Two geeks and a penguin.

There is no anonymous corporation behind Pibbo. It is just the two of us.

One in Czechia, the other in England. We both love technology, servers, open-source software and an internet that does not have to belong to a handful of giant companies.

And we both believe good internet services do not have to cost a fortune. Meet the people who make sure your website and email have a place to live.

Two penguins holding up a world map with photos and pins

Ivan

The English side of our penguin world

United Kingdom

Ivan lives in the United Kingdom and technology has long been his hobby. Servers, Linux, network services, email systems, DNS, backups and everything to do with running internet infrastructure. In short, the things most normal people would rather leave to someone else.

He helps run OSCLOUD and is also behind the technical build of Pibbo – from configuring servers through email services to backups and security. And because the world is not just Linux, he is perfectly at home with other operating systems and mobile platforms too.

In his view, technology should serve people, not make people adapt to it. A lovely thought. Especially when you have just spent several hours explaining to a server that DNS really is supposed to work.

Zdeněk

The Czech half of the tech duo

Czech Republic

Zdeněk is based in the Czech Republic and, just like Ivan, is one of those people with a slightly closer relationship with technology than is socially necessary. His world is systems, server administration, open-source technology and running internet services.

Together we help run OSCLOUD and develop its services. Experience with different operating systems, devices and the everyday running of technology helps us look at problems not only through an admin’s eyes, but also through the eyes of ordinary users.

And that matters. Because not everyone wants to know why something does not work. Most people mainly want it to work again.

Two countries. One project.

Ivan in England, Zdeněk in Czechia. At first glance it may not look like the most typical set-up for a small hosting service. But luckily the internet does not require us to sit in the same office.

Our collaboration rests on a shared love of technology, experience running online services and the belief that even a small team can do things properly.

Pibbo is operated and invoiced by the British company OSCLOUD LTD. At the same time, the project grows out of the experience and collaboration around the Czech OSCLOUD.

And because we are a small team, there are no layers of departments between you and the technician. When you are dealing with a technical problem, you are talking to people who are genuinely close to running the service.

Visit OSCLOUD

Our technical background

Where your data lives, how we handle updates and why we back up in several places at once.

Stockholm European data centre

So where does your data actually live?

Penguins may come from colder climes, but we have not put our servers on an ice floe. Pibbo’s main hosting infrastructure is located in a European data centre in Stockholm.

We run our own server environment and look after its configuration, security, updates and day-to-day management. We use proven technologies such as Linux, Plesk and other tools that let us provide web and email services.

And because we do not want to rely on a single point of infrastructure, we also have a separate secondary DNS. That way, not every important part of the service depends on one server.

We do not put updates off until next Christmas.

Technology changes. New features, security fixes and new software versions keep appearing. That is why we keep our infrastructure on current stable versions. That covers the operating system, PHP, database services, the mail server and spam protection.

It does not mean we thoughtlessly install every novelty five minutes after release. It means we treat updates and security as a normal part of running things, not as an exceptional event.

3 countries England · Czechia · Germany

We take backups seriously.

And now something we are genuinely proud of. We do not keep backups just so we can write on our website that we back up. We back up on several levels: from individual customer websites, databases and emails, through complete server data, to the configuration and layout of the infrastructure itself.

What is more, we do not keep backup copies in just one place. We use separate storage in England, the Czech Republic and Germany. And our backup regime also includes regular full backups stored outside the normal server infrastructure.

Why go to all that trouble? Because a backup that only exists on the same server as the original data is not exactly the best plan for when something truly unpleasant happens to that server. No backup system can remove every risk. But we do our best to make sure a problem does not automatically mean a disaster.

We are admins. And users too.

We use different operating systems, computers and phones. We know the world of Linux, Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. Thanks to that we know customers are usually not interested in how complex the technology running in the background is.

They want to know whether their website opens. Whether their email arrives. Whether they can get to their data. And whether someone will help when something goes wrong.

That is exactly how we try to look at Pibbo. Not just as technicians, but as people who use internet services every day ourselves.

And what do we do when we are not looking after servers?

We have ordinary lives, jobs and responsibilities. Pibbo is not our main job. It is a project we put our time, experience and enthusiasm into. Perhaps that is exactly why we are not trying to turn everything into big business.

We want to run services we can stand behind and would happily use ourselves. And when we manage to help someone launch their first website, their own blog or email on their own domain, it makes us happy.

Even if it means we have spent another evening with a server instead of the telly.

Two people. Lots of technology. One shared idea.

Pibbo is not the biggest hosting provider on the market. We do not have hundreds of employees, our own skyscraper or a department for the strategic development of penguins.

What we do have is experience running internet services, our own technical infrastructure and the drive to do things properly. And above all, we know there is a real person behind every website and mailbox.

Pibbo — Two geeks, a penguin and an internet that makes sense. 🐧

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