Web Hosting Box

As a sales rep, I regularly get asked by clients for a cost estimate of moving their in house datacenter into a real datacenter like one of ours.  Sometimes we can save a customer a lot of money with the move, sometimes the break even, and sometimes they spend a little more.  Ultimately, anyone that moves usually ends up with a better IT solution for their dollar, even if they’re spending a little more to do it.  Here’s a few bullet points to consider:

1) Power - You’re likely paying for power at your office and with average nationwide power pricing, you can expect to spend $35 per server per month just to keep them powered on 24/7/365.  With a server farm of 10 servers, you’re looking at about $4,200/year on your power bill.  It’s something a lot of offices never think to consider, but if you don’t really like that $4,200, you can PayPal it to me.  Oh? Now you like it? That’s what I thought.

2) Redundancy – Is your office prepared to handle a power outage?  Can you operate with your servers down?  Do you have redundant air conditioning?  If you’re in a pretty standard office complex, you probably don’t have favorable answers to any of those questions.  Datacenters are traditionally placed with access to two or more power grids.  Should power fail, all of our datacenters are on a battery backup.  While the battery is going and if power is not immediately restored, a generator kicks on and several days of fuel is already on site (plus fuel companies are on contract to refill the generator tanks before the fuel runs out.)  Your office definitely doesn’t have that.  Does your office air conditioning go out every once in a while?  If it does, you risk having to shut down your servers or power them down to protect them from heat damage.  Our datacenters all have redundant cooling – and no just so we’re up if one fails, but so we’re up if one needs to be repaired.

3) Connectivity - This touches a bit on redundancy, but do you have two connections to your office from two different bandwidth providers?  How often does your business grade connection go down?  If you’re anything like a typical office, it’s a few times a year that you’ll lose internet connectivity.  If that takes down your website, your phone system, your email system, etc. it’s costing you business, productivity, or both.  How much is that internet connection costing to the office?  I had a client paying $600/month for business grade DSL and business grade cable internet (for redundancy.)  When he moved in with us, he had full redundancy from 4 providers instead of 2 and he was paying less than $100/month.

There are a whole host of other reasons to outsource your datacenter needs to a real datacenter, such as support (someone can watch your servers 24/7/365 for you cheaper than you can hire someone to do it), capital reduction (we can rent you servers cheaper than you can buy them), and expandability (really? you’re going to put another rack in that already hot server closet at the office?)

So next time you’re looking at your IT budget, consider all of the hidden costs of hosting your services in house.  Even if it’s a break even move, get out of there so you save yourself a headache!

There are many difficult and daunting tasks to creating and managing a website, especially when doing it alone. As the site grows, the tasks become more complex and there will be more of them. At this point, having a group of employees to assist with the day-to-day functions can be a blessing. Most large sites are crafted and maintained by a group of people, not just one.

These large-scale sites cannot be implemented properly without a content management system on the backend. There are three primary areas where content management systems can help you manage the whole site (including your employees). These include:

• Control employee access
• Upload content
• Delegating work

For a group of workers, they will need a way to access the website with special permissions due to their role with the company. It is always a good idea to limit various employees’ power so they don’t have too much access. This can easily become a security risk. With a quality CMS you can enter permissions, assign tasks and create restrictions which improves organization, security and limits micromanaging allowing for a more productive worker.

Although employees will have limited access, it is in your best interest to let them upload unique and original content as they create it. Uploading the content yourself all at once can be an extremely daunting and time-consuming task. By allowing team members to complete this task, you can save several hours each day. This time could be allocated towards completing more important tasks.

Utilizing your employees to their maximum ability by keeping them busy is important for the proper functioning of any website and to maximize productivity. Telecommunication delays can be filled by a content management system. Many systems allow the administrator to communicate with their team members through a private messaging system. This gives the webmaster complete control and instant communication during a project.

Controlling employee access, allowing employees to upload content and delegating work is three of the most important aspects of running a large, successful website. There is so much work to complete that cannot be done by a single webmaster. As a result content management systems have great support and overall features.

The development and ease of content management systems has been a blessing for many administrators. As technology improves, administrators will have an easier time managing their site and employees.

CoreLink Data Centers, an industry-leader in providing colocation hosting and management services, recently announced a major move of their headquarters from Phoenix, Arizona to Mount Prospect, an area outside of Chicago. In addition, the operations of their newest data center, also located in the Chicagoland area, are fully functional.

The data center is 80,000 square feet and linked to the companies four other colocation data centers in Seattle, Las Vegas and Phoenix. The new data center is located on 5.4 acres of land and provides all of CoreLink’s solutions under one secure roof in control environments.

The center features the latest security and management technology. Some of these features include; diverse connections to the internet, redundant emergency power equipment, the best fire detection and suppression systems as well as biometric security scanners. Also, neutral connectivity, uninterruptible power supplies N+1 cooling and critical redundancy on all equipment.

The center will provide customers with extra expansion capacity, reliable and redundant access to the internet and high-density installation. This is the perfect addition to the area.

CoreLink has selected Chicago because it has become a booming business and technology epicenter. This will have a considerable impact on the local economy through investment in the community as well as job creation.

The biggest focus of the new data center is the scalability. Due to the size and server technology, it can accommodate all business needs as they continue to evolve and consume resources.

The primary highlights of the new data center include:

• Scale systems up
• Decrease labor expenses
• Lower capital costs
• Add redundant systems

The ability to scale information technology systems up or down is major draw to many large corporations as the needs of their business constantly change. Also, the new center will provide efficient facility management thus decreasing labor expenses. By outsourcing internal infrastructure, the company will save on overall capital costs.

Finally, the new data center provides redundant systems that do not contain a failure point and have a maintainable infrastructure that is capable of handling critical applications. These include; e-commerce, email systems and website connectivity.

Opening a new data center and relocating the headquarters is a major move for CoreLink. They will benefit from the numerous technology companies in the Chicago area while creating jobs and providing a boost to the local economy. In the end, all parties will benefit from this move.

Exciting news for users of the online video community Vimeo who recently added HTML5 support to it’s video embeds. This means content can be viewed on devices like the iPad and iPhone.

The main Vimeo website is HTML5 but it’s embed codes have been Flash only, a frustration for content creators who want to be visible on as many devices as possible.

Vimeo’s main competition YouTube has offered iPhone and iPad support for its embedded content for quite some time, and recently rolled out an HTML5-friendly experimental new embed code for desktop browsers and mobile devices.

In addition to gaining HTML5 embed support; Vimeo will also be available to Roku customers. The most popular Vimeo HD content, chosen by Vimeo staff, will be viewable in the channel. Vimeo users can also link their accounts to view their own videos and their personalized inbox selections.

Vimeo’s commitment to non-commercial content has made it a favorite service for users and content creators alike and these additional services are sure to keep them popular.

Running a business with your website causes many different types of scammers, phishers, hackers and other malicious attackers to come out of the woodwork. As a result, network security should be one of your top priorities. When managing network security, you must be proactive in revealing any potential threats that could or are emerging. This begins with a thorough assessment of your website and network.

Ensuring your network and website is secure can literally make or break your business. If your site is breached by a hacker and a customer is scammed, negative word of mouth experience travels great distances; far enough to put you out of business. Security also involves keeping the wireless network at your office or store secure.

Many issues can arise in an unsecured network. Users that do not adhere to the security policy often allow attackers compromise networks. There are many examples of high-profile, large companies falling victim to internet attackers and almost ruining their organization. A few examples include RSA Security, OpenBSD, NASDAQ, Playboy Enterprises and Cryptologic.

In these instances, attackers used the following methods:

• Compromising a poor configuration
• Utilizing traffic
• Attacking specific network component
• Abusing a network
• Accessing user account passwords

Attackers compromised a poor network configuration related to a target host by utilizing scripts and other publicly available exploits. Also, they compromised traffic by evading security measures and using network sniffing methods. Additionally, attackers targeted a specific network component utilizing customized malicious scripts

Furthermore, by abusing the network configuration or bypassing a shoddy firewall, they were able to access vital information from public folders. Finally, attackers accessed user account passwords to concede additional hosts where that user may have an account.

To fully protect your network, you need to ascertain the technical expertise or hire someone with that knowledge, adhere to a security policy and develop an incident response procedure. These will help you prevent most attacks as well as correctly respond to them when they do occur. Once again, it comes down to being proactive as opposed to reactive in these situations.

Network security is one of the most important areas to develop within your website. Having an air-tight security policy and procedures mixed with extensive technical knowledge is like having a tornado shelter at your home. You will be protected in the case of an incident by building a secure, air-tight entity.