliver “everything as a service.”

I’m sure that in real life all the above mentioned IT giants have to partner with other smaller IT companies to survive, especially in times when the world economy is shrinking. I think that the partnership is natural in the Cloud generation of computing. It is a rule, not an exception. The new Cloud partnerships might give birth to new mighty technology brands, or force the closure of companies that have been around for decades.

Cloudware

Today, anyone knows the meaning of “hardware” and “software.” Tomorrow, people will have to make themselves familiar with a new computer term – “Cloudware.” Cloudware refers to computing by building, delivering and using web applications and services through the Internet. A Cloudware provider is anyone who can create and deliver a computer platform as a service (PaaS).

PaaS providers will be the pearls in the Clouds. I predict that Cloudware providers will become the backbones of the technology industry within the next two decades. I have a reason to make this prediction: Cloudware providers will provide all of the facilities required to support the complete cycle of building and delivering web applications and services, entirely available from the Internet, with no software downloads or installation for businesses and end-users.

Cloud Hosting

“Cloud Hosting” can be defined as a web hosting service delivered from a system of servers. The term is not precisely defined, yet. However, it can be very simply explained as a combination of computer clusters and a specific software platform running on top of it. Any hosting service can be considered as Cloud Hosting, when delivered from a fully redundant cluster server system, in which the resources are dynamically scalable and often virtualized. Of course any Cloud Hosting service also has to utilize a computer platform allowing all the services to be delivered and billed on a “pay per use” model.

Linux or Windows Clouds

Without being a software expert, I can see a few companies who are creating standards in Cloud computing. When it comes to Linux based Clouds, the first name that comes to mind is Red Hat. The Amazon web service is built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Red Hat provides the standards that developers of Linux based Clouds need to build and host applications such as compute capacity, bandwidth, and storage. The Open Source operating system platform – RHEL to be included, of course.

In a white paper titled “Linux: The Operating System of the Cloud”, Amanda McPherson, Vice President of Marketing and Developer Programs Linux Foundation, says: “The dominance of Linux within the current crop of Cloud computing vendors is eye opening. Virtually every Cloud player of any significance features Linux in either primary or supporting capacities, and this adoption is increasing. Google’s recently launched App Engine and Amazon’s competitive EC2 product both leverage the Linux kernel, as do Cloud offerings from vendors such as 10gen, 3Tera, Media Temple, Mosso, and Zimory”.

McPherson’s got a point. The Linux operating system (OS) looks to be winning the “OS war” with Microsoft’s Windows in the Cloud battlefield. At least until Microsoft comes up with a Cloud computing version of its Windows OS. Having a Windows Cloud in its pocket will allow the Silicon Valley company to take its dominance in the software market to the Cloud level. All the same, I cannot give you an answer to one very important question: “Will the Cloud style of computing fit in with Microsoft’s OS, its applications and the company’s strategy in general? In many interviews, I have seen Microsoft’s officials state that they started thinking of how to prepare their company for any kind of Internet based model of computer use in the late 90s. Microsoft has already launched Azure. They are marketing it as an “Operating system for the Cloud”.

Some analysts say that Azure simplifies and automates the Cloud concept that Amazon started. Azure provides a “compute fabric” upon which developers can run their applications based on Microsoft Visual Studio development environment and the Microsoft .NET Framework. The main advantage of the Azure is that it reaches 100% of computer users thanks to Microsoft’s position in the PC market. It is also supposed to be familiar to all independent software vendors. But Azure also has some disadvantages. Azure was late entering the market and it’s still immature. But even bigger disadvantages are its restriction to .NET, and of course, being in conflict with the general concept of Cloud computing. As an Internet based model of computing it is supposed to be a computing style built on Open Source based platforms and applications. The big question that remains to be answered is whether Microsoft will rewrite the computer history within the Clouds.

About the Author

The author Dimitar Avramov is a founder and CEO of HostColor.com. The original article has been written for Ping!Zine.com Magazine and published there in March 2009.