IaaS provider WorldStream joins Dutch Hosting Provider Association (DHPA)

WorldStream, a fast-growing Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) hosting provider with more than 15,000 dedicated servers under management for a global customer base, has joined industry association and trusted cloud experts DHPA. WorldStream sees the increasing scale of its own company as well as the need for a hosting industry-wide approach to cybercrime as important arguments for membership of DHPA.

The members of DHPA are among the largest, most innovative cloud and hosting providers in the Netherlands. After its founding in 2006, WorldStream has experienced significant growth, especially since 2016 when the company started offering ‘unmanaged’ dedicated servers with a fixed price for high bandwidth. This proposition proved to be internationally appealing and also resulted in the enormous size of the WorldStream network backbone – with a current bandwidth capacity of more than 10Tbps.

According to WorldStream, this scale requires increasing responsibility when it comes to facilitating the fight against cybercrime. WorldStream expects to be able to do more in this respect in conjunction with other companies within the hosting industry.

Ruud Alaerds, director of DHPA, on the membership of WorldStream said: “WorldStream is a very interesting player in the Dutch and international markets. It is an innovative IaaS-hoster which is growing fast and is very competitive. With bundled hosting solutions and customization regarding dedicated servers, an anti-DDoS service, network solutions, colocation, and their soon to be launched global SDN, this company knows how to distinguish itself internationally and in the Netherlands. WorldStream joins DHPA because it feels strongly related to the principles set out izn the DHPA code of conduct and wants to work together with DHPA. We therefore welcome WorldStream to the DHPA network and look forward to this cooperation”.

90,000 servers, R&D department, SDN, anti-DDoS

As an Infrastructure-as-a-Service hosting provider WorldStream serves customers worldwide with its unmanaged IaaS hosting solutions. It does this from two own data centers located in Naaldwijk, near Rotterdam and The Hague. The total capacity of WorldStream’s largest and newest data center was doubled to 20,000 servers in 2019. In addition, plans are being drawn up for the construction of an entirely new data center near the two existing locations, allowing the total capacity to grow further to 90,000 servers in the next few years.

WorldStream has its own R&D department from which a new anti-DDoS platform has recently emerged with a layered architecture based on intelligent clustering technology – to repel large DDoS attacks, but also the smaller and more advanced DDoS attacks that often go by unnoticed.

In addition, at the end of the first quarter of 2020 a proprietary SDN on top of the global WorldStream network backbone under the name of WorldStream Elastic Network will be launched. This software-defined network aims to provide extensive data center, network and cybersecurity functionality at locations where the network has backbone Points-of-Presence. For SMEs and enterprises in the Netherlands and internationally, this offers possibilities to flexibly set up hybrid IT infrastructures including cloud in an easily accessible manner.

Fighting cybercrime: sharing knowledge and innovations

Wouter van Zwieten, Planning & Control Director at WorldStream, is enthusiastic about the DHPA membership: “In line with the strong growth of WorldStream and the expanding capacity of our global network backbone, we are dedicating more and more resources to supporting agencies involved in the fight against cybercrime. The DHPA Foundation makes an important contribution to curbing cybercrime at a national level and for the hosting industry, for example by developing codes of conduct for its members and sharing knowledge, innovations and experiences. WorldStream also has knowledge and innovation to contribute in this area and we want to talk about this at industry level”.

“For example, we have recently developed an ‘IPTV abuse enforcement’ software tool, with which rightholders can intervene independently when it appears that TV pirates are active within our network,” says Van Zwieten. “We also have close contacts with investigative bodies and tightly structured abuse processes with specific time limits to take content offline if necessary. Given our current size and the importance we attach to a clean internet, the time is ripe for a DHPA membership. We are pleased with the admission by DHPA and look forward to a fruitful cooperation.”

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