About the Undercroft
The Undercroft Network began operation on April 1,
2009 to serve the web-hosting needs of
PeaceB2You-maintained, church and
church-agency web sites.
In the past 14 years PeaceB2You and it's
predecessor, MOCAL Systems, have dealt with many
different hosting companies, most of which have either
gone out of business or been taken over, or both.
At one time there were more than 50 maintained web sites
and eight different hosting companies, each with its
own set of operating standards. Organizations were
encouraged to maintain their own web sites which
involved computer, software, training and my travel
expenses. This worked well for some but not for
others. Most of the former web sites are now
self-maintained or gone. Remaining web sites were
transferred to a single hosting company and domain
registrar.
All hosting company transitions except one have been
nightmares for clients and for the webmaster (me).
During the last transition (takeover) a smooth transfer
was promised as usual, but customer-support personnel
were as confused as I was. Some sites were down
for extended periods, updates were impossible and email
was disrupted. It was obvious that there was a
need to increase reliability, simplify customer service
and reduce costs.
This was done by creating an entity to consolidate
existing PeaceB2You clients into one
shared account on one shared server. Under
Undercroft Network all maintained domains are registered by
one domain registrar. Because most churches
and their agencies don't have needed resources, all web
site maintenance and management is done by one
webservant, not the client.
A hosting-only plan has been added for those who want
to perform their own web site maintenance. (See
Services.)
Consolidation is not without risk and disadvantages.
Although two backups are performed, a server outage is
possible (probability of data loss is less than 0.1%).
Some commercial features are not available with the
maintained plan.
Advantages include cost-plus-overhead pricing, no
salaries, shared costs that decrease with increased
participation, fast and easy access to support and many
free services (see Services
page).
Undercroft Network seeks to be dynamic and
responsive to your web hosting needs. Send
questions and comments through the
Contact Us page.
David Jackson, webservant
|