WEDOS was founded as a hosting company and domain registrar. At least in web hosting we have become the Czech leader and easily outperformed the competition. Now that we’ve been profitable for a few years, we’d like to do other interesting things besides hosting that we can do and there’s definitely a place for them on the market. The first is our decentralized network WEDOS Global and the second is the monitoring of domains and services WEDOS OnLine.
We use both of these services ourselves and they were created for our needs, which in the case of WEDOS Global is the protection of hundreds of thousands of domains and thousands of servers, and in the case of WEDOS OnLine is the checking of not only the availability, but mainly the functionality of hundreds of thousands of websites on our customers’ domains.
As the largest hosting on the Czech market, we need a custom solution that we can scale freely, but most importantly, it must be universal. There is a difference between making a tailored service for a website where you know who will visit it and how, and a universal service for shared web hosts and VPS that can run anything.
We regularly write about how WEDOS Global is moving forward in leaps and bounds. So today we’re going to take a look behind the scenes of WEDOS OnLine.
A service that had to wait
After WEDOS OnLine became a fully functional service that has a great track record of monitoring our services and literally predicting problems, it “started to get some dust”.
Just a reminder that WEDOS OnLine currently offers 13 types of controls, many of which have additional related optional sub-controls.
- HTTP – IPv4/IPv6 availability monitoring
- Optional certificate trust check
- Optional certificate expiration check
- Optional blacklist check (DNSBL, URIBL)
- PING – sending PING to the server and recording the response
- DNS query – sending a DNS query and recording the response
- DNS servers – checking the status of DNS servers
- Optional notification of DNS server changes for a domain
- DNSSEC – DNSSEC control
- SMTP – checking the mail server via SMTP
- Optional certificate trust check
- POP3 – checking the mail server via POP3
- Optional certificate trust check
- IMAP – checking the mail server via IMAP
- Optional certificate trust check
- MX servers – checking the availability and response of mail servers
- Optional MX server change notification
- FTP – checking the availability of remote storage via FTP
- Optional certificate trust check
- SSH/SFTP – checking the availability of remote storage via SSH/SFTP
- Optional file transfer control
- Optional SSH key change notification
- SPF record – check the TXT SPF record and verify that it is as it should be
- Optional notification of changes in DNS records
- TCP – basic test of TCP connection to a specific port
- Optional certificate trust check
And then you can output a beautiful status page from the individual checks:
This year, however, WEDOS has undergone a number of changes that have led to a reassessment of priorities. We have a new operations and project director, and they have reviewed, re-evaluated and adjusted all the processes in our company so that the company’s resources (especially human resources) are optimally used. And it shows. If you subscribe to our newsletters, you will have noticed how much news we now have each month compared to last year.
Thanks to this, WEDOS OnLine has been given a relatively high priority. Everything that was completed was closed as Phase 0 and started with Phase 1.
What did Phase 1 of the WEDOS OnLine enhancements include
Originally, the business model was planned as different tariffs. However, as new tests were added and users used them, we realized that we needed something universal. So we chose the credit system.
Credit count completed, but everything is still free 🙂
Each test, depending on its difficulty, will cost a certain amount of credits. If more than the selected free threshold is consumed, they will be invoiced at the end of the month.
Thus, in Phase 1, the credit counting was completed. In the top right corner of the wedos.online administration, you can see how many credits you spend per day.
Prices in credits are also available for individual tests.
The administration has added a Billing section, which details how much you spend per month and on what. Individual months can be expanded for more details.
Our goal was to make sure that everyone can click exactly what they need and only pay for what they use. The credits will be used not only to make checks, but also status pages, send SMS, etc.
Please take the prices as a guide for now. Both in credits for monitoring and the price of 1000 credits as 5 CZK. We are still aggregating the data and calculating the cost of each test. However, compared to competing services, we intend to make WEDOS OnLine the best and most competitive. 😉
Of course, free credits will also be available. Every month, each user receives several thousand credits for testing. Free credit coupons are also planned. We simply want the user to have enough credits to test several sites on a regular basis.
On the other hand, we would also like to make the service profitable as soon as possible. This would accelerate its further development.
PRO tariff will be for a one-time fee
Currently the PRO tariff is free as part of the trial, but in the future it will be for a one-off fee. This fee is mainly used to authenticate the user. The PRO plan pushes some test limits, allows you to send SMS for example, and turns off the need for domain authentication. This makes your job easier, and also allows you to control domains and services that you cannot verify.
Individual tariff for demanding customers
WEDOS OnLine is a ready-made solution for the needs of companies like ours. You can easily run tens of thousands of tests with it. So besides the API it will also offer the possibility to “seed” new tests in CSV. This is currently in phase 1 work in progress.
With adjusted limits, you can then test sites for availability every 15 seconds 🙂
Lots of little things to tweak
In addition to email alerts, WEDOS OnLine can now also provide push notifications via Pushover (Pro), Mattermost, Rocket Chat and Slack.
The biggest challenge was the credit system, but we also worked on a lot of other small things, without which WEDOS OnLine would not have been able to move forward. Most of it is not visible. In any case, almost everything has been completed and we can gradually move on to phase 2, which is in the pipeline.
Current status of WEDOS OnLine
As WEDOS OnLine comes to the fore and we write and talk more about it, the number of users is growing.
WEDOS OnLine currently has 880 active users, with 50 new users added in the last 30 days alone. In total, users perform 3513 active checks. The most popular is the web accessibility check, of which there are 2166 and 775 users use it. PING is second with 619 checks (271 users) and DNS is third with 219 checks (46 users).
WEDOS OnLine provides checks as a package for our additional service WEDOS EWM (Early Warning and Monitoring) for domains. These are customized pre-made tests. A total of 16684 customers are actively using it and have 83439 active controls set up through it. This service is really popular and 715 customers have subscribed to it in the last 30 days alone.
For now, the most frequent checks of WEDOS OnLine users are directed to our servers. After all, the service is known more by our customers and we are the largest in the country. The total is about 26%. Then it’s mainly VPS/dedicated server providers. It is clear that WEDOS OnLine is more popular with more advanced users.
What will be in Phase 2 of WEDOS OnLine enhancements
As mentioned in the previous paragraph. The majority of WEDOS OnLine users are the more experienced ones. That’s why in Phase 2 we would like to add the option to enter a domain and WEDOS OnLine will tailor a list of recommended tests accordingly. By doing so, we hope to expand our user base significantly.
We would like to add some general webhook. If the check detects a problem, it will call the webhook. The user can work with it as he/she sees fit. It can have its own script to turn something on/off/on or its own notifications.
We are preparing summary statistics for a certain time interval, which will be sent by e-mail.
Of course, we must not forget the instructions. We would not be where we are without a sophisticated and constantly maintained knowledge base. Not only documentation but also manuals need to be completed.
Many other things are related to the backend. Just what the user can’t see, but needs to do.
What the future holds for WEDOS OnLine
We have lots of ideas and suggestions. What is done will be decided mainly by demand from service users. You can send us your ideas and suggestions for improvements using the contact form or via the community forum.
Among the long-term plans is to focus on WordPress users. WEDOS OnLine has its own WordPress plugin that is mainly used for authentication. However, it could provide some administration functions and also extend the possible controls.
Then there is WEDOS Global, a decentralised global network. Measuring accessibility from different parts of the world would be interesting. Firstly, to keep an eye on your speed and also to know if your content is blocked in a country. Many countries block domains because of content, including the Czech Republic.
Conclusion
WEDOS OnLine can already do a lot. Considering the number of users and their reactions, it is one of our most popular services. Large companies are also interested and want to perform thousands of tests. We are very happy for that.
And we’re really just getting started. The possibilities to take the service further are endless and we want to take it further and further 🙂
➡️ So feel free to start monitoring your website, your services, your domain... ⬅️