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DreamHost

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

DreamHost is a Los Angeles-based web hosting provider and domain name registrar. It is the web hosting and cloud computing business owned by 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 1997 by Michael Rodriguez.[2][3] DreamHost began hosting customers' sites in 1997.[4] In May 2012, DreamHost spun off Inktank.[5] Inktank is a professional services and support company for the open source Ceph file system.[6] In November 2014, DreamHost spun off Akanda, an open source network virtualization solution.[7]

Web hosting

DreamHost's shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting network consists of Apache, nginx and lighttpd web servers running on the Ubuntu operating system.[8] DreamHost also offers cloud storage and computing services for entrepreneurs and developers, launched in 2012.[9][10] The control panel for users to manage all services is a custom application designed in-house, includes integrated billing and a support ticket system, and has received rave reviews from some customers.[11] DreamHost's staff contribute to an official blog and a customer support wiki.[12]

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.[13][14] The company hosts in excess of one million domains.[15]

File hosting

In 2006, the company began a beta version file hosting service they called "Files Forever".[16] The company stated that existing customers could store files "forever" after paying a one-time storage fee, and redistribute or sell them with DreamHost handling the transactions.[17] As of November 2012, this service was no longer offered to new customers.[18] In April 2013, DreamHost mentioned that the Files Forever service had been discontinued and that they would focus on building a better-supported storage technology.[19]

Free application hosting

In 2009, the company began offering free web application hosting. With either their own domain or a free subdomain, customers are able to make use of a number of open source applications, such as WordPress and MediaWiki without charge.[20] The service is similar to, and can be integrated with, the Google App Engine.[20] Through a control panel, customers are able to manage their applications or upgrade to the standard, fully managed hosting service.

DreamCompute

DreamHost's DreamCompute is a public cloud computing service that provides scalable compute resources for developers and entrepreneurs. DreamCompute users select the amount of compute resources and storage resources needed and define their own virtual networks. DreamCompute is powered by OpenStack, Ceph and Akanda and designed for scalability, resiliency, and security.

DreamCompute provides virtual servers through the use of the KVM hypervisor. Virtual machines (VMs) can be started by creating an Instance using the DreamCompute dashboard.

Networking services for DreamCompute are delivered through OpenStack's Neutron service, coupled with VMWare's NSX (Network Virtualization Platform), and DreamHost's own Akanda project.

The DreamCompute dashboard is built with OpenStack's Horizon project. The dashboard provides a user interface for interacting with DreamCompute's three main services: Compute, Networking, and Storage. Functions such as launching an instance, creating storage volumes, and configuring a virtual network, as well as creating and managing snapshots of both a running instance and storage volumes, are done in the dashboard.

DreamCompute leverages OpenStack APIs for system automation.

DreamObjects

DreamHost’s DreamObjects is a cloud storage service powered by Ceph. Ceph’s distributed object storage system allows for storing DreamObjects’ data on multiple disks across multiple servers for high fault-tolerance. DreamObjects users store any kind of data (developer content, video, music, etc.) and make it accessible from anywhere in the cloud. Because data is redundantly stored across multiple locations, a fault in any part of the redundant system – such as the loss of a server – will go unnoticed by users, as a user’s data remains available and accessible. Commonly used by developers needing object storage to augment or replace S3 or Swift functionally via API, DreamObjects will scale to let a user store any capacity of data. DreamObjects costs are usage based, with no costs upfront.

DreamPress

DreamPress is DreamHost’s managed WordPress hosting offering that features WordPress-optimized servers and support for novice and advanced WordPress users. In May 2015, DreamHost released DreamPress 2, featuring the deployment of high-speed Solid State Drives.[21]

Involvement with OpenStack

DreamHost has been heavily involved throughout the evolution of OpenStack, contributing developers and engineers to the project beginning in early 2011.[22] DreamHost development team members have been leaders on a number of major OpenStack projects, and have over 1,200 code commits changing over 128,000 lines of OpenStack code.[23] DreamHost CEO Simon Anderson has been on OpenStack’s Board of Directors since the OpenStack Foundation’s inception. In January 2015, DreamHost was elected by Gold members of the OpenStack Foundation to represent for a third consecutive year.[24]

Inktank

In May 2012, DreamHost spun off Inktank.[5] Inktank is a professional services and support company for the open-source Ceph storage system.[6] Inktank was acquired by Red Hat in April 2014 for $175 million.[25]

Akanda

In November 2014, DreamHost spun off Akanda, an open source network virtualization solution for OpenStack clouds.[7]

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.[26][27]
  • 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.[28][29]
  • 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][30] The company later stated the final total was $2.1 million.[31]

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. ^ a b "DreamHost spins off Inktank, provides professional services for Ceph cloud storage". Retrieved 5 February 2013.
  6. ^ a b "Startup Inktank Supports Ceph Open-Source Storage Technology". Retrieved 5 February 2013.
  7. ^ a b Burt, Jeffrey (2014-11-03). "DreamHost Launches NFV Company Akanda". Eweek. Retrieved 2015-10-06.
  8. ^ "Change Is In the Air' – DreamHost Upgrades". Dreamhost. June 3, 2013. Retrieved 2014-07-16.
  9. ^ http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dreamhost-introduces-dreamobjects-cloud-storage-170000829.html
  10. ^ http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dreamhost-introduces-dreamcompute-public-cloud-computing-service-2012-10-15
  11. ^ 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."
  12. ^ Berlind, David (August 3, 2006). "Honesty, transparency can offset customer service disasters". ZDNet. Retrieved 2009-03-30.
  13. ^ "DreamHost Wiki: Contacting Us Methods". Retrieved 2010-06-01.
  14. ^ "DreamHost Hosting Reviews". Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  15. ^ "Web Hosting Report for DREAMHOST.COM". Webhosting.info. Retrieved 2010-06-08.
  16. ^ Penalva, Javier. "Files Forever, nuevo servicio de DreamHost" (in Spanish). Genbeta. Retrieved 2009-07-01.
  17. ^ Jones, Josh (2006-11-29). "Files Forever - Dreamhost". DreamHost Wiki. DreamHost. Archived from the original on 2011-09-15. Retrieved 2014-05-17.
  18. ^ "Files Forever - Dreamhost". DreamHost Wiki. DreamHost. 2012-11-14. Archived from the original on 2013-03-30. Retrieved 2014-05-17.
  19. ^ "Twitter / DreamHost: @BrattyBlkBarbie We cancelled ..." DreamHost Twitter feed. DreamHost. 2013-04-12. Retrieved 2014-05-17.
  20. ^ a b Lee, Justin (January 9, 2009). "DreamHost Offers Free Apps Hosting Service". The Web Host Industry Review. Retrieved 2009-06-26.
  21. ^ Burt, Chris (2015-06-17). "DreamHost Improves Dedicated Server Performance with Solid State Drives". The Web Host Industry Review. Retrieved 2015-10-06.
  22. ^ "DreamHost-Openstack a Match Made in Open Source Heaven". DreamHost. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  23. ^ Stackalytics.com http://stackalytics.com/?release=all&company=dreamhost&metric=commits. Retrieved 6 October 2015. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  24. ^ OpenStack.org http://www.openstack.org/foundation/board-of-directors. Retrieved 6 October 2015. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  25. ^ "Red Hat Buys Ceph Provider InkTank for 175M Cash to Beef up its Cloud Storage Offerings". Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  26. ^ "MySpace Outage Pinpointed at LA Telecom Building". Netcraft. July 25, 2006. Retrieved 2009-04-05.
  27. ^ Miller, Rich (August 2, 2006). "LA Hosting Providers Slowed by Power Problems". Netcraft. Retrieved 2009-04-05.
  28. ^ Leyden, John (June 7, 2007). "Hackers load malware onto Mercury music award site". The Register. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
  29. ^ "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]
  30. ^ Sparkes, Matthew (January 17, 2008). "Typo causes $7,500,000 mistake". PC Pro. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  31. ^ Jones, Josh (January 17, 2008). "The Final Update". DreamHost. Retrieved 2008-01-18.
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