A2 Hosting: A Developer’s Best Friend

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A2 Hosting owes its name to its hometown of Ann Arbor in Michigan, a city that is known for high tech businesses, environmental consciousness, and democratic politics. The company has been around since 2001, initially as Iniquinet before the brand was changed to the current one in 2003. a2-screenshotIt has kept growing ever since thanks to its focus on performance and developer support. It currently enjoys an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau which bodes well for its customers. Several sites have given it awards, mostly for its proficiency in developer hosting. Among A2’s unique features are:

The SwiftServer Platform

The company is extremely focused in providing its clients with the fastest hosting possible. This is not just lip service as it has the tests to back up its claims. Initial page load time using its Prime+ SSD system outperforms more famous webhosts like GoDaddy, HostGator, BlueHost and DreamHost. This is quite an accomplishment which businesses should take note of. Every second of delay makes web surfers more anxious to the point that conversion rate falls by 7% and visitor satisfaction drops by 16%. That’s a lot of money gone down the drain. A2 uses finely tuned SwiftServers to boost speed using solid state drives, advanced servers, and optimization techniques.

The Guru Crew Support

Excellent website performance directly translates to better business. It is not surprising that owners would want to ask a lot of questions regarding their site and what they can do to improve it. When they see things suddenly going offline, they rightly deserve an explanation. A2 Hosting has assembled a competent support group to assist clients called the Guru Crew. These are not outsourced agents but rather US-based professionals who are ready and able to provide assistance 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They can answer both basic inquiries and advanced questions with ease.

The 99.9% Uptime Guarantee

Uptime is perhaps the most under-appreciated statistic in the industry. Experienced individuals know how much it is worth but novices tend to disregard it. The uptime is basically a measure of confidence that the sites hosted by a company will remain online throughout the year. A greater number means better reliability. A2 Hosting gives a 99.9% uptime guarantee to assure its clients that they will not have to suffer through long outages that will affect their bottom line. The data centers, maintenance scheduling, security measures, and daily practices are all tailored towards exceeding this standard.

Developer-friendly Hosting

A2 has made a name for itself by courting developers with enticing features which cannot be found in most other hosts. There is the QuickInstaller for fast setups and Server Rewind backups for peace of mind. Programmers are always pleasantly surprised with the amount of developer tools made available to them. All of the popular ones are included and even the more obscure ones are thrown in for good measure. Examples are PHP 5.6, MySQL 5.5, PostgreSQL 9.4, and Python 3.2. The staff also takes requests seriously so clients can just phone in if they need anything else.

FutureServe Green Hosting

Finally, A2 Hosting is also proud of its green heritage especially since its home also goes by the name Tree Town. Its data center in Iceland is fully dependent on geo-thermal energy which emits no greenhouse gases for 100% carbon neutrality.

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