Gandi Bar

Gandi V3.0.0.1: Onwards and upwards!

Ryan — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:57:00 +0100

Being agile is important to us, and so we are pleased to bring you the first revision of Gandi V3 that takes into account your feedback (blog, twitter, forums, etc.)

These changes mainly affect updates to the website, bugs and minor ergonomics, something that is to be expected for a first revision.:

a bug that hindered management of Gandi AI with some browsers has been fixed,
a bug with the activation of SiteMaker websites under some browsers has been corrected,
we have corrected a bug in IE6 that caused some buttons to disappear. However, it is worth noting that IE6 will no longer be officially supported, so the site does not look as good in this browser, though is still functional.
we have added a link for those of you that would like to choose the individual domain name extensions when you make a search on the 'all' option (something that is also possible if you enter the full domain name directly in the text area)
general correction of bugs, display problems, typos, etc.
we have changed the "no bullshit" logo (font and color) to be more professional, as for us this is a grown up and serious statement of intent, not an teenage tantrum
thinner header within the management pages , so that you don't need to scroll so much while administering your domains
the line spacing between domains has been made smaller, for the same reason
the font has been improved in the forms to be more coherent with the rest of the site

There still remain several bugs that need to be fixed, as well as many new ideas for improving the interface, which we are going to include in the development schedule for the coming weeks.
Steven, our graphic artist, will try (for example) to change the display font so that it is easier to read.

As a reminder, it is important for us to dedicate time to the infrastructure itself with emphasis on the transition to our new back end and our new hosting and domain name APIs.

We would like to thank you for your feedback and ideas, it is a pleasure for us to be able to constantly improve our service to you.

Gandi V3.0.0 : A new hope

Ryan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:49:00 +0100

Ok, so it's not the right Episode number, but this version of Gandi represents a major turning point for all of us at Gandi that we have been looking forward to for a long time now: rewriting a number of processes that have not been totally satisfactory for you.

The first visible change is the new version of the website. This update will highlight (some will say shout) our values, and will bring to you improved ergonomics (who was it that asked for faster domain searches and the ability to attach tags to domains?).

A new version of the website you ask? Yes, in part, or at any rate, it's the tip of the iceberg

Why Gandi V3.0.0 and not just Gandi V3? This is because this first version serves as the foundation for the major upgrades that will follow, many of which will be transparent to you but nevertheless essential.

You probably already know this, but Gandi has been around for nearly 10 years now, and its IT platform is just as old. We haven't upgraded it until now because we've spent the last 4 years playing catch-up at the product level which fell behind before we took over Gandi 4 years ago. This is not a secret to anyone, but its something we've been working to correct.

This product prioritization led to a number of limitations within our infrastructure, something that we were perfectly aware of but unable to change quickly. Not only did we have our own ideas for improvements, but we had many many ideas submitted by you for how to make our services better.

So here we are, the implementation of these new features will begin with a major overhaul of our website. It is therefore with pleasure, and after many months of behind-the-scenes work, that we present to you our shiny new website. You can't miss that the general look and feel of our website has continued to evolve but stays true to Gandi's roots. A big thanks to Steven for this, Gandi's own graphic design Jedi

We are also shipping out some new features with version 3.0.0, notably:

the ability to add tags to each of your domains, so that you can sort them by family,
an incredibly fast multi-extension search capability,
a new domain and hosting purchasing system with a shopping cart that is finally dynamic.
an entirely new real-time news system that keeps you better informed of maintenance alerts and other important announcements. This system brings you our news in the form of an information banner which is incorporated directly into our website.

We're not going to get into the details of the upcoming additions and release dates here, as they are scheduled to roll out in phases over the first quarter of 2010 and beyond. This being said, each new version will be accompanied by a Gandibar post. The only thing that we can say for now is that, like our hosting wishlist we have also added a domain wishlist. Therefore, please feel free to give us suggestions, as we are looking forward to seeing what new services you would like us to provide.

We're don't want to miss any opportunity to hear from you, as this is part of the engine that helps drive us forward!

Welcome to Gandi V3, and let us say for now: "To be continued..."

An active new year!

Ryan — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:31:00 +0100

Before going into what we have planned for this year dear customer, I would like to share with you some of our accomplishments during 2009.

First of all, a simple figure: our company sales grew by 25% during the year and profitability (we like EBITDA) rose significantly too, despite the heavy investment in new products and technology. The War Chest is also looking good, which allows us finance our constant development (notably in hosting) from within.

All of this is the result of the hard work from our teams, who want Gandi to continue to enjoy the freedom that we have today. Whether though innovation, quality of service, or by cost control, we do everything possible to maintain a healthy business that is founded on word-of-mouth, and ultimately by customer satisfaction.

Because of course, it is you that make it possible for us to succeed in our crazy vision that was born when we took on Gandi 4 years ago. This vision was to create a responsible, honest, and innovative company, that could be trusted with your online presence.

Therefore, we would like to thank all of you! And don't doubt for a second that we are fully committed to providing you with the best service and tools, all within a context of total transparency and honesty. We will come back to this in the coming weeks, with the launch of a new version of our website, which is designed to be more ergonomic, with an increase in overall speed, security, and reliability of our platform.

This project, a priority for us, will be rolled out in stages during 2010, with the release of a striking new graphic interface this month (including some new features).

A whole series of developments will follow on the heels of this month's release, and will significantly improve our architecture, and allow us to improve the way in which we manage domain transfers; our DNS management with regards to zone files, authorized formats, the introduction of IPv6; etc... the list is far too long to detail here, though the changes will facilitate your life and ours, all in a way that will be painless.

For hosting, we are going to continue to deliver many important features, both on the infrastructure itself, the interfaces, and storage so that more and more customers of dedicated servers can choose to switch to our solution. We are surely going to open more data centers, notably in the United States, which is the world's largest market for this technology (cloud infrastructure), and the UK.

This year will be devoted to reinforcing our historical profession as an ethical domain registrar, while continuing to come up with innovative new products. All of this, with the certainty that we will be responsive in the face of whatever may arise, and will always strive to do a good job.

Welcome to Gandi, and Happy New Year!

Verisign announces COM and NET price increases for July 2010

Joe — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:08:00 +0000

With its contract with ICANN allowing for 7% price increases per year Verisign has announced that it will again be executing this and raising the prices of COM domains to $7.34 from July 1 2010, and NET domains to $4.65. This has increased the COM price from its original base of $6 in just 3 years.

When we last spoke to Verisign at ICANN Sydney 2009 they suggested further price increases were unlikely. What's changed?

With the approach of the ICANN domain name liberalisation due early next year, this could either cement COMs status as a premium extension, or drive people to look for and explore other extensions. What do you think?

.PT domains available at Gandi

Ryan — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:05:00 +0100

With the addition of this highly-anticipated extension, we have completed the coverage of southwestern European countries!

In order to register a .PT domain, you must have a Portuguese taxpayer ID, as well as a document that proves that the domain name corresponds to a trademark, family name etc. (for example: the TVA number of the company Martin would be needed to register martin.pt).

If you do not meet this criteria, you can nonetheless register a .COM.PT domain. These domains are open to everyone, with the condition that individuals must provide a national ID number or passport number, and companies must provide their intra-Community VAT number.

The registration .PT and .COM.PT domains are sold at €24 ($35, or £22) excl. VAT per year under A rates. Transfers of .PT or .COM.PT to Gandi are available at only €1 ($1, or £1) for all.

See the .PT information page.

Your first monthly share 100% refundable! Money back whether you like it or not ;-)

Ryan — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:48:00 +0100

Note: I am republishing this entry, because of the number of customers that are writing to us to express their surprise at the fact that they are not being charged for the renewal of their first share. As a reminder, your first monthly share is refunded whether you decide to keep it or not. So if you don't keep your share, we'll refund the cost of the first month, but if you do keep it, we'll renew it for the second month for nothing.

To help you test our hosting service without any risk, your first hosting share is 100% refundable! Which means you'll get your money back on your first share whether you stay with our service or not!!

(No, there's no fine print that says that this is only available for the next two days, 4 hours and 24 seconds, and if you have an IP address that ends in 256 and only if you have Hungarian nationality on your mothers' side and Finnish on your fathers... it really is for everyone )

So regardless of whether you stay with us or not, you will be fully refunded for your first monthly hosting share when you test our hosting service.

Yes, yes, whether you are SATISFIED OR NOT!

This is not quite a classic 'satisfied or your money back' guarantee because as we are Gandi, we like to do what is right for all of our customers. So we will also add a satisfied AND money back guarantee! (So satisfied AND/OR money back guarantee. I'm sure there's a clever way to right that in code...)

This means that if/when you keep your shares and renew them, the first share will cost you €0.00 incl. VAT Or if you decide to leave us and cancel your share before the first renewal date we will recredit your account with the cost of the share.

Ah! This offer is of course only valid once per customer (same name, same address) and for monthly shares only

Hosting: Launch of multiple IP addresses for your servers

Ryan — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:08:00 +0100

Hello,

Today we have launched the functions allowing you to manage your own interfaces. You may configure up to 4 interfaces per server.

To add an additional interface, you will need to add additional IP address quota via the resource management interface.

Each additional IP address costs €1 excl. VAT per month (if paid monthly), or €10 (ex VAT) per year if paid annually, e.g. 2 months free!

This new function lays the foundations for us to provide you with some really cool features in the future such as an IP failover system, the utilization of IPv6 addresses or even creating a private networks between your servers.

As this has been at the top of your Wishlist for several months, we sincerely hope that this new feature will make you smile!

You can find documentation on this in our wiki here.

Accented .EU domain names - pre-reservations have started!

Ryan — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:33:00 +0100

From December 10th 2009 EURid, the registry that is in charge of the .EU zone, will allow domain names to be registered that include accented characters for the first time. This is of course a great benefit to the 28 countries of the European Union where accented characters are very common: http://www.eurid.eu/en/eu-domain-names/idns-eu.

There will not be a Sunrise period to guarantee protection of existing trademarks. The registry has chosen to use the "first-come, first-served" approach. This means that if you already own a domain name in its unaccented version, you will not be given priority for buying the same domain in its accented version. For more information on .EU Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), we recommend visiting their FAQ on the topic.

You can already start placing your accented .EU domain order requests at Gandi! All pre-registration requests will be sent to the registry (in the order that we received them) on December 10th. Orders that cannot be completed will be fully refunded. To pre-register an accented .EU domain name at Gandi, simply write it in its accented form in the domain name search box on Gandi's home page.

As a reminder, the IDN System is specified by RFC standards 3490, 3491 and 3492. This system is now recognized by all modern web browsers (ex. http://www.스타벅스코리아.com). However when using IDNs for email, only the encoded version (below) is recognized at present. It is not possible, for example to have an email address like ryan@스타벅스코리아.com.

Technically, the "special" characters are encoded using a conversion table. This is why an IDN domain name will begin with the four characters: xn––. For example: bébé.eu becomes xn-–bb-bjab.eu. So ryan@bébé.eu would become ryan@xn-–bb-bjab.eu for use in email.

IDNs are also now available on a first-come, first-served basis!

Your server on IPv6?

Leland Vandervort — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:43:00 +0100

Today we are opening the beta-test phase for the implementation of IPv6 on our hosting platform.

As a reminder, IPv6 is the successor to the current IPv4 upon which the internet is based, and given the generous attribution of the early IP addresses, the IPv4 address space is rapidly running out of available adresses.

Its replacement is gently making its appearance across the internet. An IPv6 address is made up of 128bits as opposed to 32bits for an IPv4 address. We are moving from 2^32 available addresses to 2^128 (excluding reserved allocations, of course) which gives us a few decades.. erm.. centuries to breathe!

If you wish to participate in the beta test phase, you must:

- Have some basic knowledge of IPv6
- Have a Gandi server in expert mode (i.e. with root access)
- Send us a request to participate to ipv6beta@gandi.net and include your gandi handle/user-id. (You will receive an email by return with the procedure to follow).

Initially, we will limit the beta test to approximately 50 servers, so don't wait to send in your request!

Stay Tuned! .AM and .FM domains are now available

Ryan — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:32:00 +0100

We are pleased to announce that Gandi now manages .am and .fm domains.

These ccTLD, while being the official extensions for Armenia and Micronesia, are frequently used for online radio stations, and who among us has not listened to internet radio?

I know I enjoy the benefits of seeing the name of an artist while playing, having a personalized playlist at work, or even just having a higher quality of sound than the old analogue radio. They were so 20th century

More and more radio stations are being created on the web and letting amateurs be heard all over the world. Radio is not just for the big guys anymore.

Here is the list of these extensions, with A rates shown (excl. VAT) and the link to the information page of each:

.AM from €54 ($78, £49) per year
.FM from €54 ($78, £49) per year

6 new domain name extensions at Gandi: .GS .HT .SB .TL .MU .CX

Ryan — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:42:00 +0100

Our previous domain name discovery tour took us over the world's oceans, and introduced you to 5 new extensions managed by Gandi.

Here is another journey, where you can discover 6 new extensions that you can manage at your favorite domain name registrar. And since we went by sail last time, today's tour will be by plane.

Our trip begins in an archipelago without an airport, where less than 200 people live (mainly researchers), and where the temperature is frequently below zero. The archipelago of South Georgia is less than 1,000 nautical miles off the coast of Antarctica and from here we leave the .GS (South Georgia) archipelago and set a Northerly course towards warmer latitudes.

After traveling more than 5,000 nautical miles, and after flying over nearly all of South America, we come to the tropical climate of the Caribbean Sea, where we will land on the tumultuous Haiti home of the .HT (Haiti).

After sipping on a Piña Colada, a plate of local Shrimp, and then sunbathing for a few hours on one of the magnificent local beaches, we board the plane again. After refueling and taking off, we change course by 260 degrees for a loooooooong flight of nearly 8,000 nautical miles that will take us across the pacific ocean, the international date line, and the Tropic of Cancer. We will land on runway 24 of the Solomon Islands, home of the .SB.

A brief historic visit of this island that has played such a large role during the the Pacific War, and we take off again, this time for a shorter flight of only 2,000 nautical miles, due West, to a country where it best to have the authorization pass into its airspace, as internal conflict has given more voice to arms than diplomats. Welcome to East Timor and the .TL!

We continue 1,000 nautical miles west along our route, and there we see the o' so very small but charming .CX with the festive name (Christmas Islands). The beaches there are magnificent, the scenery is enchanting, and the local cuisine is rich is flavor (and spices ;)). Relaxed, and full of wonderful memories of our stay, we board out flight and head out to our last destination.

With our course set West-South-West to 255, we can sit back and enjoy the 3,000 nautical mile flight over the Indian Ocean. There, an island suddenly appears on the blue horizon, welcoming and bathed in sunlight.

Having the authorization to land on runway 32 we arrive at Mauritius home of the .MU!!

After a long journey far above the waves, we find ourselves on the most diverse island on the Indian Ocean. Halfway between Africa and Asia, colonized by the Europeans, here is a charming melting pot of people, language, and culture...

Our plane is in the Hangar, and so we will profit from our presence on this island paradise to wait for the new batch of extensions. We hope that you have had a pleasant flight, and we wish you a wonderful stay! See you again soon on Air Gandi!

Here is the list of extensions, with A rates shown (excl. VAT) and the link to the information page of each:

.GS: €30 ($40, £25) per year
.HT: €64 ($90, £55) per year
.SB: €44 ($60, £8.30) per year
.TL: €26 ($35, £18) per year
.MU: €42 ($58, £36) per year
.CX: €26 ($35, £18) per year

Domain name transfer price reductions only at Gandi!

Ryan — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:46:00 +0200

Recently Gandi expanded its domain name offering by boosting the number of extensions we provide. This doesn't just help us reach more customers internationally , but allows existing customers to centralise their domain name portfolio in one place, particularly those that have some of these less common extensions.

The idea is to expand our offering so that all of our customers (current and future) can opt to transfer all of their domains to us if they are satisfied with our way of managing them.

This is why today, Gandi is offering you lower transfer prices for a large number of extensions (though the exact discount depends on the registry, see below):

.COM, .NET, .ORG, .INFO, .BIZ, .NAME, and .US domains at €5.50 ($7.50 or £5.00) excl. VAT, with a year added to the expiration date,
.FR, .RE, .BE, and .EU at 5.50€ ($7.50 or £5.00) excl. VAT with the year added to the transfer date (e.g. the new expiry date is set to be 1 year from the transfer date)
.CH and .LI domain transfers are free (this is already the case, but not many people may know it

Contrary to what the majority of people think, transferring a domain name from one registrar to another will not result in any service interruption and will maintain all your DNS settings. What you need to remember however, is that you will need an authorization code (AKA EPP code, or auth code) in order to transfer your domain (with the exception of .BE and .EU domains, as you will be contacted by the registry), and this code must be provided to you by the registrar that you are transferring away from.

And while we've got your attention, we thought we'd remind you about the guessing-game contest we're having about "when will the one-millionth domain name be registered at Gandi?". This promotion will run up to the time of this actual domain registration (which of course we don't even know). In case you're interested, you can enter by trying to guess the exact date and time that the 1 millionth domain will be registered. The person that is the closest to this date will win a dream vacation of your choice!

Do you want to join the contest? It's free, and it is here!

As always, if you want to transfer your domains to Gandi, its over here!

Backup, increase in disk size and lower rates!

Ryan — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:39:00 +0200

Since our hosting service has been released, you have been requesting it, and here it is!

For starters, we have built a dedicated backup infrastructure that runs separately from our servers and other data disks. This has led to a new type of data disk: the backup disk. Ok, so we probably could have found a more flashy name for it, but at least it's clear

The amount of disk space included in every share has risen from 5GB to 8GB
This is the first bit of good news: to help you create your backup disk, we have increased the disk quota that is included in each server share from 5GB to 8GB! This does not change much for customers that only have one share (as we give you an extra 3GB for the operating system), but beginning with the second share, you now have an additional 3GB of disk to take advantage of. This means that for a customer with 16 shares on his or her server, the hosting account will be credited with (15x3) 45GB of additional disk quota! Of course you still have the ability to purchase additional disk quota, though now I am getting ahead of myself with the second bit of good news

Lower rates for additional disk space
To make things simple and to avoid over-complicating your quota management with yet another quota to monitor, the quota used for backup disks is the same quota as what is used for other disks.

Therefore, we have decided to lower the price of disk quota, in order to establish a nice balance. The new rates are therefore €0.18/$0.25/£0.16 excl. VAT/month/ under A rates, down from €0.20/$0.28/£0.18 excluding VAT/GB per month: this is a 10% reduction in price. You also have the option of purchasing annual disk quota at an even lower price: €0.15/$0.21/£0.14 excl. VAT/GB/month versus €0.20 excluding VAT/GB per month: this is a 25% reduction!!

How to create a backup disk
Simply log into your disk creation interface and choose the type, "backup". Once the disk has been created, go to your server's information page and specifically the "backup" section, in order to attach it to your server.

How to activate and configure your Gandi backup robot?
We'll start by addressing Gandi AI customers.

Once your backup server has been created and attached to your server, go to the "backup" section at the bottom of your server management page, and then click on "Create a backup disk" to access the page where you can enter the name of the backup, the path to the directories where you want to store your backups, and indicate a directory on your backup disk (ex. /mybackup01). All that remains is to submit this page to start the process.

For users of our expert servers, following the creation and attaching of your disk, you must the install the 'gsync' package, which is available in the Gandi 'repositories' (apt-get install gsync with Debian/Ubuntu for example). Once this has been installed, you can either take care of the configuration yourself, or use our little configuration tool, which you can find on the bottom of you server management page, in the backup section.

How does our backup robot work?
'GSync' is a light agent that constantly monitors changed to the directories that you want to archive. You will therefore have a continually updated backup on an external disk. Then, depending on your configuration, it will keep a copy of past versions. By default, it keeps a recent copy in the current directory, and a number of versions that are three hours old, one day old, and one month old.

Using our robot is not mandatory: you can choose to use another one if you want. The robot's code is published under GPL license, and so you can also decide to improve it and submit your changes to our technical team.

But enough talk! I will let you play with your new toy!

Please feel free to get back to us with your questions and comments, which I am sure will be quick to come :D

Around the world in 5 extensions

Ryan — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:40:00 +0200

We have just added 5 new "exotic" extensions to the list available at Gandi. If you want to step onboard the magical Gandi cruise ship, I will be pleased to give you a tour!
Our voyage starts in this vibrant and very lively Central America... Yes, .HN (Honduras) domains, like our friends in the region, could have a very fiery and passionate temperament Or just be normal, it's up to you

A bit farther up, we discover the lesser-known .BZ (Belize), with its sandbanks and the famous "Great Blue Hole". From there, we head East, across the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea, and stop at .VC (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines).

And since you are beginning to be entranced by the warm winds, and the crystal clear waters, we will continue our trip South East, across the Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope, and up along the coast of Madagascar to drop anchor in the .SC (Seychelles), a truly magical location...

Finally, we will head North-North East, and 7,000 kilometres further, after having passed through the coastal waters of .IN and .CN, we will leave our cruse ship and travel inland, to the very Asian and very ancient .MN (Mongolia) land of Genghis Khan.

We hope that this little journey has whetted your appetite for exoticism! Here is a list of these new extensions, which are open for registration to all, as well as a link to their information page, a bit more technical, as well as the prices that go with them (all rates stated excluding VAT)

.HN: €44 per year, under A rates
.BZ: €18 per year, under A rates
.VC: €24 per year, under A rates
.SC: €60 per year, under A rates
.MN: €32 per year, under A rates

Gandi AI 1.2 - update available

Arti — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:50:00 +0200

A new version of Gandi AI, labeled 1.2, is currently available via the server module management page of your account. This version corrects many bugs and imperfections that were present in version 1.1. It also significantly improves the performance of Apache due to the replacement of the mpm-itk module by a per-user module.

We are also going to take advantage of this upgrade to implement two additional modules:

PunBB, an efficient open-source forum that is solid, light, and written in PHP
Magento, a (the?) open-source platform that allows you to create an online store. Many add-ons are available on the MagentoConnect platform, such as the possibility of customizing the design of your store, changing the language of your interface, or to activate the payment platform of your preference. Also note that Magento needs 2 to 3 shares to run correctly.

Set up your server at http://www.gandi.net/hosting

One million!! One million!! (updated in August)

Ryan — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:04:00 +0200

Here we go! Since we're keen to celebrate our milestones with frivolous contests, we thought we'd launch a another one for this next milestone that may last a few months, as we're not there yet. We hinted at something like this in our earlier blog article when we passed 500,000 domains managed by Gandi.

After re-reading that particular entry, we were pleased to see we were further ahead on the road to 1m domains than we thought we'd be at this stage. Which is of course purely a reflection of the trust you our customer extend to us as your domain registrar that we have registered so many domains. So once again, thank you! (we cannot say that enough).

However, nobody is perfect, and we are no exception, and there is always room for improvement. But we hope that your vote of confidence shows that you understand who we are, and what we want to be as a company.

But anyway, getting back to the topic: one million domains!

The celebrate this milestone we want to offer the happy winner a 'trip of a lifetime!' (cue cheesy music). As is our way, we have not written up a long list of rules, and the whole thing will be rather casual. We just want this to be fun, so we ask that you refrain from posting if you just want to write negative things.

As we are planning ahead, the reason for this early entry is to let you choose the destination of this mystical voyage though your feedback: help us create the perfect adventure, tell us what you would like to do on your trip, give us ideas that will ensure that this person remembers the trip for the rest of their life!

To win, you must answer a simple question: when will the 1,000,000th active domain name be registered by Gandi?

Please ~~post~~ send us your guess for the date and time in the following format: hour/minute/second, then the day/month/year. The winner will be the person who has guessed closest to the correct time and date when the millionth domain is actually registered. If there are two guesses the same, the winner will be the first one to have posted.

The game will come to an end when the Millionth domain name has been sold and verified by our team, so please check back to this article from time to time throughout the year and check on our progress.

One last note - Gandi will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary towards the end of the year...wouldn't it be nice of the two dates coincided? (wink...wink) :D

PS: No Arti, you can't participate - this prize is reserved exclusively for our customers

What's up, week 30

Ryan — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:16:00 +0200

Last week, which came and went with the summer breeze, we added some wonderful services to what Gandi has to offer you...

Registrera ditt .se domännamn hos Gandi!

You can now register and manage your own .SE domain name at Gandi. As a reminder, .SE is the official ccTLD of Sweden (more info). This popular extension is open to everyone: you just need to provide a personal identification number if you are an individual (passport number, national ID number, or your personnummer if you are a resident of Sweden), or if you are a company, your VAT number (or organisationsnummer if your company is registered in Sweden. Varmt välkommen till Gandi!

New with Gandi Hosting

This week, we have corrected the behavior of our Watchdog, added the popular XMPP protocol (Jabber, GTalk, etc.) to our list of possible alert notification channels, and we added the QuickFlex service!

Huh? Ok, you already know the GandiFlex service, which allows you to pre-program the automatic addition of temporary shares to your server. Well, QuickFlex also lets you add temporary shares to your server, though without needing to schedule them in advance: you can quickly add them via a minimalist interface which only asks you how many additional shares you need, and for how long!

Roughly 5 minutes after you submit your request, the Flex shares are added to your server.

As a reminder, the price of a Flex share for one hour is only 0.03 euros, excl. VAT.

Imagine your game server, for example. Let's say that it is hosting a heated round of BoomBoom-Strike. Some friends come over and want some space to frag with you. You restart your server with more space, but you can tell that it has slowed a bit...you can quickly add 2 shares for 2 hours and benefit from the added speed! Not only will your friends not be able to use the lag as an excuse for their low scores, but you will be able to show off being able to increase your server's power in just a couple of minutes. And all this for only about 12 (euro) cents!

So! Back to work for us! We are preparing even more extensions for you, as well as many more hosting features

Launch of the server monitoring and response service!

Ryan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:33:00 +0200

This afternoon, we are proud to announce the release of our new server monitoring service! As always, we have created a service that goes one step beyond simple expectations. Not only are you now able to have a complete monitoring of your server's resources, but you can even program actions to be taken automatically if, for example, there is an unanticipated spike in your server's traffic for example. This can scale your servers power and resources automatically and without your server having to restart, something unique to Gandi VPS Hosting.

This service will let you to monitor all of the statistics of your server that we already make available to you, and to automatically perform a certain action if you wish.

We have (for now) implemented 3 types of alerts that you can set up:

Exceeding a threshold
In this case, your alert will be activated and your action list will be executed when the parameter that you are monitoring exceeds a certain value (x) over a certain amount of time (t1). The alert will stop once it falls below the limit for another predefined time period (t2).

Dropping under a threshold
In this case, your alert will be activated and your action list will be executed when what you are monitoring falls under a certain value over a given amount of time. The alert will stop once it returns above the limit for another predefined time period.

Inactivity of one of your parameters
Finally, our alert will be activated and your action list will be executed when the parameter that you are monitoring seem to no longer be active. The alert will stop once the probe detects that there is a return to activity over a chosen time period.

When an alert has been given, you have the possibility of executing an action list such as:

- Emailing you a warning. You can choose the email address that you want to receive this alert, and when you want to be warned.

- Send you an alert by instant message. This way, you can be alerted by ICQ, AIM or even IRC (MSN will soon be available as well)

- automatically add a Flex Share to your server. This way, you can optimize the quality of your service by having your server's power increase automatically with the load. Imagine, for example, that you are enjoying a peaceful vacation, sunbathing on a nice beach somewhere and...(ok, I need a vacation haha...).

Simply imagine that you are unavailable, and do not have an internet connection right at hand, when a nice journalist publishes an article about your new website. Suddenly, the 2 shares that you estimated for your service are no longer enough to handle the load: our new system will now act on your behalf, and so you can now have the time to calmly analyze the situation in detail. Adding shares to your server and increasing its power will happen automatically and without having to restart your server.

The interface is currently available for everyone to use. It may be found on your server's management page, right under the performance monitor graph. We will be adding additional actions to this list (such as the possibility of rebooting or stopping the server) in the near future.

1,000 additional free servers

Ryan — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:05:00 +0200

The success of the "Your server for free this summer!" operation is such that we have decided to have another promotion, which will be an extension of the previous one.

The first 1,000 free servers were given out in less than one week! Given the number of requests that we have received, we have even opened 102 accounts in addition to what was planned. Only here is the problem: there are many of you on the waiting list and at Gandi, and we want to be able to please as many as possible

The new promotion will therefore begin today. We are once more offering 1,000 free servers though this time, for only one month. The promotion remains, of course, without any purchase necessary, and you are free to keep your server by adding hosting resources to your account, or to let them expire.

The promotion that allows you to benefit from 2 free months by exchanging your monthly shares with fixed annual shares remains valid until August 31st 2009. For this, as a reminder, you just need to go to your "resource management" page, choose the number of annual shares that you want, and pay for your order. Once the shares have been added to your account, you can then remove the monthly shares that you no longer need. You will then be refunded for the time that remaining in the billing cycle for those shares.

Explanation of the outage that lasted 4 hours

Ryan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:08:00 +0200

Dear Customers,

As some of you may have noticed, we experienced a power outage from 11:30 AM to 3:30 PM (CET) today. We apologise for the inconvenience caused.

The company which manages the datacenter, that houses one of our server rooms performed maintenance this morning on some of their electrical equipment. Unfortunately, a human error by the provider undertaking the maintenance led to a total blackout of the datacenter for several minutes. The outage impacted many major companies on the internet (Dailymotion, Skyblog, Pixmania, etc.), as well as a portion of our customers.

Our system automatically transfers data to another server room in the event of a problem and it was working normally until the threshold was reached too quickly. There are several reasons for this: a massive outage on a scale seldom seen, combined with our choice to build-up the other server locations gradually rather than all at once, a server rebooting process that still requires perfecting and the success of our free server operation...in short, a chain of events caused this outage for some of you.

It goes without saying that we will examine what we could have been done at our end to prevent this, for example, a quicker building up of the other server locations (the hosting operation helps this enormously), and the continued optimization of the rebooting script (in the event that the electricity gods or the datacenter's subcontractor are still out to get us).

Additionally, we will ensure we refund you for today, and are at your disposal for any additional requests you may have. We will be adding one day to the expiration date for all of the affected hosting resources throughout the day.

Please accept our sincere apologies for this inconvenience. We are working to ensure that our infrastructure is built-up in a way which assures good performance and excellent management, so that ALL of you can benefit from our technology.

Technical note: In the event of a Gandi AI server, if your server responds but one of your services (web, ftp, etc.) is not working correctly, you can fix this by simply stopping and starting your server from Gandi's website. In the event that you have an expert server, we recommend that you activate your account's emergency console and execute a fsck command on your disks.