Simplehosting.ch - A Case Study

Overview

Originally founded in 2002, simplehosting.ch started out like many other web hosts: as a hobby. With a single web server, the founders started by hosting websites for their family and friends. Over time, the number of web servers grew, and soon that hobby became an actual business. Over the years they've grown to become one of the most reliable, and customer-focused, web hosts in Switzerland. Their business has grown due to their focus on providing a high standard of service, at reasonable prices, and continuing their internal knowledge to the benefit of their vast customer base. Offering both Linux and Windows shared hosting, email hosting, and cloud-based services and colocation services, simplehosting offers a number of solutions for companies and customers of any size.

Problem

Simplehosting built their business around the Plesk control panel, a popular solution that can handle provisioning, billing and much more for any hosting company. As Plesk evolved, they introduced the ability to have standalone servers for things like databases and email. (Prior to that, Plesk servers were standalone systems, requiring everything installed on the same server.) For their email solution, simplehosting initially chose Icewarp for their customers. However, Icewarp eventually stopped supporting Plesk. As Plesk evolved, the integration with Icewarp declined. While still supported within Plesk, Icewarp doesn't offer the flexibility of a centralized mailserver, and hasn't extended their integration with Plesk.