Storm
- From the company
Storm On Demand Cloud Server Hosting Platform
Storm On Demand is a proprietary cloud computing platform and server hosting infrastructure
developed by Liquid Web Inc's software development staff. Storm On Demand makes
it quick and easy to deploy and manage cloud servers from within a web browser.
Storm features include instant server setup, utility style hourly billing, ability
to clone server images, easy server scaling and complete backup/restoration capabilities.
Storm On Demand is a wholly owned subsidiary of the managed hosting company Liquid
Web Incorporated that was founded in 1997. Storm servers are deployed within Liquid
Web's 90,000 square foot state-of-the-art Cloud Data Center in the mid-western United
States. Storm servers are backed by the engineering and support services of the
Liquid Web Heroic Support team which is on site and available 24x7x365.
More About Liquid Web Inc., Storm On Demand's Parent Company
Since 1997 Liquid Web's growth has been fueled by providing unbeatable managed services
to businesses of all sizes, in all areas of the world. Liquid Web serves more than
10,000 clients in over 100 countries around the world. Liquid Web has been honored
by INC Magazine as one of the nations fastest growing companies consecutively in
2007, 2008 and 2009.
Liquid Web and Storm On Demand Provide Unmatched Heroic Support
Liquid Web has established a world class Heroic Support team that is professionally
educated and available on site at each data center 24 hours per day. There are currently
over 150 Heroic Support engineers. This includes a dedicated Sonar Monitoring division
that monitors and pro-actively responds to, and corrects, any issue that is identified.
This includes network, hardware, infrastructure and application level errors. Heroic
Support allows our customers to rest easy knowing their web sites are in good hands.
Storm On Demand is Hosted in Liquid Web's Cloud Data Center
Unlike other hosting providers, Liquid Web's three data center locations are entirely
self-owned and staffed by highly skilled engineers around the clock. Liquid Web
data centers are designed with redundancy installed at every level, ensuring that
a failure at any level will not affect your server. Liquid Web data center's power
is conditioned and reliable through the use of centralized UPS solutions backed
by state-of-the-art generator technology. Liquid Web's network is robust and reliable.
We exclusively utilize premium Tier-1 bandwidth providers, ensuring minimal latency
and fast connections to all points of the global internet.
Why Strom Cloud Hosting?
Production Ready Servers Ready in Minutes!
Unlike traditional VPS and Dedicated hosting where provisioning a new server can
take hours, or even days, with Storm, new servers can be deployed in minutes. Saving
you time and allowing you to focus on writing a great application, not deploying
servers!
Getting a web project off the ground has never been more simple or faster.
Scale, Migrate or Clone Your Servers With A Click!
Scaling your web site or application with traditional hosting can be a complex task
that requires you rebuild your entire system from the ground up. Starting with installing
the operating system, adding applications, making tweaks and finally migrating your
content to the new server. This process can take days or weeks with traditional
hosting and is usually fraught with problems and frustration.
With Storm, scaling your server to add additional space or computing power is as
easy as a few mouse clicks. There is no need to rebuild your entire system. Simply
select resize, select your required server size and details and Storm copies and
deploys your server in its identical configuration on your new server. A process
that used to take days or weeks can now be done in a few mouse clicks!
Create Production-Ready Images for Future Deployment!
Create a point in time snapshot before making upgrades and if anything goes wrong
you can roll back to your previous state without messing up anything further. Whereas
it could have broken other things in the past, now you don't have to worry about
that.
You can now simply roll back to a previous state.
Testing & Server Maintenance is Now Easy & Cost Effective!
Testing is paramount to application management but can be costly and a nightmare
to maintain. With traditional hosting, provisioning a development box in a secure
test environment can take weeks and requires you to buy & rebuild an exact replica
of your live server.
With Storm's Clone feature, you can deploy exact replicas of your live server for
testing purposes in minutes. And because it's on the Storm Cloud, you only pay for
what you use. Clone a server to test a small code change and destroy it when the
testing has completed, you only pay for the time you used! From the company
Storm
Expert Review- From the Editors
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4210 S Creyts Road
Lansing MI 48917
1-877-330-7660
Storm on Demand was founded in 2010 as an offshoot of LiquidWeb, a popular web hosting company that’s been in business since 1997. Storm on Demand uses LiquidWeb’s three data centers located in Lansing, MI.
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Review
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Sales
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I wanted to speak with a representative from Storm on Demand before signing on as a client. I couldn’t find out whether Storm on Demand offered a money back guarantee from their website, so I thought it best to clarify. Storm on Demand gives out sales and service help by telephone, email and live chat. Due to time constraints, I chose live chat and was almost immediately connected with a sales representative. Bret, the sales team member I spoke with, answered all of my questions in a timely manner and invited me to return to live chat if I needed anything else.
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Setup
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I found the sign up process with Storm on Demand both simple and straight forward, taking just under ten minutes to complete. Storm on Demand requires account verification, so shortly after paying, I received an phone call and was given a pin number. That pin number then needs to be used to complete registration online. Again, this was an easy step. Once completed, I was able to setup my server with a few simple clicks, and then I waited for Storm on Demand to finish the setup process for me. Within ten minutes, my new server space was set to go. The setup process with Storm on Demand was very straight forward and hassle free.
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Billing
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Storm on Demand bills clients on a monthly basis. I was charged only for what I ordered and was never overbilled or forced to pay for anything I hadn’t signed up for.
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Pricing
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Storm on Demand’s pricing begins at $50/month, not including bandwidth. (Operating systems and control panels are extra.) Storm’s pricing structure is slightly higher than other companies offering cloud hosting, but not out of the ballpark. Clients are technically charged only for what they use on an hourly basis and with a 100% uptime guarantee, it’s difficult to put a price on reliability.
One thing to note: Storm on Demand does not currently offer a money back guarantee. Bret, the company spokesperson I spoke with, did say that since I would be paying one month in advance, he would happily refund any hours I did not use if I chose to opt out of Storm’s service. This is not in Storm on Demand’s Terms of Service and there was no word on whether this would become the usual policy or not.
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Reliability
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Storm on Demand proved to be extremely reliable. My experience with my server and with Storm has been flawless. The custom control panel called Storm Dashboard makes managing the server a cinch and I’ve not had any hardware issues to speak of.
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Support
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I’ve taken the time to contact Storm on Demand through their many support channels on several occasions. Live chat is the quickest to respond—connecting instantaneously. The longest I’ve had to wait for email support has been two hours. I found Storm on Demand to be very responsive to customers and eager to help.
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Uptime
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I have a premium uptime monitoring tool in place to keep track of my domain names and make sure they’re all online. I’ve not had a single second of downtown with Storm on Demand.
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Guarantee
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Terms of Service
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The Terms of Service for Storm on Demand are laid out online. Highlights include:
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No IRC or pirated software.
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Spamming strictly forbidden.
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Advanced server support $50/hour.
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Advantages
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100% uptime guarantee
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Extremely reliable network
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24/7 support
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Intuitive, easy to use custom control panel
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Disadvantages
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Disclosure: We are a professional review site that receives compensation from the
companies whose products we review only when you buy through us. We test each product
thoroughly and give high marks to only the very best. We are independently owned
and the opinions expressed in Expert Reviews are our own.