netcup News

15 years of netcup: From a basement start-up to an international webhosting provider

30.06.2017, Kategorie: Press Releases

Press release dated 22.06.2017

Karlsruhe – This month, the internet provider netcup will be celebrating its 15th anniversary. Since its founding in June, 2002, the provider has evolved from a one-man operation to a successful, international webhosting provider. More than 50,000 customers are now using netcup’s products and services.

“I was still finishing my secondary school education and living at home when I registered the domain name netcup.de, registered my business and took my first steps as an entrepreneur”, recalled Felix Preuß, Managing Director of netcup GmbH. While studying for his university entrance exams, the young entrepreneur offered services in web design, programming and hardware installation. Three years later, Preuß expanded his service offerings to include webhosting, marking the start of his now successful business.

The success of vServer

This gained momentum in 2007, when Felix Preuß founded the company Preuß & Werner GbR, together with Oliver Werner. “Oliver Werner contributed a wealth of technical know-how and lots of good ideas”, reflected Felix Preuß. The young entrepreneurs’ first coup was the development of the “vServer”, which has since become netcup’s most successful product, a product that is still undergoing continued development. In the past years, netcup has repeatedly come out on top, winning various webhosting awards in the vServer category. Most recently, in May, 2017, netcup was awarded platinum at the coveted Hosting Awards.

New server offerings: The product portfolio continues to grow

The internet provider’s next step was in 2008, when they moved from being a partnership (GbR – partnership under the German civil code) to a private limited company (GmbH). “From this point forward, we focused more on our webhosting service and cut back on our web design offerings. We have since been offering other types of webhosting, in addition to managed servers and managed virtual servers,” said Preuß. In the coming years, netcup GmbH not only stood its ground in a highly competitive market, it also continued to develop at breakneck speed.

Point of contact for resellers and other webhosting companies

With the introduction of the VCP (vServer Control Panel) administrative interface, which, since 2011, has enabled netcup customers to configure their own virtual servers, netcup also piqued the interest of third party service providers. In addition to full process administration, the web interface also includes a comprehensive firewall that allows users to define their own security rules. Several user levels and special functions for resellers make this web interface particularly attractive to resellers. “With the netcup VCP, they can automatically add new customers and servers, match their performance, and block or delete vServers”, explained Felix Preuß. He further explained, “Using the web interface, other webhosts can reduce the amount of effort they put into support and administration. Together with the solutions offered by managed cloud clusters, they can even operate an optimized vServer platform.” The netcup VCP continued to undergo development and has since been merged with the netcup SCP (Server Control Panel), which also makes it possible to manage dedicated servers.

In 2012, after joining DENIC, the registration authority for the .de domain, the internet provider stepped to it once again and worked on building up its infrastructure. Adding to the existing DE-CIX, Level3 carrier connection, in 2014 netcup put into operation another uplink, with a capacity of 10 Gbits/s to Core-Backbone, which is already redundant with respect to the existing uplink. “Because of the network’s sheer size, the traffic volume from and to Core-Backbone had increased. Another uplink was not only an investment in an additional redundancy, it also greatly increased our internet connection capacity”, Preuß explained.

Internationalization and the “Made in Germany” seal of quality

In 2015, netcup GmbH expanded into the international market with netcup.eu. The mid-sized company set the course to internationalize the netcup brand in the third quarter of that year: After a direct network connection was established to prominent European DSL and mobile network providers in August, they established their European network in September with a point of presence in Frankfurt. While an increasing number of German webhosting companies were being bought up by international companies and taking their servers abroad, netcup made stamping their webhosting and server offerings with “Made in Germany” a part of their growth strategy.

Strategic alliance with Anexia

Their successful internationalization opened the doors for a strategic alliance with the Austrian IT company Anexia in 2016. “Our position should improve the market position of both companies. We collaborate on innovative products and services, but continue to manage both companies independently”, comments Felix Preuß. The first joint success of the new alliance was already in evidence after a few weeks: netcup expanded its network structure to include a direct network connection to the Anexia Backbone.

Anniversary offer: vServers at a discounted rate

To mark this anniversary, netcup is offering some vServers and .de domains at 15% off the current price. The Generation 7 Second Edition (1000, 2000 and 4000) root server is available for as low as 6.79 Euros and up per month, with a minimum run time of 12 months, and the Generation 7 Second Edition (500 to 2000) VPS is available for as low as 3.39 Euros per month and up – also with a minimum runtime of 12 months. .de domains are already available for 15 cents per month, plus a registration fee of 1.50 Euros.

You can find further information at: www.netcup.eu

Download der Pressemitteilung als PDF: pm_22.06.2017