Today we made some major enhancements to all our servers. We have added 2 programs that each server that will increase performance, security, and also help us to monitor servers in detail on a real time basis.
These systems will also function on their own to correct many server issues or abuse in real time. So if a service goes down it will automatically be repaired and brought back up on it own. Another scenario is we have set realistic limits for things like cpu, memory usage, and so on. If a script uses too much of any of these resources it will be shut down or frozen until the usage level drops.
We are still testing these 2 programs, but the current results look great and if we need to make adjustments we will to ensure there are no false positives that would effect a customers website performance.
We are one of few hosts that have integrated this new technology which will once again put our services ahead of the competition and will lead to the best hosting experience for our customers.
Below are detailed descriptions of each service:
Guardian Overview
Guardian sets a new standard for server management. It is an automatic reaction system that provides server monitoring as a side benefit. It is extremely fast, powerful and, most importantly, proactive software specifically designed to optimize server administration.
- Fast & Powerful checks all critical services every 0.5 sec
- Proactive performs auto-repair when a problem is detected
- Informative provides real time status and availability reports
Extensive server checks every 0.5 sec definitely the fastest solution out there!
Due to its unique lightweight design Guardian is able to check your server status at the amazing interval of 0.5 seconds without creating additional overhead on the machine that is checked. It will check your server load and monitor all important services running on your machine including Apache, MySQL, DNS, MTA, IMAP/POP3, FTP etc.
Automatic overload prevention and downtime reaction
The major advantage of Guardian is that it is not simply a monitoring system that notifies the system administrator when a problem is detected. It is designed to prevent and fix service interruptions by reacting to different situations based on many predefined scenarios. It does the following:
- Applies different remedies to different levels of server load. Guardian monitors server load level and depending on the values takes measures to prevent overload. It does not just kill processes over a particular load level. Instead, it has a sophisticated system that applies a hierarchy of different remedies (renice, ionice, pause, kill) for different load levels. Additionally it automatically detects and kills unnecessary processes, running on the server.
- Restarts services extremely fast. Guardian not only detects if a service is down faster than any other monitoring system, but it also restarts unresponsive services faster. This is possible because it uses custom-made init scripts for such restarts. The normal service init scripts perform too many checks before allowing a restart to actually take place, while the number of checks in the Guardian init scripts is reduced to include only the essential ones.
Comprehensive real time status and availability reports
The Guardian interface allows you to monitor the real time status of all your servers. It shows at a glance all the machines with an issue and what the issue is. The status is refreshed every 10 seconds and you can choose to be notified with a sound alert for critical issues that require immediate attention. The interface also allows you to generate daily, weekly, monthly and yearly availability reports. They show clearly the uptime of all your servers for the period and can be easily exported for internal and/or external uptime reporting purposes.
Hive overview
Hive combines several unique technologies to help you organize perfectly the co-existence and resource usage of your server users. It provides the following features:
- SecurityMinimize the risk of a single account affecting others on the server
- LimitationsResource usage is restricted within configurable limits
- StatisticsExcessive resource users are easily identified
- Enhanced PHP6 PHP versions and great performance
Unmatched security for shared hosting
Hive addresses one of the most common issues for servers with multiple users – it minimizes the possibility of a single account affecting the security of the other accounts and/or the whole server performance. This is achieved by creating a unique security environment on the shared server through a chroot mechanism where each user is limited to its own directory. Thus, even if there is a single account with a security flaw, the other users on the server could not be attacked through the Apache or the cron services.
Resource limitations for optimized server usage
Hive includes a highly customized suEXEC and Cron that allow you to apply 5 different resource limitations on shared hosting users. These limitations minimize the risk of a single account overloading the whole server. Additionally, they help you free the resources you would usually reserve to accommodate the needs of excessive users and thus host more accounts on the same hardware.
Detailed statistics about CPU usage
Hive collects data on CPU usage both about web executions and executions scheduled by cron jobs. The data is presented in the Hive graphical interface that allows you to monitor the whole CPU usage in details. The graphs allow you to identify peaks in CPU usage at a glance, see with one click which is the user responsible for the excessive activity and based on the data to take the appropriate actions. This unique monitoring system not only allows you to address problems with excessive use, but also to identify users whose needs are not suitable for shared web hosting and offer them to upgrade to a more powerful hosting solution. This is a great tool both for optimizing your admin work through great visualization and your business results by showing you the opportunities for upsell.
Enhanced PHP performance
- 6 different PHP versions 1H Hive also allows you to offer 6 different PHP versions not only on one and the same server, but in the different folders of one and the same hosting account too! This makes each of your servers compatible with a much wider range of applications, and thus you can attract a wider range of users.
- Great results on performance tests We have tested Hive against the most common methods of running PHP (suphp, mod_php, standard suEXEC) and the results are impressive. The load on a server with Hive is always lower than on servers with any of the other modules. Additionally, a server with Hive is the only one in our tests that manages to execute 100% of all processes during tests with high concurrency levels.
