Mar
4
2010

SaaS As a Business and IT Delivery Model – Webinar Event

by William Toll

• What is SaaS? Where does your organization fit in?
• What is the Current State of the SaaS/Cloud Revolution?
• What is the Perspective of the End User-Buyer toward SaaS?
• What are the SaaS Delivery Model Options for ISVs?
• What are the Managed Services, Including On-Premise Options, for ISVs?
• What is the future of software delivery and consumption in a Managed Hosting and/or Managed Cloud Services environment?

For the answers to these and other questions, make plans to attend

SaaS As a Business and IT Delivery Model – a Webinar Event
According to Forrester’s Enterprise and SMB Software and Service Survey, North America and Europe, Q4 2009, the 2010 global IT market will rise by 8.1% in US dollars. Much of that growth will be due to applications supporting industry-specific business processes developed by firms like yours.
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Feb
16
2010

NaviSite NaviView – Service Requests

by William Toll

NaviSite Managed Hosting customers benefit from our multi-million dollar infrastructure, award-winning support team, and state-of-the-art technology, but there’s a powerful tool that not all customers are aware of- the NaviView Control Panel. NaviView gives you complete visibility into every component and level of your NaviSite IT infrastructure, regardless of location and management responsibility. You can monitor Virtual Dedicated Servers along with physical Dedicated Servers, colocated servers, firewalls and load balancers, and much more. You can also manage such things as service tickets, configurations, along with ongoing performance metrics to give you a total picture of your deployment in an easy to use browser-based interface.

This is the fourth in a series of articles that explains some of the major sections of the NaviView control panel and helps you understand how much value it adds to your NaviSite service. The Service Request/Ticket tab gives you one-click access to all your current and previous service requests. Upgrades, configuration changes, support tasks and more are presented in a customizable, browser-based interface. Easy-to-use and with built-in sorting and filtering capabilities, the Service Request feature in NaviView is yet another ‘value over time’ benefit that adds efficiency to your organization.

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Feb
8
2010

NaviSite NaviView – Health Check

by William Toll

NaviSite Managed Hosting customers benefit from our multi-million dollar infrastructure, award-winning support team, and state-of-the-art technology, but there’s a powerful tool that not all customers are aware of- the NaviView control panel. You can monitor Virtual Dedicated Servers along with physical Dedicated Servers, colocated servers, firewalls and load balancers, and much more. You can also manage such things as service tickets, configurations, along with ongoing performance metrics to give you a total picture of your deployment in an easy to use browser-based interface.

This is the third in a series of articles that explains some of the major sections of the NaviView control panel and helps you understand how much value it adds to your NaviSite service. The Health Check tab in your NaviView control panel gives you a instant, detailed look at the status, performance and available resources of all the servers and devices in your NaviSite deployment. Fully-customizable, the monitors you configure in Health Check display the exact information your stakeholders need, in a single mouse click.

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Feb
2
2010

NaviSite NaviView – Configuration Summary- Real time status and configuration

by William Toll

Real time status and configuration settings information for NaviSite Dedicated Hosting and Colocation Customers.

NaviSite Dedicated Hosting and Colocation customers benefit from our multimillion dollar infrastructure, award winning support team, and state-of –the-art technology, but there’s a powerful tool that not all customers are aware of – the NaviView control panel.

NaviView gives you complete visibility into every component and level of your NaviSite IT infrastructure, regardless of location and management responsibility. You can monitor Virtual Dedicated Servers along with physical Dedicated Servers, colocated servers, firewalls (windows, dedicated or shared) and load balancers, and much more. You can also manage such things as service tickets, configurations, along with ongoing performance metrics to give you a total picture of your deployment in an easy-to-use browser-based interface.
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Jan
22
2010

NaviSite NaviView – Dashboard – Viewing an Entire Hosted IT Environment on one Screen

by William Toll

NaviSite customers benefit from our multimillion dollar infrastructure, award winning support team, and state of the art technology, but there’s a powerful tool that not all customers prospects maybe aware of- the NaviView control panel. NaviView gives your team complete visibility into every component and level of your NaviSite IT infrastructure, regardless of location and management responsibility. You can monitor Virtual Dedicated Servers along with physical Dedicated Servers, colocated servers, firewalls and load balancers, and much more. You can also manage such things as service tickets, configurations, along with ongoing performance metrics to give you a total picture of your deployment in an easy to use browser based interface.

This is the first in a series of articles that will explain some of the major sections of the NaviView control panel and help you understand how much value it adds to your NaviSite service. We refer to NaviView as a singular entity, but in reality it’s comprised of a number of applications and devices. Those components feed management tools and real time stats into an intuitive Dashboard, which is where we’ll begin.

For customers, the Dashboard effectively is NaviView. The Dashboard unifies management and monitoring functions in a single, configurable, widget driven interface, giving you the ability to display up front the tools and data you access frequently. Key alerts and notifications are at your fingertips so you know what’s happening, the moment it’s happening. That means more information faster, aiding short term decision making and long term planning.
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Nov
9
2009

Managed Dedicated Servers- Why they beat PaaS for developers

by William Toll

In the technology arena, the buzzwords and catchphrases come almost as fast as the technical advancements, and one of the latest phrases to join the club is PaaS, or Platform as a Service. Service oriented approaches are becoming more and more popular, and largely for good reason. In general this is positive. People don’t care about the specific things it takes to deliver a particular service or set of services- the care about the outcomes. The problem for many PaaS offerings is they fail to fully deliver on some of the most critical requirements.

In many ways, Software as a Service (SaaS) and Hardware as a Service (HaaS) products are easier to define and fulfill. SaaS, effectively application hosting, is common enough for things like e-mail and web site hosting, and the advent of cloud computing and a hyper-connected user base has made distributed applications more and more feasible and efficient. Google’s document editing and sharing applications are one good example of this.

HaaS takes that same ‘black box’ approach to the role of hardware in an IT deployment, commoditizing computer components and defining them as their deliverables. Hard drives become disk space, memory and processor chips become resource percentages. When you make photocopies at your local office supply store, that’s HaaS in action. The customer pays a small cost for the use of an expensive machine, in this case a photocopier.

Platform as a Service merges SaaS and HaaS approaches, and is intended to function in similar capacities to managed dedicated servers. In theory this is an attractive idea, giving developers low cost, flexible platforms for application development, testing, and deployments. In practice, PaaS offerings often fall short in the most important requirements.
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Oct
22
2009

Understanding the difference between Local Storage, NAS, SAN and Backups

by William Toll

Part of what makes making decisions on web and application hosting a tricky proposition for businesses is the sheer number of options to be considered. This is not only a factor for complex considerations like load balancing and content management solutions; it can make even straightforward items like data storage needlessly complicated. Understanding the purpose and roles of various data storage options can not only help you make better decisions, but it can guide your IT strategy and lead to better solutions for end users and customers. So what are the differences between local storage, NAS/SAN services, and data backups?

When we talk about local storage, we’re referring to disk drives that are physically attached to a computer or server. At minimum, this will contain the operating system and other software needed for the server to perform its desired functions. For companies just beginning to build a web presence, their local storage drives might also contain their web site files, databases, images, and other information, but as the website and applications grow this will cause scalability issues. When this occurs, the solution is to offload data storage from the server. The two technologies that are most common in the industry are NAS (Network Attached Storage) and SAN (Storage Area Networks), approaches that seem similar but server very different purposes.
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Sep
24
2009

Top 6 Reasons Web Design Agencies Select Windows Managed Hosting

by William Toll

Flexibility – With Windows Server 2008 and IIS 7 – PHP and .NET both run equally as well. This comprehensive development and hosting environment enables Web design and development agencies implement custom and readily available frameworks and open source Web applications.

Easy Configuration – With AppCmd the new UI, plus centralized configuration, including delegation, Admins can now easily work with applicationhost.config and web.config files. IIS 7 now supports the flexibility and configuration needed to build complex, secure, and feature rich functionality. The new UI in IIS 7 makes it easier than ever to configure the Web server and Websites and applications on the server.

Performance – Optimized performance and resiliency. Several architectural improvements have been implemented in IIS 7 which enables better performance, throughput and in the case of PHP – outright seeped in execution.

Troubleshooting – With Failed Request Tracing administrators can peer into the web server and see detailed diagnostic information. With the Runtime Status & Control API (RSCA) administrators will be able to see what requests are executing in real-time.
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Sep
22
2009

VMware and the power of virtualization for business

by William Toll

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction movies, but the era of the virtualized machine is upon us. Buttons and switches have been replaced by touch screens, hardwired circuitry has been replaced by code, and computing technology has changed even the most mundane of household appliances. Nowhere is this more evident than in the IT arena. Server virtualization has changed the playing field, and businesses that integrate VMware services into their IT infrastructure realize significant benefits in rapid deployment, TCO, and bottom line revenues.

To understand the advantages of virtualization, consider what it takes to add capacity for a typical business office. Here’s the scenario- a wildly successful new product line forces a company to increase personnel by 50 people to handle the additional production volume. Assuming there is room to seat 50 new employees, a tremendous amount of physical infrastructure needs to be purchased, installed, and configured to varying degrees. Cubicles and desks built, phone and data lines run, computers need to be set up, it’s a long and expensive list, and it can take weeks or more to complete the project and put the new employees to work.

For many businesses, this growth can also force a physical relocation. While a measure of success, the prospect of moving to a larger facility often comes at the worst possible time in the lifecycle of a business, taking away focus that should be spent on capitalizing their successes. The successful company that fumbles during expansion is a common but nonetheless true business cliché.
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Sep
8
2009

Beyond the Hype – Data Center Ratings & Your IT

by William Toll

Data center ratings have become an increasingly popular marketing point for dedicated web and application hosting providers, but what do those ratings really mean, and how do they impact the success of your business? By understanding how data centers are evaluated and scored, you can make a more informed decision about your specific business needs and maximize the value of your IT costs.

Depending on your point of view, you may focus on certain data center features when reviewing managed hosting and colocation providers. Some businesses are concerned with connectivity, others with environmental features, or physical security, or routing protocols; it’s a long and diverse list. At the heart of every individual concern is an overriding one and it’s the same for every business- uptime. As anyone who has spent time reading and evaluating service level guarantees (SLAs) knows, there are a lot of ways uptime can be defined.

Data center ratings ideally provide a standardized, industry accepted means to fairly and objectively review data centers, so customers can cut through the marketing hype and truly understand the differences when making important business decisions. In practice however, this hasn’t fully been the case.
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