Sep
15
2009

Small Business Strategies to Limit the Risk and Affects of Data Loss

by Sumeet Sabharwal

Preventing unplanned downtime and business failure.

Protecting your business data is more important than ever due to all the catastrophic, unforeseen events that can damage or destroy your data permanently. Customer data, accounts payable, invoices, email and historical communications and business applications are the backbone of your company. Without your business data, your business could not move forward on a day to day basis. Imagine not being able to access your business data for an hour, a day, a month or possibly forever. Now you can protect your small business from data loss, prevent unplanned downtime, and prevent business failure. NaviSite, a leading dedicated and managed hosting services company, shows you how vulnerable your data can be without the proper backup plan in place.

Please Click Here to access the complete White paper and Learn how you can protect your business and focus on what you do best

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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Sep
3
2009

Monitoring- the secret weapon for your business

by William Toll

In the IT world, performance and uptime monitoring are like bridge tenders. That is to say, no one pays much attention to them until something goes wrong. It’s an approach that more businesses should rethink. Having a solid monitoring procedure in place can yield significant benefits to intelligence gathering and decision making, as well as optimizing daily operations.

One of the first places to focus on when developing a monitoring system is for server and process uptime. As most of us have experienced firsthand with home computers, the fact that the computer is up and operational is no guarantee that your desired program is running. Identify all the critical applications it takes to deliver your web site and other services. This would include your HTTP server software, DNS, inbound and outbound mail server applications, authentication servers, and anything else particular to your environment. Your process and uptime monitoring scheme should also include IPs for internal and external server interfaces, routers and switches, network attached storage devices, and any other important hardware with an interface reachable with PING or other network monitoring protocols.

It is helpful for administrators to have visibility into the other systems that deliver your web site and network applications, for example, temperature, humidity, and power in the operating environment where your infrastructure is deployed. If you have peering with multiple backbone providers, you’d want to know the health of those network connections. You’ll also want to monitor resources like processor overhead, memory usage, and available storage space. When it comes to monitoring, more is almost always better, and the information you gain from monitoring processes has a hidden value.
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Jun
1
2009

The Changing needs of SMBs

by Sumeet Sabharwal

The recent NaviSite case study with leading India media company Webchutney highlights the changing needs of managed dedicated hosting customers in a post Web 2.0 business environment. It’s something of a paradox, but when budget tightening is the norm, purchase decisions are motivated by more than simply price point. For Webchutney and for many other SMBs in similar positions, the difference maker is world class customer service.

While every business is unique, their requirements from a service provider are often quite similar. They want things to work, and when problems occur, they want quick resolutions. That second part is important. Hosting customers are much more sophisticated, they understand that when it comes to complex applications and server deployments, occasional issues are inevitable. As Webchutney COO Rahul Nanda put it, “Just about any host is going to work okay 95% of the time. How they respond when you are having problems is the key.”
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May
22
2009

NaviSite Dedicated Hosting client win due to its uncompromised Always There approach to support

by William Toll

NaviSite Dedicated Hosting recently added a new client, Webchutney, one of India’s leading full service digital media and interactive marketing selected NaviSite Dedicated Hosting as its managed dedicated server and virtual dedicated server host.

Webchutney had a very clear mission and their reason to look for a new hosting provider was the quality of service they were getting from their dedicated server hosting provider. Sporadic outages were frustrating, but even more troubling was the lack of professionalism and follow through on the part of the engineering and support staff. The servers were under powered by industry standards, and Webchutney had little visibility into what was going on from day to day. As COO Rahul Nanda summed it up, “We didn’t feel like we were in control.”
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Apr
20
2009

Why NaviSite – Dedicated Hosting – History & Leadership

by Sumeet Sabharwal

One of the problems that SMBs have to deal with in the Web 2.0 business environment is finding reliable partners and providers. In a world of acquisitions and mergers, startups and spin offs, when ‘cutting edge’ is the order of the day, it’s hard to find companies with an established track record. Hard, but not impossible.
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Apr
8
2009

Why NaviSite- Dedicated Hosting – Budget conscious Flexibility for Fast Growth

by William Toll

Managing your business in the fast passed 21st century environment is a tricky proposition. You have to be nimble and ready to react to new trends and technologies, but the danger is you can easily drain your resources through capital expenditures and wasted man hours by trying to “keep up with the Joneses”. SMBs that thrive know the secret to staying ahead of the competition- outsourcing technology and related support services to a managed dedicated server host like NaviSite.
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Apr
1
2009

Why NaviSite Dedicated Hosting – Fast Networking

by Sumeet Sabharwal

For SMBs a lot depends on maintaining an internet presence, whether for direct retail sales, customer communications, or a host of other demands, success is measured in milliseconds. When someone visits your web site for the first time, the slightest delay in loading the page can mean the difference between gaining a new customer or that person moving on to a competitor’s faster web site.
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Mar
30
2009

Lower Your Business Risk with Backup Solutions

by William Toll

“We don’t have a backup.” If you’ve spent any time involved with information technology, those five words inspire a sinking feeling in your stomach, because let’s face it, we’ve all been there. No matter how thorough and detailed your backup plans were, the data you needed didn’t get backed up. And all too often, it’s because of human error, as the great playwright said, “to err is human.”
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Mar
5
2009

It Goes Beyond Cost!

by Sumeet Sabharwal

The current economy has shifted the conversation to bottom line price and value for money very quickly. It comes as no surprise that quite a few hosting companies have quickly adopted or shifted their message to highlight the significant savings that customer can experience by choosing their service. Terms like “affordable”, “cost effective”, “cheap” have made their way back into the vocabulary, knowing that they will gather much needed attention with the buyer. Given that the hosting industry at the low-end is fairly fragmented with several fly-by-night operations, it becomes even more important to look beyond price and ensure you won’t regret a decision made solely on price. If you have seen or possess a compelling price or quote, it may make sense to dig a little deeper and cover four key areas which can save you plenty of heart burn downstream:
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