The Eastern Samar Community Blog

I was browsing the net a while ago when I saw the website of the Hotel Dona Vicenta (HDV), which is a hotel in Borongan. The first thing that I noticed when I got there was that its domain name, hoteldonavicenta.evis.net.ph, suggests that it is hosted by the Eastern Visayas Information Sharing Network or EVISNet.

I thought this was peculiar because my impression was that it is a website of a private company (owned by the Wilsam Group of Companies, according to the logo) hosted on a server owned and operated by the government (EVISNet is a joint project by NEDA, DOST and LIT). So I looked up EVISNet’s website to confirm whether this kind of set up is allowed or not. When I checked their ‘About’ page, here’s a portion of what I read:

“EVISNet is a secondary internet service provider which aims to set in place a communication and information exchange system among government offices in the region and promote greater efficiency in intergovernmental communication.”

I may be wrong but I think the network is only meant for the government’s use. But HDV being a private company, I don’t think their website should be hosted there.

Aside from that, I also checked the details of the website (explained below) and compared it with that of EVISNet’s. What I found out was that HDV’s website is indeed hosted by EVISNet’s server.

Explanation

The topic may be a bit technical but here’s an explanation to simplify it. All websites are hosted on what is called a server. All the files that make the website function are stored on that server. The EVISNet operates servers that should be for the government’s use. Hotel Dona Vicenta is a private entity. Therefore, Hotel Dona Vicenta’s website should not be hosted by the EVISNet’s servers.

So how did I know that HDV’s website is hosted on the EVISNet’s server? All one has to do is go to a website such as www.selfseo.com, enter each domain name (in this case EVISNet’s and HDV’s) and see if the resulting IP addresses are the same. When I did my search, both sites had the same IP address: 203.177.101.10.

And it’s not just about letting a private company’s files be hosted on a government server. EVISNet also assigned HDV a sub-domain for the latter’s use. HDV’s URL or address (hoteldonavicenta.evis.net.ph) clearly indicates that. It’s like the Department of Foreign Affairs assigning a sub-domain for SM’s use.

But then again I may be wrong since I’m basing this mostly on my observation and the research I have done. So I invite anyone who can shed more light on to this matter.

Here’s a list of the websites I referred to:

hoteldonavicenta.evis.net.ph – Hotel Dona Vicenta’s website
evis.net.ph – The Eastern Visayas Information Sharing Network’s website