Section:

InfoGears

1 Components of Service

InfoGears offers a number of services in its hosting packages. These services are outlined below:

• E-Mail
  InfoGears provides the ability to both send and receive email messages. The addresses for the email accounts can be any combination of letters or numbers at any domain name such as infogears.com that have not previously been established. An example email address would be bob@infogears.com, but can just as easily be fred.barnes@infogears.com InfoGears also supports email aliasing, which is the ability to have email sent to one address automatically forwarded to one or more other addresses.
• Domain Name Services
  InfoGears provides domain name services (DNS) on behalf of its customers. DNS is what translates domain names such as infogears.com into internet addresses. DNS is a key infrastucture service as it is the building block to establishing an online presence. It tells internet users where to find your webpages and where to send your email messages.
• Web Hosting
  InfoGears offers web hosting services. Web hosting is where a customer can host their own website and maintain their own web presence independent of anyone else. Web hosting allows companies and individuals to have their own websites about any topic their choose.

2 DNS Hosting

At the foundation of all InfoGears hosting services lies DNS. E-Mail hosting and Web Hosting build on top of DNS to provide what has been considered ``basic corporate service''. Domain names are acquired through what is called a ``registrar''. A registrar is a entity that has the authority to claim domain names on a worldwide basis on behalf of its customers. Some popular registrars are VeriSign/Network Solutions, Dotster and Register.com. There are fees associated with acquring a domain name which are normally due on an annual basis. Also, it's important to be aware of the fact that a domain name can only be registered once. This means that you cannot register google.com since it has already been claimed.

Customers that already have their own domain name can skip the following sections until the ``Migrating an already registered domain to InfoGears'' section.

2.1 Acquiring a new domain name

The first step to acquiring a new domain name is to check that it has not been already registered. You can easily do this by going to your registrar of choice, and entering the domain name you wish to register into their form. Upon submission of the form you will be informed of whether the domain name is already registered or not.

If the domain you desire is already registered you should look at the expiration date of the domain. After the expriation date has passed and the past registration has chosen not to renew the domain it becomes available again.

If the domain name you want is available you should go through the registration process. The registrar will ask for information about you and your organization if applicable. It will also require payment information. At the end of the registration process you will be asked to provide DNS servers to use for the domain. At this point you should enter the following server information to use the InfoGears platform.

Description	Name	IP Address
Primary Name Server	ns1.infogears.com	209.137.236.242
Secondary Name Server	ns2.infogears.com	209.137.231.220
Tertiary Name Server	ns3.infogears.com	209.137.236.243
Quaternary Name Server	ns4.infogears.com	69.51.90.135

After the domain name has been registered and the servers entered you should contact InfoGears Network Operations via email or by the contact form. Be sure to include the domain name that was registered along with any other special instructions. Also be sure to indicate if you'd like E-Mail or Web Hosting services.

2.2 Migrating an already registered domain to InfoGears

If you have a domain that has already been registered and wish to migrate it to InfoGears you need to perform what is called a Domain Name Server change. The first step is to return to the registrar where the domain was registered and find the location to perform a DNS server change. Once you have located the form to perform the change you need to set the name servers to the ones listed below:

Description	Name	IP Address
Primary Name Server	ns1.infogears.com	209.137.236.242
Secondary Name Server	ns2.infogears.com	209.137.231.220
Tertiary Name Server	ns3.infogears.com	209.137.236.243
Quaternary Name Server	ns4.infogears.com	69.51.90.135

After the changes have been made contact InfoGears Network Operations. Please include the domain name whose servers have changed along with an indication if you'd need E-Mail or Web Hosting services.