Oct 25, 2002 : The webhost industry: week review

📅 October 25, 2002 - This week's Web hosting industry news was abundant and varied both in its forms, which included research reports, news reports and product and partnership announcements, and its subjects, which covered hacking and other attacks, mergers, acquisitions, partnerships and a range of new value-added services being offered to Web hosting companies.
In an event whose widespread significance did not miss the Web hosting business, it was reported on Wednesday that an arson attack made during the night had damaged an important part of British Telecom's UK network, resulting in performance losses for the communications carrier. The two attacks, which occurred in and around Manchester, involved man-hole covers being lifted and burning gasoline being poured into the holes. The fires caused cables to melt, resulting in network congestion in the area.
Several reports released this week by a collection of research organizations and statistics monitoring firms served to shed some light on the state of the Web hosting industry as well as the threats that it faces and the impact those threats have.
A report released on Monday by research organization the ebi Group indicated that Web hosting companies focused on the small and medium-sized business market saw dramatic changes to the industry during the 2001-2002 year, which saw 83 percent more mergers and acquisitions than in previous years. The 32-page report, entitled "Life in the Acquisition Lane: SME Web Hosting Industry Buyouts and Mergers in 2001 - 2002," examines the impact that mergers and acquisitions had on the SME hosting business over the past year.
According to a report released Tuesday by Internet performance monitoring organization Matrix NetSystems, a distributed denial of service attack detected Monday briefly impacted the Internet's performance. The attack, which targeted the Internet's 13 root DNS servers, caused sharp increases in latency and packet loss at its peak, and continued to have a smaller impact on performance. On Thursday, Matrix reported that performance levels had returned to normal.
A report released on Tuesday by digital attack research organization mi2g says that while the number of digital attacks has doubled in 2002 compared to 2001, the estimated economic damage caused by those attacks has remained about the same. According to mi2g, the data demonstrates a remarkable decline in the quality of targets chosen for attack.
Along with the research and statistical information this week, came news from several companies regarding sales and acquisitions in businesses closely related to Web hosting.
It was reported on Monday that Linux developer Red Hat had acquired server monitoring software company NOCpulse, in a move that would allow Red Hat to offer advanced network administration functions, including the ability to monitor networked computers as a group. NOCpulse's Command Center application monitors computers running a variety of operating systems. Analysts say the enhanced monitoring and management features will improve Red Hat's ability to compete in the high-end server market.
And on Thursday, mergers and acquisitions specialist Daniels & Associates announced that it had represented Tier 1 IP networking company Epoch Networks Inc. in its recent sale to IP connectivity solution provider Netifice Inc. The deal, announced last week, saw Epoch's Tier 1 network and MPLS-enabled backbone become part of Netifice's technology platform.
This week also saw the launch of a number of new products geared toward Web hosting providers, including security, storage, customer acquisition and load balancing solutions.
On Monday, Intenret security company Comodo announced that it had been chosen to power the new SSL product range of Danish Internet applications and services provider BitEngines. Launched this week, the BitEngines QualitySSL product provides 128bit SSL Certificates with 99 percent browser compatibility, full validation and expert customer care.
Also on Monday, storage over SONET extension solution provider Akara and facilities-based carrier LightWave Communications announced that they have joined forces to launch LightWave's storage over SONET managed service offering. Along with the launch of the product, the companies announced the product's first deployment at managed Web hosting provider Digex Inc.
On Wednesday, Web server and infrastructure solution developer Zeus Technology announced that it has released its next generation software load balancer and traffic manager, Zeus Load Balancer 1.6. Zeus says new and existing users of the load balancer provided the inspiration for many of the product's new features, including automatic session persistence; port mapping; FTP Load Balancing; Connection Draining; and Connection Limiting.
And on Thursday, e-business and wireless product developer Veeo announced that it has introduced SiteMover, a content migration service designed to speed the process of new customer acquisition for Web hosts. Veeo says the SiteMover service helps Web hosting companies in offering their services to customers with existing Web sites. SiteMover packs the customer's data, intelligently manages links, protects database integrity and migrates the contents of storefronts to and from a range of platforms, making it simple for a hosting customer to move between providers.
While this week's Web hosting news was broad and varied, with much of it coming from just outside the fringes of the hosting industry itself, there was still plenty of reading for anyone in the hosting business interested in keeping an eye on the climate of the communications business at large, as well as the range of new products and services constantly being introduced to the hosting community.