Mr. Miller Cooper, founder and CEO of Sago Networks

In this interview, we ask Mr. Miller Cooper, founder and CEO of Sago Networks, a few questions about his company and his views on the hosting industry as a whole.

Tell us about yourself. How long have you been in the web hosting business?

My background is in engineeringand the construction business in which I ran my own business in theconstruction of antennas, towers, and buildings in the Texas area.   Whenthe opportunity to build a datacenter presented itself in 2000, I jumped into thenetwork and ISP business.  I stillconsider myself and my business in the infrastructure business, so building andmaintain a large network just seems natural to me.  I bought a building in the growing metropolisof Tampa, Florida and grew it into one of the largest datacenters in theSoutheastern US and when our customers grew, I bought the Scientific Atlantabuilding in Atlanta, Georgia and have been growing that into the next bigworld-class datacenter in Sago’s network.

Please tell the HostReview readers about the latest developments at SagoNetworks.

Our proudest achievement of lateis the completion Sago’s own fiber network that connects the metropolitan Atlantaarea to our Tampa and Miami locations. This fiber will make transportation of data between datacenters or evenconnecting to other carriers faster and cost effective.  The choice of carriers has been lacking formany customers in the southeast, but by connecting to both NAP’s of Miami andAtlanta, Sago has the capacity to transport up to 800Gbps for its customers andresellers of data transport.  Manycarriers that provide transport only as far as Atlanta or Miami can soon extendtheir offerings to go those extra 600+ miles through our fiber network.

What sets your service apart from other companies?

Sago’s ability to meet the needsof customers is one of its most amazing features.  Some companies have borrowed and borrowed totry to break into this business, but we have a debt free company and whollyowned infrastructure.  Not everyone canafford to build the facility to become a major player in the hostingbusiness.  Sago has the experience andthe facilities already built and fully under our control.  The staff of Sago possesses expertise to helpclients determine the best way of solving their most difficult networking andhosting issues.  It’s why our managed andcustom server solution packages have become very popular as companies requirecost effective and increasingly more powerful hosting solutions.

What is a client like Lockheed Martin looking for in a hosting company?

Security, Expandability, and Experience.  Lockheed Martin was contracted by Centcom fora project that required a real world ISP hosting solution but with the securitybenefits of a true world-class datacenter. Being in Tampa gave us the advantage of having a geographic locationonly miles away from Mac Dill Air force Base. This base is the operations center for the entire Iraq war and the USmilitary presence throughout much of the Middle East. This base provides ageographic advantage and special incentive for companies that provide Internetbased government contract work for the US military.  Lockheed Martin has benefited greatly fromusing our secure facility and plans to expand its’ use of our datacenter ascontracts requiring high security clearance with the government are extended.

 What are you ambitions and plans for the future development of Sago Networks?What eventual obstacles do you foresee?

 Sago Networks expects toincrease its profile for what we are already known for:  great service as a custom solutions provider,expandability to meet customers growing demands, and experience in theoperations of multiple datacenters.  Weplan to be a major hub for much of the hosting and traffic through theSoutheastern US and a premium global hosting destination for customers thatneed Geo-hosting located in the United States.  We have already overcome one of the biggest obstacles in our business ofacquiring large amounts of bandwidth to accommodate customers growing needs byacquiring the fiber network to meet future growth demands.  We are now able to provide any specificallydesired carrier that provides connectivity at either of the NAP’s in theSoutheast.   Sago always looks for theobstacles in its path to resolve them quickly, but we only look for obstaclesas new challenge to provide a better solution. Our motto has always been ‘The Internet Solutions Provider’, and westrive to live up to that title each and every day.

What is your general outlook on hosting market trends? Should we expect suddentechnology or business changes in the following months and years?

 We have found that colocationhas been our greatest area of growth over the last year.  Although buying server hardware seems costeffective for many customers, so many other factors make dedicated server hostinga logical choice that we know staying in this hosting business requirespatience and consistency.  We are closelyfollowing the direction of virtualization and VPS hosting to determine howimportant this niche of hosting is to fill the gap between shared hosting anddedicated servers.  Our customers aretrying it and we are happy to help them grow into this niche market.  We foresee the processing power and bandwidthrequirements of webhosting to continue to grow, so whether VPS hosting becomesthe next big thing, or if Xen, Hyper-V, or VMware become the greatest demandedproducts, we are going to position our IBM business partnership and experienceto move in the direction of greatest need.

Finally, what advice would you give to our readers?

 Host smart and hosthonestly.  Many hosts have tried to buildtheir business around overselling their servers and pushing the customers tothe limit of tolerating poor performing sites and applications. If you want totruly make a viable and long lasting business, build for the long term and bankon the longevity being your best asset. Sago has prided itself on only offering what it can provide, underpromising and over delivering.  We maynot call our support and service: “fanatical”, “ludicrous”, or “ridiculous”,but if you ask our customers about us, they will tell you that the service ofSago Networks is great.  Even for thosecustomers that must cancel services, they always tell us, that when they needmore services, they are coming back to Sago. We think of ourselves as one of the best kept secrets in the hostingbusiness and if hosts everywhere set their goals to be great first and theirprofits second, then their customers are going to always appreciate what theyhave done for them.