ReadyWire Multimedia Solutions

Tonight, tornado sirens were blaring all across Chicago.  Hail, wind, and rain was sent beating across windows and weather forecasters braced themselves for a rough night.

Even though the storm hit shortly after the end of rush hour, Chicagoans still had to deal with traffic nightmares, as two Chicago-area expressways were shutdown for a short period of time.  The Eisenhower Expressway was closed for nearly two hours in both directions because of flooding and both directions of the Stevenson Expressway were still closed at the writing of this blog entry.  According to WMAQ-TV, over 100,000 customers were left without power as a result of the storm.  Thankfully, ReadyWire.com was not among the thousands left without power.

Even though some Chicagoland area data centers encountered power outages as a result of the major storm, according to Panopta uptime reports, ReadyWire’s network remained rock steady.

ReadyWire and our data center partners take up-time seriously.  Millions of dollars has been invested in redundant gear from generators all the way down to network switches.  All of the datacenters that ReadyWire leases space in feature dual-city grid power feeds, meaning power does not come from one source.  Should power supplied by the electric company go out, battery backups will automatically take over by providing the necessary juice until on-site diesel generators can be switched on to power the facility.

Should you have any questions regarding how ReadyWire and our data center partners are prepared for contingencies, please do not hesitate to email us.

Although VeriSign made the announcement in December, news is just now starting to circulate.

.COM & .NET Domain Name Prices to Rise

On July 1, 2010, VeriSign will increase the prices that they charge all registrars for .COM and .NET domain names.  As a result, registrars such as NetEarthOne, ReadyWire’s exclusive domain name partner, will be forced to pass along the increase to us.

.COM domain names will increase by 48 cents USD and .NET domain names will increase by 42 cents USD.

Beat the Increase!  Renew today!

If you have five to ten domain names, an increase of 48 cents might not seem like that big of a deal for you.  However, for customers who manage hundreds of domain names, this can be a big deal.

The clock is ticking!  Renew your domain names at today’s rates!  Click here to login to the ReadyWire Customer Portal.  Once inside, click “Manage Domain Names.”

We are always looking for ways to enhance the ReadyWire Customer portal.  We have moved a lot of things around over the past few weeks in an attempt to make things easier for our customers.  Plus, a number of new features have been added:

• Firewall Control-  If you or a client is being blocked by our server’s firewall, you no longer need to open a support ticket.  Instead, simply login to the ReadyWire Customer Portal and unblock IP addresses yourself!  For instructions on how to take advantage of this powerful feature, please click here.
• Server Reboots-  Is your server not responding?  Feat not!  We’re here to help.   Simply login and click the “Server Reboot Request” button.  A notification will instantly be dispatched to the ReadyWire Datacenter Team.
• rDNS Record Updates-  By filling out one simple form, you can update your rDNS records.  Simply click on “Modify rDNS Records.”

Without a doubt, Single Sign-on (SSO) has to be the number one feature request, meaning once you login to the ReadyWire Customer Portal, you can login to other systems (cPanel, Panopta, NetEarthOne Domain Name account, MS Exchange Control Panel, etc) related to your hosting account without having to enter another username or password.  A couple of these systems are already integrated into the portal (Panopta & cPanel), but we hope to have the remaining systems integrated soon.

Is there something that you would like to be able to accomplish yourself by simply logging in the ReadyWire Customer Portal?  Are you tired of having to open support tickets to have simple commands performed by our technicians?  If so, please click here and tell us!   We’re always looking for new features to add to the control panel.

When we formed ReadyWire many years ago, we worked to provide website design/consulting services to a small portfolio of clients.  As our portfolio grew, so did the needs of our clients.  Shared website hosting was quickly added to the fold, followed by reseller hosting, and then virtual private servers.  In late 2008, we launched a line of dedicated server solutions.  Today, I’m delighted to announce our next chapter.

ReadyWire Launches West Coast Hosting Operation

An official press release will be sent out soon, but I wanted to share some exciting developments with you.  We are growing!  By Summer 2010, ReadyWire’s hosting footprint will include California’s Silicon Valley.

The datacenter space that we will be moving into possesses a phenomenal Internet backbone and is consistently ranked as one of the best in the world.  When it’s all said and done, we will be connected to the internet via connections ranging from OC192, OC48, and 10GigE (10,000Mbps).

In layman’s terms, the facility is secure & conveniently located.  Frankly, the network is fast.  Very fast.

Let me put it this way.  The California datacenter space is roughly 2,500 miles from my home here in Chicago, whereas our main Chicago datacenter facility is located roughly 8 miles from me.  Although ping times to the California facility are a little higher in comparison to ping times to our Chicago facility, download times are surprisingly faster.  On multiple occasions, I was able to download a 1,000MB file from the California datacenter faster than I was able to download that very same file from our Chicago datacenter.  The results were astounding.

Now, I know that the aforementioned test isn’t very measurable or scientific.  However, I what I can tell you is that the datacenter in California operates its own international high performance fiber network.  The network is directly connected to 31+ major exchange points including Palo Alto Internet Exchange (PAIX), New York Internet Exchange (NYIIX), Ashburn, VA, 350 E. Cermak in Chicago, LINX in London, and many more.   All in all, the datacenter network is peering directly with over 1,250 major domestic and international networks.  To review more technical information about the facility, please click here. 

Our administrative team is almost finished with the contracts and our technical team is currently working on getting all of the equipment into place.  Once everything has been tested for customer use, the next step will be to start racking customer servers.

Are you in need of more power and control over your hosting experience?  Do you require the flexibility that comes from controlling your own server hardware?  If so, ReadyWire’s new colocation services were created with you in mind.

Down the road, we do plan on offering our standard portfolio of services (shared & reseller hosting, virtual private servers, dedicated servers, etc) out of the Silicon Valley facility, but for now the focus is on colocation.

Reserve your Colocation Space today!

The ReadyWire sales team is accepting pre-orders for colocation space now.  If you would like to receive an estimate or learn more about how ReadyWire’s Colocation Services can assist your business, please do not hesitate to contact us by completing the form on this webpage.

Without a doubt, inquiries about IP’s being blocked by our server’s firewall is one of the most popular topics of tickets that come across our help desk.  Earlier this month, our team added a feature to our customer portal that enables you to unblock IP addresses yourself without having to open a help desk ticket.  Basically, all you need to do is type in the IP address of someone who is being blocked.  If the system confims that the IP address is being denied access to our server, you’ll have the option of unblocking it.  Within a minute or two, the IP will be removed from the server’s deny list and you or your client should be able to access the server once again.

Here is what you will need to do to check and see if an IP is being blocked:

1.)  Login to the ReadyWire Customer Portal by visiting https://secure.readywire.com/.

2.)  Click “Manage Services.”

3.)  Find the appropriate hosting account and click “View Details.”

4.)  Scroll down to the section labeled “Firewall Control.”

5.)  Under the section labeled “Attention Resellers,” you will find a text box.  Enter the IP address that you suspect to be blocked.  Click “Reseller:  Search Client IP” when finished

6.)  Simply follow the prompts.  You will either be told that the IP address is not being blocked or you will be presented with the reason why the IP is being blocked.  If the IP is being blocked, you will have the option of unblocking it by clicking a button.

If the IP address isn’t removed from our firewall, or if we can provide personal assistance, please do not hesitate to open a support ticket by visiting http://www.readywire.com/support/.