Jumba Interactive, a Melbourne-based web hosting company, is my current choice for the Australian-hosting needs. They have both Sydney and Melbourne based servers (mainly Dell dual Xeon’s), running cPanel on CentOS (I think). Network connectivity is pretty good for me, as they are peering with PIPE Networks, where most Australian ISP are also peering with.

Here is a report of running mtr from my home (connected to the net using Exetel ADSL) to my site hosted on their Sydney based server.

$ mtr -r www.ozbargainblog.com
HOST: localhost                 Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
1. 192.168.1.254                 0.0%    10    0.4   0.4   0.4   0.5   0.0
2. xx.xx.xx.xx.exetel.com.au     0.0%    10    8.6  12.5   8.0  43.2  10.8
3. ???                          100.0    10    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
4. 10.0.1.1                      0.0%    10    8.5   9.4   8.5  10.6   0.7
5. RN-187THOMAS-7200-01.pipenet  0.0%    10   11.3  10.6   9.2  12.2   1.1
6. AS17920.sydney.pipenetworks.  0.0%    10    9.3  10.1   9.1  12.3   1.0
7. 203.145.32.66                 0.0%    10    9.2  10.5   9.2  12.8   1.2
8. 203.145.32.121                0.0%    10   10.6  10.8  10.1  12.3   0.7
9. bauer-1.rev.jumba.net.au      0.0%    10    9.7  10.3   8.8  12.8   1.1

The hosting plan that I am on is AU-P2 (more info can be found here), which I used to host my personal bargain blog. It has been running since 27^th of April 2006, and so far it has pretty much been trouble free with very good performance.

Why Australian Hosting?

Yes I know. US based hostings have bigger storage, almost “unlimited” bandwidth, and the price is going cheaper and cheaper thanks to the depreciating greenback. In my article on AU vs. US hosting, I noted several reasons to choose an Australian hosting.

1. Geo-targeting Australian visitors.
2. Reduced latency for Australian visitors.
3. Supporting Australian business.
4. Optimising for local search engines.

The main reason for signing up an Australian hosting is (1) and (4) for my bargain blog. I want it to be ranked well for search engines targeting Aussies, because I would like more Aussies to visit my site. I don’t particularly care about Australian business :) and latency is not a concern for me either.

Why Jumba?

I first heard about Jumba on Whirlpool Forums, a popular place where people gathered to discuss Australian Internet matters. They have a few active representatives there, and many users are quite happy about them. More over, as I do not wish to spend a lot of money as I am already using 2 other US-based hosting with lots of spare resources, Jumba’s personal web hosting plans fit my need and budget very well.

The hosting plan I got when I started is AU-P2, with 500Mb storage + 5Gb monthly bandwidth and ability to host 3 domains (+ “unlimited” sub-domains) — all that for AUD$2.95/month, but needs to be pre-paid annually.

Here is a list of things I like about Jumba.

• Great value for money — you’ll only know how good the price is when you look at other Australian web hosting companies.
• Great customer support — Mick always respond to my enquiries after 12am, staffs are very active on their forums, and there are even Representatives on Whirlpool to answer questions.
• Great community — did I mention that they have a forum? And a Wiki? Not only do you have company staffs helping you out, there are many active forum members that can assist you when you need a hand. A strong community is always a good sign for great hosting and customer supports.
• Great performance — at least on the box “bauer palmer” which my site is on, it is running PHP nice and fast. Certainly much faster than DreamHost. Not just reduced latency, but the amount of time to execute the same script. Maybe they haven’t filled up that server yet, but so far I am happy.
• Secure Shell Supported — support of SSH to me is a critical feature and I would not sign up a shared hosting no matter how great the package is, if I cannot update it securely. Jumba’s servers are SSH-enabled, but you need to ask their customer support to enable you account.

Why Not Jumba?

I am so far happy with Jumba, but it does not mean that it is a perfect hosting solution for all the Aussies out there. There are somethings that I do not like.

• cPanel sucks — need I say more?! I absolutely hated cPanel and cannot understand why it is the “standard” in many budget hosting companies. Moreover, as cPanel has strict system/distribution requirement, Jumba simply cannot deploy certain software (PHP5 or PostgreSQL 8 for example) because of their incompatibility with cPanel. Last time I read that they are working on their own panels. Maybe they got sick of it as well. Update: Jumba now supports PHP5, but does that means PHP4 is not supported? Probably a good idea to patch up those legacy apps that break in PHP5.
• Brand name not recognised — “Jumba” is definitely not a recognised brand name in web hosting Australia. They have no presence on WHT Australia (but then I would not if I also run a hosting business). I don’t remember seeing their advertisement. Don’t go for Jumba if associating with a well recognised name is important to you.
• Unproven record — again, “Jumba” is new, and pretty much “hyped” on Whirlpool forum. So far they have quality service, but for how long? The owners are there for the long haul, but so is this self claimed No 2 web host in Australia, who recently had endless issues.

Well, that’s it so far. I have only been with them for two months, so the above 2 lists will certainly grow over time.