WebCentral Australia, one of the region's largest domain registrars, oversees a wide array of services, including managed services, web hosting, email hosting, and Internet services. Spearheaded by the Head of Cloud and Platforms, Wahab Khan, the company maintains infrastructure and data centers across Australia and New Zealand, offering services to diverse customers.
"From enterprise customers paying hundreds and thousands of dollars per month to smaller customers paying around $30 a month, our business model caters to all scales," says Wahab. However, catering to such a diverse and large customer base isn't without its challenges. The primary concern? Security.
In their pursuit of effective, easy-to-manage firewall services, the team at WebCentral Australia spent significant time and resources on open-source tools and manual IP table management. Creating firewall rules was a huge task that often detracted attention from the business side of things.
"We were trying to search for something that would incorporate everything. Provide a single window where we can manage firewalls, and have something to do with flooding," recounts Wahab. "Having to focus on creating these WAF rules took a lot of our time and focus away from the actual business side of things."
Around late 2013 or early 2014, Wahab discovered BitNinja, our all-in-one security solution.
"The first time I installed BitNinja, I was impressed," shares Wahab. "And believe me, BitNinja has come a long way from that time. The addition of modules like SSL and DoS have created a real value add for us in terms of the hosting business."
Over time, WebCentral began leveraging BitNinja's capabilities for their large customer base. The platform enabled them to focus more on growing their business rather than everyday operations.
The robust security offered by BitNinja has proven particularly beneficial for the company's large WordPress customer base. With its popularity, WordPress becomes a frequent target for attacks and exploits.
"There are a lot of vulnerabilities, loopholes people can exploit. So I think the first word is security," stresses Wahab. "Having BitNinja in front makes the difference. If there's an exploit in WordPress, I'm 99% sure that BitNinja is going to protect."
BitNinja also impresses with its ease of deployment and installation. "We automate a lot," explains Wahab. "We use Ansible, and have a Git repository. Pull everything in, create a config file for BitNinja, push it to the server, and install BitNinja. I don't think I have installed BitNinja manually for a long time."
While BitNinja has helped WebCentral automate and secure their Linux-based operations, a segment remains uncovered: Windows servers. Wahab eagerly anticipates a Windows-compatible version of BitNinja, noting its immense value to the web hosting market.
"Windows does not have a dynamic firewall, and I was really happy when BitNinja initially released a Windows firewall a few years back," Wahab recalls. "Having that kind of dynamic firewall on Windows would be a big plus, as it would add a lot of value in terms of not having a lot of exposed Windows servers on the Internet."
Wahab has one more reason to be excited.
We are delighted to share that in response to Wahab's feedback and the needs of our growing community of users, we have started working on the Windows version of BitNinja.
Scheduled for launch in the upcoming quarter, this version promises to bring our complete security solution to Windows servers. It underscores our commitment to continually enhancing our product offerings and providing our users with versatile solutions that fit their evolving needs.
This exciting development reaffirms our mission to enable businesses like WebCentral to focus on growth and customer service while we take care of securing their digital infrastructure.
Stay tuned for more updates about the upcoming BitNinja Windows version!
