HostReview.com Web Hosting Interviews

An Interview with
Mr. Miller Cooper, founder and CEO of Sago Networks,

March 11, 2008

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 engineering and the construction business in which I ran my own business in the construction of antennas, towers, and buildings in the Texas area.   When the opportunity to build a datacenter presented itself in 2000, I jumped into the network and ISP business.  I still consider myself and my business in the infrastructure business, so building and maintain a large network just seems natural to me.  I bought a building in the growing metropolis of Tampa, Florida and grew it into one of the largest datacenters in the Southeastern US and when our customers grew, I bought the Scientific Atlanta building in Atlanta, Georgia and have been growing that into the next big world-class datacenter in Sago’s network.

Please tell the HostReview readers about the latest developments at Sago Networks.

Our proudest achievement of late is the completion Sago’s own fiber network that connects the metropolitan Atlanta area to our Tampa and Miami locations.  This fiber will make transportation of data between datacenters or even connecting to other carriers faster and cost effective.  The choice of carriers has been lacking for many customers in the southeast, but by connecting to both NAP’s of Miami and Atlanta, Sago has the capacity to transport up to 800Gbps for its customers and resellers of data transport.  Many carriers that provide transport only as far as Atlanta or Miami can soon extend their 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 needs of customers is one of its most amazing features.  Some companies have borrowed and borrowed to try to break into this business, but we have a debt free company and wholly owned infrastructure.  Not everyone can afford to build the facility to become a major player in the hosting business.  Sago has the experience and the facilities already built and fully under our control.  The staff of Sago possesses expertise to help clients determine the best way of solving their most difficult networking and hosting issues.  It’s why our managed and custom server solution packages have become very popular as companies require cost 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 for a project that required a real world ISP hosting solution but with the security benefits of a true world-class datacenter.  Being in Tampa gave us the advantage of having a geographic location only miles away from Mac Dill Air force Base.  This base is the operations center for the entire Iraq war and the US military presence throughout much of the Middle East. This base provides a geographic advantage and special incentive for companies that provide Internet based government contract work for the US military.  Lockheed Martin has benefited greatly from using our secure facility and plans to expand its’ use of our datacenter as contracts 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 to increase 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 the operations of multiple datacenters.  We plan to be a major hub for much of the hosting and traffic through the Southeastern US and a premium global hosting destination for customers that need Geo-hosting located in the United States.   We have already overcome one of the biggest obstacles in our business of acquiring large amounts of bandwidth to accommodate customers growing needs by acquiring the fiber network to meet future growth demands.  We are now able to provide any specifically desired carrier that provides connectivity at either of the NAP’s in the Southeast.   Sago always looks for the obstacles in its path to resolve them quickly, but we only look for obstacles as new challenge to provide a better solution.  Our motto has always been ‘The Internet Solutions Provider’, and we strive to live up to that title each and every day.

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

 We have found that colocation has been our greatest area of growth over the last year.  Although buying server hardware seems cost effective for many customers, so many other factors make dedicated server hosting a logical choice that we know staying in this hosting business requires patience and consistency.  We are closely following the direction of virtualization and VPS hosting to determine how important this niche of hosting is to fill the gap between shared hosting and dedicated servers.  Our customers are trying it and we are happy to help them grow into this niche market.  We foresee the processing power and bandwidth requirements of webhosting to continue to grow, so whether VPS hosting becomes the next big thing, or if Xen, Hyper-V, or VMware become the greatest demanded products, we are going to position our IBM business partnership and experience to move in the direction of greatest need.

Finally, what advice would you give to our readers?

 Host smart and host honestly.  Many hosts have tried to build their business around overselling their servers and pushing the customers to the limit of tolerating poor performing sites and applications. If you want to truly make a viable and long lasting business, build for the long term and bank on the longevity being your best asset.  Sago has prided itself on only offering what it can provide, under promising and over delivering.  We may not call our support and service: “fanatical”, “ludicrous”, or “ridiculous”, but if you ask our customers about us, they will tell you that the service of Sago Networks is great.  Even for those customers that must cancel services, they always tell us, that when they need more services, they are coming back to Sago.  We think of ourselves as one of the best kept secrets in the hosting business and if hosts everywhere set their goals to be great first and their profits second, then their customers are going to always appreciate what they have done for them.

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