netcup News
Victory in the Webhosting, Vserver and Managed Server categories
02.11.2018, Kategorie: Press Releases
Press Release October 24, 2018
Karlsruhe – netcup (www.netcup.de) once again wins the online portal HOSTtest’s reader poll to be named Web Host of the Year 2018. This year, the company not only managed to win in the most highly contested category, Webhosting, but also in the two categories VServer and Managed Server. netcup also ranked second in the Domains category. In the audience survey conducted by HOSTtest, the Karlsruhe-based web host thus remains ahead of such industry giants as 1&1 in terms of customer popularity.
This year, voting for web hosts took place for the fourth time in a row. HOSTtest had called upon its readers to vote in seven categories, and nearly 12,000 votes were cast.
“This outstanding repeat result in HOSTtest’s industry litmus test fills us with enormous pride”, Felix Preuß, Managing Director of netcup GmbH, was pleased to report. “We are happy and grateful that so many of our customers place their trust in us. The result serves to confirm our view that big does not automatically mean good. We consciously aim to be different from the industry giants, using our service and a very good price-performance ratio to convince the market of such”.
The company’s success is further underlined by other awards won this year: In May 2018, netcup was awarded Platinum at the Hosting Awards in the VPS category. Test results from trade journals also rated netcup’s service and performance as “very good”. In August of this year, netcup had reviewed its web hosting offerings and expanded the storage space for website hosting. For example, netcup is the first web hosting provider to offer its customers 1000 GB of SSD storage space in a redundant cloud infrastructure for less than 10 euro per month.
New management interface for web hosting: netcup simplifies server administration
11.10.2017, Kategorie: Press Releases
Press release dated 20.09.2017
Karlsruhe – Since the start of 2014, the web host netcup (www.netcup.de) has based its hosting offers on a redundant cloud infrastructure deployed across multiple servers. A web hosting account does not draw its resources from one single physical server but instead benefits from the resources of different servers on the cloud. “Compared to an application server, an email server needs more storage space, for example, but at the same time less CPU performance. We take this into consideration with our cloud infrastructure. The result is very economical web hosting fees combined with very good performance and high availability. That is because our cloud continues to operate even if an individual server fails. Moreover, resources can be scaled precisely to meet customer requirements,” explains Felix Preuss, Managing Director of netcup GmbH.
Up to now, netcup has been using the software solution Plesk Automation, manufactured by Parallels, for central management of the cloud infrastructure. Effective immediately, netcup will now rely on their own software development which will be directly integrated into the existing Customer Control Panel (CCP). The management software Plesk Onyx will now be used on the individual service nodes, and controlled by central management. Administrators and web professionals can go directly from CCP to the Plesk Onyx interface. This change means that the web host can significantly accelerate the processing of settings. This can take place within seconds. Moreover Plesk Onyx delivers a more comprehensive range of functions than the solution in use up to now.
New web hosting offers
With the introduction of the new panel, netcup offers four new web hosting packages. The most important new changes include the offer from Ruby and NodeJS in the two biggest packages “Webhosting 4000” and “Webhosting 8000”. Each account is also provided with their own IPv6 address. If desired by the customer, a proxy via nginx can also be connected in front of the application servers to speed up data delivery. Added to this is the availability of PHP resources via a scalable FPM server.
Netcup has doubled the storage space for emails and applications in all new packages and calculates these separately. The number of domains included free has also been increased to 12. The web host continues to offer free SSL certificates with the Let’s Encrypt certificate. These can be applied for and extended for as many subdomains as desired through the new management interface.
Transfer of all settings during migration
Netcup will migrate existing web hosting accounts to the new panel within the next four months. Affected customers will be informed about the migration date at least 30 days beforehand. “The only thing migration will change will be the panel for the administration of the web hosting settings and email addresses. Existing settings will be transferred to the new panel. As the deployed servers remain the same, the IP addresses that are used will also not change,” said Felix Preuss. In spite of the greater range of functions in the new panel, the prices for older packages remain stable. Upgrades to the new web hosting packages will be possible after migration.
On the occasion of the introduction of the new management interface, netcup is offering its new web hosting plans at a discount of 25 percent off the current price. Customers will only pay EUR 1.49 per month when booking the basic package “Webhosting 1000”. The comprehensive web hosting package “Webhosting 8000” falls to EUR 9.74 per month.
More information is available at: www.netcup.eu
15 years of netcup: From a basement start-up to an international webhosting provider
30.06.2017, Kategorie: Press Releases
Press release dated 22.06.2017
Karlsruhe – This month, the internet provider netcup will be celebrating its 15th anniversary. Since its founding in June, 2002, the provider has evolved from a one-man operation to a successful, international webhosting provider. More than 50,000 customers are now using netcup’s products and services.
“I was still finishing my secondary school education and living at home when I registered the domain name netcup.de, registered my business and took my first steps as an entrepreneur”, recalled Felix Preuß, Managing Director of netcup GmbH. While studying for his university entrance exams, the young entrepreneur offered services in web design, programming and hardware installation. Three years later, Preuß expanded his service offerings to include webhosting, marking the start of his now successful business.
The success of vServer
This gained momentum in 2007, when Felix Preuß founded the company Preuß & Werner GbR, together with Oliver Werner. “Oliver Werner contributed a wealth of technical know-how and lots of good ideas”, reflected Felix Preuß. The young entrepreneurs’ first coup was the development of the “vServer”, which has since become netcup’s most successful product, a product that is still undergoing continued development. In the past years, netcup has repeatedly come out on top, winning various webhosting awards in the vServer category. Most recently, in May, 2017, netcup was awarded platinum at the coveted Hosting Awards.
New server offerings: The product portfolio continues to grow
The internet provider’s next step was in 2008, when they moved from being a partnership (GbR – partnership under the German civil code) to a private limited company (GmbH). “From this point forward, we focused more on our webhosting service and cut back on our web design offerings. We have since been offering other types of webhosting, in addition to managed servers and managed virtual servers,” said Preuß. In the coming years, netcup GmbH not only stood its ground in a highly competitive market, it also continued to develop at breakneck speed.
Point of contact for resellers and other webhosting companies
With the introduction of the VCP (vServer Control Panel) administrative interface, which, since 2011, has enabled netcup customers to configure their own virtual servers, netcup also piqued the interest of third party service providers. In addition to full process administration, the web interface also includes a comprehensive firewall that allows users to define their own security rules. Several user levels and special functions for resellers make this web interface particularly attractive to resellers. “With the netcup VCP, they can automatically add new customers and servers, match their performance, and block or delete vServers”, explained Felix Preuß. He further explained, “Using the web interface, other webhosts can reduce the amount of effort they put into support and administration. Together with the solutions offered by managed cloud clusters, they can even operate an optimized vServer platform.” The netcup VCP continued to undergo development and has since been merged with the netcup SCP (Server Control Panel), which also makes it possible to manage dedicated servers.
In 2012, after joining DENIC, the registration authority for the .de domain, the internet provider stepped to it once again and worked on building up its infrastructure. Adding to the existing DE-CIX, Level3 carrier connection, in 2014 netcup put into operation another uplink, with a capacity of 10 Gbits/s to Core-Backbone, which is already redundant with respect to the existing uplink. “Because of the network’s sheer size, the traffic volume from and to Core-Backbone had increased. Another uplink was not only an investment in an additional redundancy, it also greatly increased our internet connection capacity”, Preuß explained.
Internationalization and the “Made in Germany” seal of quality
In 2015, netcup GmbH expanded into the international market with netcup.eu. The mid-sized company set the course to internationalize the netcup brand in the third quarter of that year: After a direct network connection was established to prominent European DSL and mobile network providers in August, they established their European network in September with a point of presence in Frankfurt. While an increasing number of German webhosting companies were being bought up by international companies and taking their servers abroad, netcup made stamping their webhosting and server offerings with “Made in Germany” a part of their growth strategy.
Strategic alliance with Anexia
Their successful internationalization opened the doors for a strategic alliance with the Austrian IT company Anexia in 2016. “Our position should improve the market position of both companies. We collaborate on innovative products and services, but continue to manage both companies independently”, comments Felix Preuß. The first joint success of the new alliance was already in evidence after a few weeks: netcup expanded its network structure to include a direct network connection to the Anexia Backbone.
Anniversary offer: vServers at a discounted rate
To mark this anniversary, netcup is offering some vServers and .de domains at 15% off the current price. The Generation 7 Second Edition (1000, 2000 and 4000) root server is available for as low as 6.79 Euros and up per month, with a minimum run time of 12 months, and the Generation 7 Second Edition (500 to 2000) VPS is available for as low as 3.39 Euros per month and up – also with a minimum runtime of 12 months. .de domains are already available for 15 cents per month, plus a registration fee of 1.50 Euros.
You can find further information at: www.netcup.eu
More computing performance and memory capacity: netcup presents new Generation 7 root servers
06.06.2016, Kategorie: Press Releases
Press release dated 06.06.2016
Karlsruhe – The Internet provider netcup (www.netcup.eu) has added further high-performance root servers to its portfolio. The new Generation 7 root servers are equipped with the latest Intel® XEON® processors with Broadwell architecture. Up to eight dedicated kernels per root server are now available in the new root server generation. DDR4 ECC-tested modules of 2400 MHz clock rate are used as RAM.
Instead of the 99.6 per cent minimum availability guaranteed up to now, the Generation 7 root servers now achieve a guaranteed minimum availability of 99.9 per cent on a yearly average. netcup thus offers a highly available, redundant IT infrastructure for discerning companies. As almost all customers of the European DSL providers are also connected directly to the netcup infrastructure, the minimum availability can be increased further again. “For years we have been investing in a network connection with multiple redundancy and in a redundant power supply, and are constantly expanding these. We have also done a lot in the field of security, in particular regarding the avoidance of DDoS attacks. For instance, we provide a free-of-charge DDoS filter for each root server,” says Oliver Werner, Managing Director of netcup GmbH.
The new root servers are offered by netcup under the names RS 2000 – RS 8000 with 8, 16, 24 or 32 GB RAM, in each case as an SAS or as an SSD version. “With both the SAS and the SSD hard disks, we use fast and secure RAID10 and thus guarantee a high fail safety and write/read speed. As far as memory capacity is concerned, 1.5 TB of hard disk memory is available with the largest model of the SAS variant. In contrast, the SSD variant offers less memory capacity but is substantially quicker,” adds Oliver Werner.
In addition to the new root servers, netcup also continues to offer low-cost virtual private servers (VPS) with a guaranteed minimum availability of 99.6 per cent on a yearly average. Like the root servers, they are virtualised by KVM but do not include any dedicated CPU kernels. Instead, several instances share several CPU kernels if necessary. Only branded hardware from Hewlett Packard Enterprise is used in the root servers and in the VPS. Furthermore, the servers from netcup, with remote management console, DVD drive, snapshot management, a large selection of pre-configured images and the possibility of importing and exporting images, offer numerous additional features.
You can find further information at: www.netcup.eu
netcup Expands Network Structure, Adds Direct Network connection with Liberty Global
07.03.2016, Kategorie: Press Releases
Press Release from 07/03/2016
Karlsruhe, Germany – The internet provider netcup (www.netcup.eu) has expanded its network structure by adding direct network connection with Liberty Global, one of the largest global broadband providers. The media group is present in 12 European countries and supplies Internet access to the majority of German households via its German subsidiary Unitymedia GmbH.
“By adding the network connection we have increased our data transfer speed even more. Plus the reliability and data security of our own infrastructure has been improved thanks to the additional Internet nodes,” Oliver Werner, Managing Director of netcup GmbH said. “This new cooperation also enables us to cut the latency of our data packet and manage the capacity reserves of our transmission lines more effectively,” he adds.
netcup began connecting its internal infrastructure to several major network operators, such as Deutsche Telekom AG, last year, and commissioned its own Point of Presence (PoP) in the FFA4 datacentre of Interxion in Frankfurt. The redundant connection to the pre-existing most important Internet nodes, DE-CIX, N-IX and the direct network link to Liberty Global and Deutsche Telekom, results in a capacity of 111 GBit/s for the entire connection. “This high-speed data link means our root server has reached a guaranteed availability and a maximum reliability of 99.9%, allowing us to provide high-demand, international companies with a highly available, redundant IT infrastructure,” Oliver Werner said.
Netcup has also announced that it will be driving forward the connection of its infrastructure to DSL providers again in order to avoid capacity bottlenecks. “This expansion is necessary so that our customers can guarantee a high-speed Internet connection to their final customers,” Werner said.
You can find further information at: Hardware and Network Infrastructure
Download Press Release as PDF: pm_07.03.2016
Strategy: Internet provider netcup to open up new business in Europe
09.11.2015, Kategorie: Press Releases
Press Release from 11/09/2015
Karlsruhe – The Internet provider netcup (www.netcup.de) is to open up new business markets in Europe. netcup CEO Felix Preuß announced this week, “We are ready to meet the challenges of internationalisation. With the outstanding quality of our hardware, the high server availability of 99.6% and a rapid, multilingual support team, we have the potential to establish ourselves on the international market.”
The SME laid the foundations for internationalisation of the netcup brand during the third quarter of this year. Following the creation of a direct network connection to renowned DSL and wireless service providers in Europe in August, September saw the expansion of the European network with its own point of presence in Frankfurt.
While more and more German webhosters are being bought by international groups and moved abroad along with their servers, netcup GmbH, with its range of server and web hosting services, is continuing to make the Made in Germany seal of approval the focus of its growth strategy. “With servers based in Nuremberg, we can provide future businesses and individuals throughout Europe with data protection as well as environmental and security standards that comply with German law”, explains Felix Preuß. He also sees additional opportunities resulting from using this growth strategy: “Not only do we benefit from the high level of data protection that we have here in Germany, the consistent legislation of German case law is also causing many foreign companies and consumers to choose service providers and business partners based in Germany.
As part of the internationalisation process, netcup will provide its customers with an English-language website in addition to the German one. “This allows us to provide more people with convenient access to our products and, above all, to ensure the transparency of our portfolio”, says Preuß. Internal administration panels have been available in English for a long time now.
netcup’s KVM-based root servers excel thanks to their high-quality branded hardware, multiple redundant internet uplinks and an uninterruptible power supply. At the recent HOSTtest vote, netcup was well positioned as the “Best Webhoster” in the “vServer” category. “We are ready for a new era as a European webhoster from Germany”, says Felix Preuß.
You can find further information at: www.netcup.eu
