Greenhost: Sustainable innovative infrastructure partner for advanced hosting

Customer Success Stories

Looking for a colocation partner with a focus on sustainability? Learn why Iron Mountain is a good fit.

8 mins

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Iron Mountain Data Centers Greenhost case study

Industry:

Web Hosting

Challenge:

Sustainable innovativeinfrastructure partner foradvanced hosting

Solution:

Iron Mountain Data Centers

Value:

Shared focus on renewables and sustainability
Optimum efficiency with continuous service innovation
Industry-leading responsiveness and compliance levels

Innovation with sustainability

Greenhost was founded in 2001 by Mart van Santen and Sacha van Geffen. They developed a web hosting platform that was much more sustainable and energy efficient than the competition.

Since then, the company has become a frontrunner in the web hosting field, offering a fresh approach to hosting, with a commitment to sustainability, a free and open internet and advanced security, and its own solutions, software, partners, projects and ideas.

"Back in 2007 we were looking for a long-term colocation partner with a focus on sustainability. There weren't many about in those days," says Mart van Santen.

"Our primary concern was to offer renewable energy to customers, and we were also looking for energy-efficient design and operation "“ most facilities back then used huge amounts of cooling equipment. Other critical factors included carrier-neutrality and a strong security policy. "Iron Mountain ticked all these boxes. As well as offering power generated from renewable energy, Iron Mountain was one of a handful of colocation providers offering optimized airflows and electricity power flows.

"We like working with innovative companies and there was a good match with Iron Mountain from the outset," says van Santen. "In my view, Iron Mountain is still very innovative "“ they invest a lot of time in innovation and research rather than buying things off the shelf."

For customers that know how important good quality infrastructure is, our collaboration with Iron Mountain is a significant plus.

Mart van Santen, Founder and CEO, Greenhost

Flexible, responsive, innovative infrastructure

Iron Mountain became Greenhost’s core infrastructure provider, and today Greenhost hosts over 20,000 customer websites with Iron Mountain, offering arrange of starter and premium hosting packages as well as one-off cloud-based solutions.

Iron Mountain EMEA’s flagship AMS-1 facility has a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of1.2 with potential for an even lower figure, which matches Greenhost’s exacting energy efficiency standards.

Greenhost uses a backup facility in Rotterdam and is constantly on the look out for new sustainable hosting partners, but there are no plans to change the core provider relationship.

Greenhost runs connections to the AMS-IX and NL-IX fibre ring, and to IX Reach. Routers are located in the meet-me room so that it’s possible to expand or interconnect there as required.

Mart van Santen summarises the working relationship as follows:

“Iron Mountain is not for everybody – lots of our customers don’t really know about the infrastructure side of things, and they are not particularly interested. But for customers that know how important good quality infrastructure is, our collaboration with Iron Mountain is a significant plus and that helps our marketing and sales effort.

Unlike many service providers, Iron Mountain has improved with age, becoming more responsive and flexible, and our relationship has deepened over the years, mainly due to the quality of the Account Management.”