New Web Hosting Provider: SingleHop.com

We have selected a new web hosting company, SingleHop.com, Inc., who will be providing us not only the server boxes and operating system we want but also the type of support that we're looking for in a provider.

We're working directly with Drew Hurlburt, the Vice President of Sales for SingleHop. I'm confident that Drew and his team are able to give us what we're looking for: a web hosting provider who works with us as a business partner and who will respond quickly to help us add more capacity (RAM and server boxes) so that our systems stay well ahead of BlogPatrol's membership needs. Keeping our system's capacities ahead of BlogPatrol's growth will be a huge part of achieving the bottom line for BlogPatrol 2.0: reliability, accuracy, and speed of service for all of our users.

Our soon-to-be ex-provider, EV1Servers.net, was purchased last year by ThePlanet.com. They're pretty good, and seem even better with the new leadership, resources, and offerings resulting from the merger. Even as EV1Servers though, they just seemed too big for a company like BlogPatrol that is looking for more direct attention and dedicated service. Also, we are looking for a flavor of operating system, Debian 3.1 (Sarge), that The Planet does not readily support, but which SingleHop does.

SingleHop is in its own process of renovations to add ample space for its own fantastic growth rate. We believe they are worth the wait of few weeks, so we'll let you know when the servers are available to us. Here's an article about SingleHop's innovative concept of customizing "the level of [managed] support [services] to their [customers'] needs and expertise, rather than working with fixed-fee trouble tickets or vague tiers of support service."

I'm glad to report though that we've selected our new partner to help us insure the future success of BlogPatrol.