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Since 2000, I've had the good fortune of working with over 15,000 EV1Servers customers, including enterprise managers and small business owners, software developers and multi-player gamers, content providers and community forum operators.

Ongoing interactions with these dedicated Web server users have helped shape our direction. I would like to think that we have also contributed to our customers' success. Many of them have expanded from one single server to dozens - or even hundreds - during the course of our partnership.

I have often heard that Web hosting is a commodity business in which three factors - pricing, bandwidth and disk space - are all-important. While we have always strived to be competitive on these fronts, it's the factors below that have made a real impact on our ability to maintain long-term customer relationships.

Home Safe Home
Earlier this year we invested $15 million into building out our second data center, a telco-grade facility with redundant UPS, generator backup, smoke detection/fire protection systems, not to mention 24x7 camera surveillance and armed guard patrol.

Our grand opening was attended by customers from 18 states as well as Canada, Mexico, Germany, and England. Several placed orders on the spot for full racks of Dual Xeon servers. We had planned to take our visitors to the Houston Rodeo, but so eager were they to move in that they spent the evening instead at our data center.

Clear Connection
One of the most popular areas on our Web site contains our network utilization graphs. We have 19 Gigabit Ethernet links - and counting - through six backbone providers. Their fiber connects to our facilities at redundant entry points.

Of course, there is more to our network than speed and reliability. FireSlayer, a system that combines commercial and proprietary denial of service filtering technology, has intercepted more than 700 attacks per month since its early 2004 rollout.

Freedom of Choice
Although EV1Servers was a relative latecomer to the Web hosting market, we became the world's largest dedicated Web server provider within two years. I attribute much of our success to two concepts we pioneered: giving customers instant access to newly ordered servers, and allowing no-questions-asked cancellation at the end of any monthly billing cycle.

Having won customers over by delivering service when they want it, our 2004 focus has been on providing service how they want it. We've introduced new solutions ranging from load-balanced clusters to low-cost storage. We've added remote reboot and remote console capabilities to over 20,000 servers. We've even developed an automated system that allows users to reinstall their operating system and server management software of choice at no cost.

You've Got a Friend at EV1Servers
It goes without saying that we provide 24x7 support by phone, e-mail, IRC, live chat, etc. Who doesn't, in this day and age? What sets us apart is that "customer service" is not just a nameless, faceless entity at EV1Servers.

I would venture to say that we are second to none within the industry in terms of accountability and accessibility. All members of our management team - including myself - participate regularly in our customer forum. We even make our management team mailing list publicly available, so that any customer is able to contact us at any time.

If you're a user of third-party Web hosting services, I encourage you to be no less demanding than EV1Servers' customers have been over the years. By making your needs known, you are helping to create a better hosting environment for your business. And if you are a service provider catering to either an internal or external constituency, keep in mind that you succeed only when the needs of your user base are met.

 
Robert Marsh is the CEO and head surfer of EV1Servers, the world's largest dedicated hosting provider with over 20,000 servers under management. The company's data centers are home to over 1 million Web sites and its network accounts for over 1.5% of all U.S. Internet traffic. Robert was recently named Houston Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration, and Houston/Gulf Coast Area Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young.

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