When we first started our business venture, in 1994, our original focus was on presentations offered on 3.5" disks. We developed a process for being able to create graphical presentations that would run right off of the floppy, and we were able to crunch up to 100 pages on a single disk. Our programs were used by a wide array of economic development organizations, and won many awards.
But, soon, the Internet came calling, and people were no longer interested in shoving 3.5" floppies into their PCs. Heck, now we have computers that don't even have a CD drive! We joined the Internet revolution. I had been working with the DOE, and was already using the Internet and email, but, finally it progressed where it was becoming more and more available to the public.
At first, we converted our disk programs to HTML, but soon we were designing from scratch and making websites for cities, counties, states, and economic development organizations. In the beginning finding a place for your website to "live" was difficult. We were one of the first companies in the entire Metropolitan Kansas City area to offer quality websites. There were even fewer places that could host websites.
We tried a few website hosting firms, but, it was expensive, difficult to find, and one we had went out of business along with all of the websites we had on their servers. We also wanted to offer services that were not available with other hosting firms. We wanted to offer database programs, and we wanted the ability to write programs with CGI, C++, Perl, etc. to extend our capabilities. We finally came to the conclusion that the only way for our business to grow was to be able to handle the servers ourselves. We had to make the business decision to provide our own website hosting. So, we went on the adventure of learning how to manage a web server.
At that point in time, you couldn't just go to your neighborhood computer sales store and purchase a web server. We had to have our servers built from scratch. We ordered the fastest processors we could find. The servers had multiple hard drives, and other components such as tape drives for backups. A server runs 24/7, 365 days a year, and are rarely turned off, so we had to have the fastest and most reliable hard drives available at the time. To keep all of it cool, we had to have multiple fans installed as well.
I came from the world of UNIX, which was an advantage since the best platform at the time was Linux. Thankfully, Linux is very similar to UNIX. Then we had to go about the business of learning how to manage a web server. There were things such as Apache for managing web hosting, Qmail for email services, spam and virus software, reporting software, backup, etc., etc. It's a pretty big job to keep the servers up-to-date, and manage thousands and thousands of email, and presenting your websites to the entire world 24/7.
Over the years we had to keep up with new software releases. We also had to learn to protect our servers from hacking and DDos attacks. Eventually one server wasn't enough, and we maintained three of them. Hardware had to be updated over the years, and the servers themselves were completely replaced with new models multiple times. Over the years, though, our mainstay named servers: ns.rossini.com, and ns2.rossini.com have been faithfully serving up webpages for a long time.
Eventually the cost of hosting at server farms became more than we were willing to pay, so, we moved the servers into our home office. That meant being responsible for the backups, and for the power being on, and managing all of the server software. Since our area is notorious for losing power at the drop of a hat, Joe put together a backup system that included a bank of batteries in our basement to take over if the electricity goes out, and a gas electric generator if the power was out longer than the batteries could hold out. For about 4 years we have had high-speed wireless Internet access directed to a dish antenna on the top of our house with four IP addresses, a high-speed switch, and wireless router for the office.
At times they were our best asset. Particularly in the beginning there were very few companies offering web hosting. We were able to assure our customers that their website and email were being hosted on a business-only, secure server. At other times, they were an anchor, particularly when you're up at 2:00 a.m. after a vicious thunderstorm, doing a graceful shutdown from the console, and Joe is out in the rain, starting the generator, or, you're halfway between Kansas City and St. Louis and a customer calls and says "I can't get my email."
As the Internet matured, other companies started virtual hosting services, or "cloud" hosting. We've had our eyes on it for awhile. At first it was not completely reliable, and still didn't offer the options and control that we needed. But finally, cloud computing matured, and today, it is reasonably priced, reliable, and offers all of the options that we need. We've been working for a year moving all of our clients with their web pages, applications, online forms, email, etc. over to cloud hosting. Finally, today, the only domain left on the servers is rossini.com. Today after 5:00 p.m., we're turning them off.So, goodbye old friends. They have been a constant presence for 15 years. But, everything has it's time. Time to pop the cork.
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