Champion Blog

These days every business is trying to be as green as possible, but what about going green in web hosting companies? It seems almost oxymoronic that a data processing business would be able to go green. After all, it takes a lot of power to keep all those servers, PC’s and associated equipment humming along at max capacity. It would almost seem impossible. Unlike other businesses that use less energy, web hosting businesses can’t really use solar or wind power yet. Or, if they do it only accounts for a small portion of energy use.

So, how does a company go about going green in web hosting? Well, the truth is there are many creative ways for a data processing company to be green and they are all quite simple, inexpensive and can save lots of money and the environment when put in place. First of all bigger is not always better. Keeping your facility as simple as possible does a lot to keep costs down and protect the environment around you. Ask yourself, does my web hosting business really have to have an ornate entryway or waiting area? Most likely the answer is no.

Many Data Centers use additional gas or electricity to heat and cool the non-data portions of their facilities. However we’re implementing heat pumps that utilize the heat from the data center to heat the offices and generator quarters in the winter and utilize the data centers highly resourceful cooling towers to provide cooling to the offices in the summer. This not only saves us money on burning gas or electricity to heat the space, but is more environmentally friendly. Our use of well water for the cooling towers also provides geothermal heat removal since all the water being input to the towers is from the earth at a constant 55 degrees Fahrenheit which removes BTU’s from the water and the building naturally. This gives us natural BTU removal through geothermal cooling but it also gives us a big savings in water replacement and reduces the amount of electricity needed to allocate city water over long distances and the harmful chemicals used in its treatment for drinking purification, as well conserves potable water in the city’s watershed.

Going green in web hosting businesses is as easy as using some common sense. For instance it is well known that newer machines are more efficient. So, take some of that money you would have used for dressing up your facility and replace your servers and PC’s. Then make sure you have a good solid replacement program put in place so you can keep your facility efficient by replacing machines when newer models come out. What about those old machines? Why, recycle them of course. We recycle all of our cardboard, metals and our old computers. Nothing goes to landfills except non recyclable garbage. We’re serious about our commitment to the environment. As a customer, you can be sure that we’re doing our best to be the least wasteful, most energy efficient Web Hosting Company.

One other thing to consider when going green in web hosting businesses is the manner in which you cool down equipment. Take a good look at your cooling systems and make sure you are using the most efficient equipment in the best possible manner. You can save a lot of energy and a lot of money by just making some minor adjustments. Packaging materials are a real bane to the environment so come up with a program for reducing your use of packing materials. You will find it is easier than you may think. Can a web hosting business go green? You bet it can! It’s been proven.

It’s critical that businesses complement their servers with an investment in a high-quality backup and storage solution.

By Andrew Champion

Businesses of all sizes are increasing their use of the Internet on a daily basis. They are using the Internet to communicate, publish content and store and process data with the help of web-based applications. With all of this content and data being created and stored on servers, there is a corresponding need to ensure its safety. Hard drives can fail, servers can be hacked, human error can cause data to be deleted, and the data centers that house these servers could catch fire or become victim to natural disasters or even terrorist attacks. All of these are plausible scenarios that can threaten the integrity of the data stored on a server.

Because of these realities, it is absolutely critical that businesses complement their servers with an investment in a high-quality backup and storage solution. This will guarantee that mission-critical data and content is backed up regularly and protected against technical failure, human error or disaster. All types of organizations need this type of insurance. A single hard drive failure can result in the permanent loss of important content, contact information, sales records and financial data. Such a disaster would be a death sentence for any organization conducting business on the Internet. There are other good reasons to have a backup plan. With the right protection in place, customers can be free to experiment and push their servers to do more without having to worry about the negative ramifications. It also brings peace of mind that contributes positively to an organization’s operations.

Buy data protection from a hosting company

It makes a great deal of sense to buy storage and backup solutions from a hosting company. They already host the customer’s server and data protection is a logical extension to web hosting that can be integrated and run off the same network. Customers also benefit from a single bill for all their IT hosting services and by working with their hosting company, have a single point of contact, a high degree of familiarity and comfort and the ability to manage their environment from a single unified interface.

Customers should understand that backup and storage is typically not included with a standard dedicated server. It is usually purchased as an optional add-on service. However, a problem in the market is that many hosting companies are not aggressive about educating and selling customers about the importance of data protection. Even worse, many hosting companies do not even have an affordable, fully functional and easy to use solution. Customers that value their data and want backup and storage services should look for a hosting company that has the breadth and quality of services they are looking for.

Champion Consulting’s Data LockBox

Champion Consulting has been in the hosting business for over a decade and offers its customers Data LockBox, a backup and storage solution built on R1Soft’s industry-leading Continuous Data Protection (CDP) software. CDP enables customers to back up their servers by providing near real-time replication of their data. Champion Consulting installs the CDP software on the customer’s server and it takes snapshots and duplicates the content and data onto a separate backup server. Because the data replication process is continuous, customers are able to restore their servers to a designated point in time in the event of hardware failure or disaster. CDP provides bare metal restore capabilities – bringing back the original state of the server, complete with the entire operating system, settings and data. No re-configuring or re-installation of the operating system is required.

Data LockBox brings a number of other features and capabilities to the table.
CDP backs up incrementally, copying only sectors of a disk that have changed since the previous backup. Combined with standard compression technology, this reduces storage utilization and CPU overhead significantly and enables the replication process to be completed within minutes. CDP also features full data encryption during transmission and in storage, ensuring robust levels of security. Other features include a MySQL database add-on, true database in-memory backup, event logs, reporting capabilities and support for both Windows and Linux-based virtual machines.

With Data LockBox, customers receive access to a web-based control panel, which allows them to manage their data protection capabilities and instantly restore content directly from the backup systems. Customer can also set backups to take place on an hourly basis. The level of control provided through the management tool gives customers that prefer to be hands-on the flexibility they are looking for and enables them to access their solution remotely and on a 24/7 basis.

Data LockBox supports servers running on both the Linux and Windows platforms and can be used to backup hosted servers, on-premise servers, office workstations and personal computers. Champion Consulting also provides back up servers – powered with free versions of R1Soft – to other hosting companies on a white label basis.

Champion Consulting has been in the backup and storage business for several years, having been one of R1Soft’s beta testers and original hosting partners. With a long history hosting for the SMB and enterprise community, and a strong technical grasp of storage technology, Champion Consulting is uniquely positioned to meet the data protection needs of customers.

About Champion Consulting

Champion Consulting, founded in 1995, is an industry-leading provider of web hosting services to small and medium-sized businesses, government agencies and non-profit organizations worldwide. Customers enjoy the flexibility of choosing from a full suite of hosting solutions, ranging from shared hosting and virtual private servers to dedicated hosting and managed hosting. Champion Consulting also operates a reseller program, helping smaller organizations jump into the hosting business or augment their current offerings. Each Champion Consulting hosting plan is backed by a world-class data center infrastructure and network, and supported by a rock solid customer service operation. With over a decade of experience, Champion Consulting helps organizations realize their full potential by capturing the power of the Internet.

To learn more, please visit: Champion Consulting dot com

Please tell us a little about yourself.

Im 42, a father of 1, and when I’m not shackled to a desk I enjoy spending time with the family, fishing, and playing drums. Anyone that knows me will tell you I’m very big on core values in every person we hire, and every project we take on. Core values such as honesty, integrity, and respect are often set aside in the modern world and particularly behind the veil of anonymity of the internet. I believe this is precisely the area where people should adhere to those values the most. If you do, a reference is as easy as saying “google me”.

Can you summarize your educational experience for us?

I graduated high school in 86 and I spent 7yrs learning and growing as a person. I took some computer coarses, but eventually the demand and excitement of Champion Consulting led me to exit the go at hosting full time.

What do you consider as your accomplishments up to this point?

That I’ve managed to keep a healthy marriage, and all while running a very demanding business for over 10yrs. Hitting milestones such as 100 servers has been exciting as well.

Any failures you’d like to tell us about?

Nobody grows as a company or person without some failure. More importantly though is the lessons you take away from the experience. One big failing in the past was letting my excitement get the better of us by not planning properly for our growth. There is no growth worth hurting a reputation built up by a decade of hard work. Now we work our hardest on preserving that ideal.

What is your primary occupation?

Whatever my staff, clients, and partners need from me. I wear the CEO title but the truth is that even with people working for me I still enjoy getting involved in the daily activities where it all got started. Our company is all about reflecting that person touch.

How do you manage your time? Will you describe what you do on a daily and/or weekly basis?

Between my wife and my Phone I’m able to stay on top of things pretty well most of the time. My week involves a lot of email between my staff, management meetings, networking with other professionals, going over reports from the various areas of our companies, and of course some daily interactions with clients on forums, instant messengers, and the phone.

Do you oversell?

We don’t, except for our shared hosting plans. None of our reseller, VPS, or hybrid plans have any features that are oversold. The shared technology we use and our vast experience lets us manage the shared environments so well that we simply never run into the tiny things some watch all the time like disk space. Simply put, we just can’t run out of disk space. Even as we speak all our clients could increase their usage immediately by 500% and it wouldn’t cause alarm. Like cell phone minutes and bandwidth, the prices of storage are so minute these days its hard to justify placing a limit and letting a 2tb system only collect dust while 80% of the space sits wasted. Overselling as a means of marketing actually is the best way we can tell clients “use more, if you don’t nobody will” . And our system is setup so you have to have 80% of an initial quota actually used before you request more, but you can request more as many times as you want and its automatically added.

Tell us about your control panel, is it based on cPanel and what makes it special?

In our shared environment we use cPanel exclusively, but for VPS, hybrid, and dedicated servers we offer and support a wide range of control panels and software. We have developed a proprietary platform that ties into our servers, billing, software, ips, staff, and pretty much our entire operation. I wouldn’t want to imagine running a company this size and complex without it.

As part of your managed services you propose monitoring, does that include proactive responses?

Yes. And we have some really exciting improvements coming to our operation in the next 30-60 days that will improve that response greatly by adding new methods of alerts and new tools for clients and our staff to respond to those alerts.

You propose VPS solutions on Champion Consulting and yet you operate Champion VPS too, why?

Champion Access dot com was started off for two reasons; we didn’t want to mix our managed Virtuozzo offering in Champion Access dot com with the unmanaged xen VPS offering. And we wanted a fresh place to kickoff our VPS Control software that took years to develop and perfect. We will begin offering the software to the public this year. Finally there is a xen based vps hosting control panel that hosts can rely on.

You have offices in multiple cities and you have also remote technicians all over the world, how do you manage them?

With our software, and my great management team. If I had to manage a staff this size on my own it would consume my day. I empower the managers of the various departments to give them a chance to really make a difference in peoples lives and in the companies growth.

Do you own your data centers?

Not yet. We run colo cages, racks, and other specialized agreements with facilities in Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, the UK, and Singapore. We are expanding to other cities as well as currently planning our own facility.

You have a very active community, how did your business benefit from it?

It hasn’t stopped benefiting from it yet . Our clients are equally as awesome as our staff. Often clients are eager to learn things for themselves or just might be curious about something. When they take those issues to our community not only does it reduce our own support load, it builds a sense of community, adds content, and perpetuates itself.

What can we expect in the future?

We love taking the lead and pushing boundaries of what defines a product. We were right out front pushing vps long before most even knew what it was. In fact I had to request from the owners of WHT to get vps categories and forums added many years ago. We plan to do more of the same and push the envelope of whats possible. This year is no exception, we have some great deals coming very soon made possible by a few unique partnerships we just finalized.

What does the future hold for Andrew Champion?

Only God knows for certain but I’ll keep doing what I do best. Because its working for me. I do plan to continue pursuing our larger plans, building data centers, and diversifying Champion Consulting in many other non-hosting related opportunities as well. So far I’ve been very fortunate and enjoy spreading it around. Ask me again in another 10yrs

– Champion Consulting, a leading provider of end-to-end web hosting solutions, announced today that they have selected R1Soft’s Continuous Data Protection (CDP) as the backup software for all their Windows and Linux servers. In conjuction with newly deployed network attached storage devices, Champion Consulting now provides all its customers multiple backups to ensure unparalleled protection of their data.

The deal includes purchasing R1Soft’s enterprise data center license that will cover Champion Consulting’s entire network. Every NAS device within the network is currently being installed with CDP, which is also compliant with all major acts such as HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley and Gramm-Leach-Bliley. Champion Consulting is also deploying many new NAS appliances to increase backup capacities as the company continues to experience rapid growth.

R1Soft’s CDP products diverge significantly from traditional backup technologies, which essentially copy files at intervals from hard disks to another medium, such as a tape drive. These methods only provide data protection on a daily or weekly basis, resulting in large losses of data in the event of a disaster. R1Soft’s CDP Server, however, monitors changes to the disk as they happen, thereby reducing backup windows to seconds or minutes. It also affords even busy servers a significantly higher level of reliability in the event of a disaster, with higher levels of compression while using far less cpu resources.

“With the full deployment of R1Soft’s CDP Data Center in conjuction with the new NAS installs, Champion Consulting will be offering all its customers backup that is second to none in the industry,” says Greg Landis, president of Champion Consulting. “Not only can every machine in our network be fully backed up regardless of usage, we have also forecasted and allocated significant free space for expansion.”

“We are thrilled to assist Champion Consulting and their teams in taking the way they currently safeguard their clients’ data to the next level,” said David Wartell, founder and chief executive officer of R1Soft. “Champion Consulting truly understands that traditional methods of backups are unacceptable, and that being able to protect data multiple times per hour is the upcoming standardization of the hosting industry.”

About Champion Consulting

Champion Consulting, LLC based in Old Lyme, Connecticut and owned by Champion Technologies LLC Hosting, provides high-quality Internet hosting solutions to small and medium-sized businesses, government agencies, prominent individuals and non-profit organizations worldwide. Champion Consulting’s core portfolio comprises information technology and business hosting services, as well as programming services. Champion Consulting’s complementary subsidiary businesses are Champion Access , a vps and dedicated provider specializing in the Windows platform, and Content Management software, a web software company.

Learn more at www.championconsulting.com.

About R1Soft

Founded in 2003, R1Soft is a provider of Continuous Data Protection (CDP) software. Offering low cost, scalable and high-performance products, the company has quickly been recognized by industry leaders as the standard for Linux data protection.

For more information about R1Soft, please visit http://www.r1soft.com or call 1-800-956-6198.

Old Lyme, CT. April 4, 2008 – Champion Consulting, a leading provider of end-to-end web hosting solutions for over a decade, today announced the “Endless Disk Space” promotion that gives clients continuous free upgrades as needed when they reach 80% capacity. Shared hosting clients begin with 40 GB of disk space and semi-dedicated hosting clients start with 200 GB. As soon as 80% capacity is reached, customers can instantly add more with one click from the control panel. When their new capacity approaches 80%, once again they can increase their disk space.

In contrast to misleading industry promotions with unlimited or grossly inflated resources with their hosting packages and bury the conditions for account termination in small-print terms of service, the Champion Consulting promotion is straightforward and meant to bring transparency to the battle of disk space.

“The industry has gotten a bit crazy recently with ridiculous numbers being thrown around and hosts knowing full well they wouldn’t be able to handle the load if all their customers took them up on the offer,” says Greg Landis, president of Champion Consulting. “We stepped back and asked ourselves what is the right thing to do for our customers? Why don’t we give them peace of mind without making these over the top promises? In essence, Endless Disk Space simply means you will have capacity that always grows with your needs.”

Champion Consulting’s new web site includes a community forum, updated web hosting and company blog, user-friendly control panel and client management software.

In addition, Champion Consulting has made a number of changes:

• Semi-dedicated accounts now have a failover hosting options to provide greater redundancy and peace of mind
• New dedicated server plans have been rolled out
• All reseller plans have had their disk space and bandwidth doubled while keeping the same prices, retroactive for all existing clients

For more information about Endless Disk Space, go to Champion Consulting Shared Hosting.

About Champion Consulting

Champion Consulting, based in Old Lyme Connecticut, provides high-quality Internet hosting solutions to small and medium-sized businesses, government agencies, prominent individuals and non-profit organizations worldwide. Champion Consulting’s core portfolio comprises information technology and business hosting services, as well as programming services. Champion Consulting’s complementary subsidiary business's are Aticoms, Champion Access, Cougarwhole, software companys. Learn more at Champion Consulting website.

Champion Consulting, an industry-leading provider of end-to-end web hosting services, today announced that the web site building software tool RVSiteBuilder Pro will be available with all shared and reseller hosting packages.

RVSiteBuilder Pro is a hosted web site building software application that features an intuitive WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) user interface and a large library of ready-made templates that allow users to create a professional looking web site in literally minutes. A wide selection of themes allow users to create a web site for almost any purpose, whether it be a blog, photo gallery or a web presence for a small business.

RVSiteBuilder Pro enables users to build much more than plain vanilla web sites. Several new features can be conveniently integrated into a web site through a point and click interface, including photos albums, hit counters, guest books, blogs and FAQ guides. There is also a supply of free media such as commonly used banners, buttons and icons, along with a library of images.

“Champion Consulting is always looking for a way to add value to our hosting offerings,” stated Greg Landis, CEO of Champion Consulting. “RVSiteBuilder Pro is an easy-to-use software application that anybody without technical experience can use to build an attractive, professional looking web site. This is the essence of value and we are providing it free to our shared and reseller hosting customers. It is further proof that Champion Consulting is committed to enabling customers to realize their full potential on the Internet.”

RVSiteBuilder Pro recently released an updated version of its software (version 3.0), adding an updated navigation system, a new blogging application, database capabilities and improvements to the Ajax-enabled user interface. A total of 16 new templates have been added to the library in this newest release. RVSiteBuilder Pro has a library of 646 templates.

For more advanced users, there is an online Flash editor and users can also download templates, customize them and then re-upload them for future use.

RVSiteBuilder Pro supports all major web browsers and operating systems. It is available in multiple languages, allowing customers around the world to build a web site in the language they are most comfortable with. Languages supported include English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian-Portuguese, Finnish, Norwegian, Turkish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian and Slovak.