Author Archives Christopher Wray

Renay Groustra from our Team RSAWEB Cycle team gives us some insight into his race from the National XCO in Fountains Valley, Pretoria last Saturday, where the cream of the cycle elite in SA assembled to battle it out. We’re pleased to say he came 3rd – an amazing accomplishment!

Saturday the 14^th marked the 2^nd round of the National XCO series at Fountain Valley in Pretoria. Having raced there many times before, I knew exactly what to expect. As usual I was greeted by a tight and twisty course that winds itself along the river with too many corners to count, and only about 80m elevation per lap. This was definitely going to be a race of concentration and daringness.

Seeded 3^rd on the line ensured that I got a good position into the first singletrack of our 7 lap race. Philip Buys of Team Contego charged off the front on his home course at a pace that no one could match, while small chase group of 4 formed. Marc Bassingthwaight of Namibia was the next rider fto get off the front, riding at a hard and steady pace. I decided that it would be wise to back off a little as the altitude was beginning to hurt me. This proved a wise decision, as taking it slightly easy for a lap or so meant that I was able to open up at full tilt to drop my other chase group companions and ride the remaining few laps by myself. Riding by yourself on this course is probably key to having a good race as it means you are not pressured into making mistakes on some of the sketchy corners, and you are not forced into riding in the same style as the other riders.

Before I knew it I had crossed the line in 3^rd place, 2 mins behind Mark, and 3 behind winner Philip Buys, and over a minute ahead of my nearest chaser. I was really happy with the result. The way I felt out there shows that the Cape Epic definitely did my form a lot of good, and it was great to see that I am almost fully recovered from the 8 day effort.

Next up on the calendar is the Karkloof Classic in Howick, followed by African Continental Champs in Mauritius!

Thanks for the awesome write up, Renay!

To keep an eye on all things Team RSAWEB – check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

Our first ever Cloud Breakfast event went off without a hitch this morning, when our guests, Cape Town’s IT elite, gathered at Knead, Kloof Lifestyle centre to mingle and chat tech over some much needed hot coffee and cooked breakfasts. A presentation by our very own, Mark Slingsby followed – on all things Cloud and how our server solutions can make life easier for your business. Afterwards,  the RSAWEB team and our guests chatted business and networked the morning away, whilst being very well looked after by the lovely folks at Knead.

Thanks to all those who attended and for the awesome turnout. Since you all enjoyed the breakfast meet-up so much we will be hosting a few more this year, so see you all again in the very near future. Follow us on Twitter for more on all things RSAWEB including our events, like this one below!

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Here at RSAWEB we’re all about making life simpler by using the newest technology available– which is why we love Cloud servers! (Have we told you about our awesome version 2? See more here)

Although there is still absolutely a place for traditional dedicated servers in some businesses (and we still love to sell them to the clients who need them– have a look at ours here) we really think it’s time more people were aware of some of the benefits of switching to Cloud servers.

In this article we’ll point out some of the day to day limitations of using traditional dedicated, and how making the switch to Cloud could save you time, money and resources.

Some things you perhaps didn’t know about using traditional Servers:

• High Capital Expenditure Costs – All the actual hardware can cost a lot of money, by using virtualised machines in the Cloud, this cost is removed. This allows for organisations to focus on Operational Expenditure rather than Capital Expenditure. It also allows for lower cost of ownership of IT than before, now, more organisations can use the services afforded by competitive Cloud suppliers. We think any technology that allows businesses of all sizes to have great IT is a winner!

• They tend to have high power consumption – when compared to the Cloud, energy efficiency is really a buzz word in IT these days, it’s widely known that by switching from traditional servers to cloud servers, you save on power. Green and powerful means better business! What’s more – Cloud servers utilise dynamic resource allocation (Cloud Orchestration) which means power is only used when it’s really needed.

• There can be very high maintenance costs associated with the upkeep of traditional servers – Gartner estimates that IT maintenance accounts for roughly 80% of all IT expenditure. Traditional servers can require daily maintenance by IT professionals, meaning that your IT work force have to spend their time on day to day maintenance work which adds little strategic or operational value to your organisation. By switching to Cloud, our Cloud Experts take care of this.

• There is also the factor of the actual floor space required for traditional, large servers. With Cloud, all of your virtualised servers are stored off – site, allowing you to maximise the utilisation of your office space

• There is also an element of risk associated with having large servers in house – not just in housing all of the data in one place with little built in redundancy, but also in the risk of a break in. With Cloud, all information is stored in state of the art data centres, with 24 hour security.

Now here are some key reasons why your business should switch to Cloud today to see the savings that can be made!

1. Set-up can be done quickly and simply – and online!
2. No need to buy expensive hardware.
3. We can develop custom specs to suit your business needs perfectly – no matter the size of your business.
4. Cloud is instantly scalable – having a busy period? You can add more space in seconds. Need to cut back? you can scale back down, all from your user-friendly online control portal.
5. Use up to 90% less power with RSAWEB True Cloud Servers through efficient resource utilisation.

Want to try out our free trial? Click here and we’ll get an Account Manager to call you and discuss why Cloud is the right fit for you.

We’re pleased to announce that we’re one of the sponsors of an awesome initiative called #CloseTheTap – from the people at for love of water.

This online campaign, launched yesterday – 22nd March (UN”s World Water Day) encourages users to be aware of the water wastage associated with everyday scenarios, such as ordering that extra cup of coffee you don’t really need.  The slick, socially optimised site warns users of the things we do everyday that wastes precious  water, and prompts us to be more water-aware in our every day actions, such as the tongue-in-cheek pledge  ‘showering with a sexy someone’.

The campaign #CloseTheTap is essentially a digital initiative inspiring real world action – visit the site www.closethetap.co.za choose a water saving pledge, and share it via your social media channels.  We’re involved by sponsoring the live streaming of the ‘FlowCam’ which monitores twitter, and with every tweet, tightens the tap slightly – with the end goal of closing the tap completely with 10,000 tweets . (Pretty clever stuff!)  Note: the water used is in a closed system, re-cycling all of the water used – so no worries there!

The campaign anatomy was developed by the good folks and clever minds over at NATIVE, one of South Africa’s leading digital agencies, who are also one of our enterprise hosting clients. The campaign has been an overnight success – with over 1,600 tweets already! If you want to get involved you can do so by visiting the site and making your pledge or following the guys on twitter.

Isn’t it great getting something awesome for nothing?

Everyone loves freebies – that’s why we let our customers try out our 7 day obligation free Cloud Hosting packages for 7 days for absolutely nothing! Adding more awesome to this already great deal – we’ve also just improved what you can get when you take us up on our cloud trial offer.Below, see the upgrades we’ve made to the Cloud trial offer.  FYI: – this is a limited period only! (So sign up…now!)

The new trial product is identical to the actual cloud server you’ll get if you sign up with us – and the value of the 7 day free trial is R995* If this sounds good to you – simply visit our site or click here – and chat to a consultant to sign up for a free trial – we won’t take any billing information from you, and there is absolutely no commitment to sign up permanently.

Cloud Trial Terms and Conditions: …( yes, we know… there’s always those pesky T’s and C’s in life)

1. You can only sign up once for the free trial, and we track your IP, so we’ll know if you sign up more than once.
2. If you really like it, we can re-activate you for a new trial

As always, if you have any feedback on how we could improve our offer, please drop us a line at:[email protected]

(*based on the operating system selected and taking the server for a full month)

We know that managing domains across different ISP’s can be a nightmare – wouldn’t it be great if there was a straightforward and simple way to manage your domains and register new ones? Well – we’ve now added a new feature to the MyRSAWEB control panel that allows you to do just that!

Below is a breakdown of what our new and improved system allows you to do:

1. Check multiple domain’s availability using 1 simple tool
2. You can even upload a CSV file of domains and we’ll check if they are available or not!
3. Register multiple domains for hosting in 1 simple step.
4. Transfer multiple domains or domain hosting to us from other ISP’s in one step.

FAQ’s about Hosting and Ordering System:

Question: How many domains can I register at the same time? 

Answer: You can register up to 300 domains at one time, however we suggest you register batches of up to 100 at a time, of course if you just want to register a few, that’s also fine with us.

Question: If I am moving from another hosting company, how easy is it? 

Answer: It’s straightforward, we handle the domain migration and hosting on our side, you just need to handle the transfer of your website files to the new package.

 To find out more, and give this handy new tool a try – log in to the MyRSAWEB control panel and navigate to ‘Order Hosting’.

As always, your feedback means we can improve our products and services, so if you have any, drop us a line at [email protected]  or call us on 0891 772 032, we’re also available for online chat!

It was late Thursday afternoon when Ash and I decided to change our flights from a 6am Friday morning flight to an early afternoon flight on Friday. I was determined to get to Buffelspoort dam on Friday morning to be able to ride the bike route and get a feel for it. Ash on the other hand wanted the much-needed sleep on Friday morning as well as an easy spin in Cape Town before catching our flight to Johannesburg. Looking back now, I realize how experienced Ash is with these sorts of pre race situations and how narrow-minded I can be at times. Changing our flight to a later time was certainly the right decision, as one was not allowed to see the bike leg in advance.

The start of the Totalsport Buffespoort Xterra was only at 9:30am on Saturday morning. This gave us some extra time to sleep in and make our way to the Buffelspoort dam from Pretoria, where we had spent the night with family. Ash had to be designated driver as my credit card had expired and the car had to be rented out in her name. Its not often that I get to sit back relax and enjoy my lunchbox porridge while my beautiful wife drives me to my race start. It felt strange that she was the one that would be supporting and I would be the one that would be racing, however it was the best feeling to have her by my side for my first comeback in multisport.

The morning was perfect and the water was like a mirror, reflecting its beautiful surroundings. There were over 1400 participants lining the waters edge, ready to tackle the 1.5km swim, 27km mountain bike and a 12km trail (rock climbing) run. I was surprised how relaxed I felt and how ready I felt for the race. It was a fast start as always and I soon found myself just off the feet of Conrad Stoltz and Dan Hugo. I settled in and soon found some good rhythm alongside fellow competitor Stuart Marais. I exited the water in 7^th place, 1min down on the likes of Stoltz and Hugo. After only a month in the pool I was certainly happy with my swim and I know it can only get better from here.

After exiting transition 1 for the bike leg I felt great and slowly began to catch guys up the road. Before I knew it, I found myself in 3^rd chasing Stoltz and Hugo. With the top five athletes all on 29er bikes, I felt a little out on my well worn in 26er. The terrain was best suited to a 29er bike and while battling over the loose rocky climbs I had lost a few minutes to the leading two. I entered transition 2 with Tyronne White and just over a minute behind us was Stuart Marais. I knew it would be difficult to hold off a fine runner such as Marais.

I exited transition 2 in 3^rd and from the start struggled to find the rhythm I was looking for. We were soon greeted with great scenery and steep embankments, as we had to make our way up and down Buffelspoort Dam wall. The run course was grueling and represented a typical Xterra run route. There was very little opportunity to find rhythm on the two-lap 6km run route. After lap one Marais had passed me and I kept him in sight. With 3km to go in the run I hit a real bad patch and soon was passed by White. In the last km I found my feet again and soon a few meters separated Marais, White and myself. It was however to late and I finished in 5^th.

The race is certainly one to remember and I will definitely be back to give it another bash. I learnt a lot from the race and now have a better idea of what is needed to be even faster. The Totalsports Xterra at Buffelspoort Dam is definitely a race that an Xterra warrior should put on their race calendar for 2013.

This weekend saw Team RSAWEB Mountain biker Renay Groustra race back to back races in Barberton and Cape Town. Unfortunately the Barbeton Ultra Marathon did not go to plan and due to a severely cut rear tyre he had to abandon the race. Not one to let this temporary disappointment upset him, he refocused and boarded a place for Cape Town to ride the WP Cross Country(XC) race held in Durbanville.

Here are his thoughts from the race:

With the 40degree heat, and a tough technical course, it was going to be an extremely hard race. Even the competition was at a level higher than normal with an on form Philip Buys in attendance and a super quick Dominic Calitz and Louis Knipe there to mix it up.

For the first two laps all I could do was hang on as I got used to the pace of XC racing again. By lap 3 Philip had lost some time to mechanical issues, which left me to give stick to the rest of the field.  I rode off the front of the field after one or two hard accelerations and stayed out for most of the race, doing my best to survive the sweltering heat and stay upright on such a challenging course.

Towards the end of lap 5 of 6 I could see Philip clawing his way back into the race. The last lap was basically an all out sprint to stop him coming back, but try as I might, I couldn’t hold him off. With half a lap to go the cat and mouse games began, and after a few brutal attacks from Philip I could no longer respond. It was a great first outing and felt good ofter Barberton’s disappointment.