Irish Politics and Hosting

steve-hosting36

Well, I hope that's not us, as we have invested heavily in recent times ina 'real' 24/7 support team - send us a ticket any time to see the responses!

As for softlayers example - a few points:

- It's not a 'server' grade chipset (core 2 duo chip, as opposed to server xeons)
- It's a 10mbps uplink (We do 100Mbps as standard)
- You get 5 IP addresses (we provide them free)
- you get a 99.9% SLA (we provide 100%)
- you get a 4 hour hardware SLA (we give 1-2 hours depending on server)

If I configure a server to match our entry level, with dual drives in raid 1, Xeon dual core processors, etc, the price is US$336 per month which is almost identical to our price of 249.95 euro.

Seth Brundle

can we get back on topic (if its not too late?)?

Should public representatives support Irish business (as much as they can without taking brown envelopes) or should they do their part and try to keep costs down by using foreign services and products?

IMO they should use Irish services and I don't believe that in terms of hosting the service is better abroad. Even more important is that if public representatives support foreign businesses then they send out the message that this is OK and in the long term this can't be good for Irish trade!

steve-hosting36

The key point methinks is that using offshore services does not actually represent cost savings at all.

zAbbo

steve-hosting36 wrote:

The key point methinks is that using offshore services does not actually represent cost savings at all.

No, the key point is whoever is designing these websites are not using Irish based hosting services.

Probably charging an arm & leg as well.

cgarvey

steve-hosting36 wrote:

Well, I hope that's not us

It is I'm afraid. I hear you on your strong SLA, but you're ignoring the superior infrastructure of SoftLayer plus many additional features. Rackspace give you similar spec with an equally strong SLA for less. The Planet do, for a lot less than you (with a weaker SLA than yours, though).

I won't drag it out further, just to say I've yet to see a convincing argument that Irish hosters are competitive for dedicated server hosting (budget or premium).

That's in contrast to my earlier state opinion that shared hosting is competitive and compares well with the rest of the world (especially when you take massive overselling of small resellers in to account). Most politicians have very basic websites that really ought to be here. As Damien said, that's not to say that if shared hosting was a rip-off here they should still host here. It's not and that's in a large way thanks to the hosters who post here (including you Steve )

The GAA one is a different kettle of fish, though.

mneylon

kbannon wrote:

Should public representatives support Irish business (as much as they can without taking brown envelopes) or should they do their part and try to keep costs down by using foreign services and products?

They should support Irish business.

We employ over a dozen people directly.

Most candidates' sites would easily fit on an entry level hosting plan from any of the Irish hosting companies, so there's absolutely no reason for them to host overseas.

Dave!

Hardly a huge issue like....... Headlines like "SF not supporting Irish indiginous enterprise" are ridiculous. I'd say they wear foreign-made clothes, too, and eat the odd foreign-made meal......

Seth Brundle

maybe not but this is the webmaster forum hence why we are talking about it.
Furthermore, they all were alereted of this issue around the time of the last general election so they cannot claim ignorance of it as an excuse.
The simple fact is that they should be encouraging the use of Irish businesses whenever possible. In this instance three of our main political partys are not!

McSandwich

zabbo wrote:

No, the key point is whoever is designing these websites are not using Irish based hosting services.

Probably charging an arm & leg as well.

Exactly. We can blame politicians for many things, but if they pay an Irish designer to produce their website and that designer hosts it in Kazakhstan, how can we blame the customer (politician)?

Seth Brundle

I don't accept that.
As they were made aware of this issue several years ago it would be something that they are aware of. They could have mentioned it when discussing the site with their webmasters

leftofcentre

I think both views are valid. In the past irish hosting was very expensive and support did tend to stop at 5pm.

Now things are a lot better, prices are better but there is a real shortage of innovation.

I am considering moving some of my sites back to ireland, mainly for google reasons, but the things i want are:

• VPS servers - no one seems to offer these
• Spam filtering as standard (blacknight have this, 365 do not)
• Backup service as standard

If I could get these from an irish supplier to would be great.

Also Stephen your support is nothing to boast about, its takes me over a day on average to get a response from 365 to windows hosting problems

When are the new 365 hosting offers launching?

Bob the Builder

kbannon wrote:

Like who?

I'm not going to do advertising but Bluehost.com is the host... Although, typically, they would be one of the best hosts I have yet to find in my years of trolling the web...

kbannon wrote:

Are you including Eircom in there?

Oh god, noo, I have a client thats been nicely ripped off by them, how the hell do they get away being so uncompetitive??

Bob the Builder

leftofcentre wrote:

If I could get these from an irish supplier to would be great.

Make that an iffy! ...and if you do find a company, you will no way see prices similar/less to what you were paying! ...and if you do, please tell me!

damien

kbannon wrote:

Should public representatives support Irish business (as much as they can without taking brown envelopes) or should they do their part and try to keep costs down by using foreign services and products?

If the Irish business can be as competitive or offers something better but for a little higher price then support them. Otherwise, no. Why in god's name should anyone, political party or not, subsidise an inefficient business? This is like the crap army regulations in the states where they had to use a local supplier instead of the cheapest supplier and all of a sudden they were paying 60 dollars for jacks roll. It isn't business if you are paying too much for any Irish service, then it's just charity.

kbannon wrote:

Even more important is that if public representatives support foreign businesses then they send out the message that this is OK and in the long term this can't be good for Irish trade!

Actually it *is* good for Irish trade. If the local market is healthy then the exported products will be quality enough to get used. Consumers around the world could not give a tuppeny feck if Irish people are buying Irish products, they care about price and quality.

If Irish people considered that when buying Irish instead of some nonsensical tricolour flying patriotism schlock then businesses here might get out of their civil service "enough to get the job done" mentality and start making good on a world stage. It is patriotic to point out what needs fixing and not to tolerate second or third best.

Boston

Damien makes some good points. You lads wouldn't be advising people to get their broadband for eircom just because it's a big irish (I know technically it's not) company.

Seth Brundle

Brian Cowen mentioned on Prime Time tonight that Fg was sourcing their election posters from abroad so spending a few quid on foreign hosting isn't going to cause them to lose sleep I guess!

mneylon

nevf wrote:

how the hell do they get away being so uncompetitive??

People are still happy to pay them (and others)

If you look at some of the offerings in other markets you will always find a range of prices that will vary from extremely cheap (and possibly nasty) through economical to overpriced to downright rip off.

mneylon

Boston wrote:

You lads wouldn't be advising people to get their broadband for eircom just because it's a big irish (I know technically it's not) company.

I actually would

Maybe not for me, but the home packages suit my mother perfectly.

mneylon

leftofcentre wrote:

Now things are a lot better, prices are better but there is a real shortage of innovation.

What would you classify as innovation?

axer

Is €35/€40 a year that expensive for hosting?

Boston

axer wrote:

Is €35/€40 a year that expensive for hosting?

Well if someone else is charging 25 then its a rip off. Whats your point. You guys are making out that the politicians are making the decisions on where a site is hosted. That's deliberately miss leading, in all likely hood its someone with a clue and with a fair amount of experience.

axer

Boston wrote:

Well if someone else is charging 25 then its a rip off. Whats your point. You guys are making out that the politicians are making the decisions on where a site is hosted. That's deliberately miss leading, in all likely hood its someone with a clue and with a fair amount of experience.

My point is Irish hosting is not that much more expensive than foreign hosting. €35/€40 is not a huge amount to be paying for hosting. IMO the extra cost is worth it.

steve-hosting36

leftofcentre wrote:

• VPS servers - no one seems to offer these
• Spam filtering as standard (blacknight have this, 365 do not)
• Backup service as standard

If I could get these from an irish supplier to would be great.

Also Stephen your support is nothing to boast about, its takes me over a day on average to get a response from 365 to windows hosting problems

When are the new 365 hosting offers launching?

Hi Brian,

Just looked at your last few tickets, a lot less than a day Besides that, we have some really cool innovation on the way, including many of the things on your list and a few more. It's always important to compare apples with apples, running open source filtering tools on email servers is not the same as providing a comprehensive, enterprise grade spam and virus filtering solution.

It's easy to say that off shore hosting is cheap, and, with many providers, it really is. Up until a year ago we were offering dedicated servers from 59.95 euro - they didnt sell - so the market isnt price driven, and as for US hosts having superior infrastructure, I would argue that they dont have anything 'better' they just have 'more' of everything

I think a vibrant and engaged hosting / provider community is essential to the development of the general IT/Web scene in Ireland.

Boston

axer wrote:

My point is Irish hosting is not that much more expensive than foreign hosting. €35/€40 is not a huge amount to be paying for hosting. IMO the extra cost is worth it.

Worth what though? I have a real problem with native industry which can't compete being support for the shake of it. It just leads to more bad pratice. For example, theres a new gym in Trinity, and theres talk of making everyone members by talking out of the colelge registration fees. So now they don't have to complete for clients its the same old crap service with crap equipment. We shouldn't be arguing for the protectionist stance, especially for IT industry, since we get so much foreign business. The digital age of communications means you have to complete globally.