About

ACTIVE 24 is among the leading web hosting providers in the Czech Republic and a major player in this market across Europe. In total, it serves about 320,000 customers in 15 countries of Europe. From January 2009 onwards, Czech customers can take advantage of brand new services built on the Windows Server 2008 platform.

ACTIVE 24 was originally based in Oslo, Norway, where it was established in 1998 as Active ISP. Since then, it has been expanding to other countries, acquiring local players as well as directly entering markets abroad. ACTIVE 24 arrived in the Czech Republic in 2004, taking over Globe Internet, followed by the acquisitions of both Internet Club and CP Online. Apart from the Czech Republic and Norway, ACTIVE 24 also operates in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Austria, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In August 2006, the ACTIVE 24 Group was acquired by the Norwegian software vendor MAMUT ASA, whose business includes development of business solutions for accounting, logistics, CRM, and sales management.

The Windows platform had been included in the web-hosting service offerings of Czech webhosters for a number of years before Globe Internet and two other local players were acquired by ACTIVE 24. For several years, customers of web-hosting services worldwide have been demanding the choice of Microsoft Windows Server-based hosting besides the open source platform. The key reason for that was, particularly at first, the support for Active Server Pages (ASP), a scripting language that enables the creation of complex web-based applications, such as publication systems, Internet stores, etc., as well as FrontPage Extensions, which enable comfortable content publishing without requiring any programming skills.

ASP was originally introduced in Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, the first Windows server to be offered by the company that’s now ACTIVE 24 in the Czech Republic. Since then, the platform has firmly established its position in the market. On the ACTIVE 24 servers it has been represented by Windows 2000 Server and later, Windows Server 2003. The company has always offered the latest version of Windows Server to its customers, which has helped it to stay ahead of the market competition. This is due to the fact that each new version has brought a number of enhanced and new features that have been made available to customers.

However, the largest technological advance so far has been associated with the launch of the latest version Windows Server 2008. Among the features ACTIVE 24 customers will find attractive is the added support for the PHP scripting language, an Open Source community favourite, the frequently requested access via encrypted FTP as well as the new version of Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0. New features have also been added in areas that are not immediately visible to customers, but still have major significance. A number of new features are related to security and reliability, including enhanced support for hot-plug devices or advanced load balancing capability, which enables operational continuity despite circumstances such as physical damage to one of the servers. However, the greatest benefits Windows Server 2008 offers to ACTIVE 24 are the substantially easier, faster and more efficient systems management, and the Hyper-V hardware virtualization technology.

There was little wonder that ACTIVE 24, as the largest web-hosting company in the Czech Republic, wanted to bring the new platform to our customers as soon as possible. Thanks to our participation in a pilot program, our customers could start evaluating Windows Server 2008 several months before the official release. Participation in the pilot project also enabled ACTIVE 24 to simplify the production launch of new product offerings on the Windows Server 2008 platform, as introduced in January 2009. During the six months of pilot operation, ACTIVE 24 was able to gather the requisite knowledge as well as practical experience using the new system. That is why the production launch was fast, smooth and fault free.

Since January 2009, ACTIVE 24 customers on the Windows Server platform have been able to utilize the powerful and robust PHP support mentioned above, including FastCGI, encrypted FTP, support for URL rewrites (automated URL manipulation, typically redirections or SEO optimizations) directly in the web-based configuration UI, significantly expanded capabilities for custom web-hosting configuration, and a wide range of other new technologies and tools that were not available in the previous Windows Server 2003 version. In addition, thanks to the new reporting tools implemented in Windows Server 2008, ACTIVE 24 is able to pro-actively assist customers in optimizing their applications. This is why the customer can obtain much more precise information when problems occur with their application.

The customers will notice the benefits of Windows Server 2008 even before uploading any scripts or applications to their web hosting space. Even creating the web hosting space has been accelerated by the factor of four, thanks to new technology implemented in Windows Server 2008, namely Windows PowerShell. Web hosting account setup takes about as long as loading the confirmation page after the customer clicks the request to proceed with the creation.

Thanks to the Hyper-V technology implemented in Windows Server 2008, ACTIVE 24 could come up with a brand new product that provides hosting on a virtual server, to which the customer can upload any custom applications. A similar service was also offered by ACTIVE 24 on the Windows Server 2003 platform, but the customer was required to purchase or lease their own physical server, for which ACTIVE 24 would provide both Internet connectivity and management. However, virtual machine deployments using Hyper-V enable what’s essentially an identical service at much lower cost to ACTIVE 24, which significantly lowers the end customer price. That is why these features can now be used by smaller businesses, which have had to choose other alternatives so far. The benefit for larger companies is that ACTIVE 24, thanks to the experience with the new platform, can offer lower pricing for the Managed Server service, if the customer chooses Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Web Edition as the operating system.

The deployment of the new platform results in more than just the expansion of offerings and improvement of service levels for ACTIVE 24 customers: it brings substantial savings for the business. These are mostly related to server management, made much easier by the new, more streamlined tools and automation of certain tasks by means of Windows PowerShell scripts. Further cost savings result from using Hyper-V as more than just a component of customer service offerings, but also for internal business purposes such as the operation of a Microsoft Exchange mail server. The modular structure of Windows Server 2008 enables the administrator to install only those server modules that the company actually needs, which reduces costs related to hardware, as well as management and mitigation of any security risks. Further hardware-related savings are due to the improved administrative interface that now enables better and more detailed insight into system resource utilization on the server, and by extension, more precise estimates of required hardware investments.

The new platform will let the company expand into providing sophisticated hosted application solutions for businesses, which exactly aligns with the vision the software vendor MAMUT presented as it bought out the 100% stake in ACTIVE 24 back in 2006. ACTIVE 24 will therefore soon start offering hosted solutions for businesses, such as the hosted communications and collaboration solution Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Ultimately, the new server platform has brought more than broader customer offerings or operating cost reduction to ACTIVE 24: It has made the company ready for further expansion into providing hosted solutions.