As our computers are set to overwhelm our island, we spoke to Gordon Bezzina, Technical Director of BM IT Limited, to find out how the burgeoning influx of IT companies is affecting the web hosting sector.
For those that may be unfamiliar with the term, web hosting providers sell allocated space on their computer servers for websites. Obviously, their service is a lot wider than this simplistic description, but essentially if your company wants to have a website – and in today’s digital world who can afford to be without one – then you are also going to need someone to host it.
Some may think that they can save some money by getting away with a DIY solution and rig up a few of their own dedicated computers. However, a web hosting service is a highly specialised operation and can guarantee your website being accessible 99% of the time, can provide excellent security for your data as well as for your customers and their equipment is also far more reliable than your own. In simple terms, if you want your site to be professional, then choose a web hosting service.
“At BM IT Limited, overseas companies form our main customer base for our web hosting services,” Mr Bezzina explains. “However, we also provide dedicated co-location hosting.”
Co-location hosting is a different type of service. Here the host company provides physical space to store its client’s servers. As a customer, you are entitled to have your own technicians visit the site and perform the maintenance and upgrades on it. This is advantageous as your equipment gets to enjoy the advanced network connections of the host but you retain full control of the equipment and what is stored on it. This also has the added benefit of allowing you to specify exactly what servers and what software your company uses.
So, now that we understand the services a web host provides, we can turn to look at how the IT boom is affecting business.
“Igaming companies are definitely our largest clients,” says Mr Bezzina. “Once again, these tend to be foreign companies,” he adds.
Considering their traffic volume and their high security requirements, it is hardly surprising that this sector looks to professionals for web hosting. The fact that they choose a local company for this service is a reflection on Malta’s high level of IT sophistication.
Mr Bezzina sees the rapid growth of the local igaming scene as a definite advantage for local web hosting providers. “The growth of this industry has beneficial effects, both in terms of the level of national employment and the knock-on effects to direct service companies such as ours,” he explains.
But if Malta’s web hosts are competing in the global marketplace, how does Malta’s internet infrastructure measure up compared to other European nations?
“There have been dramatic improvements in quality, but there is still room for improvement in capacity.” Mr Bezzina notes. “However, pricing is still expensive when compared to other major European cities,” he says.
Whilst the current surge in IT related activities is good for business, as Mr Bezzina has already noted, it also tends result in an acute labour shortage within the sector.
“Finding staff with an intricate knowledge of internet protocols is very difficult,” he notes. “Personnel with a wealth of experience on networks are also hard to find,” Mr Bezzina adds.
The opening of Smart City is also expected to put a strain on the IT labour force.
“Whilst we welcome the opportunities it will provide for us to increase our consumer base, we are concerned about the drain on the IT staff pool,” Mr Bezzina explains.
The government is strongly encouraging students to take up courses in these fields. Whether the graduates from these courses will remain in the local sector, or seek overseas opportunities, is yet to be seen.
Of course, change is the inherent nature of technology and Mr Bezzina can see some on the horizon.
“The biggest change I can see is the implementation of IPv6 in the near future,” he says.
IPv6 is a new version (number six in fact) of the internet protocols we use for the World Wide Web. In simple terms our internet is simply running out of addresses due to the huge number of users. The new version increases the number of addresses drastically to solve this problem. This new technology will come in to play around 2010 and has many other features that allow the internet to work better – also meaning better business for web hosts.
The world of technology seems to change at such a rapid pace that if you blink you end up left behind. As the internet continues to grow and become ever more essential to the functioning of our society, web hosts will definitely have an interesting future ahead.
We sincerely hope that mankind’s skills can keep pace with the developments in this industry; otherwise we may find ourselves with a lot of new computers and no one who knows what to do with them. |