Verio's Viable VPS Solution

Scott Flinders, Sr. Product Manager of Verio, tells us in no uncertain terms, why a VPS hosting solution meets the crucial business needs of today’s SMB.

TH: The VPS Starter Plan was introduced in June 2008. How receptive has the market been?

SF: The VPS Starter Plan was introduced to fill a very specific need in our product portfolio by offering an economical option for customers and partners who need the control, flexibility and secure environment of a VPS (i.e. root access to install custom applications, ability to subhost multiple domains, delegate administration, etc.), but may not have need for the higher resource limits of our upper-end VPS plans. As a result, the VPS Starter Plan has been very popular with both existing and new customers. We have seen an increase in new accounts from current customers as well as interest from customers and partners who have migrated to Verio from a competitive offering.

TH: Please describe the typical customer you'd target for this service? What features are most appealing to this group?

SF: Our VPS plans are specifically targeted at small to medium-sized businesses who require a high degree of control over specific aspects of their website(s) and Internet-connected servers. These customers usually require the ability to customize their server environment and are often looking for a more robust and powerful solution than a simple shared hosting package.

VPS provides all these capabilities and allows customers to have the benefits of a dedicated server without the cost or hassle of configuring and maintaining the hardware, operating system and core services (web server, email system, FTP server, etc.).

Features that are most appealing to this group include:

. Power and resources to support their various applications.
. Root access for total control over configuration.
. The ability to delegate certain aspects of administration to others
when needed.
. The ability to add additional domains (sometimes called subhosts).
. The management of mission critical server elements such as the OS or
core services being handled for them.
. The reliability of Verio and the peace of mind that comes from Verio
owning and operating its own Internet backbone and datacenters.
. The ability to add more than 1 IP address and SSL certificate to
each VPS account.
. Software libraries that enable easy installation of popular
packages.

TH: When selecting the VPS solution, are there other value-added services that customers typically include in their shopping basket, so to speak?

SF: Popular services that provide added value to VPS accounts include additional IP addresses, additional disk space, multiple domain names, and e-commerce packages.

TH: Generally speaking, would today's economic climate help in the VPS product line or do you believe consumers will make do with shared hosting and ride out the recession?

SF: We believe today's economic climate provides key opportunities for our VPS solutions. Companies may be looking to reduce their IT spending which may cause them to re-think their web strategy, but VPS can actually help them reduce their costs. By utilizing our VPS technology and allowing companies to shift many of their IT efforts to Verio, these organizations are able to streamline their web strategy while giving them the time to focus on their key business initiatives.