Questions and Answers

1. Does your ecommerce hosting include the software?

Our ecommerce pricing is for the hosting portion only unless we specify a combo package.

2. If the pricing is only for the hosting why is it more expensive than your other standard plans?

The ecommerce hosting includes a great deal more manual setup to ensure security. Your site is hosted on a separate server that has been put through additional security hardening and testing. The storage space and data transfer allotments are also greater than the standard plans. After sales support tends to be quite a bit more intensive as the clients do expect us to know the basic architecture of the software. Additional helper components are also often installed. Regular backups and ongoing security reviews add to the expense of operating an ecommerce server.


3. The other guys offer free ecommerce software with their hosting plans.

Do you remember the old saying that there is no free lunch. In this case it is particularly true. If you leave the host or they go out of business, you will have to redevelop the site. The level of customization is very limited since one size must fit all. So functionality is generally very basic. New features that come out are not automatically applied. Security & support are again leveraged across the entire customer base. Purchasing your own ecommerce application will deliver customizable code, support from the developers, infinite upgrade capabilities and additional functionality such as shipment tracking, customer management, marketing and promotion. Picture two vendors with the same product but one is using a canned basic application and the other is using a state of the art application, which one would you buy from?


4. What is shared SSL, and why do you no longer offer it?

Shared SSL means that instead of you buying your own certificate, you piggyback onto our certificate. To do this we provide a special subdirectory that is aliased to your ssl subdirectory. When the client links to the secure page it is our domain name that is presented in the browser. Although this method is acceptable and accomplishes what is needed, it is generally preferred by your customers for you to have your own certificate. As of May 1, 2003, we will no longer offer new customers shared ssl. We are discontinuing this product since certificates have become quite inexpensive and simplify your installation greatly.


5. Do you sell SSL Certificates and whose are they?

We do offer Geotrust certificates. They are well known for their reliability, security and speed.

6. Do you offer Microsoft's SQL Server?

We offer a number of SQL Server database plans.

7. Do you offer any web design services?

Chinook Webs partners with many web developers throughout Canada & the USA. Normally all design work is passed to our web development partners. Occasionally special circumstances arise where we will do the shopping cart portion and then have one of our developer partners finish the graphical/HTML portion of the site.

8. How fast are your servers & connections?

Chinook Webs is continually upgrading our servers and connections to keep pace with the ongoing demands of today's software and our clients. As of May 2004, the majority of our servers are Intel P4's and our connection to the Internet is a high speed Fiber link.

9. What about physical security & back up?

At Chinook we maintain our data centre in order to have complete control over systems. We use battery backups & we have a backup power generator with sufficient fuel for several days of operation. Servers are regularly backed up to independent media. Our building has security measures in place.

10. How reliable is your network connection?

Our network connection is monitored 7/24 by Telus and by us using redundant connections to the Internet, with a 99.7% uptime SLA. Our connection comes in by conduit from buried cable which precludes downtime from environmental factors. Internet connectivity in this part of the world is significantly advanced and does not suffer from peering problems that are so prevalent elsewhere.