WEDOS has had another successful year. We grew in the number of services, customers, turnover, servers and colleagues. We are the last big Czech hosting company that is pushing the boundaries. Be it technology (oil cooling) or multinational projects (WEDOS Global). Of course, everything is not going as fast as we would like, but we are moving forward and that is the main thing. And we’re glad you can be there with us.
Company
War in Ukraine
We have publicly condemned the invasion of the territory of Ukraine by Russian troops. We offered free hosting and cyber protection for Ukrainian websites, started registration of .com.ua domain and arranged cooperation with several volunteers/organizations in the form of free hosting services.
As a result of the invasion, we have also seen an increased number of attacks on our customers. Some of it was hacktivism, which targeted websites that either defended the attack or tried to present the Russian side’s point of view.
We decided to write a few articles on this topic, send out email alerts and use our social networks.
- The ongoing cyber war may affect you too, get ready for it!
- Phishing campaigns and what to watch out for
Cyber protection
Over the past year, we have been intensively focused on developing protections against cyber threats. This was mainly related to the planned WEDOS Global service, which will include WEDOS Global Protection (WGP) – just point to WGP and we’ll protect everything for you, whether you have hosting with us or use a competitor’s service.
Not only the attacks themselves, but also the threats were analyzed in more detail. After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, this became a priority for some of us and we spent a lot of time on it. Some of the threats have resulted in articles on our blog that describe these threats and attacks in great detail.
- Cases of DDoS extortion by application layer attacks (how the attackers communicate with the victim and the attack itself) are beginning to appear
- Two more examples of application layer attacks on our customers (who are the targets and how the attack works)
- WEDOS Global Protection in action – L7 attacks per day at 7:00 am sharp (a sample of the entire campaign of attacks against one company)
This March, we rewrote the DDoS attack record books again – For now, the strongest DDoS attack of 2022 rewrites the record from last year. However, this was preceded by some pretty strong attacks back in February – February’s nightly DDoS attacks exceeded 133 Gbps, peaking at 300 Gbps.
We have withstood these attacks, but they were so strong that it shook a number of ISPs. Most don’t have anywhere near the connectivity we do. Still, attacks are coming from the attacked facilities. Today, not only a compromised server or computer, but also a smart TV or refrigerator can create a powerful attack. Just compare what connection you have at home today and what you had 5 or 10 years ago. How many new devices have internet access and what processors they use. In 5 – 10 years, everything has moved forward tremendously.
We can increase connectivity, strengthen infrastructure, but here in the Czech Republic they will one day beat us or they will regularly overload other providers. Therefore, the only way is to go out into the world. Move the fight to local battlefields around the world, right where they originate. And that is exactly what the decentralised WEDOS Global network will do.
It is simply too much for the Czech Republic and so the only solution is to go out into the world to build forward defenses. This is the primary goal of our WEDOS Global network, which we are trying to build with the highest priority.
Centralised lists
We have been working with all the data from all the servers for years. These are downloaded to one central location and evaluated. Thanks to this, we are able to track even subtle but large-scale attacks. The data is used, for example, to create temporary filters that block problematic traffic (brute force attacks, some L7 flood attacks, etc.).
However, WEDOS Global Protection will need to download certain data directly to local points.
That is why the decision was made to create centralized lists where, for example, attacking IP addresses will be listed by type or, on the contrary, whitelisted lists of IP addresses (search engine robots, services needed to be updated, availability monitoring, etc.) These centralized lists can then be used by any department for its service and at the same time we will keep them up-to-date in one place.
It is also about consolidating and simplifying a number of processes that we have now. It will also help support colleagues, because they can find in one place what is blocked and for what reason.
So far we use these lists mainly for the big SYN filter, where we put very problematic IP addresses to block. When all customer sites are behind WEDOS Global Protection, it will be split. Some things will still be blocked completely, some things can only be captcha’d and some things can only be javascript redirected.
ISO certification
Certificates are a guarantee that not only our services, infrastructure, but also our company processes meet international standards. Anyone can write anything on the website, but only an independent third party can assess whether it is really so by a thorough audit. Our last audit, which took place in March 2022, lasted 2 days. We prepare for the whole event all year round, but of course the month before the ISO is more intensive.
We currently have the following ISO certifications:
- ISO 9001 (quality management system)
- ISO 14001 (environmental management system)
- ISO 27001 (Information Security Management System)
- ISO 27017 (set of practices for information security measures for cloud services)
- ISO 27018 (set of practices for protecting personally identifiable information in public clouds)
With 9001 and 14001, it was a surveillance audit that has to be done every year to see if we are compliant. For others, a full recertification was underway.
You can find all certificates including descriptions on our website wedos.cz/certifications.
300 thousand customer accounts
In July, a customer account with serial number 300000 was created with us. We have customers all over the world. In the customer administration you will also find a map showing the services by the owner’s address.
General Assembly 2022
We are one of the last big Czech hosting companies that does not have a foreign owner. In addition, WEDOS has more than 100 small shareholders who have trusted us from the beginning. We are proud to welcome them every year and show them how we are moving forward.
On Monday 1. 8. 2022, an Annual General Meeting was held in our second data centre building, WEDOS DC2, which was open to all WEDOS shareholders. Both 2021 and the future of WEDOS were discussed.
A summary of the AGM can be found in a separate article.
Datacentres
Our own private datacenters are something that separates us from the competition and gives us a big advantage. We designed and built them ourselves, so we know literally every cable.
WEDOS DC1 is traditionally an air-cooled datacentre where the emphasis is on redundancy and cost-effective solutions.
The WEDOS DC2 is a world unique. Everything is built from the start so that the servers can be cooled in an oil bath and the waste heat can be reused. From the very beginning, we are counting on the official TIER IV Operational Sustainability certification, which is designed for datacenters where the first priority is total fault tolerance, which is guaranteed by the redundancy of all parts of the infrastructure. Everything must not only be fail-safe, but also serviceable during full operation.
WEDOS DC3 is planned as a campus of buildings where we will have 2 traditional air cooled datacenters, 2 office buildings and 1 large warehouse. We have finally got all the necessary building permits for the whole construction.
WEDOS DC1 “Bunker”
There were no major structural changes to our first datacenter, perhaps for the first time in its existence 🙂
We mainly modified the internal network to make everything more robust and fail-safe.
WEDOS DC2 “Underground”
From the outside, not much has changed about WEDOS DC2. Except for the banner that says we’re looking for more employees.
On the other hand, there’s always something going on inside. We are improving the conference room, which has already hosted the first third-party event – the Cyber Security Conference – IT Experts for the Future. The conference was organized by the South Bohemian Chamber of Commerce (see below in the text in the conference section).
In the data hall, everything is being prepared for the launch of several oil baths, where customer data will not be running yet, but only some of our stuff. As winter approaches, the offices will need to be heated by waste heat.
We have a warehouse of Moonshots in the tech lobby now, where about 50 of them have been replaced in the last year. There are still dozens of them. We are preparing to send them to selected datacenters as points for WEDOS Global.
In one room in the data hall, the testing and development of the UPS oil cooling system is underway (see below).
WEDOS DC3 “Kravín”
Due to rising material and labour costs, we have decided to temporarily suspend the third datacentre project. We don’t need it at the moment, DC2 is still empty.
We want to build and we have the money to do so, but not at any price. We believe that the situation will be more favourable and then we will gradually start. We have a building permit. The first building planned is a warehouse building, followed by a building with a data hall and offices, then another building with a data hall and offices. The order is of course subject to change according to our current needs.
WEDOS DC3 will be a campus of five buildings. We want to use it as an additional place for data storage, hardware that we don’t want to drown in oil and we are also counting on offering server hosting. We would also like to reserve space for third-party offices in the office buildings. So in WEDOS DC3 you will be able to have your own hardware and your own computer 🙂
Technology
Oil cooling of servers
In April we installed the oil bath version 6.1. This is still a test solution. There’s quite a lot of modifications, so we’ll be checking carefully to make sure everything works. We’ll be taking lots of measurements, analyzing data and fine-tuning the control. However, nothing prevents some of our projects that require a lot of computing power from going there.
As far as modifications compared to the previous version are concerned, it was primarily about optimizing the flow of oil through the servers. We have also gone back from a 3 shell bath solution to a single shell solution. The main piping was recalculated and the valves were reboiled to a higher cross section. Cosmetic things like repositioning the lid handles and design were also addressed.
Oil-cooled UPS
Great technical progress has been made by our colleagues in the development of oil cooling. On Friday 19.08.2022, they successfully drowned a 30 KW UPS in oil. UPSs have an overhead of 6 to almost 30% (depending on the load) and most of that turns into waste heat that you have to remove from the datacenter (cool it down with air conditioning, for example). If the UPS is in oil, where you remove the heat through the water circuit, you have heated water up to 50 degrees. This heat can be used for heating, water heating… just about anything.
The advantages are low acquisition costs, low operating costs and high efficiency. If the long-term testing goes well, we plan to drown the UPSs with a total output of 360 KW.
And our colleagues in development have another big challenge ahead of them.
HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage 8450
Most of our systems and customer services already pull data from storage on the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage 8450. We’ve really made a lot of progress in the last year, but we’ll get to that as we go along.
What is HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage 8450
However, the main advantage over all previous solutions is how it can deal with spikes. For example, if we had multiple customers with disk-intensive scripts on one server and they ran it all at once, the whole server slowed down and popped up for the monitoring technicians. Similarly, for example, in a large-scale attack.
After switching to 3PAR and months of optimization, we got to a state that the server “recovers” very quickly.
Combined with the transfer of hundreds of services of customers whose websites are often under attack or are more vulnerable to attacks, we do not deal with overloaded servers under WEDOS Global Protection. For example, this allowed us to increase the number of PHP threads in NoLimit from 7 to 25, which led to more satisfied customers.
Individual solutions for WEDOS for data protection
We have chosen this storage for both our data and user data. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is also a big part of this, as they develop and customize some things for us. It also takes care of complete service, including diagnosing problems.
Without their tailor-made solution, we simply could not prepare new planned data protection services (multiple snapshots of data in different locations with data protection against ransomware).
Disk snapshots are currently being tested for selected services:
- Every 4 hours and we keep them for 24 hours (6 backups in total)
- Snapshot is taken at night, every 24 hours and kept for 7 days (7 backups in total)
- Snapshot is taken every weekend and we keep them for 4 weeks (4 backups in total)
We are also planning tests of offloading offline backups to a third party site and are considering long-term backups (3 to 6 months back). We could offer this solution to customers on top of existing services.
However, this is not a traditional backup that you will be able to have restored on demand. This is for customers who want to have data protected beyond normal measures – they will be guaranteed that we will back up at certain intervals and in what form. This will be contractually backed up, and they will then be able to demonstrate this to their customers or to state institutions if required by law, for example.
We are also considering traditional backup recovery, but it will be a different service. You select from all the backups you have with us (including the protected ones) in the customer administration and click restore. Some will go straight away, and some (such as offline protected ones) you will have to wait a few hours.
HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage 8450 at WEDOS
In total, we have 13 HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage 8450s in the datacenter, 12 of which are actively deployed and 1 for development.
They are currently all in WEDOS DC1. With the start of operations in WEDOS DC2, at least one 3PAR system will be moved to a second datacenter for backup storage.
We will place another 3PAR system, which will be used for offline backups, in a selected third-party datacenter. At a certain time, it connects to the network, downloads backups, and disconnects again. Backups will not be able to be deleted from the outside. Technically, we’ve got it figured out. Rather, it is now a question of implementation, and how to work it out commercially.
HPE Moonshot 1500
The HPE Moonshot 1500 system is a server enclosure that contains 45 physical servers, 2x switches, 2x network cards, 4x power supplies and 5x fans. It is a solution developed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise for demanding cloud solutions. The big advantage is that you configure and prepare everything and then just plug it into the rack. Imagine how long it would take to install 45 servers and 2 switches. Mount it all up, pull the cables and connect it.
As servers for Moonshots we currently use HPE ProLiant m710x with Intel E3-1585Lv5 3 GHz processors (3.7 GHz in turbo) and 64 GB DDR4 RAM. There are 4 NVMe SSDs in each.
The whole system is very durable. Each fan has 2 rotors, but the server works even if 1 rotor goes out. There are 4 sources, but everything starts with only 2. Moonshot is functional even on 1 power supply in emergency mode (processors are underclocked), but cannot be switched on like this.
Because of WEDOS Global, we have bought dozens of them since our last birthday. We also have enough in stock for an emergency energy crisis. We would be able to send them to one of the DCs where we have an arrangement and there is cheap electricity. To run a demanding service there, even if only for a few months. We could have done all that without losing the packet 🙂
Moonshots are also ideal for dipping in oil. We have specially tailored firmware for them. All oil sumps in the DC2 are designed for them.
WEDOS Global
WEDOS Global uses BGP anycast technology, which allows the nearest server to respond to a visitor’s query. As opposed to the normal solution where only 1 server across the internet knows the answer.
This technology is used, for example, for anycastDNS or CDN. We plan to do both 🙂
The essence of WEDOS Global is therefore to deploy servers around the world to capture traffic in a given location.
In our case, it will be HPE Moonshot 1500 server cabinets, which contain 45 physical servers and 2 switches. With two integrated network switches (4 x 40GE and 8 x 10 GE ports) with full duplex connectivity (bidirectional), a single HPE Moonshot can be connected with up to 320 Gbps connectivity,. We expect to use only half of it and the rest will be for redundancy. A new fully-stocked HPE Moonshot 1500 costs about the same as a family home.
We will send 1 – 2 Moonshots to each location. The number depends on the traffic we expect there and the other services we will be running there. In any case, we expect to scale to more Moonshots as needed.
Building WEDOS Global
You can read how the building went in the summary articles:
- March 2022 – Building WEDOS Global – First infrastructure sites agreed
- April 2022 – How the WEDOS Global build, oil cooling and other April news at WEDOS is going
Current status of WEDOS Global
- Europe
- 🇳🇱 Amsterdam
- 🇪🇸 Barcelona (2x) – All set waiting for cross connect
- 🇨🇭 Zurich
- 🇫🇮 Helsinki
- 🇨🇿 Hluboká nad Vltavou
- 🇬🇧 London
- 🇪🇸 Madrid
- 🇫🇷 Paris
- 🇨🇿 Prague
- 🇸🇪 Stockholm
- 🇦🇹 Vienna
- 🇵🇱 Warsaw
- Asia
- 🇭🇰 Hong Kong – We have on site, waiting for cables and cross conect
- 🇸🇬 Singapore (2x) – we are still working out the last details in the contract
- 🇯🇵 Tokyo – HPE Moonshot is on its way
In all locations we are arranging a minimum 80 Gbps line, but in most it will be 120-160 Gbps. We expect to have 40 Gbps from Telia (renamed since March), 40 Gbps from someone else (mostly Cogent). 20 Gbps from local peering, 20 Gbps on our own connections between our points. And then 40 Gbps reserve for anything (usually additional peering or direct connection to someone). We will see according to the needs in each location.
WEDOS Global Protection
WEDOS Global Protection (WGP) is the first service to run on WEDOS Global. Currently, we have the wedos.global website up and running. This is not yet the final version. As we continue to move the service forward, we are discovering new ways to take it further.
You could see the first version of the administration, and what WGP will be able to do, in the article A peek into the WEDOS Global Protection administration. If you are lost in technical terms, we have prepared an illustrative video for you.
Our goal is to provide truly comprehensive web protection with minimal setup required. Basically, the customer should set up DNS WEDOS Global for the domain, then set (confirm) where it should be directed in the domain administration and that’s it.
The protection is largely based on our experience and mainly on data from previous and ongoing attacks. No one else has as much specific data for the Czech Republic and Slovakia as we do. But we are gradually collecting more. We believe that in a few months we will have the most concrete data for Central Europe and later for the whole of Europe. It’s not just about the data that flows through the protections, but also what it does specifically and what impact it has on the site.
With this amount of data, it’s no problem to design bots that will monitor your site based on the location of the traffic source. Later we might try some machine learning and AI, we have enough data;)
Currently, WGP protects around 600 domains that simply could not function normally without WEDOS Global Protection. Gradually, we are also hiding individual parts of our services behind WGP.
WEDOS OnLine
WEDOS OnLine has been running for a while now. We have over 1,100 users directly and nearly 18,000 more use it through the EWM domain add-on service. In total, all WEDOS OnLine users perform over 81,000 active checks. We think these are very nice results considering that we don’t promote the service much and it’s actually still in development 🙂
We eventually discarded the original concept of a paid tariff service and decided to change it to credits that will be invoiced retroactively. However, the free tariff concept will be maintained. Each registered user will receive a certain amount of free credits per month.
Status page
We monitor all our customers’ websites, VPS IP addresses and our services via WEDOS OnLine. The data is then sorted, evaluated and displayed on our status page in real time. For example, if a significant percentage of sites on a particular server are slowing down or unavailable, a warning will be displayed on the status page and a notification will be sent to the engineers to check the situation. We can prevent many problems. In addition, the technicians have their own monitoring tools.
On the status page, you can see the status of individual servers and services, individual parts of our infrastructure, including data transfer graphs.
We pride ourselves on openness and we do not hide our problems. This is evidenced by our status page, where any issues are displayed immediately in real time.
The status page also demonstrates what WEDOS OnLine can already do. You can make a similar status page for free. It saves you costs and hassle, because in case of a problem, your customers will check the status page first instead of contacting customer support directly. You can also post updates and other information on the status page, so everything will be centralized.
By the way, it has been very useful for us, for example for planned service outages. Although we send them by email, some customers overlook them.
Hosting services
Domains
New domains on offer
Since our last birthday we have added 57 domains to our offer. We add new endings according to the interest of our customers and the complexity of arranging cooperation with the registry. As soon as we conclude the cooperation we can usually offer other domain extensions that they have on offer.
The great advantage of self accreditation and direct cooperation is access to various promotions and better prices for the first year. If your registrar uses a middleman, he often simply keeps the difference between the promotional price and the regular price.
If possible, we offer these promotions directly to our customers. Currently we have 191 out of 370 domains on sale or available at a better price.
As for new domain extensions, for example, in April 2022 we added .ac (Ascension), .sh (St Helena) and .io (British Indian Ocean Territory). You’ve written a lot about .io because it’s a popular domain, especially among developers, and it’s also used by a number of tech startups.
In June 2022, the highly sought-after .cloud domain was added.
Domain Insurance
Since 2021, we have been preparing a joint product with Pojištění.cz and Slavia pojišt’ovna – Domain Insurance. We managed to finish it and Run 8. August 2022. This is one of the first digital asset insurance products that anyone can use.
The service consists of the domain theft insurance itself (with a coverage of CZK 1 million or CZK 3 million), IT assistance services and, in the case of the more expensive variant, legal assistance services are also included. These will help you, for example, in the event of a legal dispute over the domain name, misuse of the name/trademark, seizure/blocking of the domain by government authorities, etc.
It’s a completely new kind of product. We currently offer it as an additional service to a domain that must be registered with us. However, everything is handled by Pojištění.cz and Slavia pojišt’ovna. As far as we have first statistics, the more expensive variant is bought by companies, the cheaper by individuals. At the beginning of September, the ratio was 2:1 (for 2 Jistota there was 1 Jistota EXTRA + Lawyer).
So far, we have no information that anyone has claimed the insurance. But it’s too soon for that 🙂
Early Warning and Monitoring (EWM) for domains
This service makes us happy. It is very popular among customers and they are gradually getting used to it. The lowest tariff is not designed to monitor the availability of the site, but rather monitors the technical aspects of hosting.
Higher tariffs are already a comprehensive monitoring of the site, where everything that could have a negative impact on the site itself is monitored.
You can learn more about EWM on our website: wedos.cz/ewm
ICANN accreditation
We have our own ICANN accreditation and signed contracts with companies that provide technical support, as well as directly with companies that operate individual domain extensions (domain registries). We register domains directly, without intermediaries and we can solve all technical and administrative problems.
Thanks to this, our sales department is in constant contact with domain registries, where we arrange the best prices and promotions for our customers.
There are only two companies in the Czech Republic that have ICANN accreditation. It is a relatively demanding process that comes with a number of commitments. Just not just anyone can do accredited domain registration 🙂
.cz domain at WEDOS
The .cz domain is still the most popular with WEDOS. We also host the most .cz domains. Even more than the next three competitors in order. It is true that after the Covid boom, which briefly awakened interest in e-commerce, we are now seeing a general stagnation.
Together with CZ.NIC we are running several promotional campaigns. You could see the WEDOS logo and .cz domain for example in the Hluboká Zoo, where we prepared a competition for visitors. At the entrance you received a competition card and a pencil. Then you had to go around the station and fill in the correct answers.
NoLimit, NoLimit Extra and LowCost
Migrating services to new storage
Until 2017, we operated shared web hosting services on servers, where the emphasis was mainly on a sufficient number of threads, i.e. to ensure that the web hosts could handle as much traffic as possible. However, time has progressed and we have switched to more powerful servers with faster processors, which were able to handle requests several times faster. In addition, we moved everything to the cloud, so load distribution was not a problem.
The services until October 2017 were thus still set up on the old solution. In October 2021, we launched a months-long planned migration, moving 45,000 services from 127 servers, a total of 170 TB of data, to the new solution. Customers immediately noticed an increase in website speed, which was also demonstrated by WEDOS OnLine, which we use to monitor customer websites.
What was missing was moving some databases. This was not completed until November 2021. I usually have my databases replicated in Master-Slave mode, which is an expensive but very effective solution if something goes wrong. Instead of restoring from a backup, you can usually just swap the Slave for the Master.
For migration purposes, the method chosen was that the Master rode on the servers and the Slave rode on the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage 8450 storage to which they were to migrate. So all you had to do was swap the Slave for the Master and you were done. Customers were already getting everything from 3PAR.
The Master-Slave concept has been retained in 3PAR. Currently we have all databases on different repositories (master is on a different one than slave).
Upgrade NoLimit, NoLimit Extra and the emergence of LowCost
In December, we sat down over our most popular shared web hosting service, NoLimit. We evaluated the current state of the art, taking into account what scripts (CMS) our customers run the most, what they complain about, the impact of new technologies (faster processors, better and more efficient storage, more powerful protections, etc.), price, cost and many other factors.
An important decision has been made about where we want to take the service next. NoLimit was often perceived as a cheap webhosting, which because it is cheap probably won’t do much, which was also a common argument. That’s nonsense. The service was oversized and also operated on powerful hardware. We had hundreds of customers running websites with tens of thousands of visitors per day. Of course, this required having properly optimized scripts (especially to use the cache).
We decided that:
- we no longer want to be the cheapest on the market at any price
- we raise the key parameters so much that the customer will hardly look for comparable competition
- we will raise other parameters so that even very demanding editorial and e-commerce solutions can be installed and operated
Monday 10. On January 2022, we carried out a planned upgrade of the NoLimit service. A number of parameters have been doubled and NoLimit performance has been increased by 257%. Compared to the original plan, we have also increased the number of PHP threads for the NoLimit Extra service.
| Parameters | NoLimit | NoLimit Extra |
| PHP threads | 7 → 25 | 10 → 30 |
| PHP memory_limit | 256 MB → 512 MB | 512 MB → 1024 MB |
| PHP upload_max_filesize | 128 MB → 256 MB | 256 MB → 512 MB |
| PHP post_max_size | 128 MB → 256 MB | 256 MB → 512 MB |
| Maximum size for databases | 1 GB → 2 GB | 2 GB → 5 GB |
At the same time, the LowCost tariff has been created, which corresponds in price to the old NoLimit (with the additional SNI service) and the key parameters for those who want a powerful service like the old NoLimit at a super price are maintained.
The result came relatively quickly. Especially professionals who already have experience with hosting websites started to move more demanding projects to us. While before we had only units of sites that only occasionally exceeded a hundred thousand visits per day (see. article 20 sites with the most traffic on NoLimit, NoLimit Extra and WMS in 24 hours on Tuesday 18.01.2022), so now we have dozens of them. We even have sites that sometimes have over 1M visits per day.
During the month of March, the flies on the net that were causing problems were still being worked out. Then in May there were a few last cases where minor adjustments had to be made. However, since May, NoLimit, NoLimit Extra and LowCost have been running without problems. This is confirmed by the support statistics. Support is mainly burdened by administrative queries and enquiries from customers who transfer their service to us (over 90% of enquiries).
Otherwise everything is going well and everyone is happy. Questions about speed have virtually disappeared. The only criticism of the new service is the higher price.
On the other hand, we still have rests that are in the to-do list (e.g. DKIM, some PHP libraries, etc.). But we are gradually getting there and addressing them. For example, over the holidays we added new versions of PHP (not just security updates, we do those when needed) and MariaDB.
Encryption tightening
During April 2022, colleagues fine-tuned the encryption so that customers’ sites on NoLimit, NiLimit Extra, LowCost and WEDOS WebSite could have green A’s on the SSL test.
Currently, TLS 1.3 with “tuned” encryption is available on all NoLimit (Extra), LowCost and WebSite proxies that use our proxy servers. TLS 1.1 and earlier are disabled everywhere.
For those who have disabled proxy servers in the customer administration, only TLS 1.2 is available. Soon, however, all sites with our DNS will be moved under WEDOS Global Protection and TLS 1.3 is already tuned there.
Migration scripts
In November 2021, we launched new migration scripts to help you move your data away from competitors.
The FTP data migration script will automatically copy your competitor’s data to us via FTP and create a functional website on the domain you get from us for free. On this domain you will test if everything works as it should and if everything is as fast as we promise. If you are satisfied, just complete the migration and point the domain.
In our knowledge base, you will also find detailed step-by-step instructions on how to perform automatic data migration.
The mailbox migration script uses the IMAP protocol. It downloads emails from competitors to our servers. Either to newly created e-mail boxes or to existing ones. This way you can not only transfer your emails, but also copy them to another mailbox in our office.
Even for email migration we have detailed instructions in our knowledge base.
Both of these scripts are available for free in the customer administration.
WEDOS WebSite
WEDOS WebSite has unfortunately not received the attention it deserves over the past year. Yet it is a very popular service with decent potential. There are currently around 3300 active services, of which almost 30% are paid. However, the situation is now reversing, we want to remodel and expand a large part of it.
Every day new websites are created on it and we try to select the most interesting ones, which we put among the samples, and if the owner of the website is interested, we also interview him.
In May 2022, another success story was added. Doskočil & Štindlová attorneys at law use WebSite to introduce their firm, the services they provide and to acquire new clients in need of professional legal assistance. As with the other stories, this one includes a conversation.
With WEDOS WebSite you can quickly and easily create your own modern-looking website. Once it’s finished and published, you don’t have to worry about anything else. We take care of all updates and security.
VPS HDD and VPS SSD
Due to the increase in electricity prices, we had to increase the prices of VPS HDD and VPS SSD for the first time since their launch. This was the first time for VPS HDDs since 2010 and VPS SSDs since 2014.
In 2019, we paid EUR 36 per MWh for electricity. In May, the average price was between EUR 250 and 300 per MWh. For VPS, the price of electricity is key.
The price of VPS HDD modules increased by 25%, while the price of additional services remained the same.
The price of regular VPS SSD modules has increased by 33%. 15% more for the profi package. The price of other additional services remained the same.
The price increase was anticipated by most customers. Some even wrote to us that they expected it earlier.
At the same time, we increased the shared connectivity to 1 Gbps for VPS HDD and VPS SSD services. We have looked at the statistics and after numerous adjustments and improvements to the network infrastructure, there is nothing to prevent it. We have bought enough connectivity and the network infrastructure is extremely oversized.
VPS ON
Completion of migration to HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage 8450
In November 2021, we migrated a portion of the first VPS ONs from HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage 8450 to the others. It was a joint venture with web hosts, but unlike them, it didn’t go so easily.
We managed to do this for a large part without any downtime. However, outages were necessary for some customers. In total, several thousand active and live VPS ON and WEDOS Cloud were migrated. The outage required about 1%.
So we planned the shutdowns. Customers who did not like the downtime could agree on an individual time with the technicians.
It’s interesting to look at it in hindsight. Today, we’ve advanced enough with the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage 8450 that we could do it much better and more efficiently.
Price increase
In May, due to rising electricity prices, we had to increase the price of the VPS ON service. VPS ON runs on HPE ProLiant m710x servers, which are single HPE Moonshot 1500 razor blades, on 3 GHz (3.7 GHz in turbo) Intel E3-1585Lv5 processors. The goal was to achieve the highest possible performance. But as a result, the processors consume half as much electricity.
This is why the price increase for processors was also the highest (50%). For the 1GB SSD space, the price has been raised by 33%. This is due to the change in backups, which requires more capacity (2x data redundancy). The new storage will also allow us to raise the maximum disk capacity from 480 GB to 2048 GB.
On the other hand, we have reduced the price of RAM by 5%.
As with the VPS HDD and VPS SSD, the shared connectivity has been increased from 200 Mbps to 1000 Mbps. In the future, we are also counting on a dedicated connectivity package.
WMS
WMS allows our customers to create and manage NoLimit web hosts on dedicated hardware. So they have all the power to themselves. Someone uses it for dozens of WordPress installations, another for a much-visited site and a few customers in a highly creative way.
Similar to NoLimit, WMS runs on HPE ProLiant m710x servers with powerful processors, which are, however, power-hungry. However, unlike VPS ON, there is no residual unsold power due to the modules. Thus, the price increased “only” by 33% for the CPU and 33% for the 1 GB SSD.
Similar to VPS ON, we have increased the connectivity from 200 Mbps to 1000 Mbps.
WEDOS Cloud
We have already debugged everything and by migrating it also to HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage 8450, so it is already running in live operation. But we’ll see how the service goes. We don’t want to promote a service that we don’t know if we will have to make it more expensive again in a few months.
WEDOS Cloud price increase
WEDOS Cloud is based on VPS ON, or individual VMs are basically VPS ON, so the price is the same.
The price for the CPU has increased by 50%, for the disk by 33%. The reasons are the same. The price of RAM fell by 5%.
Shared connectivity has been increased from 200 Mbps to 1000 Mbps. Dedicated connectivity packages are also planned.
The maximum storage size (NVMe SSD) will be increased from the current 1 TB to 2 TB.
Dedicated servers
We also had to make dedicated servers more expensive. It’s not really paying off at the moment. Plus, they’re a hassle and take up space. There are no plans to expand the offer.
WEDOS Disk
WEDOS CD
WEDOS CD has been out of the limelight for a long time. We needed developers and engineers elsewhere.
A major planned update took place during April, which resolved a number of issues. We then had to make a few more planned stops to fine-tune the details, but the result is worth it.
This update solved, among other things, the problem with uploading very large files (we tested 200 GB files), WebDAV and (non)functioning of the client on some OSes. The latest version of NextCloud is used and everything runs on a server with PHP8. According to the stress tests, everything is several times faster than before.
WEDOS VIP
Within WEDOS VIP, we offer individual services for customers who spend more than CZK 20,000 per month, excluding VAT. There is usually a demand for dedicated servers with larger/different disks or dedicated connectivity.
However, there are also requests for thousands of tests in WEDOS OnLine or individual protection against DDoS attacks. This will all be.
Community
We write blog articles for our fan community and try to publish interesting things on social media. Since this year, podcasts have also been added, where only machine-talked articles are available. However, we’ve already heard from a colleague who says he can’t listen to it and will tell us 🙂
A large part of the community is also on our community forum help.wedos.cz. Someone helps because they want to learn something new, someone saves points for rewards and someone just enjoys it.
Unfortunately, we are not able to organize a proper event for the community. This year we had planned an Open Day, but we are currently running behind schedule.
IthacaBorders
IthacaBranch 1.0
After 6 years, we again organized a small conference here. It was called Ait’ákobraní 1.0 and was aimed at getting us new colleagues, which was successful. Our collective has grown quite a bit 🙂
Iťákobraní 1.0 lasted for 3 days, we had 16 of our own lectures. You can find their recording on our YouTube channel.
Aitecombat 2.0
We already know the term IťákoBraní 2.0. It will take place on Saturday 17.09.2022 again in our second datacentre WEDOS DC2 in Hluboká nad Vltavou.
More information on our website wedos.cz/ajtakobrani
Cybersecurity Conference – IT Experts for the Future
At the end of April, the Cyber Security Conference – IT Experts for the Future took place in our second data centre WEDOS DC2 . The conference was organized by the South Bohemian Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with ALEF NULA, a.s. We provided our conference room, equipment and prepared the excursion.
Our developer, who is in charge of the WEDOS Global project, also gave a presentation at the conference.
In our second datacentre we can provide free space and equipment for interesting conferences, ideally with up to 35 participants. There is a high quality projector, sound equipment and no problem to make a recording with the help of up to 4 cameras in the room. Everything is also ready for streaming via Facebook and YouTube.
If you need more information, please contact us via the contact form.
Lectures at schools and conferences
Many of us gave a lecture at a school or attended a conference. We started going out again with our wall and booth like the old days 🙂
Hopefully there will be more of that next year…
Partner programme
Our wedos.as affiliate program is an important part of our promotion. It helps us to promote our brand and services in a very competitive environment. We have quality service at very good prices and believe that personal recommendation is the best advertising. That’s why we have some of the highest commissions on the market. In total, we have already paid out more than CZK 20 million as of March 2022. There is an article directly on our affiliate program blog dedicated to this We launched a new website and surpassed the 20 million mark in commissions paid.
Our partnership programme has been put in charge of two colleagues who have really moved it forward over the last six months. They completely redesigned the whole website from texts to design. They gradually fill it with useful content on how to earn more and more efficiently. They have launched a VIP club with several levels for the most active partners. They prepare competitions, interviews and other content.
WEDOS Podcasts
Don’t have time to read our articles? What about listening to them as a podcast on the way to work? We added podcasts in July 2022. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts.
In the future, we will also add interviews with employees of individual departments and our business partners, recordings of selected lectures and perhaps even a regular show that will focus not only on professional IT topics.
And what awaits us in 13. season WEDOS Internet, a.s.?
Season 13 is really going to be something. The company has made a number of changes to streamline the development of new services and the expansion of existing ones. There are just too many of us now and we wanted to get it right.
We will also pay more attention to what the market and our customers want, because we have successfully completed a number of difficult tasks that prevented this. There are things that had to be done. Now we are done and can focus on future projects.
WEDOS will finally go out into the world. WEDOS Global is a global network, but also a service. It is not tied to our hosting, you can have it wherever you like. Even at home in your room on your computer. WEDOS Global is here to prevent attacks and speed things up. We see the results and they are amazing. And this is just the beginning. Once you have a worldwide decentralized network, you can build anything on top of it.
We will launch the first customer services in our second data centre WEDOS DC2. They’ll run on servers in an oil bath. It’s going to be as green as it can be. In addition, the waste heat will be used to heat the municipal swimming pool.
Of course, how much progress we make next year will also depend on how many more colleagues we can get. We’ve grown nicely, but it’s not enough. We want to grow and expand. There is plenty of work here 🙂
Conclusion
That’s for today’s 12. birthday about everything. If we were to write in detail what all has happened in the last year, this article would be 5 times as long 🙂
It’s been a nice ride over the past year and we’re looking forward to the next one.