We spoke with Ryan Smith, CEO of Varial, Hosting about how they reviewed their servers from the ground up and added security features, network upgrades, and scalable computing power to create their next-generation hosting platform.
This interview was originally published on February 20, 2020.
Can users register, purchase, and transfer domains through Varial Hosting?
Yes, along with popular favorites like .com, .net, .org, and .ca, we also sell hundreds of new top-level domains to give our customers plenty of options. Customers can register or transfer domains at competitive pricing in both Canadian and US dollars.
What are your WordPress optimized hosting plans and what features are included?
When we realized that over 75% of our customers were using WordPress to build their websites, we designed our next generation hosting platform to specifically improve the performance and security of WordPress. We reviewed how we build our servers from the ground up and added several features on top of our familiar cPanel hosting platform, such as server-side caching, a content delivery network, web application firewall, malware scanner, automated upgrades, backup recovery, and scalable computing power to help our customers get the most from WordPress. Our staff are WordPress experts and provide 24/7 assistance to our customers.
What other hosting plans do you offer?
After launching our next generation hosting platform, we scaled back our offerings and now only offer Small, Medium, Large, and Extra-Large hosting plans. Customers can choose whether to have WordPress pre-installed with these advanced features enabled, or to upload their own website which they can build with their content management software of choice.
Can users upgrade their plans at any time?
Yes, customers can easily upgrade their plans at any time if they require more storage or computing power.
How can you guarantee a 99.9% uptime?
We have many redundancies in place both at the data center and server level to keep our services online 24/7/365. We offer a service level agreement and will credit customers back should we ever drop below our 99.9% uptime guarantee. In our 15+ years of business, we have never had to refund a customer due to failing to meet our 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Are backup and recovery services available?
Yes, we perform daily backups of all customer data and offer 30 days of restore points that customers can access to restore their data should they need to. We store backups in a separate facility from our hosting servers for greater disaster recovery.
Where are your servers located?
Our hosting servers are located in our hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in the heart of the Canadian prairies. This location is particularly advantageous as it is typically free from natural disasters, allowing us to maintain excellent uptime! We own all our hardware and are proud to offer a local option to our customers.
How are your servers protected against hackers and other cyber threats?
The security of our services is of critical importance to us. That’s why we use several hardware and software solutions to protect our network and customer websites, including advanced web application firewalls, malware scanners, threat assessment, and automated software patches.
What support is available to your customers?
We offer 24/7 email support as well as assistance by telephone and live chat.
Gail is a Technical Editor and Interviewer for Website Planet. Her first PC was a TRS-80 which required a cassette tape to boot up. Producing websites, emails, and banners combines her love for design, technology, and of course, writing.
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