iPower
- From the company
Who We Are
Founded in 2001, IPOWER has established itself as a leader in the web hosting industry, providing a comprehensive suite of online services for small and medium-sized businesses worldwide. Our custom control panel, vDeck, offers access to more than 200 tools and services, giving our customers the widest selection of web hosting applications available.
Focusing on Our Customers
At IPOWER, our customers aren't faceless numbers. We know them; we listen to them; we implement changes based on their feedback. Our "Customer Experience" team conducts monthly surveys and focus groups to monitor customer satisfaction and find out how we can improve. We perform usability testing on our tools, with real customers, during the development process. And, in 2007, we migrated to a new hosting platform to ensure that our customers' websites and email are hosted in an environment that is as secure and reliable as possible.
Always Evolving
When a company becomes as successful as IPOWER, it's easy to become complacent. We don't let that happen. We're constantly looking for newer and better ways we can serve our customers. We leverage our position as a web hosting leader to forge strong partnerships with industry giants, such as Google, Yahoo!, WordPress, ShopSite and Constant Contact. In fact, we were one of the first hosts to integrate Google Webmaster Tools directly into our control panel, giving our customers unprecedented insight into how Google views sites.
IPOWER's Advanced Technology
IPOWER utilizes two data centers in the Boston, MA area. Combined, they occupy over 2400 square feet of space, comprised of over 800 Servers and half a Petabyte of storage. Each center is equipped with:
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7/24 security
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Both data centers run on N+1 power (both A/C and D/C)
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and have the same network architecture and equipment.
Our solid, secure network infrastructure is comprised of a pooled server environment, which gives virtually any server on our network the ability to access Web site files when a request occurs. This means that the first machine available will be the one to serve a customer's Web pages, giving our customer sites faster loading times and fewer service interruptions than traditional hosting infrastructures.
Our front-end network consists of:
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dual redundant M7I routers
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2 firewalls incorporating IDP technology cross-connected to the outside world with BGP border gateway protocol.
Site data is parsed by our dual Big Iron load balancers and is then managed by our DELL servers, which are split into application pools (Web, FTP, incoming mail, etc.). This type of architecture allows us to customize each machine to the service it performs, which means more density per box, and ultimately, faster and more reliable services. No pool lives entirely on one rack. Therefore, even the loss of a rack's switch or its power will not take that service pool down.
Our network-attached storage enables any machine to access a customer's data. Every machine is clustered with another identical machine that will seamlessly take over if the primary unit crashes. These units are also backed up to another set of storage units that have a mirror copy of the data in case of disk failure in the primary units. An estimated 5.5 gigabits of storage are processed per second through our servers. From the company
iPower
Expert Review- From the Editors
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919 East Jefferson Blvd.
Phoenix, AZ 85034
888-511-4678
iPower was founded in 2001 and quickly became one of the largest and most well known hosts online. Today, iPower operates out of two wind powered data center in Boston, MA, and has more than 700,000 customers.
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Review
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Sales
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I wanted to speak with a member of iPower’s sales department before signing up for a shared hosting account. iPower offers sales support via a toll free telephone number, live chat and email. I chose to reach out to live support and was connected to a representative named Christopher within five minutes. Christopher was able to immediately answer my sales questions, though he had a bit of a pushy edge, encouraging me not to use the web site to sign up, but to instead sign up via live chat so that he could make a commission. Since live chat did not offer a secure connection with which to share my credit card details, I thanked Christopher for his time, and went back to the iPower’s website to begin my hosting experience.
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Setup
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Paying for a web hosting plan with iPower took approximately ten minutes of my time. Once the process was finished, I received a letter welcoming me to iPower that listed all the details of my new plan, including my username and password needed to setup my account. I was able to begin immediately uploading my website to iPower.
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Billing
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I chose to pay for web hosting by the month with iPower and though I had no billing issues to speak of while a client, the moment I cancelled my account, my troubles began. iPower did not cancel the billing to my credit card and as a result, I was billed each month for three months following my account cancellation. I was able to finally resolve this matter, but not with iPower. I was forced to issue a stop payment with my financial institution.
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Pricing
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iPower’s smallest plan is $3.95/month (if paid one year in advance), but comes with a $10 setup fee. Even with the added fee, iPower’s pricing structure is well within the average range.
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Reliability
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During the few two months with iPower, I experienced regular SQL crashes, daily instances where my control panel would not fully load in my browser, and unreliable email delivery. Many emails would take 12 hours or longer to reach their intended recipient. I asked to be moved to another server. While I didn’t have any SQL problems on the new hardware, my control panel and email remained unreliable. The email became so untrustworthy that I was forced to switch to a gmail address.
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Support
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iPower gives customers support by telephone, live chat and an online help desk. I found live chat to be tremendously responsive and helpful, but email and help desk tickets would often go unanswered for more than 8 hours. The average wait time for telephone support is one hour.
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Uptime
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My premium monitoring tool that’s used to keep track of my domains indicated a few instances of downtime while I was with iPower, but nothing that fell below their 99.9% uptime guarantee.
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Guarantee
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99.9% uptime guarantee
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30 day money back guarantee
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Terms of Service
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iPower’s Terms of Service are available online. Highlights include:
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$35 early cancellation fee
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User solely responsible for backing up website
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A late fee of $7 will be assessed to accounts not paid on time
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$50 minimum charge to reinstate accounts
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Advantages
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Innovative vDeck control panel
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Reliable network
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24/7 support
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Competitive prices
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Environmentally friendly company
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Excellent live chat support
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Disadvantages
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Unreliable email servers
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Setup fee on some account packages
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Slow help desk and email support
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