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DreamHost

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DreamHost
Company typePrivate company
IndustryWeb hosting service, Domain name registrar
FoundedClaremont, California, 1996[1]
HeadquartersLos Angeles, California, USA
Key people
Dallas Bethune, Josh Jones, Michael Rodriguez, Sage Weil
ProductsWeb services
Websitewww.DreamHost.com

DreamHost is a Los Angeles-based web hosting provider and domain name registrar. It is the web hosting branch of New Dream Network, LLC, founded in 1996 by Dallas Bethune, Josh Jones, Michael Rodriguez and Sage Weil, undergraduate students at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, and registered in 1999 by Michael Rodriguez.[2][3] DreamHost began hosting customers' sites in 1997.[4]

Web hosting

DreamHost's shared and dedicated hosting network consists of Apache, nginx and lighttpd web servers running on the Debian GNU/Linux operating system.[5] The control panel is a custom application designed in-house, includes integrated billing and a support ticket system, and has received rave reviews from some customers.[6] DreamHost's staff contribute to an official blog and a customer support wiki.[7]

DreamHost does not offer call-in phone support, but customers can pay extra to request callbacks from support staff. Furthermore, a live chat option is available for all accounts when the level of support emails is low. This option is always available for customers that already pay the monthly fee for callbacks.[8][9] The company hosts in excess of one million domains.[10]

File hosting

In 2006, the company began a beta version file hosting service they call "Files Forever".[11] The company states existing customers can store files "forever" after paying a one-time storage fee, and may redistribute or sell them with DreamHost handling the transactions.[12]

Free application hosting

In 2009, the company began offering free web application hosting. Either with their own domain, or with a free subdomain, customers are able to make use of a number of open source applications, such as WordPress and MediaWiki without charge.[13] The service is similar to, and can be integrated with, the Google App Engine.[13] Through a control panel, customers are able to manage their applications or upgrade to the standard, fully managed hosting service.

Incidents

  • In July, 2006, two power outages in the building housing DreamHost's datacenter caused significant disruption to services offered by DreamHost, Media Temple and MySpace.[14][15]
  • A year later, approximately 700 websites and 3,500 FTP accounts hosted on DreamHost's servers were compromised. In response to the incident, the company made some changes to improve security.[16][17][18]
  • The following January, DreamHost accidentally billed some customers for an extra year's worth of services, which they initially reported as $7.5 million in extra charges.[4][19] The company later stated the final total was $2.1 million.[20]
  • On May 20, 2010, dreamhost.com was down for 6 hours after a DDos attack against them and the website DrawMuhammadDay.com they hosted. The websites of other customers stayed up during the attack.[21]

References

  1. ^ "WHOIS information for newdream.net". Retrieved 2009-04-04.
  2. ^ "Company History". Unofficial DreamHost Blog. January 24, 2001. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
  3. ^ "California LLC Registration Search". ca.gov. Retrieved 2009-04-01.
  4. ^ a b Perez, Juan Carlos (2008-01-15). "Update: Billing nightmare for DreamHost customers". InfoWorld. Retrieved 2009-04-05.
  5. ^ Schroder, Carla (October 1, 2007). "Dreamhost Driven by Linux-Enhanced Economics". Enterprise Networking Planet. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
  6. ^ Mike Davidson (founder & CEO of Newsvine), Why I host at Dreamhost, accessed May 31, 2010. "Dreamhost’s web-based control panel is the best in the industry to my knowledge. You’re in control of so much that sometimes you feel like you’re going to click the wrong button and restart an entire server farm."
  7. ^ Berlind, David (August 3, 2006). "Honesty, transparency can offset customer service disasters". ZDNet. Retrieved 2009-03-30.
  8. ^ "DreamHost Wiki: Contacting Us Methods". Retrieved 2010-06-01.
  9. ^ "Web Hosting Handbook: Editors DreamHost Review". Retrieved 2010-06-01.
  10. ^ "Web Hosting Report for DREAMHOST.COM". Webhosting.info. Retrieved 2010-06-08.
  11. ^ Penalva, Javier. "Files Forever, nuevo servicio de DreamHost" (in Template:Es icon). Genbeta. Retrieved 2009-07-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  12. ^ Jones, Josh. "Files Forever: Revision as of 20:37, 29 November 2006". DreamHost Wiki. DreamHost. Retrieved 2009-07-01.
  13. ^ a b Lee, Justin (January 9, 2009). "DreamHost Offers Free Apps Hosting Service". The Web Host Industry Review. Retrieved 2009-06-26.
  14. ^ "MySpace Outage Pinpointed at LA Telecom Building". Netcraft. July 25, 2006. Retrieved 2009-04-05.
  15. ^ Miller, Rich (August 2, 2006). "LA Hosting Providers Slowed by Power Problems". Netcraft. Retrieved 2009-04-05.
  16. ^ Leyden, John (June 7, 2007). "Hackers load malware onto Mercury music award site". The Register. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
  17. ^ Miller, Rich (June 6, 2007). "Mass Customer Site Hack at DreamHost". Netcraft. Retrieved 2009-04-04. [dead link‍]
  18. ^ "iFrame used to spread Malware on prominent Legal and Music sites including Clintons and the Nationwide Mercury Prize". ScanSafe. 2007. Retrieved 2009-04-04. [dead link‍]
  19. ^ Sparkes, Matthew (January 17, 2008). "Typo causes $7,500,000 mistake". PC Pro. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  20. ^ Jones, Josh (January 17, 2008). "The Final Update". DreamHost. Retrieved 2008-01-18.
  21. ^ "Yeah…about that downtime…". DreamHost. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
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