Hosting services

While we were developing the Association for European Transport’s (AET) web sites, they asked us to host and transfer their domain registrations on their behalf.

Project details

Client: Association for European Transport
Project: Hosting services
Date: 15 Nov 2012

Scope

AET asked us to host the redeveloped web sites that we had built for them. The hosting of the sites included:

  • publishing the sites on our hosting platform; 
  • providing security certificates (SSL); and,
  • transferring their domains to our registry service.

Our solution

When the Association asked us to consider hosting their web sites, we weighed several issues before proposing a solution:

  • the expected traffic on the sites at various times of the year;
  • the continuously expanding space requirements from an exponentially increasing catalogue of conference papers in their repository;
  • the expected space requirements of the current back catalogue of conference papers already available;
  • the processing needs of the new web sites, notably when they would automate many laborious processes; and,
  • the protection of other services from the potential issues caused by the Association’s loose security risks.

In partnership with the Association, we agreed to provide a VPS server for the Association’s web sites. The server would allow for considerable expansion of the repository and an expected increase in traffic and processing requirements.

We also agreed to provide security certificates (SSL) for the web sites and to maintain the registry records for the Association’s domain names.

Successes

We provided the Association with a VPS server to host their web sites between 2012 and 2017. During that time, the server performed excellently and provided sufficient space and processing power.

Challenges

The primary weakness for the server was the security offered by the Association’s fragmented IT support. Many individuals connected to the servers using unprotected or poorly protected systems. There was one major incident that was the result of a virus on an Association administrator’s laptop.

If we had hosted the Association’s web sites on a shared hosting platform, the potential issues caused by this virus could have spread to other clients and services. As we had provided a virtual server, we were able to mitigate these risks to other clients.

Impacts of the project

We provided the Association with a powerful VPS and regular maintenance support on–call. The Association was satisfied with the service we provided for many years, and the Association’s users were able to use the services without interruption or lag.