Herndon, Va. - PSINet, Inc. has revamped its Web hosting architecture and is guaranteeing 100% server availability to its customers.
This week, PSINet's PSIWeb division is expected to announce it has added new hardware to its Web server farm here. The hardware will offer its Web hosting customers faster, more reliable services, said Michael Mael, vice president and general manager of Web services and electronic commerce at PSIWeb, also based here.
In addition, PSINet is guaranteeing100% Web server availability to all ofits Unix-based Web hosting customers. Ifa Web server is not available at anytime in a single quarter, PSINet will refund 10% of a customer's quarterly service charges, Mael said.
To upgrade its systems, PSINet deployed two F5 Labs, Inc.'s BIG/ip load balancers to its Ethernet LAN at its Web server farm. The load balancers intelligently determine which of the four Sun Solaris Unix Web servers can best support incoming requests. The Internet service provider also deployed two Unix content servers that sit behind the four Web servers, Mael said. Instead of storing the customers content on one Web server, all of the data is stored on a content server that sends the information to one of the four servers when it is requested. The Web server farm is linked to the Internet via three T-3 links.
In addition to distributing the Web content, the servers also cache the data. This brings the Web content to the Internet user more quickly, Mael said. PSINet offers dedicated, but not shared, WindowsNT-based Web hosting services that also are guaranteed.
Today, PSINet has only one Web server farm, but additional sites will be announced within the next couple of months, Mael said. And the current Ethernet LAN will be upgraded to Fast Ethernet next month to support 100M bit/sec server connections.
In addition to revamping the architecture and offering a new guarantee, PSINet is rolling out a new pricing structure for its shared Web hosting services.
PSIWeb 20, an entry-level service, offers 20M bytes of disk space, 800M bytes of data transfers per month and 10 e-mail accounts for $297 per quarter. PSIWeb 200, the high end of PSI's shared Web hosting service, includes 200M bytes of disk space, 10G bytes of data transfers per month, one dial-up Internet PPP account and 100 e-mail accounts for $2,250 per quarter.
PSINet: (800) 395-1056.
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