August 16th 2023

Which billing system do you use/prefer?

Vlad is new to WHT, and represents a hosting company from Bulgaria. For the past few years they've used Hostbill for their billing system, but he says that it has a lot of bugs. Before that they tried Blesta and WHMCS, but with some similar poor results. So he's asking WHT's hosting members to share what they would suggest based on experience. Which ready-made solution is better and/or do you think it's a reasonable proposition to try to develop their own system for personal or even shared use? Of course, ready-built solutions are always a compromise between what the developer builds in for you and the way you expect that to work, and what you're hoping for and if you can adapt to what the software offers, whilst developing your own system can become a substantial project that might take considerable effort and developer hours to create a working solution. Both have their merits - Which would you advise?

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Router alternatives

Maxinames are currently planning a small facility in a new datacenter and could use some advice. They're looking for router options that can handle the current full BGP route table effectively. Currently under consideration is the Juniper MX series, but they'd love to explore other alternatives that could help to optimize costs. Recommendations being posted so far include Juniper's MX204 (which appears to be favorite for a lot of posters) but some have reservations. The MX960 also gets a mention, and other members recommend Mikrotik's range. Can you suggest any other alternatives, or lend further support (with reasons) for those already posted?

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News from around the hosting industry

Our Industry News section is the place to find current headlines from around the world of hosting and infrastructure, but other general interest threads pop up in other sections of the forum, especially The Lounge. Here we we highlight just some of the interesting news items from around the forum:

• EdgeCore to build first data center campus in Reno, Nevada - This first development will accommodate an on-site substation and two data centers totaling 1.5 million square feet of space and capable of supporting 216 MW of critical IT load. It is expected to be completed as early as late 2025. The Reno development is the fourth of several projects EdgeCore has begun in 2023, the first of which was announced in January for Silicon Valley, the second in March for Ashburn, Virginia, and the third in April for the greater Phoenix area. EdgeCore is privately held with over USD $4 billion in development to invest in land, power, and vertical development in key data center locations.
• Equinix expands in India - Announcing $42 million of investment for its fourth IBX data center in Mumbai, India last week, the data center firm reports India's growing digital economy is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2026. According to global real estate company JLL the Indian data center industry reached 637 MW as of H1 2022 and is expected to reach 1,318 MW by 2024.
• Chinese data center firm Chindata to go private - The news came after a $3.2B all-cash offer from Bain Capital, its largest investor. Bain Capital, which took Chindata public on the Nasdaq in September 2020, said earlier this year it will not sell any of its shares in the company after it received a bid from China Merchants Capital for $3.4 billion. Chindata operates data centers in China, India and Southeast Asia. The deal is expected to close later this year or early next year.
• Google investing further in Iowa - It is investing another $350 million into its data center campus south of Council Bluffs, Iowa this year. The company says growth in cloud computing and AI is what led to its infrastructure investment in one of its largest facilities in the world. The new spending will build upon more than $5 billion that Google has invested since breaking ground on the site in 2007.

Got some news of your own to share? If it's news from your own company it belongs in Web Hosting Industry Announcements (no ads please!). If you've scooped some news about something else going on in the hosting industry we'd love for you to share it in our Industry News section!

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