DreamHost
Encyclopedia
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. DreamHost began hosting customers' sites in 1997.
and dedicated
hosting network consists of Apache
, nginx
and lighttpd
web servers running on the Debian GNU/Linux
operating system. 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. DreamHost's staff contribute to an official blog and a customer support wiki.
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. The company hosts in excess of one million domains.
they call "Files Forever". 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.
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. The service is similar to, and can be integrated with, the Google App Engine
. Through a control panel, customers are able to manage their applications or upgrade to the standard, fully managed hosting service.
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
-based web hosting provider
Web hosting service
A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own or lease for use by their clients as well as providing Internet...
and domain name registrar
Domain name registrar
A domain name registrar is an organization or commercial entity, accredited by both ICANN and generic top-level domain registry to sell gTLDs and/or by a country code top-level domain registry to sell ccTLDs; to manage the reservation of Internet domain names in accordance with the guidelines of...
. 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
Harvey Mudd College
Harvey Mudd College is a private residential liberal arts college of science, engineering, and mathematics, located in Claremont, California. It is one of the institutions of the contiguous Claremont Colleges, which share adjoining campus grounds....
in Claremont, California
Claremont, California
Claremont is a small affluent college town in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States, about east of downtown Los Angeles at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. The population as of the 2010 census is 34,926. Claremont is known for its seven higher-education institutions, its...
, and registered in 1999 by Michael Rodriguez. DreamHost began hosting customers' sites in 1997.
Web hosting
DreamHost's sharedShared web hosting service
A shared web hosting service or virtual hosting service or derive host refers to a web hosting service where many websites reside on one web server connected to the Internet. Each site "sits" on its own partition, or section/place on the server, to keep it separate from other sites...
and dedicated
Dedicated hosting service
A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organizations have full control over the server, including choice of operating...
hosting network consists of Apache
Apache Software Foundation
The Apache Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation to support Apache software projects, including the Apache HTTP Server. The ASF was formed from the Apache Group and incorporated in Delaware, U.S., in June 1999.The Apache Software Foundation is a decentralized community of developers...
, nginx
Nginx
nginx is a Web server and a reverse proxy server for HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and IMAP protocols, with a strong focus on high concurrency, performance and low memory usage. It is licensed under a BSD-like license and it runs on Unix, Linux, BSD variants, Mac OS X, Solaris, and Microsoft Windows.- Overview...
and lighttpd
Lighttpd
lighttpd is an open-source web server more optimized for speed-critical environments than common products while remaining standards-compliant, secure and flexible...
web servers running on the Debian GNU/Linux
Debian
Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...
operating system. 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. DreamHost's staff contribute to an official blog and a customer support wiki.
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. The company hosts in excess of one million domains.
File hosting
In 2006, the company began a beta version file hosting serviceFile hosting service
A file hosting service, online file storage provider, or cyberlocker is an Internet hosting service specifically designed to host user files. Typically they allow HTTP and FTP access. Related services are content-displaying hosting services A file hosting service, online file storage provider, or...
they call "Files Forever". 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.
Free application hosting
In 2009, the company began offering free web applicationWeb application
A web application is an application that is accessed over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. The term may also mean a computer software application that is coded in a browser-supported language and reliant on a common web browser to render the application executable.Web applications are...
hosting. Either with their own domain, or with a free subdomain, customers are able to make use of a number of open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
applications, such as WordPress
WordPress
WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and publishing platform powered by PHP and MySQL. It is often customized into a content management system . It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1...
and MediaWiki
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites...
without charge. The service is similar to, and can be integrated with, the Google App Engine
Google App Engine
Google App Engine is a platform as a service cloud computing platform for developing and hosting web applications in Google-managed data centers. It virtualizes applications across multiple servers,...
. 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 TempleMedia TempleMedia Temple is a website hosting and software application services company based in Culver City, California, USA. It is a pioneer of "grid hosting", whereby multiple stand-alone servers are linked to provide additional capacity for clients during periods of peak demand...
and MySpaceMySpaceMyspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
. - 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.
- 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. The company later stated the final total was $2.1 million.
- On May 20, 2010, dreamhost.com was down for 6 hours after a DDosDenial-of-service attackA denial-of-service attack or distributed denial-of-service attack is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users...
attack against them and the website DrawMuhammadDay.com they hosted. The websites of other customers stayed up during the attack.
External links
- Official website
- DreamHost Blog, official news
- DreamHost Status, alerts on system status
- DreamHost Wiki, official wiki