Case Study: Nonprofit Outreach Publisher
The Heartland Institute
Submitted By: Diane Bast
"From my initial contacts with the company's sales department to my current regular contact with technical support and billing, I have been highly impressed by the professionalism, courtesy, knowledge, and responsiveness of the Hosting.com staff. When something goes wrong-as it inevitably does with computers-Hosting.com deals with it promptly and effectively." Our hosting needs are unusual for a nonprofit organization. Our site is heavily trafficked and database-heavy.
- Contains 10,000 HTML pages-some 356 MB.
- Between 50 and 100 pages are added per week.
- Contains 7,500 documents in Adobe's PDF format: over 4.5 GB worth!
- Between 20 and 50 PDFs are added to the database weekly.
- Monthly visitors average 100,000, generating 1,000,000 hits.
We needed two dedicated Windows servers (one to act as the web server, another as a dedicated database server), with sufficient RAM and robust hard drives. Bandwidth, IP addresses, price and turnaround time were key factors... as was the intangible: How easy would our new host be to work with, and how responsive would they be to our needs?
Hosting.com has met, and even exceeded, our expectations. In the months we've been hosting with them, Hosting.com has come through for us on all fronts.
- Hosting.com guaranteed - and delivered - complete server setup to our satisfaction within 72 hours of their receipt of our signed agreement and initial payment. This was hugely important: We had originally contracted with a different firm, which after four months did not have the servers up and running. We had promised the small ISP who was hosting the site at the time that we'd be off his equipment by a certain date. . . Hosting.com's quick, thorough, and accurate work allowed us to meet that deadline even after the several months' delay caused by the first firm.
- Hosting.com has assisted me with e-mail setup and administration of the site stats program that is part of our dedicated server package.
- Hosting.com worked with me to install a secure server license on the site for our online store.
- Hosting.com has upgraded its e-mail server, added web-based e-mail administration, upgraded its customer support software, enhanced its online billing system; and implemented security testing/fixing for the servers.
- Hosting.com has assigned a Senior Systems Administrator for dedicated servers to our account, and he checks in with us on a monthly basis . . . when was the last time you had technical support staff contacting you?
I would be happy to provide additional detail to anyone considering Hosting.com as their website host. I can be reached by e-mail at dbast@heartland.org.
The Heartland Institute is a nonprofit organization that publishes outreach publications designed to make public affairs interesting and entertaining. We operate a clearinghouse for the work of nearly 300 think tanks and advocacy groups.