How technically competent and customer focused is your Web Host?
I use a company based in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA called ORCS Web, Inc. I’m over in the United Kingdom – some might see using a web host so far away as a problem, with many more down sides to the deal other than just the different time zones, including communication problems. In reality, the situation is quite the opposite, of all the web hosts I’ve dealt with in the UK and around the world, ORCS Web, Inc are by far the best.
In this piece I’ll detail some of my experiences with ORCS Web, Inc and explain why I think they’re the best host for ASP.NET Developers anywhere in the world. This is an independent review, and I’m giving it because using ORCS Web, Inc makes me a happy developer, and I want to encourage you to become a happy developer too! (Crikey, that was corny …)
I personally host http://www.myservicescentral.com with ORCS Web, Inc as well as having clients that host with ORCS Web, Inc on the recommendation of other Industry leaders.
I’ve had problems with both my personal site, my code and with the SQL Servers that I run against. Every one of these that I’ve approached ORCS Web, Inc about has been resolved in a very quick, professional and technically competent manner.
Every time I have spoken to ORCS Web’s support team, they have been able to understand exactly what I was saying to them, be the problem I have encountered self inflicted or part of something more sinister.
They have a technical support team, which you can actually talk technically to, surprisingly, that is actually a rarity within the Web Host business. This team is packed full of people who really do know the technology they’re supporting, be the issue on IIS, ASP.NET, SQL Server or another area.
When I have made gaffes in the past (it does happen from time to time…) ORCS Web have been kind in pointing out an area of my code I may wish to look in to, rather than making me feel like a complete dunce for dropping my code in to an infinite loop and e-mailing them to inform them their server keeps breaking my code ;-)
Yes, they have even looked directly at my code in the past if they feel it will solve an issue. ORCS Web do not only employ people to look after their servers, they also employ people that know ASP.NET and the platform inside out. They have at least two Microsoft ASP.NET MVP’s working for them, both of whom I know and respect as some of the most technically versed people in the industry as a whole, let alone the web host arena.
More recently I ran in to an issue with SQL Server whereby it was throwing a exception when I was running updates against a table. After penning an e-mail to ORCS Web stating I was having this issue they jumped in to action. ORCS Web not only took on my problem, but they built a test environment to replicate it, identified it as a bug with SQL Server, got in touch with Microsoft and had a patch issued to them for SQL Server by Microsoft Support to address the issue.
I’m not the only person that believes ORCS Web, Inc are the best web host out there, even the largest most powerful software company on the planet use ORCS Web, Inc for their every day hosting of ASP.NET centric sites.
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Here’s a quote directly from Rob Howard of Microsoft, on a few of the Web Sites they run on ORCS Web, Inc: -
“Most people are surprised to find that we serve: www.asp.net, http://weblogs.asp.net, http://blogs.msdn.com, www.dotnetnuke.com, http://forums.asp.net, www.aspinsiders.com all from a small cluster of 2 web servers and 1 database server.”
To sum up, unless ORCS Web, Inc closes down, I will never ever find another web host – I need the technical abilities of the ladies and gents that work for ORCS Web so that I can sleep soundly at night, knowing my applications are still working, and that there is a team of dedicated professionals looking after them for me.
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