2020 certainly was an interesting year; new challenges and difficulties were faced by almost everyone due to COVID-19. Host Networks are proud to have helped our customers leverage internet technologies to improve both business and personal outcomes. Host Networks deployed a COVID-19 response plan which helped to ensure that both our staff and our facility remain protected at all times. While our facility access restrictions have now eased, Host Networks will continue to provide hand sanitiser at common areas, and masks on request, to help ensure a clean and safe work environment for all.

Through the end of 2018 and early 2019 Host Networks completed a number of
major maintenance milestones for our Brisbane Data Centre, specifically
new Liebert CRAC systems and new ABB UPS systems. This equipment helps Host Networks maintain our high standard of facility uptime and ensure complete vendor support is available for all of our equipment.

In 2020 Host Networks turned its focus to improvements for our AS4851 network. Bugs affecting our previous Juniper core routers were identified, and although we had mitigation techniques in place, the clear solution was to replace and upgrade our routers. In June of 2020, Host Networks purchased new Juniper routing hardware and supporting equipment to perform the upgrades. After several months of preparation and testing, our Brisbane routers were replaced in September 2020 and the results have been fantastic. We are very pleased with the stability and capabilities of our new routers, comprised of two redundant MX204 devices capable of 400Gbps each. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 limitations, our Sydney router upgrade was delayed but as we write this article planning is underway and we anticipate that we will complete the Sydney router upgrade in February 2021.

Alongside the network improvements, Host Networks finished the installation of our new Notifier fire panel and all supporting peripherals, including recertification of our FM200 gas system and new fire suppression control panel.

Moving forward we will be providing updates for our customers more frequently, sharing tech tips and new software we discover along the way.

Further Resources

Did you find this information useful? Discover much more from our FAQ.

Still in need of help? For speedy assistance our friendly staff are always ready to help via our helpdesk, on Twitter, through our website, or directly via email to support.

Host Networks office will be closed on Friday the 10th of April to Monday 13th of April for the Easter public holidays.

Our NOC staff will continue to monitor the facilities and network during this period. Any provisioning of services over this period will not be started until Tuesday 14th of April. If you require any emergency Remote Hands or Escorted Access during this time, please follow standard procedures by filling out the appropriate form on our website, followed by calling our Emergency After Hours phone. If you do not have this number, now is a good time to review your initial welcome email, or ask for a copy of it by emailing our support. During the public holidays weekend rates for Remote Hands and Escorted Access will apply.

Host Networks wishes all of our customers a safe and relaxing long weekend.

Helpful Links:

• https://status.hostnetworks.com.au/
• https://tools.hostnetworks.com.au/
• https://www.facebook.com/HostNetworksAU
• https://twitter.com/HostNetworks

Read our COVID-19 Updates; Host Networks prioritises the health and safety of our customers, staff and partners. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding for any inconvenience that these policies may cause.

Further Resources

Did you find this information useful? Discover much more from our FAQ.

Still in need of help? For speedy assistance our friendly staff are always ready to help via our helpdesk, on Twitter, through our website, or directly via email to support.

Host Networks values the health and welfare of all of our customers, staff and partners. In response to the spread of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), Host Networks has enacted a response plan that will help to protect the health and safety of all our customers, staff and partners. These precautions help to minimise the risk of impact to customer services and the Host Networks support team.

Following are details for the second stage of our response to the evolving situation.

We are continuing to follow guidance from World Health Organisation and local health authorities. As an essential service, Host Networks services and support will remain in operation, additional steps are being taken to limit data centre access to visits that are critical. Host Networks will closely monitor the situation as it further develops, and further changes to our response plan may be required to ensure that our approach stays relevant to the situation.

Key policy items of the current Host Networks response

• Host Networks data centre physical access is being restricted to critical work only.Data centre access is limited to 1 person per company at any one time.
  We ask all customers who are not performing critical work to consider using our remote hands service or re-scheduling your access for a later time.
  Our sign in procedures have also changed, Host Networks will now complete the sign in register on behalf of the customer to limit unnecessary physical interactions.
  Our team is here to help, if you would like to discuss your access request or planned work at the data centre please submit a ticket and we will find a solution.

• Host Networks have moved to a single technician onsite during 9-5 Monday to Friday with all other staff working from home.
  Host Networks will continue to receive customer deliveries and perform remote hands work while also providing our fantastic customer support through our ticket system.

• All face to face meetings and non-critical site visits are now suspended. Phone calls, teleconferencing and remote hands will be used in place to help our customers.

• Host Networks is monitoring stock levels and vendor supply chains to ensure that parts and equipment are maintained for all critical services.
  Our data centre, network and associated products are designed to be achieve high levels of uptime, stability and redundancy and we do not anticipate any impact to our services.

• Host Networks travel is limited to domestic only destinations to allow us to maintain our infrastructure.
  Our local support and management team will be required to self-isolate and work from home for a 14 day period if they return from international travel, are exposed to persons who have travelled internationally within the past 14 days or if they experience cold or flu-like symptoms.

• All visitors and staff are asked to comply with current World Health Organisation advise and ensure that you frequently wash your hands with soap and water and avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.
  Host Networks provides liquid soap and disposable towels in the bathrooms along with hand sanitiser in customer common areas.

• If you are experiencing any cold or flu-like symptoms, have been in close contact with people who have travelled to an area with a high rate of disease transmission or have yourself visited an area with high rates of disease transmission within the past 14 days, you must notify Host Networks before accessing our data centre facility. We may request that you undergo the recommended 14 self-isolation period before accessing the facility.

Host Networks prioritises the health and safety of our customers, staff and partners. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding for any inconvenience that these policies may cause.

If you have any questions regarding our response to the Coronavirus, please contact our support team.

Host Networks values the health and welfare of all of our customers, staff and partners. In response to the spread of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), Host Networks has enacted a response plan that will help to protect the health and safety of all our customers, staff and partners. These precautions help to minimise the risk of impact to customer services and the Host Networks support team.

We are following guidance from World Health Organisation and local health authorities. Currently all Host Networks services and support are in full operation with only precautionary measures implemented at this time. Host Networks will closely monitor the situation as it further develops, and changes to our response plan may be required to ensure that our approach stays relevant to the situation.

Key policy items of the current Host Networks response

• Host Networks is monitoring stock levels and vendor supply chains to ensure that parts and equipment are maintained for all critical services.
  Our data centre, network and associated products are designed to be achieve high levels of uptime, stability and redundancy and we do not anticipate any impact to our services.

• Host Networks travel is limited to domestic only destinations to allow us to maintain our infrastructure.
  Our local support and management team will be required to self-isolate and work from home for a 14 day period if they return from international travel, are exposed to persons who have travelled internationally within the past 14 days or if they experience cold or flu-like symptoms.

• Wherever possible customer meetings will be performed in an online format rather than an in person meeting.

• All visitors and staff are asked to comply with current World Health Organisation advise and ensure that you frequently wash your hands with soap and water and avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.
  Host Networks provides liquid soap and disposable towels in the bathrooms along with hand sanitiser in customer common areas.

• If you are experiencing any cold or flu-like symptoms, have been in close contact with people who have travelled to an area with a high rate of disease transmission or have yourself visited an area with high rates of disease transmission within the past 14 days, you must notify Host Networks before accessing our data centre facility. We may request that you undergo the recommended 14 self-isolation period before accessing the facility.

Host Networks prioritises the health and safety of our customers, staff and partners. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding for any inconvenience that these policies may cause.

If you have any questions regarding our response to the Coronavirus, please contact our support team.

About curl

cURL is a computer software project providing a library and command-line tool for transferring data using various protocols. It was first released in 1997. The name stands for "Client URL".

It is useful in many applications and languages, or simply on its own for testing and troubleshooting purposes.

Quick Reference

Requesting a webpage

Example curl Command:

curl https://ddg.hostnetworks.net/cURL

Output:

nick@AS4851: ~$ curl https://ddg.hostnetworks.net/cURL; echo Found

Display response headers with Request

Example curl -i Command:

curl -i https://ddg.hostnetworks.net/cURL

Output:

nick@AS4851: ~$ curl -i https://ddg.hostnetworks.net/cURL
HTTP/2 302
location: https://duckduckgo.com/cURL
content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
content-length: 5
date: Tue, 08 Oct 2019 01:16:22 GMT

Found

Force a request for a hostname to a different IP

Example curl --resolve Command:

curl --resolve ddg.hostnetworks.net:443:117.120.40.11 \
    https://ddg.hostnetworks.net:443/cURL -i

Output:

nick@AS4851: ~$ MyHost="ddg.hostnetworks.net"; \
    curl --resolve "${MyHost}:443:117.120.40.11" \
    https://${MyHost}:443/cURL -i

HTTP/2 302
location: https://duckduckgo.com/cURL
content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
content-length: 5
date: Tue, 08 Oct 2019 01:19:51 GMT

Found

Some additional curl command line options:

• -A - Set the User Agent string
• -H - Set a new Host header field
• -I - Makes a HEAD HTTP request
• -i - Shows HTTP Header as well as the response

Further Resources

Did you find this information useful? Discover much more from our FAQ.

Still in need of help? For speedy assistance our friendly staff are always ready to help via our helpdesk, on Twitter, through our website, or directly via email to support.

Windows unfortunately blocks certain ICMPv6 packets by default. This becomes a nuisance when troubleshooting and testing IPv6 networking from a Windows system.

Step-by-step Instructions

Permit ICMPv6 in Windows 10

Open Start / Run then type: wf.msc

Press Enter or click OK to open a Microsoft Management Console with the Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security snap-in

From the Firewall settings select Inbound Rules and click New Rule… On the Rule Type page, select Custom and click Next >

Select All programs and click Next >

Change Protocol type to ICMPv6 then click Next >

Leave the Scope unchanged and click Next > (Default scope is Any IP address)

Ensure Allow the connection is selected then click Next >

Select your required profiles and click Next >

Enter a name, we went with Permit All ICMPv6 and click Finish

Further Resources

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Still in need of help? For speedy assistance our friendly staff are always ready to help via our helpdesk, on Twitter, through our website, or directly via email to support.

We pride ourselves on our robust redundancies and resilience against multiple levels of fault and failures. Between our 2N redundant network topology, both logically, and physically (diverse fiber paths, power paths, cooling designs; all to prevent any localised physical incident from having any perceived impact to core services), plus our Remote Hands Services, accessible Tools, Status Portal, FAQ and Helpdesk Services, you will find that you seldom need to visit on-site. Whether you are racked, or stacked, there are very few reasons to ever need to make return trips.

However, by solving many of these problems, a new, less obvious problem presents itself in their place; which is finding us quickly and easily after going so long between visits!

Save our location on Google Maps to make sure that is one less potential problem.

Host Networks

★★★★★ · Web hosting company · 53 Brandl St

Host Networks

Host Networks on Google Maps

Network Status

Further Resources

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Still in need of help? For speedy assistance our friendly staff are always ready to help via our helpdesk, on Twitter, through our website, or directly via email to support.

We are excited to announce that Host Group of Companies Pty Ltd (Host Networks) has been acquired by Anvia Holdings Corporation (ANVV) through its fully owned subsiduary Anvia (Australia) Pty Ltd.

You can view the full press release here:
https://anviaholdings.com/anvia-holdings-corporation-acquires-australian-data-centre-host-group-of-companies-pty-ltd/

How will this affect you?
To put it simply, this will not affect you.

It is important to note that there are no immediate changes being made to services or staff at Host Networks. Everything that is important to Host Networks is recognised by our new owner and they intend to preserve and help to grow our business. Everything for our team will be business as usual and the same experts will continue to provide the excellent standard of customer support that we are known for.

What will happen in future?
Host Networks will continue business as usual, but we have plans to steadily expand our scope to help our customers grow.
I will retain my position as head of Host Networks’ data centre and will be appointed to CEO for Host Group of Companies. We have exciting plans for the future, and myself and the team intend to work diligently toward our goals and expansion opportunities for the business.

If you have any questions about these changes please contact the team at Host Networks and we will be happy to help.

From myself and the whole team here at Host Networks, we want to thank our customers for their business and support over the years which has helped us to grow and continually reach new milestones.

Best regards,

Bob Woolley