Q&A About A Dimension Beyond, Inc and Our Hosting Services

Here are more Q&A that I put together for a certain person who has an HG/OpenSim blog. There was supposed to be an article coming from this but it never happened. I figured that we should not let all the work I put into this go to waste. So here we go….

* Who is the founder of this company?
There are 3 founders. Steve LaVigne, Myron Curtis, and Agueda Quintino.

* What is their background in technology, OpenSim?
Steve LaVigne also known in-world as Steve Franklin, has been involved with computers since the late 80’s running a company that is now known as AngelFire Productions, Inc. in Arizona, USA. He has been involved with OpenSim and Second life since 2007. He has created and installed hundreds of servers in locations all over the world. He is currently the Server Master for A Dimension Beyond and it’s Secretary-Treasurer. Steve is also involved with the development team for Immworlds and A Dimension Beyond is the North America representative and hosting company for cybaLOUNGE.

Myron Curtis has experience going back to 2006 as well in OpenSim and Second Life. He is the owner of Virtual Worlds Grid, which is now hosted by ADB since the fire in Paradise CA, where he used to live. Myron is the ADB lead coder creating new and interesting things for OpenSim. Myron is President of ADB. Myron has a broad set of skills in the ICT sector as system administrator, freelance computer technician, and an educator. He is a successful team leader who has a talent for bringing together people with both divergent and common interests to achieve complex goals, attaining the greatest mutual benefit. Myron is our Lead Programmer on our projects overseeing the development of code that makes our projects work. Myron has an incredible talent in thinking up great new products and new uses for Virtual Worlds.

 

* I’d like a real photo of them as well, and a link to their LinkedIn profile. After all, if they’re asking for real money, people should be able to know who they’re doing business with.
Steve and Agueda do not use LinkedIn generally. Steve especially is just too busy with server duties and development consulting to have much time for social platforms at this point!

If someone wants to get to know us they can contact us per below. (Down a ways!)
Myron is doing LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/myron-curtis-76167913/

More info is here: https://adimensionbeyond.com/about/. Here are pix of the Founders etc. Please feel free to grab what you need picture wise from the web page.

* Who are the other members of their team?

For Halcyon Installs and tech support we also have Bob Curtice. We also have builders and others that help from time to time.

* Where is the company located?

The main office is in Prescott Valley, Arizona.

* What kind of company is it — individual proprietorship, partnership, incorporated, division of another company?

It is a Corporation created in Sept. 2014

* When did they officially open?

Sept. 2014 is the A Dimension Beyond creation date.

* Do they have any new customer discounts?

The current discounts are here:
https://adimensionbeyond.com/hosting/

* Do they have any customers yet? How many? What kind of grids or regions or services do their customers get?

Yes we are hosting 4 Halcyon grids and Virtual Worlds Grid, and several DreamGrid regions, including 2.Nymph grid, a giant freebie city, and the A Dimension Beyond Grid where we are offering free meeting places for people needing them. We also host a number of cybaLOUNGE regions on our servers. We also host some service systems for Virtual World Research Inc. We also host Discover Creos Mundos, a Halcyon grid. We host Planet Concourse also, a Halcyon grid and Pillars of Mist, a Halcyon grid, and a rather large OpenSim grid called My Virtual Beach.

* What is the full range of products and services offered, and their prices?

At this point we have all the info here: https://adimensionbeyond.com/hosting/

We are hosting DreamGrid OpenSim packages and Halcyon grids built by Bob Curtice. DreamGrid can be a small grid to a pretty large grid or regions on OSGrid and Metropolis and others as well.

CybaLOUNGE regions are currently available for free during the Covid-19 time and probably later as well.

We also host and design web pages and do custom coding as people need. We also can build custom regions in OpenSim and cybaLOUNGE. Prices on these services are available by contacting us!

* If someone wants to get a new grid or region, what do they have to do? What is the process like? What information do the need to have? For example, do they need to know, say, their avatar UUID or have a PayPal account?

It is pretty simple! Just contact us on Skype or Discord or by phone or on the web page. There are a few pieces of info I need like their contact info and master avatar/owner name region names and such. With DreamGrid it is really easy to set it all up!
No need for PayPal! We just bill through Square.

* Once someone sends you the money, how long does it take for the grid or regions to be up and running?

It can happen in as little as one hour for DreamGrid and cybaLOUNGE. Halcyon will take longer as it is a lot more involved setup that Bob does.

* What is the carrying capacity of the grids or regions — number of avatars, number of prims, number of simultaneous visitors?
The carrying capacity of the regions is determined by what OpenSim or cybaLOUNGE and Halcyon can handle. For OpenSim a base setup should hold 50+ avatars. Halcyon about the same. CybaLOUNGE has been tested currently with about 40 avatars. One thing to also remember>ADB sells hosting by server resource use level. We can easily adjust any of our servers to any size you may need. For example Virtual Worlds Grid, which ADB hosts runs on 3 servers and hosts something like 1000 regions in land area.

A Dimension Beyond Hosting sells our services in a different way than other hosting companies. We sell by how much server resources a client uses. This way a simple small grid can expand into whatever a customer wants. If a client’s grid needs more capacity we can add it easily. We can even add more capacity for temporary events like conferences or parties pretty much on demand. Our servers are very powerful and are located in Phoenix AZ on an extremely fast internet connection. Because of this we could easily host a large grid like OSGrid easily. Our system could also handle a conference like OSCC and not breathe hard. We tend to over-build our servers and not overload them. The datacenter is within a short driving distance so we can physically get to our servers easily if need be. Because of all this we will never have issues like InWorldz had or the Great Canadian Grid. We watch these things and having control of our own equipment makes for a much more controllable situation. We do net depend on someone else to run our hardware.

* Do you support Vivox voice, Gloebit payments, Kitely Market, hypergrid connectivity?
DreamGrid supports all of it. Halcyon supports Vivox and PayPal. Halcyon is a closed grid system so no HG. CybaLOUNGE does not have an in-world economy yet as it is really designed for educational and commercial users. We will be addressing social use soon.

* Do you have starting OARs or IARs for people? Default avatars?
DreamGrid has hundreds of OAR files available in an easy to install system. We also have a pile of IAR files for avatars and other things. Halcyon can come with a region with avatars and accessories and a bunch of other stuff. CybaLOUNGE has a selection of avatars you can choose when you login. You can change them inworld. We are creating a large selection of new more detailed avatars for cybaLOUNGE. We also host several grids that you can HyperGrid to that have tons of free full perm stuff available. HG over to http://2.nymphgrid.com:8002

* What is the underlying technology? Are you on cloud servers, colocation providers, your own servers? Linux or Microsoft? DreamGrid or another distribution of OpenSim? Management panels?

Our servers are custom built by us for what we need. All drives are SSD. Basically they are totally remote control machines designed to be very fast and dependable. They are in a data center in Phoenix, AZ with redundant everything. Owning our hardware gives us total control with us as the root user. It eliminates middlemen and ticket wait times so we can provide fast service.

Servers run Linux and Various Windows operating systems. People who rent out our hosting have root access to the machine that their grid runs on, so they control everything by remote control.

Most of the grids we are hosting now are DreamGrid instances of OpenSim. We also have Halcyon grids running and they are more console control than panel control as that is the way Halcyon is. We are working on a Halcyon derivative that will have a panel-type of control.

CybaLounge is is called a Web World as it is just basically a 3D webpage that runs on a browser on most any device!

As far as other hosting we have the capability to run almost any type of grid or virtual world service from something like OpenSim to WhiteCore to MIAB to HiFi derivatives. Basically anything goes. At one time or another we have installed it all.

The key to this is we sell our services by hours of custom design time and the hosting is by server resources used. We created the packages as a good starting point for people wanting a quick professionally hosted grid. All of our packages can be expanded easily to create more available power as needed. For more see above!

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* Can you send any screenshots of customer account management or grid management or region management or user management screens?
For DreamGrid you can look here for whatever screenshots you like!
https://www.outworldz.com/outworldz_installer/Grid/Dreamgrid%20Manual.pdf
Halcyon is a Windows server with many consoles. It is controlled from the Windows desktop.
CybaLOUNGE is a webpage when you have admin rights as a region owner. Admin users have more menus to work with on the page.
* What can your customers do on their own, via a web panel, and what do your customers have to request via support tickets?
In DreamGrid OpenSim they can do anything they want as they are an admin level user remote controlling a Windows server from the Windows desktop. DreamGrid has it’s own control panel within that framework. For pictures see above.
Halcyon is basically the same. A grid owner has full admin rights on their machine. Everything is controlled from the Windows desktop of their server.
Other virtual world systems have their own controls, but whatever you get from us that is not cybaLOUNGE, you will be master of your own machine as the ADMIN user.
CybaLounge being a web based service is run from a secure web hosting server.
Tech support is available through any of our people. They are are around at most times but we do not guarantee 24/7  support at this time! Just get with us through our Discord server, or Skype or by email or by phone. Discord invite to the A Dimension Beyond server is here:
https://discord.gg/a6HtvTa
This is a permanent link! All our people are connected through Discord and can answer questions as needed.
Phone: 928-445-5050 AZ Time (GMT-7) M-F 8-5
Skype: Ste-be (in Arizona)
Email: info@adimensionbeyond.com

Of course (Like everyone else!) we think A Dimension Beyond hosting is the best!  The key difference is that we do things differently. Most companies sell by the region for a relatively high price. Our Mini DreamGrid servers can handle 10+ regions for about $5.73 a month per region. ADB gives you 10 regions for the cost of one in many places. If you pay a year in advance we give 2 months for free. Setup is free and fast. YOU ARE GOD OF YOUR GRID! You have full administrator rights to your server with OpenSim and can change it as you like. No one else does that.

We also offer an automatic backup system that can backup everything- assets, databases and settings. DreamGrid has that within the system. Halcyon can backup manually or automatically. CybaLOUNGE is just a couple of click install and backup right inworld. We also offer Synology backup and other backups for an extra charge. It is offsite from the servers for extra security.

Our servers belong to us and not some big multi-national company that could decide to sell or quit doing business at any time. That is exactly why we do not use cloud service companies. We are control freaks that like our services to be as bullet proof as humanly possible.
Technical support is readily available by people that have extensive experience on servers and virtual worlds.

Name changes, OARs, IARs, restarts, and region moves in Dreamgrid and Halcyon are all completely controllable by you. You have full console access. You can back up your server easily to your own machine or we can do backups for you. YOU decide who gets to come there or who to ban. You are god of your server! Thy name is ROOT! This is not something the other guys do!

We also have people available that can build custom regions for just about any use. We also do custom avatars and other 3D objects. We also have people who can custom code new service modules for OpenSim, Halcyon and cybaLOUNGE.

We firmly believe in Fundamental Fairness!

This is a small part of why A Dimension Beyond Hosting Services is different than the other guys.
Feel free to call, Skype or get with me on Discord if you have more questions!

Steve LaVigne
Secretary-Treasurer
A Dimension Beyond, Inc.