Category Cloud Hosting Updates

Raleigh, NC –February 17, 2009 –The Business Leader of the Year awards are given annually to top performing business executives in North Carolina. This year, for the first time, the awards were determined by a public vote. More than 7,000 people visited the Triangle Business Leader website to vote for winners over the last month.

“It’s a great honor to be recognized,” said Lee. “There are some incredibly talented leaders in this state, representing very impressive businesses. To be named as ‘Business Leader of the Year’ from such an esteemed group is wonderful. The fact that this award was determined by votes from my peers, customers, partners and others in the community makes it even more special. ”

This award follows an extremely strong year for Hosted Solutions. In April, the company was acquired by Boston-based private equity firm ABRY Partners for $144 million. The company has had great momentum since then with significant growth in both customers and employees. New customers included Belk, Atlanta Falcons, UNC Charlotte and Britax Child Safety, who joined a prestigious list of existing blue chip customers like Krispy Kreme, Carolina Panthers, McClatchey Broadcasting, Capitol Broadcasting and Lowe’s Motor Speedway. In addition, the employee base doubled since Q4 of 2007.

“Our business continues to prosper even in a tough market because we’re offering our customers intelligent IT infrastructure and expertise that allows them to conserve capital, drive growth and improve productivity,” Lee added. “IT is tremendous expense for most companies. We can help to alleviate some of that and allow companies to operate more efficiently. For some customers, we serve as their IT department – they outsource all aspects of IT to us. For others, we’re an extension of their IT department – providing managed hosting, virtual dedicated hosting or professional services. Customers love it because they can use us as their business ramps up or down, allowing them to remain competitive in a dynamic market. Last year was a great year for us and 2009 is shaping up to be even better.”

# # #

About Hosted Solutions

Hosted Solutions’ high quality Data Center and Managed Hosting services maintain and protect customers’ mission-critical IT systems and applications, enabling them to reduce operating costs, lower the risk of downtime, focus on core competencies, and achieve their top business objectives. The company operates SAS 70 Type II Certified facilities in Boston MA, Charlotte NC, Raleigh NC, and Cary NC providing best-of-breed data center operations with hardened physical infrastructure, the highest level of security, and a complete managed services portfolio. Hosted Solutions was acquired by Boston-based private equity firm ABRY Partners in April 2008 for $144 million. For more information please visit www.hostedsolutions.com.

About Business Leader

Business Leader magazine’s Triangle edition is a monthly publication focused on covering the companies, leaders and business happenings in the Triangle region of North Carolina. Published in the Triangle since 1989, the magazine features profiles of Triangle businesses and business leaders, as well as feature stories and expert columns on the trends affecting the Triangle business community. The magazine includes quarterly specialty magazines featuring women in business, local real estate and the local tech community, as well as an annual relocation and newcomer’s guide for the area.

Source by Matt Vaughan

Some companies find that managing document management systems in-house isn’t the best option for their particular needs. They may be under pressure to comply with industry-related or governmental regulations but don’t have the initial cash that if often required for a state-of-the-art document management system.

These companies may find it useful to consider having a state-of-the-art document management system that is hosted remotely. The benefits of doing so include less cash upfront and a system that is even more powerful and more secure than the systems that can be afforded in-house. This type of option, often referred to as Software as a Service (or SAAS) may be the right option for many companies that can’t currently place their priorities on the revenue or manpower required to install and operate a state-of-the-art document management system.

SAAS Document Management Systems: A Few Considerations
Once a company has decided that SAAS document management systems are the systems that can meet their needs it’s important to consider the reliability, cost, securities, and maintenance plans that will accompany the solution.

Reliability
The reliability of document management systems is of obvious importance. Internet access time and availability must be important concerns since SAAS document management systems are often (by necessity) web-based. When looking for a solution you can ask yourself if the provider allows for more than one upstream bandwidth path and how they eliminate online traffic interruptions. Ask what security appliances they use (Cisco Pix, etc.) and if they provide primary and secondary DNS (Domain Name System) services. How they power their electricity supply is also of the utmost importance. Is the supply an uninterrupted power supply and do they provide fire suppression systems?

Cost
When it comes to cost, users can really benefit from a SAAS solution. Users should look for a SAAS solution that has only small to nothing upfront costs and reasonable monthly fees. Make sure the monthly fees are fixed and get that in writing!

Securities
Responsible software providers/hosters wouldn’t dream of hosting sensitive documentation without state-of-the-art securities but make sure your potential host has a private network and firewalls that are monitored around the clock. Firewall logs should also be audited regularly and intrusion detection service is valuable. Make sure to talk with other customers who currently use the SAAS document management systems you are considering. See if the provider’s document management systems have ever been seriously compromised.

Maintenance
All system maintenance should obviously be provided by the host. Make sure that document management systems maintenance include software installation, configuration, application upgrades, anti-virus protection, system patches and network backups (on a daily basis). The host should obviously monitor hardware and software environments for connectivity, performance and uptime.

Conclusion
Many companies can benefit far more from the benefits provided by SAAS document management systems hosted remotely than they could benefit from an in-house system. These companies need to really conduct their due diligence however in finding the right host. Trusting sensitive documentation to another company isn’t easy; the ultimate decision should be based on the facts.

Source by Marci Lynn Crane

Monitor Network and Control bandwidth usage

Why Use network monitoring?

Network monitoring allows a company to find out how internet is being accessed by employees. Almost all internet activity can be monitored AND recorded —with BNS’ complete network monitoring solution.

Network Monitoring benefits:

Bandwith hogs.
Want to know who among your employees are spending the most time surfing web sites? Which employees chat the most? You can even ’see’ the transcript of the chat conversation! Find out who is sending the most emails with attachments?

Latecomers and Idle workers.
Who is arriving to work late and leaving early? What times are they active? What times are they idle on the keyboard? What are my employees searching for on the Internet? Possible! These are just few of what our monitoring system solution has to offer, which level of detail is so precise that you can see what an employee does each and every second.

Prevent data leakage.
BNS network monitoring system lists the users that extract data from your network. Did they send out the mailing list? Did they copy sensitive information over to the thumb drive? Did they burn to CD or DVD or download to iPod your company’s proprietary information?

Network monitoring systems uncover Internet abuse,  improve office productivity, protect against leakages of confidential information. It highlights inappropriate activities by users that may expose a company such as yours to avoidable financial, legal and other preventable risks.

For your questions, please send us an email at team[at]bnshosting.net. Or visit this link http://www.bnshosting.net/?p=357 for more information.

Source by BNS Hosting

A year is a long time in many industries and significant changes can occur over a 12 month period that will leave those without their finger on the pulse struggling to keep up with what’s hot, and what’s not, in their chosen field of expertise.

Indeed, the IT and technology industries are constantly evolving and no sooner has someone procured the latest new-fangled laptop, mp3 player or Smartphone, a ‘new and improved’ successor is waiting in line, ready to take over as the ‘daddy’ of all gadgets.

If 2009 saw a lot of developments in IT such as improved vendor management and a stronger focus being placed on business-specific applications, 2010 looks set to herald a whole host of changes too. This means it’s imperative for those with a vested interest in all the IT sub-industries, from web design and software development, to hosting and IT recruitment, to have an idea of what to expect in the new decade’s inaugural year.

It’s around a decade now since ‘cloud computing’ as a commercial concept began to be widely recognised across the IT industry. There are many inherent advantages to cloud computing, including reduced up-front costs for businesses, increased storage and general IT management benefits.

Indeed, cloud computing has become increasingly more common over the past decade but two problems that have perhaps inhibited it thus far have been latency and security. Developers, however, have refined techniques to reduce latency – as well as improving security through enhanced encryption.

Then there’s the ‘hybrid cloud’ that some predict will become more widely available from cloud service providers in 2010. This hybrid service is a combination of hosting types – most commonly a company will have a dedicated server which can then extend into cloud when it needs to cope with instances such as an increase in traffic.

Of course, cloud computing and ‘software-as-a-service’ (SaaS) go hand-in-hand, and many more businesses could well be taking advantage of the countless benefits there are to moving away from a traditional desktop-based approach such as enhanced, real-time collaboration on important business documents.

Indeed, if 2009 was the year that businesses ducked for cover to avoid the financial meltdown, 2010 could well be the year that cloud computing comes to the rescue, helping business save substantial sums of money. This extends well beyond useful business applications into the hosting sphere, too. It’s likely that companies will use ‘the cloud’ in conjunction with other technologies, with the cloud used to derive extra processing power and run secondary applications, whilst using traditional dedicated environments for core applications.

There’s likely to be significant developments across the whole IT industry in 2010, from top to bottom, and it should be an exciting year for everyone involved!

Source by Paul Buchanan

Monetary factor is one of the most important factors in it. Every user wants to have the web hosting service at the most reasonable price. The users who are new to the web hosting gets attracted on hearing free or discount web hosting and choose that hosting, but there are definitely some things they need to know about discount web hosting and free web hosting before choosing the web host for their website. Generally discount web hosting only suited the personal websites rather than business websites as their capabilities and reliability are not necessarily suited for the business users.

The most important thing for any of the business concern is time; this is also applicable in the case of Internet businesses and home-based businesses. In case of retail store, if any time they are not open for shoppers, then in result they are missing out on potential sales and related revenues. One of the most important advantage of internet business is that if one’s business is internet-based with an automated sales process, then his/her business can be open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three-hundred and sixty-five days a year.

Generally website of the business users plays the role of their shop and if website will remain shut down it means the shop is closed. Closed shop results in loss of sales. So it is necessary for an Internet business to have a reliable host providing maximum uptime say uptime of 99%.

The new comers certainly make some mistakes one of them is that they don’t the disadvantages of free or cheap web hosting and only after seeing the discounted price they choose one of them, they realize their mistake later on after loosing the effectiveness of their website which diminishes the website’s potential. Second major mistake is that the user does not take important things into consideration while selecting a web host. This is true that discount web hosting and free web hosting usually sounds good in the beginning but when one chooses any of it then their loopholes come into the picture, such as it is much more than cost to consider when choosing a web hosting service.

Many times in case of small business or of private website discount web hosting packages may be sufficient. The best way to make the right decision is to review the options and to compare the costs, benefits and potential problems. Following are some factors one should consider while choosing web hosts.

1. Speed: One should check the speed of the web hosting servers and the bandwidth provided through the hosting packages

2. Space: One should check in advance the space provided for various hosting packages

3. Control Panel: It is important to check in advance whether or not the web host provides a control panel for self-serve, web-based administration of one’s website

4. Server logs and reports: it is important to check in advance if the host is providing server logs and reports that helps one in managing his/her website and marketing efforts

5. Email: As emails are most crucial part in web business, one should check email services and email limitations.

6. Backup policies: It is important to check in advance the web host’s back-up policies and procedures.

7. Data retrieval policies: It is important to check the web host’s data retrieval policies and procedures in advance.

8. Uptime: It is another important feature, which needs attention of user. One should check the web host’s reliability in terms of uptime and relative downtime as it can affect business favorably or adversely.

9. Existence: user should check the web host’s longevity in the business of web hosting and their reputation.

10. Extra options: In addition to above user should check extra options like CGI, SSH and FTP access and compatibility or availability of various scripts and software.

A company that specializes in commercial web hosting for businesses provides maximum reliability, greater web space, speed, and also free or discount web-hosting services. Generally Internet service provider’s offers discount web hosting services to Internet service subscribers as a process for adding value to their standard services. Thus one should act prudently and take any decision accordingly as it is going to have effect straightly on his/her business.

Source by Webhosting Website

Differentiated according to the size and arrangement, there are many kind of Servers in Data Centers. Blade Servers are one of the most famous servers. They are designed in such a manner that they acquire minimum space. Going against other servers which need heavy parts like power cords and network cords, blade servers are shed with any thing unnecessary and consist of only important parts. Cooling, network and power cords are interconnected in a Blade Enclosure. Blade Server are good at normal and Cloud hosting. However Blade servers are hot swappable if you put more pressure on blade server they will start working in diverse workload. Minimum possible size for any standard sever-rack configuration is 1RU. Other servers are restricted to 42U size i.e. 42 components, whereas blade servers don’t have any such restrictions. – Memory for reading data and input commands, Processor in order to control the data, Data storage program are the only requirements for the Blade Servers.

Most of the unwanted equipments are either enclosed in the Blade Server enclosure or they are virtualized using iSCSI or remote console over IP. In many Blade Servers unwanted parts are completely removed. Therefore Blade Server becomes considerably small and cheaper. Most of the non-core computing services are performed by the enclosure of the blade servers. If you look at the non-blade server their requirements will look vast and useless. A dedicated UPS is the only source of power in most of the Blade server configuration, which supply DC to multiple enclosures. By applying a dedicated UPS system a number of UPS can be reduced, which otherwise required for flexible power supply. Because of the popularity of the Blade Server, demand for the rack mounted servers increased considerably. Blade Servers are good option to cut cost, since they require less power and also saves a lot of space. Most of the new age Data Centers are updating their servers to Blade Servers.

Source by Shamim

When it comes to web hosting, there is nothing as powerful as a dedicated server, cloud computing being the only exception. Having one allows a user to achieve up to 0% percent downtime. Meaning to say, websites attain worldwide online presence all of the times, without wasting a single minute. Also, any upgrades in the resources can be made quickly. Additionally, traffic jams and other hassles experience over the World Wide Web rarely happens. This is so because, compared with shared hosting, all the disk space and unlimited bandwidth are yours. No one shares them from you. Other benefits include full control and extreme security. With all of these and more advantages, there is little misgiving why dedicated server hosting is a top IT service.

With this great power comes huge expense too. Almost all server hosting plans require large costs, which depend on the hosting provider and your current needs. Its price tag is perhaps its only bane. Apart from that, there is no need to lease such reliable server if there is no need to. You must first understand whether there is a necessity to sign up for this web hosting service, in order to optimize every cash outlay. So, the million dollar question now is, do you need a dedicated server? In any cases enumerated below, you may qualify your firm.

• You want to engage in reseller hosting. You may be one of the growing numbers of businessmen who desire to venture in web hosting services by serving as a middleman. By dividing the disk space in a dedicated server, you can earn income without the burden of administration and the expenditures of the facility.

• You are looking for special features. The shared hosting plans may give you your basic needs, but it will not satisfy your cravings for more advance components. Do you want to have absolute control, more CPU and RAM, better and reliable security and unlimited bandwidth? Then, only server hosting can give you those. But, take heed on the saying “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.” Do not ask for these attributes if the necessity is just trivial.

• Your hosting needs increase. There comes a time when your hosting needs will increase. When that moment comes, a simple shared hosting solution may not be enough. If you stick with it, your online processes will suffer. I bet you would not like the worst case scenarios to be realities. Therefore, move your Internet hosting to a stronger platform for better performance.

Before choosing a web hosting services, always analyze your needs. It is not practical to sign up with a huge plan but will only use half of it. In these times, practicality should be considered always.

If you belong to at least one of the three aforementioned options, then there is no denying that a dedicated server is badly needed. However, you must understand that the price tag of such hosting service is more expensive than a shared hosting service. Although the initial cost is quite heavy, the economic benefits it will bring to your company exceed the expenses you will incur. So, it is worthy every penny you pay. If you are ready for a dedicated server hosting, then look now for a first-rate web host in Australia.

Source by Walter Scott

The Cloud means different things to different people.  Everyone has their own views of the Cloud and myriad usage patterns have evolved, even while new and innovative options are emerging everyday.

So in essence, the Cloud is an environment where all aspects of computing are availed of as a service and consumers, be they individuals or business entities, do not own any part of it.  To host and run a small application, all areas of the computing infrastructure come into play, such as the infrastructure in terms of the server and storage; the application components, including the web/application server; and the actual application, which either has to be built in-house or purchased from a vendor and customized if necessary.  After the initial application is built and hosted, then other aspects come into play, such as ongoing maintenance in terms of bug fixes, upgrades, maintenance etc.

The Cloud offers three primary service options, which can be mixed and matched as per your unique requirements:

–          SaaS:  Software as a Service

–          PaaS:  Platform as a Service

–          IaaS:  Infrastructure as a Service.

Today, all of these aspects are available off premises via the Cloud. There are options to avail of pre-built solutions that are hosted on platforms from SaaS providers.  Or, if you want to customize and/or build your own application then PaaS platforms are available, in which case capital costs in terms of server, storage, and application license costs are totally eliminated and the same application is provided as a service either on a per transaction, pay per use or subscription basis.  Many larger organizations are leveraging the third option—IaaS—in order to incorporate virtualized scalability and availability into their core business applications without having to utilize their whole IT budget and server storage space just to manage peak loads.

Now let us study how different users avail the Cloud and what benefits they derive out of it.

a.        End Users: The end user is an individual who is availing the Cloud for his own personal use.  Most end users probably don’t even realize they are using Cloud-based applications.  A typical usage scenario could be doing a Google search to find out Thai Restaurants in your neighborhood or availing of an online application to have your taxes done.  In both cases, the application is hosted in a Cloud environment, and, in the former, the service is free, while in the latter, there may be a per-use charge or a subscription.

The key driving factors for end users to use the Cloud are:

–          Location independent access to application functionality

–          Cost effective and innovative payment models

–          Low barriers for entry

b.       Developers: This community will typically look for platforms that will provide the entire infrastructure needed for off premises product development—or the typical PaaS environment where complete platforms including the tools and APIs needed to build applications from scratch are available.

c.       CIO/IT: IT Organizations, depending on their size and budgets can run the gamut in terms of Cloud consumption, deployment and service models.   There are organizations that can consume as well as provide all the types of Cloud patterns such as SaaS, IaaS and PaaS.

d. Cloud Service Providers: The early adopters of these various strategies of SaaS, IaaS and PaaS are now leaders in their respective spaces, but there are a lot of new entrants and there is still a lot of scope in all areas—especially Cloud Services Aggregation.

e.      Cloud Integrators: With myriad options presented to users and CIOs everyday and the rate at which the Cloud space is growing and evolving, it is no longer an easy decision when it comes to determining the most leveraged short-term and best long-term approach to the Cloud.

Source by tajinder

Bookkeeping is an integral part of today’s business environment as record of financial transactions are as important as the business goals themselves. But it is considered as a necessary evil in the business community, as it is not the core domains of small and medium business.Both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Hosting by Application Service providers has emerged as important platform for making your BookKeepimg process easier,cost efficient and at the same time allow multiple access and file sharing.But let me help you compare the respective features of both , to reach a definite point of view regarding  Online QuickBooks and Hosted QuicKBooks.

QuickBooks and many  other software were introduced with specific aim of simplifying the book keeping process, so that even non technical people can make entries after some learning. But the advent of Software as a Service (SAAS) technologies provided new opportunities to software service providers to simplify the way we use the software. Now instead of buying them we can simply, in a sense, lease them for monthly fee. QuickBooks online almost falls in this category .You do not have to buy the license for using the service and thus save your upfront investment. Other benefits are also obvious. Since you are not running the software on your own system hardware requirements for your system are minimal and you get liberated from the need for backup facilities and server requirements, as all of them are provided by the service provider, of course, at a price.

But there is another group of technologies called Cloud Hosting which provides not just software services but also hosts your Hardware requirements and has the potential of drastically reducing your IT infrastructure cost. This third party Hosting Service Providers hosts your licensed software on their terminal servers.

We will discuss QuickBooks Online and Hosted QuickBooks in this context. QuickBooks Online edition has the benefit that it provides you access to your Book keeping account any time any where through online connection. Also they provide backup facilities for your data which is more reliable than that of the local data backup. Further you can exchange files with other persons online through your account.

But these services come with some limitations. Online QuickBooks compromises with some features which the desktop versions such as QuickBooks enterprise, pro and premier provide. For example it do not have feature of online bill payment or customized inventory. Also since QuickBooks online is a completely new platform the user has to invest considerable time in learning the new interface.

And the user always wants a local copy of data which QuickBooks Online do not provides. Also QuickBooks Add-ons have become an important feature of   book keeping as it allows the data generates on QuickBooks to be used for other purposes. Online QuickBooks do not support these Add on Software.

In contrast to this, Hosted QuickBooks truly brings you the innumerable benefits of cloud hosting. First they provide anytime anywhere access to the version of QuickBooks that you want to host. This means that you do not have to learn anything new for using the new service. Then you have the benefit of hosting many different versions of QuickBooks from the same user account.

And most important of all it is most reliable in terms of data security. Hosted QuickBooks service providers such as Real Time Data Services provides dual backup of your data. Also they provide the facility to print local copies of your files and also their backup, as well as using them on your desktop versions of the Software.

And now something about the true power of cloud computing. While QuickBooks online can give you access to only one type of software hosting with Real Time Data Services you have the benefitting of hosting innumerable other services such as Tax software Hosting, MYOB hosting ,MS Office hosting, QuickBooks Add-ons hosting  and many other  Applications Hosting so as to meet the entire range of services you need. What I am stressing here is that the breadth of services that cloud computing provides is unmatched and here Hosted QuickBooks scores over Online QuickBooks.

Source by Susanne Parker

Few years ago, top management and corporate were wondering hearing the most amazing word “Cloud Computing” and had long discussions with their IT infrastructure team and the discussion might be ending with “How, Where and When” to get on to the Cloud Computing.

Amazon web services and its existing channel networks help small and medium size corporations as well large scale organizations to think about Cloud Computing. However, Cloud Computing is not something new people were in imagination. The way of delivering the services for hosting an application to gaming solution as well keep the data safe with disaster recovery centers came in to existence with popular Amazon web services various solutions. Today, Amazon is one of the largest cloud solutions providing company and it has a best example of successfully running amazon online store since many years now.

People are wondering to know the advantages using Amazon cloud services. Amazon is offering its services in hourly rates, which benefits the most of the small and medium size companies to pay for the time it uses. Amazon gives an option to auto scale up the server size at the time of peak usages and auto scale down when it won’t have traffic load. Organizations do not have to worry about initial investment for buying high end servers and manpower for monitoring the in-house servers. Organizations can hire the servers and specification as per the usage requirements and save a lot of cost at the same time. Organizations does not have to think about back up, as Amazon offers S3 solution at very low cost to keep your data safe in any condition. The Amazon offers 24 hours support and it has region specific support centers to help local people at their working hours. The cost of owning an application server and data backup server is an old fashion; rather to pay what we use is the smartest way organizations are always happy to go with.

Amazon is offering various cloud solutions like, Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon Glacier, Amazon EBS, Amazon Cloud Front, Amazon RDS and many more solutions for application hosting. Amazon has customized its offering considering size of organization and requirements. Organizations have choice to select hardware size and OS as well application stacks as per requirements and it can up and running in few minutes with Amazon Cloud solutions. Organizations can save a lot of time and efforts by going with AWS and other side can save on costing too.

Source by Jose Hogan