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(Gawkwire.com) – Site5, a leader in shared, reseller, VPS, and dedicated hosting, today launched cloud hosting services, introducing Shared Cloud Hosting and Cloud Virtual Private Servers. The company will continue to offer its existing line of traditional hosting solutions.
The new cloud hosting services combine Site5’s rich array of features and award-winning customer support with the agility and reliability of cloud hosting architecture. Cloud hosting offers an unprecedented level of scalability, since nodes can be seamlessly upgraded and system resources can be instantly allocated across physical servers as needed. Cloud hosting also offers rapid failover protection, quickly activating parallel nodes in the event of a hardware failure or other outage.
“Shared Cloud Hosting and Cloud VPS Hosting are designed to keep downtime for email and websites to an absolute minimum. It’s an ideal solution for businesses and consumers who need a very high level of uptime but don’t have a large IT budget to spend on complicated load-balanced, multi-server solutions. It is perfect for website owners that like to have access to enterprise grade hardware and uptime, without the massive cost,” said Site5 Chief Operating Officer Tom Sepper.
Shared Cloud Hosting is available in three standard configurations, starting at just $22.50 per month for 2GB of disk space and 50GB of monthly bandwidth. All plans include free website migration to Site5, a dedicated IP address, the SiteAdmin control panel, and automatic data backups.
Cloud Virtual Private Servers are heavily customizable. Customers may choose from 10 standard configurations, starting at $100 per month for 15GB of disk space, 600GB of monthly bandwidth, and a node powered by 756MB of RAM. All Virtual Private Servers include Site5’s exclusive “No Worry” Full Management services, the SiteAdmin control panel, daily and weekly remote data backups, and at least two dedicated IP addresses.
To learn more about Shared Cloud Hosting from Site5, please visit http://www.site5.com/hosting/cloud.
To learn more about Cloud Virtual Private Servers from Site5, please visit http://www.site5.com/vps/cloud/.
(The Hosting News) – As you have no doubt heard – probably every day for the past several weeks – oil and gas exploration company BP epxerienced a deep water oil rig explosion April 20, 2010 off the coast of Louisiana. The collapse of the rig killed 11 workers, and has released at least 6 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, according to a Coast Guard and BP estimate of the rate of oil flow out of the broken drill pipe.
If you haven’t actually seen the effects of the oil on the Gulf coast environment, then these devastating photos of the effects of the oil spill might come as a bit of a shock. One of the clearest lessons emerging from this trajedy is this: it is not enough to think about a disaster that might hit at some unspecified time in the future in an unknown way. In order to be prepared for a major negative event, you have to prepare and have all of your actions and systems tested and ready to go at a moment’s notice – for a particular eventuality.
What Web Hosting Companies Can Learn
These lessons as applied to a web hosting enterprise can be summed up in the following list of thoughts to prepare you for the worst. My thanks to reseller hosting provider in the UK, 34SP.com for helping out with these concepts. I’m sure you can think up many more.
1. Assume that something really bad will go wrong and that it will happen next week. A key flaw in reacting to the oil spill was complacency built up over years of seeing no spills take place in the Gulf. That resulted in the erroneous assumption that there would be no incidents in the future. Web hosting companies should not make this mistake. Just because your servers and network have performed well for weeks or even months, doesn’t mean they can’t be disrupted suddenly. Spontaneous events such as power outages, loss of network connectivity, malicious activity, or hardware failure are facts of life in the hosting industry. To live in denial, assuming that this will never happen at your hosting firm is a recipe for disaster.
2. Make a comprehensive list of the major things that can go wrong. Start here: make a list of things that would really wreak havoc if they broke. Your main server components, main switching, network connections, backups failing, phones going out – whatever points of failure you can envision in your particular setup – write them down in a list.
3. Rank order your list from ‘worst’ to ‘least worst’. Review your list of your company’s unique potential points of failure, and then imagine that the item broke…badly. Now imagine the fallout on your business. As you imagine each of these scenarios in detail, arrange the list to reflect the scenarios that are the most catostrophic at the top of the list – and those that merely hurt, but are not devastating, at the bottom of the list. You now have a rank ordered list of potential problems and can address what to do if they actually occur.
4. Starting with item number 1, create an action plan to deal with
each potential disaster. Get as specific as you can about your response. For example – who exactly on your staff will be notified, and in what order? Which vendors will potentially be involved? Who are those emergency contacts? Document any hardware or software that may be required in an emergency to fix the problem – or better yet – consider any ways to make that system redundant, or consider stocking spare parts to be used in the event of an emergency.
5. Practice having a disaster. I live in Los Angeles. A few weeks ago the Coast Guard coducted a statewide series of drills to simulate an actual disaster scenario. According to information provided by a summary in the Los Angeles Times, ”The simulation will involve an actor pretending to be a gunman and a fake contamination of hazardous materials near Rainbow Harbor, officials said. The exercises are part of California’s annual two-day homeland security and disaster preparedness drills.” In other words, the emergency response teams imagined a scenario that would cause real destation and practiced addressing it, as those it were actually happening. This is exactly what will prepare your web hosting company for your imagined ‘worst case’ scenario. Prep your team and discuss what you’re trying to accomplish with the drill. Then conduct the drill as best you can and debrief with the participants. You can always refine your testing and drilling through repetition.
While these five steps are only a start on getting ready for a major negative event at your web hosting company, we can all learn from the Gulf oil disaster: be prepared for things to go wrong, and have a plan ready and practiced for when they do.
(The Hosting News)— Cloud computing software creator and computing services provider 3Tera® officially announced it’s plans for a new educational and certification programs to provide customers with expertise in building world-class cloud computing services and solutions. Along with it’s primary offerings there will be two certification programs are available, Certified Cloud Operator and Certified Cloud Architect, designed to address the needs of cloud computing professionals.
“Rapid development and deployment of applications are key reasons thousands of users are adopting cloud computing through our service providers and we’ve designed our certification programs with that in mind,” said Bert Armijo, SVP Marketing and Product Management, 3Tera, Inc. “Our certification programs offer instruction and hands-on labs covering the essential elements needed for rapid success in the cloud – basic concepts, advanced technologies, best practices, automation, and business continuity.”
Currently, two cloud computing certification programs are available:
The Certified Cloud Operator program is targeted toward service providers, enterprises operations professionals and systems integrators, responsible for the deployment and operation of cloud services. The program covers the process of installing, configuring and maintaining the computing fabric used for building cloud computing services. Emphasis is placed on hardware requirements, service configuration, hardware failure troubleshooting, provisioning of customers, and configuration of virtual private datacenters.
The Certified Cloud Architect program is offered for system architects, IT operations professionals, application developers and systems engineers responsible for the design, integration, provisioning, deployment and management of distributed applications. Participants learn the architectural concepts of the AppLogic cloud computing platform, step-by-step procedures for deploying, operating and managing applications in the cloud, best practices for security, testing and scaling applications, and how to architect for business continuity.
“In the nine months we’ve partnered with 3Tera, cloud computing has become the fastest growing, and most profitable part of our business,” commented Mark Ortenzi, President, Cari.Net. “To meet this demand, we now have five 3Tera Certified Cloud Computing Operators and Architects well-versed in the deployment and management of customers’ solutions available 24/7 in all of our five datacenters.”
“Enterprises need more than just a single virtual machine for their blog; they need to run multi-tiered, mission-critical applications with geographic fault tolerance,” said Mike Michalik, CEO, Cirrhus9, a cloud systems integrator. “AppLogic is the best cloud computing technology we’ve seen that meets the needs of both the enterprise and start-ups. The certification ensures Cirrhus9 can deliver on any cloud computing requirement our customers may have.”
3Tera’s cloud computing training and certification programs are accessible to IT professionals who are either evaluating or using the AppLogic cloud computing platform. Certification is awarded upon successful completion of the training coursework and online testing. For more details on training schedule and availability, visit http://www.3tera.com/AppLogic/Cloud-Certification.php.
Cloud Computing Certification Announced by 3Tera® is a post from: Hosting News and Reseller Web Hosting information.
(The Hosting News)— Cloud computing software creator and computing services provider 3Tera® officially announced it’s plans for a new educational and certification programs to provide customers with expertise in building world-class cloud computing services and solutions. Along with it’s primary offerings there will be two certification programs are available, Certified Cloud Operator and Certified Cloud Architect, designed to address the needs of cloud computing professionals.
“Rapid development and deployment of applications are key reasons thousands of users are adopting cloud computing through our service providers and we’ve designed our certification programs with that in mind,” said Bert Armijo, SVP Marketing and Product Management, 3Tera, Inc. “Our certification programs offer instruction and hands-on labs covering the essential elements needed for rapid success in the cloud – basic concepts, advanced technologies, best practices, automation, and business continuity.”
Currently, two cloud computing certification programs are available:
The Certified Cloud Operator program is targeted toward service providers, enterprises operations professionals and systems integrators, responsible for the deployment and operation of cloud services. The program covers the process of installing, configuring and maintaining the computing fabric used for building cloud computing services. Emphasis is placed on hardware requirements, service configuration, hardware failure troubleshooting, provisioning of customers, and configuration of virtual private datacenters.
The Certified Cloud Architect program is offered for system architects, IT operations professionals, application developers and systems engineers responsible for the design, integration, provisioning, deployment and management of distributed applications. Participants learn the architectural concepts of the AppLogic cloud computing platform, step-by-step procedures for deploying, operating and managing applications in the cloud, best practices for security, testing and scaling applications, and how to architect for business continuity.
“In the nine months we’ve partnered with 3Tera, cloud computing has become the fastest growing, and most profitable part of our business,” commented Mark Ortenzi, President, Cari.Net. “To meet this demand, we now have five 3Tera Certified Cloud Computing Operators and Architects well-versed in the deployment and management of customers’ solutions available 24/7 in all of our five datacenters.”
“Enterprises need more than just a single virtual machine for their blog; they need to run multi-tiered, mission-critical applications with geographic fault tolerance,” said Mike Michalik, CEO, Cirrhus9, a cloud systems integrator. “AppLogic is the best cloud computing technology we’ve seen that meets the needs of both the enterprise and start-ups. The certification ensures Cirrhus9 can deliver on any cloud computing requirement our customers may have.”
3Tera’s cloud computing training and certification programs are accessible to IT professionals who are either evaluating or using the AppLogic cloud computing platform. Certification is awarded upon successful completion of the training coursework and online testing. For more details on training schedule and availability, visit http://www.3tera.com/AppLogic/Cloud-Certification.php.
Cloud Computing Certification Announced by 3Tera® is a post from: Hosting News and Reseller Web Hosting information.
Any organization would find it irresponsible and downright silly to not have anti-virus software installed on their office systems. Most would also have solutions in place to compensate for data restoration should their be a hardware failure or disaster caused by some sort of natural disaster. Surprisingly enough, far two many business owners are unaware that their websites are vulnerable to the same type of attacks as their local machines. This is especially the case in shared and virtual environments where a multitude of sites are running on the same server.
In May 2007, more than 90,000 sites were compromised by hackers, a large scale exploit designed to illegally install malicious code on the computers of visitors who clicked on seemingly harmless search results. A StopBadware study showed that an estimated 10% of those compromised sites were maintained by one hosting firm in particular, which accounted for 250,000 infectious websites. This is just one of many examples that prove no website is ever as safe as we might think.
Common Threats to Business Websites
Hackers employ several methods and tricks to exploit websites. Below we will focus on three that are most commonly used to attack business sites: SQL injection, cross site scripting and CRLF injection.
SQL Injection
SQL injection is by far one of the most popular website attacks employed today. This technique primarily works by sending false or malicious requests to a back-end database to manipulate the information it contains. By doing so, the attacker can view whatever information is stored in the database, change it, or erase it completely. Most websites would not exist without the presence of databases but unfortunately, any site that features shopping carts, search fields, and any type of web form is susceptible to SQL injection. The fields that require interaction from your visitors and customers could open up the door a hacker needs to thieve sensitive data and destroy your company.
Cross Site Scripting
Cross site scripting is another common attack that exploits holes in dynamic websites. Dynamic pages can allow an attacker to insert malicious code and trick an end-user into running a harmful script on their computer. If the user executes the code, the hacker could gain access to all of the sensitive information on their local machine. Cross site scripting takes advantage of numerous programming technologies including Active X, Flash, Javascript and VBScript.
CLRF Injection
Unlike most exploits, CLRF injection does not take advantage of security vulnerabilities in the operating system or web software. Instead, it exploits the manner in which the application was scripted. For instance, an attacker can insert a statement into a web form along with code from CR (Carriage Return) and LF (Line Feed) characters. The chance for exploit arises when the application mistakes this injection for a CLRF used in the initial development stage. This attack is very dangerous as it has the power to disable an entire website.
This article is not aimed to make you a website security expert, but make you aware that security for your business site should be equally important as your local machines. To assume that your business will never be exploited only exposes you to unnecessary risks that could put you out of commission effective immediately.
Dallas, Texas – (The Hosting News) – August 26, 2009 – Web hosting virtual data center services provider, SoftLayer, has begun offering EVault Bare Metal Restores (BMR), as an advanced disaster recovery capability.
Designed to enable customers to completely restore servers to a bare metal state after an operating system or hardware failure, servers are restored to the latest system image safely stored in a secure SoftLayer repository.
Andrew Maten, Director of IT Systems at SoftLayer remarked, ”Everything we offer is about giving our customers more flexibility, confidence, and control. EVault BMR is a powerful, no-nonsense tool for getting systems back up quickly without losing data or functionality.”
EVault BMR is available for Microsoft Windows systems with SoftLayer’s standard EVault offering. For only $20/month it provides a wide range of benefits, including the capability to:
- Restore systems to a select point-in-time
- Restore systems from image or file-based backups
- Restore systems from EVault backups
- Launch recovery transactions to restore data without a bootable system
The solution provides a more efficient and more reliable alternative to manual restores, and can be used in conjunction with regular backups as well as for data migration. System administrators can choose to execute full system restores or to restore individual files. As with all SoftLayer services, EVault BMR can be ordered and setup through the SoftLayer Customer Portal.
Headquartered in Plano, Texas, SoftLayer delivers 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.
Dallas, Texas – (The Hosting News) – August 26, 2009 – Web hosting virtual data center services provider, SoftLayer, has begun offering EVault Bare Metal Restores (BMR), as an advanced disaster recovery capability.
Designed to enable customers to completely restore servers to a bare metal state after an operating system or hardware failure, servers are restored to the latest system image safely stored in a secure SoftLayer repository.
Andrew Maten, Director of IT Systems at SoftLayer remarked, ”Everything we offer is about giving our customers more flexibility, confidence, and control. EVault BMR is a powerful, no-nonsense tool for getting systems back up quickly without losing data or functionality.”
EVault BMR is available for Microsoft Windows systems with SoftLayer’s standard EVault offering. For only $20/month it provides a wide range of benefits, including the capability to:
- Restore systems to a select point-in-time
- Restore systems from image or file-based backups
- Restore systems from EVault backups
- Launch recovery transactions to restore data without a bootable system
The solution provides a more efficient and more reliable alternative to manual restores, and can be used in conjunction with regular backups as well as for data migration. System administrators can choose to execute full system restores or to restore individual files. As with all SoftLayer services, EVault BMR can be ordered and setup through the SoftLayer Customer Portal.
Headquartered in Plano, Texas, SoftLayer delivers 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.
Dallas, Texas – (The Hosting News) – August 26, 2009 – Web hosting virtual data center services provider, SoftLayer, has begun offering EVault Bare Metal Restores (BMR), as an advanced disaster recovery capability.
Designed to enable customers to completely restore servers to a bare metal state after an operating system or hardware failure, servers are restored to the latest system image safely stored in a secure SoftLayer repository.
Andrew Maten, Director of IT Systems at SoftLayer remarked, ”Everything we offer is about giving our customers more flexibility, confidence, and control. EVault BMR is a powerful, no-nonsense tool for getting systems back up quickly without losing data or functionality.”
EVault BMR is available for Microsoft Windows systems with SoftLayer’s standard EVault offering. For only $20/month it provides a wide range of benefits, including the capability to:
- Restore systems to a select point-in-time
- Restore systems from image or file-based backups
- Restore systems from EVault backups
- Launch recovery transactions to restore data without a bootable system
The solution provides a more efficient and more reliable alternative to manual restores, and can be used in conjunction with regular backups as well as for data migration. System administrators can choose to execute full system restores or to restore individual files. As with all SoftLayer services, EVault BMR can be ordered and setup through the SoftLayer Customer Portal.
Headquartered in Plano, Texas, SoftLayer delivers 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.
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