Round Tale

Managed Dedicated Servers Content Provided by Superb Dedicated ServersLoad Balancing – Hardware Changes That Can Make the Difference
Load balancing is all about hardware expansion because it’s only a matter of time until you will need more than one server for your website. If you make a blueprint of exactly what you need to do or at least make some advanced planning strategies, you’ll find that there is a lot you can do to optimize the performance of your hardware. Simply having one dedicated server to handle an incredibly large workload isn’t enough. There could be surges in traffic or bandwidth requirements that would overload the server. Thinking in advance about what could possibly go wrong will keep your high traffic website safe from the perils of extreme resource requirements.

Among these, an overload of system resource demands can cause a server to malfunction, forcing it to operate at temperatures that are unsustainable in the long term. You should look at what makes hardware perform at its best, which configurations will benefit the overall performance and keeps your site running at optimal levels. In order to give you a better understanding, this article will present a mock scenario that explains the process of load balancing and what it really is.

A business is launched on the Internet. In order to accommodate the online business website, a server is purchased and set into active status. Initially, the business does very well, performing at more than acceptable rates of content delivery, access times and overall performance levels. This is because the initial load on the server is relatively low. As a year goes by, the business becomes increasingly popular, requiring more and more of the current resource levels to be used at all times. After a year and a half, the business reaches “point break”. It can no longer handle the growing influx of customers and the server shut down. This forces the online business to make some pretty complex business decisions. In order to accommodate the growing number of customers and keep their site online, the business opts to create a “server farm”. A server farm is a group of servers that is designed to grow in accordance with resource demand.

Adding a server every time the demand escalates as a collective whole will help the company to stay online at all times and never have to worry about whether or not there are enough resources at its disposal. In order to ascertain whether or not an additional server is needed, a company must gather the resource demand statistics from their website. This can be done through the control panel, in the administrative portion of the software side of server management.

These statistics give the business owners used in our example the raw data they need to decide whether or not adding another server is beneficial and worth the additional cost. When managing high traffic sites on the Internet, servers are everything. Unless you have a college education and certification in the areas of how algorithms used in computing will affect how a server performs, you’re not going to get very far. The internal mechanics of load balancing is usually reserved for technicians and people with a college certification in the area of computer sciences.

Your average business owner is not going to be able to engage in the tweaking and performance areas of the software codes. They can, however, take part in the addition of multiple servers to handle the additional resource demand. Load balancing is pretty simple to perform if you have enough money and the server farms you can build are both economical and an intelligent way of expanding your business.

Making sure your business is able to handle its own popularity is a matter of planning ahead. If a business plans on launching an advertising campaign that is sure to bring a large number of new customers, then adding servers to the “server farm” before the launching of the advertising campaign would be an example of effective load balancing. If the business has an advertising schematic that causes their customer base to grow gradually, then using the raw data accessible from the control panel would be a fantastic idea. Using graphs and charts, gauging how the business is growing and the expectation for increased server demand will prepare the business for the changes to come. Armed with this knowledge, adding servers in accordance with a predictable and gradual increase in demand would be optimal.

In a nutshell, load balancing comes down to thinking ahead, using resources to effectively manage and expand the amount of hardware used to deliver Web content to the masses and staying focused on the financial bottom line.

Source: Load Balancing – Can Make a Difference

Managed Dedicated Servers Content Provided by Superb Dedicated ServersLoad Balancing – Hardware Changes That Can Make the Difference
Load balancing is all about hardware expansion because it’s only a matter of time until you will need more than one server for your website. If you make a blueprint of exactly what you need to do or at least make some advanced planning strategies, you’ll find that there is a lot you can do to optimize the performance of your hardware. Simply having one dedicated server to handle an incredibly large workload isn’t enough. There could be surges in traffic or bandwidth requirements that would overload the server. Thinking in advance about what could possibly go wrong will keep your high traffic website safe from the perils of extreme resource requirements.

Among these, an overload of system resource demands can cause a server to malfunction, forcing it to operate at temperatures that are unsustainable in the long term. You should look at what makes hardware perform at its best, which configurations will benefit the overall performance and keeps your site running at optimal levels. In order to give you a better understanding, this article will present a mock scenario that explains the process of load balancing and what it really is.

A business is launched on the Internet. In order to accommodate the online business website, a server is purchased and set into active status. Initially, the business does very well, performing at more than acceptable rates of content delivery, access times and overall performance levels. This is because the initial load on the server is relatively low. As a year goes by, the business becomes increasingly popular, requiring more and more of the current resource levels to be used at all times. After a year and a half, the business reaches “point break”. It can no longer handle the growing influx of customers and the server shut down. This forces the online business to make some pretty complex business decisions. In order to accommodate the growing number of customers and keep their site online, the business opts to create a “server farm”. A server farm is a group of servers that is designed to grow in accordance with resource demand.

Adding a server every time the demand escalates as a collective whole will help the company to stay online at all times and never have to worry about whether or not there are enough resources at its disposal. In order to ascertain whether or not an additional server is needed, a company must gather the resource demand statistics from their website. This can be done through the control panel, in the administrative portion of the software side of server management.

These statistics give the business owners used in our example the raw data they need to decide whether or not adding another server is beneficial and worth the additional cost. When managing high traffic sites on the Internet, servers are everything. Unless you have a college education and certification in the areas of how algorithms used in computing will affect how a server performs, you’re not going to get very far. The internal mechanics of load balancing is usually reserved for technicians and people with a college certification in the area of computer sciences.

Your average business owner is not going to be able to engage in the tweaking and performance areas of the software codes. They can, however, take part in the addition of multiple servers to handle the additional resource demand. Load balancing is pretty simple to perform if you have enough money and the server farms you can build are both economical and an intelligent way of expanding your business.

Making sure your business is able to handle its own popularity is a matter of planning ahead. If a business plans on launching an advertising campaign that is sure to bring a large number of new customers, then adding servers to the “server farm” before the launching of the advertising campaign would be an example of effective load balancing. If the business has an advertising schematic that causes their customer base to grow gradually, then using the raw data accessible from the control panel would be a fantastic idea. Using graphs and charts, gauging how the business is growing and the expectation for increased server demand will prepare the business for the changes to come. Armed with this knowledge, adding servers in accordance with a predictable and gradual increase in demand would be optimal.

In a nutshell, load balancing comes down to thinking ahead, using resources to effectively manage and expand the amount of hardware used to deliver Web content to the masses and staying focused on the financial bottom line.

Load Balancing – Can Make a Difference

Plano, Texas – (The Hosting News) – July 15, 2009 – Dedicated server solution provider, SoftLayer, recently supported the live Internet broadcast of the Michael Jackson Memorial Service, as an on-demand data center services provider, selected by multi-platform IP services and content delivery provider, Highwinds.

As a trusted partner to support high-quality live streaming of the global event, it is believed that the memorial service’s viewership was second only to the inauguration of President Barack Obama, also streamed by SoftLayer and Highwinds.

Ric Moseley, Vice President of Engineering at SoftLayer noted, ”It would be enough of an accomplishment just to handle an event of this scale. But being able to handle it without any interruption to regular operations really proves the robustness of our architecture and network. We are proud to have been a part of such a historic occasion, and that customers like Highwinds keep coming back to us for our expertise.”

SoftLayer provisioned more than 400 servers for the one-day netcast, demonstrating the service providers’ massive and dynamic scalability. SoftLayer streamed more than 45Gb of event coverage for the day, leading to a one-day high of 100Gb total traffic between its three data centers, with no reported outages or performance issues.

More and more people are turning to the Internet instead of television as their video source for important live events. After media and social networking sites experienced outages and overloading on the day of Jackson’s passing, it was expected his memorial service would generate record levels of attention.

George Antoniou, Vice President of Operations at Highwinds explained, ”We knew from our mutual success streaming the Obama Inauguration that SoftLayer was the ideal partner for this event.”

Headquartered in Plano, Texas, SoftLayer delivers world-class, on-demand virtual data center services on a global basis from facilities located in Dallas, TX; Seattle, WA; and Washington, DC. SoftLayer integrates all facets of IT to innovate industry-leading solutions that are fully automated. This empowers customers with complete control, security, scalability, and ease-of-management for their IT environment.

For more information, please visit: www.softlayer.com.

Plano, Texas – (The Hosting News) – July 15, 2009 – Dedicated server solution provider, SoftLayer, recently supported the live Internet broadcast of the Michael Jackson Memorial Service, as an on-demand data center services provider, selected by multi-platform IP services and content delivery provider, Highwinds.

As a trusted partner to support high-quality live streaming of the global event, it is believed that the memorial service’s viewership was second only to the inauguration of President Barack Obama, also streamed by SoftLayer and Highwinds.

Ric Moseley, Vice President of Engineering at SoftLayer noted, ”It would be enough of an accomplishment just to handle an event of this scale. But being able to handle it without any interruption to regular operations really proves the robustness of our architecture and network. We are proud to have been a part of such a historic occasion, and that customers like Highwinds keep coming back to us for our expertise.”

SoftLayer provisioned more than 400 servers for the one-day netcast, demonstrating the service providers’ massive and dynamic scalability. SoftLayer streamed more than 45Gb of event coverage for the day, leading to a one-day high of 100Gb total traffic between its three data centers, with no reported outages or performance issues.

More and more people are turning to the Internet instead of television as their video source for important live events. After media and social networking sites experienced outages and overloading on the day of Jackson’s passing, it was expected his memorial service would generate record levels of attention.

George Antoniou, Vice President of Operations at Highwinds explained, ”We knew from our mutual success streaming the Obama Inauguration that SoftLayer was the ideal partner for this event.”

Headquartered in Plano, Texas, SoftLayer delivers world-class, on-demand virtual data center services on a global basis from facilities located in Dallas, TX; Seattle, WA; and Washington, DC. SoftLayer integrates all facets of IT to innovate industry-leading solutions that are fully automated. This empowers customers with complete control, security, scalability, and ease-of-management for their IT environment.

For more information, please visit: www.softlayer.com.

Plano, Texas – (The Hosting News) – July 15, 2009 – Dedicated server solution provider, SoftLayer, recently supported the live Internet broadcast of the Michael Jackson Memorial Service, as an on-demand data center services provider, selected by multi-platform IP services and content delivery provider, Highwinds.

As a trusted partner to support high-quality live streaming of the global event, it is believed that the memorial service’s viewership was second only to the inauguration of President Barack Obama, also streamed by SoftLayer and Highwinds.

Ric Moseley, Vice President of Engineering at SoftLayer noted, ”It would be enough of an accomplishment just to handle an event of this scale. But being able to handle it without any interruption to regular operations really proves the robustness of our architecture and network. We are proud to have been a part of such a historic occasion, and that customers like Highwinds keep coming back to us for our expertise.”

SoftLayer provisioned more than 400 servers for the one-day netcast, demonstrating the service providers’ massive and dynamic scalability. SoftLayer streamed more than 45Gb of event coverage for the day, leading to a one-day high of 100Gb total traffic between its three data centers, with no reported outages or performance issues.

More and more people are turning to the Internet instead of television as their video source for important live events. After media and social networking sites experienced outages and overloading on the day of Jackson’s passing, it was expected his memorial service would generate record levels of attention.

George Antoniou, Vice President of Operations at Highwinds explained, ”We knew from our mutual success streaming the Obama Inauguration that SoftLayer was the ideal partner for this event.”

Headquartered in Plano, Texas, SoftLayer delivers world-class, on-demand virtual data center services on a global basis from facilities located in Dallas, TX; Seattle, WA; and Washington, DC. SoftLayer integrates all facets of IT to innovate industry-leading solutions that are fully automated. This empowers customers with complete control, security, scalability, and ease-of-management for their IT environment.

For more information, please visit: www.softlayer.com.

Vancouver, Canada – (The Hosting News) – May 7, 2009 – Global IT hosting company, PEER 1, has launched its first UK data center, with a new SuperNetwork in Europe.

Designed to enable high through-put and per second scalability, the 10GB network provides an IT platform while relieving PEER 1 customers from the hazards of hosting services delivered through third party networks.

Ryan Murphey, VP of Data Center Operations at PEER 1 commented, ”The newest addition to our data centre fold gives state-of-the-art computing power and direct access to the SuperNetworkTM for our European customers, right on their door step. We’re always pleased to bring another data centre to life and we’re looking forward to watching this one grow in line with our customers.”

PEER 1 offers managed hosting and dedicated hosting (through ServerBeach) to small and medium size businesses on a ‘pay as you grow’ basis. The company already works with over 500 businesses across the UK and EMEA and is investing in next generation data centre infrastructure to offer access to its SuperNetworkTM alongside local customer service and operations.

Dominic Monkhouse, UK MD of PEER 1 remarked, ”In most cases hosting companies have remote destination networks which means they spend hours trying to reach a third-party technician when things go wrong. If a provider solely relies on a Tier 1 Network, they have no backbone and simply a set of standalone core routers. They are totally reliant on dealing with internet routing issues by escalating them to Network Operations Centers, which can take days to resolve. They have no recourse to use a backbone or peering strategy to circumvent the issue, which basically means that if your hosting is with them and they get screwed, so do you. Our SuperNetwork means UK and European businesses can now get tremendously improved hosting and content delivery performance through a local service provider.”

Located just outside of London, the data centre provisioning follows the opening of PEER 1′s European HQ in Southampton UK, strengthening the company’s physical footprint in Europe alongside its existing POPs, online since 2005, in both London (LINX) and Amsterdam (AMS-IX).

The data centre offers managed and dedicated hosting services to PEER 1 and ServerBeach customers. Through its initial provisioning of 100 secure racks, the data centre design delivers energy-efficient downflow and eco-friendly cold-aisle containment, upstream IP transit direct to the POP in London with redundant fibre connecting PEER 1′s global SuperNetworkTM to the data centre and UPS back-up and generator redundancy power.

In line with PEER 1′s existing global data centres, the UK location will operate on a Cisco core with Foundry load balancing and Juniper dedicated client firewalls. PEER 1′s wholly-owned SuperNetworkTM offers highly scalable and available content delivery to customers through Fast-Ethernet and Gigabit-Ethernet access over 13,000 miles of fibre connectivity. This content delivery network (CDN) delivers faster connections and improved uptime to customers through its powerful network backbone, alongside efficient single-source fault resolution that eliminates reliance on third party carrier resolution.

PEER 1 provides services for more than 10,000 customers. As an online IT hosting provider, PEER 1 offers a reliable high performance Internet network supporting scalable managed hosting, dedicated hosting through the ServerBeach brand, and colocation solutions. Backed by its 100 percent uptime guarantee and 24x7x365 FirstCall Support, PEER 1 ensures customers’ online presence is always fast, always available. Since 1999, PEER 1 has grown to include 15 state-of-the-art data centers in North America and points-of-presence in Europe. The company’s headquarters are in Vancouver, Canada and the stock is traded on the TSX under the symbol PIX.

For more information, please visit: www.peer1.com/uk.

Vancouver, Canada – (The Hosting News) – May 7, 2009 – Global IT hosting company, PEER 1, has launched its first UK data center, with a new SuperNetwork in Europe.

Designed to enable high through-put and per second scalability, the 10GB network provides an IT platform while relieving PEER 1 customers from the hazards of hosting services delivered through third party networks.

Ryan Murphey, VP of Data Center Operations at PEER 1 commented, ”The newest addition to our data centre fold gives state-of-the-art computing power and direct access to the SuperNetworkTM for our European customers, right on their door step. We’re always pleased to bring another data centre to life and we’re looking forward to watching this one grow in line with our customers.”

PEER 1 offers managed hosting and dedicated hosting (through ServerBeach) to small and medium size businesses on a ‘pay as you grow’ basis. The company already works with over 500 businesses across the UK and EMEA and is investing in next generation data centre infrastructure to offer access to its SuperNetworkTM alongside local customer service and operations.

Dominic Monkhouse, UK MD of PEER 1 remarked, ”In most cases hosting companies have remote destination networks which means they spend hours trying to reach a third-party technician when things go wrong. If a provider solely relies on a Tier 1 Network, they have no backbone and simply a set of standalone core routers. They are totally reliant on dealing with internet routing issues by escalating them to Network Operations Centers, which can take days to resolve. They have no recourse to use a backbone or peering strategy to circumvent the issue, which basically means that if your hosting is with them and they get screwed, so do you. Our SuperNetwork means UK and European businesses can now get tremendously improved hosting and content delivery performance through a local service provider.”

Located just outside of London, the data centre provisioning follows the opening of PEER 1′s European HQ in Southampton UK, strengthening the company’s physical footprint in Europe alongside its existing POPs, online since 2005, in both London (LINX) and Amsterdam (AMS-IX).

The data centre offers managed and dedicated hosting services to PEER 1 and ServerBeach customers. Through its initial provisioning of 100 secure racks, the data centre design delivers energy-efficient downflow and eco-friendly cold-aisle containment, upstream IP transit direct to the POP in London with redundant fibre connecting PEER 1′s global SuperNetworkTM to the data centre and UPS back-up and generator redundancy power.

In line with PEER 1′s existing global data centres, the UK location will operate on a Cisco core with Foundry load balancing and Juniper dedicated client firewalls. PEER 1′s wholly-owned SuperNetworkTM offers highly scalable and available content delivery to customers through Fast-Ethernet and Gigabit-Ethernet access over 13,000 miles of fibre connectivity. This content delivery network (CDN) delivers faster connections and improved uptime to customers through its powerful network backbone, alongside efficient single-source fault resolution that eliminates reliance on third party carrier resolution.

PEER 1 provides services for more than 10,000 customers. As an online IT hosting provider, PEER 1 offers a reliable high performance Internet network supporting scalable managed hosting, dedicated hosting through the ServerBeach brand, and colocation solutions. Backed by its 100 percent uptime guarantee and 24x7x365 FirstCall Support, PEER 1 ensures customers’ online presence is always fast, always available. Since 1999, PEER 1 has grown to include 15 state-of-the-art data centers in North America and points-of-presence in Europe. The company’s headquarters are in Vancouver, Canada and the stock is traded on the TSX under the symbol PIX.

For more information, please visit: www.peer1.com/uk.