C I Host's "Holiday Hosting" Is Back - Boon To Online Businesses

FORT WORTH - December 1, 2004 - (HostReview) - For the fifth year, C I Host will empower its customers to maximize bandwidth for on-line holiday shopping demand, and then allow conversion back to lower levels -- with no setup and scale back fees -- when the rush is over.

"The holiday season surge can create traffic jams, if the on-line retailers are not prepared," said Christopher Faulkner, CEO of C I Host. "Our holiday hosting package waves the fees and pumps up the capacity when it's needed most. No retailer wants to turn away customers during the holidays."

C I Host is waiving the setup fees on all load balancing and clustering packages for existing customers through December 10. After the holiday buying season, C I Host will remove the hardware and scale back the servers at no additional cost. The no-setup-fee offer applies to any of C I Host's "enterprise-level" and "managed hosting" packages.

"It is similar to your electricity demand -- the 'juice' is there when you need it," Faulkner said. "Then scale back your bandwidth for the normal demand after the holidays. Most important, you have the capacity to serve every shopper who enters your site."

Customers only pay the additional monthly charges for the added bandwidth. They can purchase the upgraded bandwidth package for just one month without a contract or cancellation penalty.

A clustering system consists of two or more back-end Web and application servers capable of handling millions of database queries or e-business transactions at the same time. C I Host offers a broad range of clustered hosting solutions for businesses that require a high level of scalability to meet rapid growth.

C I Host's load balancing solution works with the clustering systems. A load-balancer constantly checks on each server and adjusts the traffic as needed, depending on server load, server response and capacity.

C I Host, with more than 210,000 customers in 190 countries, has experienced meteoric growth because of innovative packages and services provided for its clients.

"When our customers make money in their businesses, we all profit," Faulkner said. "We get creative and work hard to make them successful, long-term business allies."

About C I Host

C I Host (www.cihost.com), based in the Dallas/Fort Worth market, is a Web hosting and Internet solutions provider, domain name registrar (DNR) and application service provider (ASP) serving 210,000 individual consumers and
businesses in 190 countries worldwide.

C I Host creates business-class Web hosting solutions for the small- and medium-enterprise (SME) market, with the broadest portfolio of managed hosting and value-added services in the industry. C I Host is accredited by ICANN to register domain names.

C I Host is HIPAA-compliant and has passed the SAS70 Type I audit.

C I Host has been ranked #1 in speed by the Adoloma Web Hosting Guide. C I
Host has been consistently ranked among the Top 5 Web hosting companies out
of 16,000 around the globe by c|net's Ultimate Web Host List, HostPulse,
WebHostsOnline.com and HostChart.com. C I Host was named among the Top 25
Web hosting companies by HostIndex.com.

C I Host offers turn-key services ranging from initial domain name registration to custom dedicated servers for e-commerce on today's Web. The company offers innovative packages and services to the Internet community.

C I Host operates three diverse data centers across the United States, with its main facility and Network Operations Center in Bedford, Texas. C I Host also has offices in Los Angeles, Chicago and London.

All telco-grade, tier-1 data centers are wholly owned and operated by C I
Host and consist of redundant diesel generator backups and a
temperature-controlled secure environment with fully redundant UPS
capability. All server hardware is fully tested and configured for optimal
performance. Daily Web server backups and full fire protection guard against
any data loss. To deliver speed and reliability, C I Host's servers are
connected to two OC-12 fiber connections, five DS-3 and two OC-3 lines from
five diverse Internet backbones for a total of more than 5 Gigabits of
available bandwidth.