So what does the average FastServers employee do during the holiday season? Outside of making delicious Holiday Cow Cookies? Well, I took an informal poll today and here are the results.

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As many of you have already heard via our mass email FastServers.Net has developed a new tool to assist you in bandwidth monitoring on your server. This very simple tool allows you to enter a threshold and be notified when your dedicated server hits this threshold. I wanted to take a few minutes to discuss some behind the scenes challenges that took place during the development and how this tool can help you save money.

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Resumes pour in weekly, if not daily, from potential staffers.  The Chicago expansion has accomplished all we could have hoped for and far more in the hiring arena.  With our Midwest Operations Center planted near several colleges, we have more than just area universities as available talent pools; we also have the Cedar Valley Linux Users group to thank for their industry immersed graduates and members.  Call it good karma, or simply a booming market in a landscape teeming with highly talented individuals; large numbers of highly qualified jobseekers have turned to FastServers.Net for employment.

Trust me when I tell you that we welcome all of them! We owe our continued expansion to the talented women, men, and [18+ year old] “children” who make up our staff.

2007 promises not only sufficient staffing to meet our projected growth, but a team of individuals as excited to make that happen as those of us who have been with the company since day one.  They come from every neck of the woods and have combined years of formal instruction with the tailored training they receive everyday from the seasoned vets of our staff.  And due to the significant growth we now have an expanded means of communication – such as our new video-conferencing system – to keep our multiple offices tight-nit and cooperating towards a central mission.

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the individuals who make up our growing staff.  Please take a few minutes to visit the staff profiles section on our website at http://www.fastservers.net where you will not find a magnification of certifications or a delineation of degrees, rather you will see a list of enthusiasts involved in many different hobbies and interests.  From gaming aficionados and sports enthusiasts to world travelers and DJ’s, buzz around the water cooler is sure to bring a lot of interesting conversations as this certainly is not a boring bunch of people!  They are at the right company, and I hope you get the chance to see their drive and creativity put to work for you.

Wishing you the best of luck in the New Year!

…And your cooperation, throughout the year of 2006!  Truthfully, I have
no idea what happened to the year of 2006, but the beach is closed again here in the City of Winds and that means, apparently, the year has certainly come to an end.  To say the least, this was an amazing year for FastServers.Net!  We started off battling a variety of nasty, lingering issues with network stability and, sufficed to say, such anomalies were squashed…  quite permanently.  Our transition to the mastery status of our networking perimeter was *a really good idea.* Our mission critical environments in California and Iowa have cruised along more smoothly than even I could have dreamed, especially since these adjustments reached fruition during the first quarter of this year.  That said, we’re far from finishing optimization of our Internet(s)!  Hahaha…

In the near future we will be hosting a significant, and I mean significant, amount of web servers here in Chicago. We are immensely excited about our opportunities here at FastServers.Net. Come January 2007, we will be sporting a superb blend of connectivity that will, once firmly entrenched, rival our previous
undertakings… to say the least!  The initial “launch titles” include gigE services from both Level 3 Communications (currently #1 at Knodes http://www.fixedorbit.com/metrics.htm), and our long-time
peering-mastermind partners (and themselves a frequent player at Knodes), Hurricane Electric.

Considering the strength of these networks in certain regions, continents, and timezones, we believe this complement of providers is exceedingly formidable.  Moreover, our ability to clean and enhance routes and services across our multiple locations will be increasingly bolstered once our long-haul link is complete between Fremont and Chicago during the middle of quarter one, 2007.  This fairly gigantic undertaking will effectively meld our current and newfangled data center environments into one healthy and increasingly manageable piece of networking wizardry.  This is – a really good thing.

And I promise you that it really is a good thing.  Wish us luck, and enjoy your holidays –or – we hope you have already enjoyed your holidays.  We have come a long way at FastServers.Net through a myriad of avenues. But all of that has been possible only with your cooperation, understanding, and exquisite
feedback.  2007 will be even better. We guarantee it!

Wow! I just got email from Mr. Aaron Phillips, VP of Marketing and Sales, reminding me that my end-of-year newsletter article is due.  Excuse me, but end of year?  I was playing beach volleyball just a few weeks back, wasn’t I?  Didn’t that end-of-July bike ride across an entire state happen just last month?  End-of-year? You are kidding, right?  Well, according to Microsoft Entourage for Mac OSX (which is still on its 2004 version for the record) it is in fact time to close out another successful year at FastServers.Net.  To say this year flew by would be an understatement of inimitable proportions.  A fast moving year for the CEO typically indicates a productive and event filled one, and this year has certainly been no exception to that rule.

2006 started much the same way it is ending.  New staff was being brought on board in both our Chicago and Iowa locations, and our marketing efforts continued to result in unprecedented growth.  One major complement to our existing service offerings was the introduction of a true enterprise level data protection and backup service powered by industry leader Arsenal Digital. Our new partnership with Arsenal Digital has proven to be a huge success!  As winter turned to spring, our Chicago office became alarmingly crowded so the search for new digs was on!  The end result was a move from the outskirts of Chicago (O’Hare airport area) to the downtown loop.  The move tripled our office space and has been a huge perk for the staff. They now have the ability to jump on the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) and make it to the office in a fraction of the time it previously took.

HostingCon 2006 was held in Las Vegas and occupied a good chunk of the summer for planning and, of course, participation.  In addition to taking home best-of-show and other awards at the convention, our after party at Pure’s Red Room received rave reviews on WHT and various other mediums.  After HostingCon 2006, we celebrated FastServers.Net’s 10th anniversary in Wrigleyville on the rooftop while watching a Cubs vs. Cardinals game!  Did I mention we have been providing dedicated server hosting for over 10 years now?!

Turning to the fall, FastServers.Net brought more new staffers than in any other previous time period.  Lots of new faces meant getting to know each other as well as deserved elevation in the ranks for existing employees.  As I write this today, during unseasonably warm weather in late November, the company is diligently preparing for the most exciting development of the year.  The provisioning of our new Chicago based data center space within Switch and Data’s facility will begin a great new chapter and take us into 2007 ready to facilitate a variety of new customers and continue to offer world class service to our existing loyal customers.

So, as it really is the “year end,” I sign off by wishing you all a Merry Chrismachanakwanzika and an incredibly successful 2007!