Eric Mandel

HostReview: Please tell us a few words about yourself and yourposition in BlackMesh, Inc.

Eric Mandel: I co-founded BlackMesh in2003 and am currently the president and CEO. BlackMesh was founded to helpaddress the information technology needs for small and mid-sized businesses(SMBs). When we founded this company, many large managed hosting and managedservices providers were ignoring the concerns of SMBs and we saw an opportunityto provide custom, personalized services to these businesses.   

HostReview: According to this casestudy, the personalized approach was a key factor in securing BlackMesh acontract with Phase2. Please tell our readers more about the ways your companyensures the quality of personalized service, and why it is important.

Eric Mandel: Personal relationships arethe foundation of BlackMesh’s business. We assign a team of technicians and engineers to each customer and developa relationship to understand their needs and concerns.  As a result, when there is a problem, thecustomer already knows the technical team who is helping them and the technicalteam already knows the solution they are troubleshooting.

HostReview: Phase2 is actively involved with open sourceprojects; on their site they list LAMP, Java, and Drupal. What is your take onopen source software, and did your position on that issue influence Phase2'sdecision to choose BlackMesh as their hosting provider?

Eric Mandel: We are heavy users of opensource software.  We use and supportCentOS, the entire LAMP stack, Drupal, and Puppet to name just a few.  In addition, we are experts at optimizing andscaling the LAMP stack.  Our open sourceknowledge and experience contributed to Phase2’s comfort level.

HostReview: What other traits of a hosting provider do youthink are important to clients?

Eric Mandel:  In addition to relationships, reliability and responsivenessare very important.  When we speak withexisting and prospective customers, they are always worried about down time andhow quickly they can come back online.   AtBlackMesh, we address these issues with our network reliability and staffresponsiveness.  With 100% network uptimefor the past five years, our network is proven and reliable.  With less than an average 10 minute responsetime on support tickets and a one hour hardware replacement guarantee on allfailed hardware, our customer service is unmatched in the industry.

HostReview: Tell us a bit about your clients: what kind(s) of companiesdo you work with?

Eric Mandel: BlackMesh works withdevelopment companies, ASPs, SaaS providers, and small businesses.  We provide, maintain and administer theentire infrastructure, everything from the network up to the customer’s proprietarycode, so our clients can focus only on their business development.

HostReview: A more general question: what technologies andpractices do you think will have the biggest impact on the industry in thecoming months?

Eric Mandel:  The biggest new technology impact will be fromsolid state drives.  Solid state drivesoffer the user a huge speed improvement and they offer the host a dramaticreduction in power and cooling costs. Virtualization is the big buzzword right now, but we find it is bestused for consolidating hardware and not for gaining performance or horizontallyscaling.

HostReview: Finally, tell us what can we expect of BlackMesh inthe coming months.

Eric Mandel: We have number of excitingprojects underway, most focused on open source technologies such asDrupal.  In addition, we are in theprocess of forming some partnerships which we hope to announce by the end ofthe year.  These partnerships will helpour customers accelerate and ease the adoption of the latest technologies andfeatures.