HCC is the largest and longest existing computer association in the Netherlands. The volunteers who manage the online HCC environment feel at home at BIT. “We are all crafters who enjoy solving problems and knowing the ins and outs,” says volunteer Bas van den Dikkenberg.

Mirjam Hulsebos

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HCC is an association whose association office is located in Haarlem. A number of paid employees work here, who are responsible for PC-Active, Association Affairs, membership and financial administration, among other things. But like any association, it’s all about the volunteers. HCC has various Interest Groups that members can join. These groups all have their own website and form their own group within the association. Bas van den Dikkenberg is one of the six managers of Hobbynet, the Interest Group that offers facilitating services to the rest of the association.

Office at BIT
HCC has been a customer of the business internet service provider BIT for years, located in Ede, where the data centers are also located. Bas: “We have one rack in BIT-2A where 125 virtual servers run that we maintain ourselves. Every Wednesday a fellow volunteer and I are at BIT to do work. Because we do not have our own office, we are allowed to use BIT’s office space. That’s great, because it feels like one big family and we can always ask someone to take a look if we run into something.”

Bit 2 2Modernization of mail platform
Until recently, the mail environment ran elsewhere and was in dire need of a major upgrade. Problems regularly arose with the synchronization of passwords, because the user data was in multiple databases. Moreover, the environment no longer met current internet standards. “And of course we want to achieve a one hundred percent score on Internet.nl,” laughs Bas.

BIT offered a solution: a fully hosted, redundant mail server with a central LDAP database. Bas: “It was a huge job to migrate the old mail servers to the new environment. We also suffered from a typical case of ‘circummunication’, to quote Van Kooten & De Bie. Something went wrong with a document at BIT and that led to confusion. We were emailing back and forth at first, but in such a case you just have to call each other. Because when we spoke, it quickly became clear where the confusion came from and the problem had actually already been solved.”

Help users quickly
The migration then went smoothly, although this did not prevent a number of HCC members from having problems with their email. “Some people still had an old email client that was not secured,” Bas says. “Then you can no longer log in to the new environment. We have offered them all a solution to log in securely. There were also some members whose mailboxes had not been transferred properly from the old to the new environment. We solved this by manually transferring data from the old hard drive to the new environment. BIT has helped us a lot with this.”

Bas and his colleagues are now in the middle of a new project: rolling out new websites for all Interest Groups. About 50 websites need to be converted to a new version of Joomla. “A gigantic job in which we will undoubtedly encounter unforeseen questions. Then it’s nice that we sit at BIT every Wednesday and can spar with the people there.”

Bit 4 2Knowledge and experience
Bas van den Dikkenberg knows that he can always call on BIT’s technicians. That’s how it has always been in the past. “We once suffered from a series of DDoS attacks and we also had a storage problem. Both times BIT stepped in to solve the problem. And during corona times, they helped us set up a Jitsi platform so that we could organize virtual meetings for members.”

Bas likes that BIT does not delay in these types of situations, but immediately offers a helping hand. “And without us receiving an invoice for it, because BIT is one of the sponsors of HCC. They really fulfill that role, not only by doing something financially, but also by making their knowledge and skills available when we need it. They are simply a very reliable partner.”

In addition to being reliable, BIT is also honest and that is perhaps what Bas appreciates most: “Where people work, mistakes are made. If BIT does something wrong, they have no qualms about simply admitting it. An attitude that is rare in a world dominated by bonus-malus contracts, but which is essential to resolve problems quickly. That’s why honesty is perhaps what I appreciate most about BIT. That is the core of our successful collaboration.”