ABOUT SLASHGEAR
One of the most recognizable names in technology media, SlashGear informs millions of readers about the latest and greatest in personal technology. Since 2005, it has covered everything from cutting-edge tech gear to the latest digital lifestyle trends. Distinctive, informative, and fresh, every day SlashGear provides trusted device information and reviews to consumers, along with thought-provoking commentary.
CHALLENGE
In the midst of a growth spurt, SlashGear’s data center solutions provider was acquired. Shortly thereafter, as pricing skyrocketed and customer service plummeted, the SlashGear team knew they had to find a data center partner it could trust to host their business and help it fulfill their ambitions.
SOLUTION
Hivelocity, a premier provider of dedicated servers, edge-computing, colocation, and cloud hosting services and solutions.
BENEFITS:
- Saving an estimated $40,000 per year in reduced costs
- Empowered new ventures and enabled company growth with improved stability and increased margins
- Reliable throughput and zero downtime
- Strong, personalized, responsive customer service
QUOTE
“In our industry, reliability is paramount. When we get a server, it’s not about price but reliability and service, which Hivelocity provides to us plus more. Their hardware is top notch and their data center infrastructure and services are great. Partnering with Hivelocity is as close to perfect as you can get.”
– Ewdison Then, founder, SlashGear
SlashGear’s Journey to Hivelocity
Content is King and so is SlashGear
SlashGear is a trusted and popular source for news, insights, and analysis on the latest trends and gadgets in personal technology. Part of Ziff Davis technology publishing, every month, over six million visitors come to SlashGear.com, which is second to only PCMag.com in readership.
SlashGear continues to grow at a rapid pace, adding more readers and expanding into new areas of coverage. “The popularity of SlashGear.com has led to a significant increase in unique visitors from one million to six million per month,” says Ewdison Then, the founder of SlashGear and eSOLIX,
an IT consulting and solutions provider. “As we move into publishing on automotive topics, our overall readership will continue to grow.”
In addition to captivating, helpful, and informative content, the publishing industry, in particular, requires reliable IT infrastructure and services to be successful. “Confidence in our throughput, zero downtime, and scalability are critical to SlashGear’s business model,” says Then. “Because our readers consume a lot of content with lots of data-intensive images and video, our data throughput is nearly 10 terabytes per minute. We can’t afford for a reader to experience any latency in accessing content or they’ll leave our site.”
SlashGear’s business had been using cloud services from SoftLayer. However, when IBM acquired SoftLayer, SlashGear soon realized it needed to find a data center partner better equipped to support its growth. “When IBM took over, the cost of servers tripled, and the quality of customer service fell,” says Then. “We were in growth mode and needed to add more machines, but IBM’s flexibility in pricing disappeared and questions to customer service took between six hours to a day for a response. It was clear we needed a more nimble and responsive data center partner if we wanted to continue to grow.”
Auditioning Other Suitors
SlashGear started to search for the right partner. “We needed a provider capable of delivering high throughput, zero downtime, responsive customer service, and a willingness to work with us to help us to scale as needed,” says Then.
SlashGear tried services from several colocation providers, including SingleHop and iWeb, but found none of them satisfied their core criteria. “SingleHop took a week to get back to us when we had issues,” says Then. “We also tried iWeb, but experienced issues with connection drops.”
SlashGear decided to audition Hivelocity as a potential candidate to support its business.
“As a trial, we had Hivelocity host an application with less than 500,000 unique users per month,” says Then. “We liked how they performed and operate as an organization, which gave us the confidence to ramp up and entrust our future and growth to Hivelocity.”
What Jumped Out
To SlashGear, Hivelocity stood above the other IaaS providers for many reasons. “The cost of Hivelocity’s solutions versus paying for public cloud services, their high-quality of Internet, data throughput, and the hardware they provide is top notch,” says Then. “What we really appreciate, though, is their responsiveness and flexibility. Not only does Hivelocity have really skilled support staff compared to others, and respond quickly, but they understand the importance of personal service. You get a dedicated account manager who you know will follow up with you directly and who truly understands your specific needs. That’s invaluable.”
SlashGear seamlessly made the switch to Hivelocity. “We were able to migrate our entire infrastructure with zero downtime,” says Then. SlashGear now uses a cloud application provider and Amazon Web Services (AWS), supported with cloud services from Hivelocity. “In addition, Hivelocity serves as our secondary master-slave replication database, which helps to spread the load of database queries all over the world,” says Then.
SlashGear appreciates that it has found a data center service provider that truly understands what’s important to its business. “In publishing, we simply can’t have downtime,” says Then. “With our previous provider, we once experienced five hours of downtime with poor responsiveness. That won’t happen with Hivelocity. They really grasp our needs. Moreover, our personal account manager really understands when we need help with hardware and is so versed in our business that any troubleshooting is quick and efficient.”
Hivelocity: Bona Fide Business Enabler
Today, all of SlashGear’s publications are hosted by Hivelocity and the company is meeting its ambitious business targets while saving money. “We’re getting better service, more reliable connectivity, and no downtime while also saving about $40,000 per year on service than what we were paying IBM,” says Then.
Hivelocity has also given SlashGear the confidence and tools it needs to launch publications covering automotive topics and start a peripheral business, eSolix, a consultancy that provides IT support to other publishers. “Our initiatives in automotive are gaining traction, and eSolix already delivers IT support to eight of the biggest publishers in Japan,” says Then. “We’ve been so pleased with Hivelocity that we are considering using them to power our back end in other locations, and exploring using their colocation services too,” says Then.
SlashGear has advice for other companies seeking state-of-the-art, affordable, and responsive hosting and data center services to power their businesses or new initiatives. “Hivelocity helps me sleep better because I have less things to worry about,” says Then. “ When we need assistance, they go above and beyond and always keep us up to date. Hivelocity makes it easier for us to focus on and grow our company.”
Hivelocity provides dedicated servers, bare metal cloud, and colocation hosting solutions to customers from over 130 countries worldwide. Featuring 38 world-class, edge-ready data centers, strategically positioned in 36 cities, across 4 continents, Hivelocity’s expansive global footprint allows users to reach 80% of the world’s internet population in under 25 milliseconds. All of their data centers are SSAE-16 SOC1 and SOC2 certified, and HIPAA and PCI compliant services are also available. With award-winning 24/7 support, an average 15-minute ticket response time, and an SLA-backed 99.99% network uptime guarantee, Hivelocity is the hosting provider you can rely on.
Contact Hivelocity
Phone: 888-869-4678. Address: 8010 Woodland Center Blvd #700 Tampa FL, 33614
Download a free PDF of this case study: SlashGear Case Study
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