Scott Noteboom, formerly vice-president of data centre engineering and operations at Yahoo, now lists his occupation as “distinguished gentleman” at Apple on his LinkedIn biography.

The updated biography has caused a flurry in the web hosting industry and in the industry press.

Apple has instigated a lot of activity in the data centre space this year. This activity includes the building of its new $1bn, 500,000 square foot data centre operations hub in North Carolina, USA, and the start of its iCloud file storage cloud.

Noteboom worked at Yahoo from 2005, during which time he launched a number of data centre initiatives. Before this, he worked as senior director of data centre operations at data centre company AboveNet.  The company had the second-largest data centre collocation footprint in the world at the time, according to Noteboom’s LinkedIn profile.

The news will come as a surprise to many, not least because Apple made its last data centre hire quite recently. It poached Kevin Timmons from his role as head of Microsoft’s data centre in April. Timmons is now reported to have moved on to US data storage company CyrusOne.

Dynadot, a web hosting provider based in California, is said to have provided its services to WikiLeaks and its controversial founder Julian Assange.

US prosecutors are currently investigating the alleged unauthorised disclosure for account records of government documents to WikiLeaks, which campaigns against government secrecy.

US prosecutors obtained a judge’s order for account records from them in order to further their case against WikiLeaks. Officials say that U.S. officials state that there were criminal violations in leaking thousands of sensitive U.S. government files.

On its Twitter feed, WikiLeaks says that Dynadot complied with the order but offered no proof.

Dynadot, for their part, say that they are unable to discuss the case and that it does not provide information about customer accounts with anyone apart from the customer concerned.

The order against Dynadot was issued by a judge in Virginia’s Eastern District at around the same time that Justice Department prosecutors issued a similar order for records from Twitter.

Three WikiLeaks supporters whose records were the subject of the Twitter order earlier this year filed a lawsuit in a Stateside court seeking to stop the release of their data. A judge sided with the government in the supporters’ suit, but another judge will hear a new challenge to that decision in the next few weeks.

The news may set an interesting precedent regarding web hosting providers should any similar cases arise in the future.

SEGA, the Japanese games company, has become the latest victim of hacking after a string of attacks on the likes of Citibank and Sony PlayStation.

SEGA revealed on Friday that hackers had stolen the personal data of 1.3million customers from its European website.

The organisation emailed its customers via its SEGA Pass system to inform them that personal details including email addresses, dates of birth and protected passwords had been stolen in the hacking attack.

SEGA did point out that no financial information was stolen; a slightly luckier situation for their customers than for Sony PlayStation’s, whose credit card details were stolen around a month ago.

SEGA Pass was taken offline on Thursday to reset user passwords. It remains offline at the time of writing. Visitors to the site are greeted with a message that reads: “SEGA Pass is going through some improvements so is currently unavailable for new members to join or existing members to modify their details including resetting passwords.

“We hope to be back up and running very soon.

“Thank you for your patience.”

The attack puts large organisations’ web hosting services and internet security measures under yet more scrutiny as hackers’ methods become more sophisticated and successful.

It’s now Sony’s turn to experience web hosting troubles. The technology giant experienced a massive five-day outage last week that affected the PlayStation Network, the online hosting service for its PlayStation 3 gaming console.

Unlike Amazon’s outage, though, Sony’s was deliberately self-induced.

Sony turned off the PlayStation Network after it emerged that an intruder had gained access to it. By switching off the network, Sony was able to protect user data and prevent further damage.

Bosses at Sony also ordered a switch-off of Qriocity, its online entertainment service.

In a statement issued over the weekend on the official PlayStation blog, Sony said: ”An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services. In order to conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward, we turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services on the evening of Wednesday, April 20th.

“Providing quality entertainment services to our customers and partners is our utmost priority. We are doing all we can to resolve this situation quickly, and we once again thank you for your patience. We will continue to update you promptly as we have additional information to share.”

To date, exact details of the nature of the intrusion have not been released.

Amongst the sites taken offline by the fault include geosocial website Foursquare,   user-generated news site Reddit and questions and answers website Quora.

In a statement on its website, Foursquare wrote: “Our usually amazing data centre hosts, Amazon EC2, are having a few hiccups this morning, which affected us and a bunch of other services that use them. Everything looks to be getting back to normal now.”

Those sites, along with dozens of others, use Amazon’s web hosting service Amazon EC2 to support their sites. Amazon EC2 provides processing power and storage to organisations without their own data centres.

Amazon EC2 said in a statement on its website: “We continue to see progress in recovering volumes, and have heard many additional customers confirm that they’re recovering. Our current estimate is that the majority of volumes will be recovered over the next five to six hours.

“As we mentioned in our last post, a smaller number of volumes will require a more time-consuming process to recover, and we anticipate that those will take longer to recover.”

No reason so far has been given for the problems.

Dedicated web hosting is when a customer pays to hire a complete server for their own use. If you decided to go down the dedicated web hosting route then you would not share your server with any other client.

Unsurprisingly, dedicated web hosting is considered the best type of web hosting amongst the options currently available. It can be worth spending the extra money to get your own server, especially if you have a business that handles a lot of online transactions: however, it’s not always necessary to incur the extra expense. Small businesses with basic websites sometimes have no need of dedicated web hosting.

Whilst dedicated web servers are solely ‘owned’ (well, rented really) by one particular client, business or domain name, they will not be located on site. Instead, the server will be located wherever the hosting company maintains their hardware. This is usually in a dedicated data centre.

Dedicated web hosting offers a range of benefits for businesses. It offers a good level of security along with a size and infrastructure to support complex transactions and multiple site visits. For example, if you host a sale and are expecting large volumes of traffic and transactions (more so than usual) on a particular day, you can advise your web hosting company about this and they can ensure that your site won’t crash on the day.

Dedicated web hosts may also offer customised solutions, including the ability to choose different levels of storage capacity, CPU speeds, and advanced security features.

The cloud, which many are saying is ‘the future of web hosting‘, is flexible and convenient for businesses, since its dynamic approach reflects the fortunes of a company. If the traffic or general demands of a website increase, the server reaches into its network – or ‘cloud’ – and gathers the extra resources needed.

Cloud hosting allows businesses to focus on the immediate tasks that they need to execute, as opposed to spending excessive time dealing with hardware concerns, general IT maintenance and questions of infrastructure. By outsourcing the majority of IT needs, IT departments in particular can avoid many cases of providing extra manpower, training and dealing with bureaucracy.

However, some firms have been reluctant to engage with cloud hosting because of potential security concerns. Cyber thieves, hackers and other companies have been seen as potential threats that could access sensitive information, but the growing popularity of the cloud has boosted the platform’s security. Many web hosting companies are seeking ISO 27001 certification and are joining the Cloud Security Alliance in order to stay vigilant and raise security standards.

At NSDesign we’re keeping a keen eye on developments in the cloud hosting space, as we are planning on introducing a range of cloud-based web hosting solutions in the future.

When you employ a web hosting service, you are essentially leasing space for your web site on a server. A server is essentially a hyper-powerful computer whose main purpose is to store the files that make up your website remotely and transmit them across the internet as and when requested by a visitor.

Servers are identified by their IP addresses; every server and computer connected to the web has a unique IP (Internet Protocol) number which serves a dual purpose – to address internet traffic, like a postal address in the real world, and to help identify the different servers and computers on the internet.

When a client visits your site, their computer will send a request to your web server’s IP, which responds with the requested information. Consequently, an IP address is an essential part of the process by which information is passed around the web.

While it is possible to host your own website, this can be a costly option; which is why web hosting is so popular. Over 90% of current websites are hosted on a leased server, with no negative impact on business or retail. Hosting is a cost-effective solution to running a website, allowing you to lease only the server space you need and have top-level technical support – essential if you are need to e-commerce and website hosting.

For a no-obligation quote on web hosting packages contact NSDesign.

The alternative to this is Cloud Hosting, which combines multiple web servers to create a single network. The resources of this network are then allocated to and disseminated amongst sites as they are required. The result is generally less down time for your site and quicker loading speeds.

This type of hosting is now very popular amongst bigger corporations running a large number of websites or hosting numerous pages and products, Google, Bing and Amazon are three major examples. However, the reason it is popular with these big organisations is that it suits this type of company.

Cloud hosting is a very expensive option and while it does guarantee less down time and faster loading, the difference between VPS and Cloud is probably not worth the extra outlay, unless you intend to grow your business across numerous web sites which will require extra resource. For the time-being, a Linux-based solution is probably a better option.

If your company grows to encompass ten or more sites, or you find yourself hosting a 1000 page + website then cloud hosting may be a worthwhile investment; however, most SME’s will find that VPS remains the ideal, cost-effective solution for their site.

Hosting comes at the very end of your web design process and is the final step to getting your site live on the internet. Personal web pages and small, simple constructions can be hosted from home through various methods, most of which are free, but require your page to carry advertising.

Complex sites, or those who require a professional advertising-free approach, will need to link up with a web hosting provider. So what questions do you need to ask when choosing a provider?

•    What is the average downtime per month? Downtime is when your website, for whatever reason, is unavailable. Most providers aim to average 99.5% uptime per month, this means a loss of 45 minutes each month.

•    Is there 24 hour technical support? Unexpected downtime can occur when it is least welcome, so you need to know you can speak to somebody quickly and easily to ensure the issue is resolved with minimum impact on your business.

•     What type of hosting is it? Dedicated hosting allows you to retain full control over your server, whereas managed hosting allows the provider to retain administrative functions. There are several other types of hosting, and a good web host should be able to take you through the options to find the one that is right for you.

If you’re looking for a home for your website, then speak to NSDesign for flexible web hosting packages that use the latest Linux technology.