Colocation Services

What Is A Data Center?

2009-04-24T00:05:00.000-07:00

Why is it important to have a data center for that matter? A data center is a facility that will house a good amount of the electronic equipment (and information) that a business or group has and needs. There will be computers and communication elements in this area as well as a number of other vital components to keeping the business running smoothly. What is essential about a data center is security and maintenance.

Companies may have more than one data center as well. Most mid size or higher companies will have at least one data center though. There are many types of data that can be stored in these centers. For example, a financial institution will maintain their clients accounts, numbers and activities in the data center. Businesses will keep client names, accounts, and projects in a data center as well. Because the data a business has is so very important to their existence and their performance, turning to a data center is an excellent option for this type of storage need.

Inside of a data center you are likely to find various types of computers, internet servers as well as many other items. To keep these items safe, data centers are often built and secured physically as well as logistically to protect them. Security is extremely high. They can be one of the safest environments in the city. The main job of a data center is to maintain and run applications to allow businesses to access and manage their files effectively.

There are many information portals now devoted to the subject and we recommend reading about it at one of these. Try googling for “data center info” and you will be surprised by the abundance of information on the subject. Alternatively you may try looking on Yahoo, MSN or even a decent directory site, all are good sources of this information

Get more info at Data center site.

Four Power System Problems Common in Colocation Facilities

2009-04-14T04:39:00.000-07:00

The primary factor that determines uptime for servers in a colocation facility is power. Power outages will knock a network offline and even damage hardware such as motherboards, memory, and hard drives. Despite how intrinsic power is to keeping businesses connected to their networks, only 2% to 3% of colocation facilities have the right power systems in place. The other 97% of facilities most commonly lack redundancy, multiple units carry the energy load even if one unit fails, or have units that are running above capacity, so a unit failure will cause the other units to overload and fail. Every part of the power system – uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), transfer switches or circuit breakers, generators, and power distribution units (PDU) – should be redundant and running below capacity.

Problem 1: Non-redundant Power Grids
Multiple PDUs connected to separate power grids and multiple UPSs should be designed into the colocation facility to offset a power grid failure. Colocation facilities with redundant power grids can connect customer servers to different grids at the same time, so that even if one goes offline, the other will work, keeping the network running without interruption.

Problem 2: Non-redundant UPSs
The UPSs supply power during an outage until the generator can come online; if the UPSs do not turn on immediately at the time of failure, then the network will go down. Even with high quality UPSs, failures are common, so it is critical for there to be multiple redundant UPS units in an “n+1” configuration – all of the necessary UPSs, plus an extra. Functionally, this means that each UPS runs sufficiently below capacity to handle a unit failure without the other units overloading. If there are two UPSs, then each unit must run below 50%, so that if one fails, the other can continue without overloading. If there are three units, each must run below 66%; four units, below 75%. The current load is shown on the display on the front of the UPS.

Problem 3: Transfer Switch Failures
Most colocation facilities use mechanical transfer switches, which are not as dependable as circuit breakers, to switch power from the electric utility to the generator. These switches are one of the most common places the power system fails. Without redundant switches to transfer power at the same point, a transfer switch failure will mean that a network goes down.

Problem 4: Insufficient Generator Capacity
Generators supply power during an outage. To run without overloading, the generator must have capacity to run 1.5 times the total building load. Ideally, a colocation facility should have a redundant backup generator in case the primary generator fails, and the facility should have a process in place for switching power between generators. Having multiple generators is not the same as having redundant generators. One of the most common generator problems with colocation facilities is that the facility started out with a small generator and added generators as it grew. This creates multiple points where power has to be transferred during an outage, increasing the likelihood that a network will go down. As a practical consideration, the generators must be well-maintained, tested monthly, and fully supplied with fuel.

Points to Consider
Fewer than one in twenty colocation facilities have the best power systems in place despite the fact that power systems have the most impact on network uptime. Without well-maintained and redundant components running below capacity at every part of the system, network performance as well as server performance and equipment lifetime will suffer. To make sure that the power system at a colocation facility is robust enough to handle power and equipment failures, two words should be remembered: capacity and redundancy.

American Internet Services is the premier San Diego colocation service provider with state-of-the-art Internet data center technology. http://www.colocation.ccccom.com

Setting up a Web Server - An Easy, yet Misunderstood Step to Hosting your Website from Home

2009-04-02T04:25:00.000-07:00

You might be trying to decide whether you want to host your website yourself rather than pay a hosting company. Maybe you just want to learn how it is done, or you want to save some money by doing it yourself. In this article I'll discuss the most important part of hosting your website from home, the web server.

The word "server" sounds scary and because of this many people think only a professional hosting company can host a website. This is not true. A server is nothing more than software that runs in the background listening to requests from "clients." The client in our case is an internet browser, like Internet Explorer.

How do you get a web server? Most Windows operating sytems come with a web server that just needs to be installed. There are also web servers than can be downloaded for free, like Apache. I'm not going to go over how to do this. In this article I'll discuss the concepts and what's needed to get your web server up and running and serving your site to the public after it's been installed. Every web server is different but the concepts are the same. By going over the general concepts that are true for any web server, you'll know what to look for regardless of the software you are using.

Like I mentioned before, a server is just software that runs in the background. A web server is a server that listens to requests from internet browsers for a specific page, finds that page in the computer it is running on and then sends it to the browser that requested it. Keeping this in mind, can you believe there are actually just two things you need to do to have your web server configured?

1) Tell your web server where to find your web site. Your website probably consists of multiple pages. You need to tell the web server the path of the folder where you keep your pages. For example, when someone types www.yourdomain.com/main.html, the server will look in the folder where all your pages live, and look for file main.html.

2) Tell your web server about your default page. This is the page that is displayed when someone types www.yourdomain.com in their browser without specifying a page. The web server already has some default page names like "index.html" so if you have a page with this name it will be displayed by default when no document is specified in the request. You may also add some more default file names to your web server. If you don't want to name your file "index.html" you can tell your web server that your default page's name is "mainpage.htm."

This is basically all there is to configuring your web server. Actually, there is more, but these two steps will allow your web server to start serving your website. Of course, there is also more to hosting your website from home, like getting a domain name, dealing with your router if you have one, but these topics are beyond the scope of this article.

I hope I've convinced you of how easy it is to set up a web server, which happens to be the most important step to hosting your website from home.

For more information on hosting your website from home please visit Setting up a Web Server and Getting your Own Domain Name

Hosting Your Own Web Server: Things to Consider

2009-03-25T23:34:00.000-07:00

p>Are you disgusted or disappointed with your current web host? Have you switched web hosting companies too many times? Have you thought of hosting your own website(s)? Do you have the ambition to control and manage your own web server?

If you answered 'yes' to the questions above, then you may be ready to host your own sites. This article will give you things to consider while making the switch.

When being your own web host you should be technically inclined and have basic knowledge of operating systems, understand technical terms, understand how to setup a server environment (such as: DNS, IIS, Apache, etc.) have basic knowledge of scripting languages and databases (PHP, Perl, MySQL, etc.), be familiar with current technologies, and have a basic understanding of hardware and server components.

You should realize the pros & cons. It is one thing to say, you want to host your own web server and it is another thing to actually do it.

Pros:

Own sense of responsibility
Awareness level raised (you are at the frontline of all server happenings)
No monthly hosting fees/accounts
Incompetence no longer exist
Non-shared environment (dedicated server)
Unlimited websites, databases, content, storage, etc.
More bandwidth
No more waiting on someone else time
Complete control

Cons:

Exhausting at times
Faced with server/hardware problems
ISP business account (monthly business/broadband expense)
If server goes down then the website is offline
No technical support team
Software, hardware, and network expenses

There could be many more pros & cons but I’ve pointed out some of the major ones. Managing a web server starts as a full time job, you must constantly monitor its performance and security. This can sometimes be an exhausting task, especially if you currently have other responsibilities. Though, the control you will have over your website and its performance is rewarding enough. You no longer have to wait for technical support or approval to install a script onto the server. You can have as many websites and databases you want, as long as your hardware can handle it. You no longer have to go into the discussion forums and search for the best web host or rant about how much you hate your current host. You can even begin hosting family & friends personal websites.

Ask yourself, how technically advanced are you? Many times you do not have to be a tech guru or anything of the sort, but you must be very resourceful. You must know how to find resolutions and answers to problems, quickly and efficiently. This means you must be internet savvy. Not just the average surfer, who surfs aimlessly, but you must be the surfer who can always find what they are looking for. This is key, because with any server environment you are going to run into problems and finding the answers are most accomplished online, using multiple resources, search techniques, and engines. Sure you can hire someone to fix your problems, but as we should have learned from the "web hosting", having someone do it for you isn't always the best option. Here is a test to see if you are ready to find solutions. I need a solution to a Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Event Error - "Event ID: 1056” it’s a DHCP Server Error. How would you search? Go ahead find the solution.

Did you first go to Google? If you did, that was a nice effort and common for most, plus a good place to start, but usually it is best to start at the developers' website. In this case "microsoft.com" would have been the first option. Why? Google would more than likely provide you with the answer from Microsoft and other sources, but you don't want to get inaccurate information from other sources. It is common to get information from Microsoft that would not specifically resolve your problem, but the developer should always be your first place to search for the answers. Now search the error again and go to the Microsoft site and find the solution.

You should had found this link: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;282001 (Event ID 1056 is Logged after installing DHCP)

What search phrase did you use? It should have been Event ID: 1056, because the Event ID is the exact error, it pinpoints your exact problem without broadening your search. Sometimes the error description is also appropriate to search, just the error description by itself or in combination with the Event ID. It depends on your error, your search feedback, your ability, and technique. For this example I did not include the error description.

Google or Yahoo! should have been your second option (the two largest search engines). Then search other smaller and niche search engines. A good search site which makes use of Google’s operator tags is www.soople.com. Next you should search within forums and discussion groups. If you are pretty internet savvy and have a plentiful or few forums and discussion groups which you frequent then you might actually visit those places before visiting Google or Yahoo!. You can even visit those before visiting the developer site since it is a trusted source, but I wouldn't recommend it, I still would go to the developers' site first. Okay, so now we have planted our feet and have familiarized ourselves with being internet (search) savvy. We are ready to purchase a server!

When making a server purchase you need to consider a few things before doing so. What to buy? A top of the line, quadruple processor, and super fast turbo server is always ideal, but many times it is not logical or affordable. Therefore, you need to weigh your options (sensibly).

What to buy?

First determine your budget. Be realistic and expect to spend at least $2,500 for a low-end server. For a low-end, quality server with other needed equipment and services I spent a little over $4,500 easily.

Determine your ISP (broadband) provider. Research and speak with several different vendors before deciding which broadband solution best suit your needs. Each provider plan is different and has different benefits, determine the best one which fits your needs. Bandwidth should be put into consideration when choosing your ISP.

A backup device should be purchased before implementing a server install. The backup device should be double the server storage space. This could be a standalone unit like an external hard drive or network storage device or the backup device could be multiple devices such as: backup tapes, disc, etc. The reason the backup device should be larger is because you want to be able to have months worth of backups and not just weekly or monthly backups. You should have at least 24 weeks of backups without the concern of storage space. The backup device or safe deposits should also be external, removable, and portable. This is so the backups can be stored in a remote location. Usually for safe-keeping, in event of a theft or disaster.

Determine your daily traffic goal (the daily traffic which you hope to see within 1 year – be realistic), divide that number by the daily traffic you currently receive, and then multiply that number by 5. That is the total number of GB space you need. Example:

Daily Traffic Goal: 10,000 (Divided by) Current Daily Traffic: 500 (Times X) 5 = 100GB

In the example you should purchase a 100GB Hard Drive, it is best to buy 2 or more drives oppose to 1. In this case, since 50GB drives do not exist or harder to find, you would buy two 60GB drives giving you a total of 120GB. 2 or more drives are usually needed in a server to configure the proper RAID option, in some cases 3 or more are needed. Your backup storage space should be a minimum capacity of 200GB (or 240GB, optional).

Determine your memory. If your web server daily traffic goal is 500,000 then I would recommend at least 2GB worth of memory. If it is a shared server, meaning it also has other server services running on the machine, especially a mail server or database server (which is not recommended) then your memory should at least be 3GB or more. Otherwise you can think small and upgrade as needed, a 1GB memory stick should be fine for starters.

Determine your network components, which NIC card best performs under high traffic levels and which router best performs for your LAN / web server. It is best to get a router which has a built-in firewall (commonly known as a “hardware firewall”). Your ISP may provide you with a router or hardware firewall, this is how they are able to authorize your traffic on their network. Like a cable box does for cable television. The router also shares your IP address with other clients on your network. This enables you to share your internet connection without having to get a different IP from your ISP. The hardware firewall is simply a router with a built-in firewall, which means it shares your IP address as well as provides added protection to your network. It blocks bad addresses and ports at the forefront, before it can even make it to your computer. It is not recommended to rely only on a hardware firewall for security, this is just the first step. It is recommended to also include a software firewall (firewall software which installs on your computer) and it is recommended to continue timely security practices, such as updating and patching your system on a scheduled routine.

Determine your processor speed and power. Regardless of the amount of traffic you are expecting I would recommend a dual processor or greater. A dual processor or greater is best because if your website unexpectedly take off then you will be well prepared and if you host other server options or websites on the same server then you will have better performance. At the time of this writing the 64-bit platform is the processor direction. 3.8GHz is the most available speed. If your pockets can afford the latest technologies then that is ideal, but keep in mind at this particular time a 64-bit compatible processor is not necessary, without having many applications that require or deliver on that platform. That is a lot of speed going no where fast. Also, remember the power of the 64-bit platform and the greater the processor speed the more heat it produces, therefore it must be cooled much more rapidly and efficiently. At this time a dual 32-bit, 2.8GHz – 3.2GHz processor will suffice (even that is way more than enough). Though, if your pockets can afford it then the latest and greatest would be fine, you will be well prepared. Otherwise, do like most people and upgrade when the time comes.

Make sure you have a CD/RW drive. A floppy disk drive is not needed, but I do recommend it for making system restore disk. The CD/RW drive is needed because you need some type of removable storage device. You never know when you need to install a driver from a different location…like a ethernet driver. An external CD/RW drive is the best option, especially if you have multiple machines.

Choose your operating system carefully. Choose the vendor which you are most comfortable with. Do not choose a MAC if you never used a MAC before. Just because your friend suggests it and says it is a piece of cake does not mean it will be for you. You are trying to get a web server online not re-learn a whole new system. Stay focused and grounded. If you are comfortable with Microsoft then go with Microsoft, regardless if the IT person at your job says Microsoft products are unsecure, Linux or Unix is more secure and much better for a web server. If you have never used Linux or (especially) Unix then you will be in for a ride of your life. Your web server experience will soon become a nightmare and you will have wasted thousands of dollars on equipment. Go with what you know, not what you are told. Each platform has its pros and cons: Microsoft is the user-friendly of them all; Mac is the web/graphic developer of them all; Linux is the open-source/developers paradise of them all; Unix is the most secure of them all. Each of them can be tweaked in ways to provide a solid, quality platform, it is best to stick with what you already know.

You should install on your system all the web services (such as: Apache, IIS, etc.), applications (such as: backup device software, RAID (Array) Manager), scripting languages (such as: PHP, Perl, etc.), CGI, Database (such as: MySQL, Microsoft SQL, etc.), and a web log analyzer (such as: weblog expert, nihuo, etc.). It is also recommended to perform system updates, security patches, and firewall installs and configurations. It is sometimes best to leave the security installs and configurations for after you have the system functioning properly to avoid any uncalculated problems. This way when you install the firewall and something stops working properly like connecting to your website from outside your network, you can troubleshoot assuming that it is the firewall, therefore you would begin by opening port 80 on the firewall. This method can save you a lot of hassle, but can sometimes be considered the unsecure method, especially if you don’t have a hardware firewall already in place.

Next, there are a few things to consider before installing and configuring a server. Where to put it? A secluded, cool location is ideal, but if this cannot be accomplished then adjustments can be made.

Where to put it?

Locate a location within your home that is static-free, we do not want to put the server on the carpet, near curtains, or anything else that can produce a static reaction. The reason for this is that you do not want the server internal components to receive a static charge and short circuit.

The location should be a cool environment, preferably below room temperature. The reason for a cool area is because servers (as well as desktop computers) produce large amounts of heat, the more heat it produces the more it needs to cool off. If the server is not kept cool, then this can lead to the server hanging and then eventually crashing. It's the same result of when a car overheats, it stops running. You can keep a server internal components cool by keeping the room cool, additionally you can add more fans to the server which cools the server internal components, you can also position a standalone fan directly at the server back panel and constantly have the fan cool the server internal components. Depending on how cool your room is and how much heat your server produces, getting more fans for your server may be a must and not an option.

It is suggested that the server is at a higher level within your house (mid-floor), because if it is in the basement and a flood occurs it could ruin it. If it is in the attic and the sun beams on the attic for hours the server could overheat. Mid-floor level is usually the cooler place within the home, but these recommendations is optional and you should put the server in the most comfortable and convenient space following the rest of the guidelines.

Be sure the area you choose is not damp or wet (no leaks, moisture, near any liquids, or near a window “especially open”). We all know what can happen when electrical components get wet.

The server should sit at least 4” inches from the ground

Be sure a working electrical outlet is near. It is an important to have a power supply, a good brand is APC. Having a power supply can save you from electrical outages, blackouts, and brownouts. Having a power supply helps the server keep its power, remain stable, and unaffected when there is an outage, as well it protects your server against electrical shock. If your outage remains more than 5 minutes it is recommended to begin backing up anything deemed important and shut the computer down voluntarily as well as any other electrical attached devices.

Have a LAN line near and also a phone jack (if you plan on using the server for any dial-up services). It is not recommended to use your web service with a dial-up connection. A broadband connection or greater is recommend for optimal performance. The LAN line should never come from your wall and plug directly into your server, it should plug into a hardware firewall (usually a router with a built-in firewall).

Depending on the size of the server and the internal components the server may be extremely noisy and loud, especially with the fans going. It is suggested to have the server in a secluded location which is not near any peaceful area of the house, such as: bedroom.

Those are all some basic things to consider before hosting your own server. Hosting your own server is not an easy task, but once you have had some time and experience with it, it becomes a breeze. You will have a better web hosting experience, you will be more in tune and reliant to your customers, and you will gain greater technical aptitude. Hosting your own web server is rewarding, useful, and gives you the opportunity to host unlimited websites, databases, services, etc.

If your web traffic becomes too great for your server then it is recommended to choose an offsite web host. It is recommend to purchase a dedicated server with a quality web host. If you choose a server with the above recommendations then your server traffic should be fine for at least up to 25,000,000 page views per month. It could be greater or less depending on your operating system, your server configuration, performance, applications, and services. The point is you should be well in a position to purchase dedicated server space by the time your traffic gets too high, because if you are getting anything close to 1,000,000 page views a month you should have some competitive advertising or ecommerce income. And plus, with the knowledge you will gain from the experience you will be able to support your own server at a dedicated server (remote) location, thus cutting more overhead.

The biggest disadvantage of hosting your own web server is the uptime reliability. If your web server powers down for any reason then your website is offline. Usually web hosting companies have methods and networks to prevent this failure from affecting your website. Usually if the system goes down they have a mirror location where your site is rejuvenated and doesn’t experience much downtime. Some web hosts do not practice this method or any other fault tolerance. Imagine if a blackout or power outage occurs, then your web server could be down for hours or even days, this can affect your business greatly. There are some hosting companies who provide mirror web hosting for a small fee, I haven’t found one that is reliable yet. Or you could cross your fingers and hope for the best, until you are able to host your server outside your home on a larger network.

Hosting your own server usually is not a money-saving experience. It sometimes cost more to host your own server, when you total the up keep and maintenance. The benefit of hosting your own server is usually a better platform for your customers, because it is no longer a shared server and it gives you the ability to make global changes almost instantaneously. When your customers request more performance or specific applications, then you will be able to implement this immediately. Customers like to know that you are in control. If you tell your customers that the server will be down for maintenance from 6 a.m. – 7 a.m. then it would be best if that is when your server is down, not from 5 a.m. – 10 a.m. You know how your web host will tell you one thing and then you have to try explaining it to your customer. In the end it will benefit you to host your own web server as a web business, this helps you and your customers.

About The Author

Ant Onaf is the owner and founder of http://www.JournalHome.com He is an online internet marketer, content writer, and IT consultant. Ant Onaf has years of IT-related experience and Internet-related experience. His ingenuity, dedication, and passion for technology, internet marketing, & writing have made him a monumental icon in the World Wide Web. His blog can be visited at http://www.journalhome.com/AntOnaf

Select a Web Server Dedicated to Your Success

2009-03-19T23:43:00.000-07:00

If you have a successful online business, you might want to consider looking for dedicated web hosting. The dedicated web hosting gives you the opportunity of having an entire server at your disposal, and that server is not shared with anybody else.

Even for a person who doesn't know too much about servers, the advantages are clear right from the start: you, as the webmaster, have full control over YOUR OWN server, including options of what operating system to use, the type of hardware, etc. You can customize everything according to your own personal desires, while the administration is handled by the hosting company.

The most important advantage of using an online dedicated web hosting is that your website performance (like loading time, which is an important factor for your visitors) will not be affected by the traffic of the other websites with which you would have been sharing your server's bandwidth.

The online dedicated web hosting environment provides you with an exclusive server or servers devoted to the sole purpose of serving yourself and your business only. You do not share hard disk space with other customers, and you avoid shared hosting.

Before dedicated web hosting existed, a web site developer used to have two hosting options, the low-priced shared hosting model and the premium-priced dedicated web hosting. A person who bought space on a shared host would get a certain amount of disk space and monthly transfer, and would have the web site served from a common web server.

The hosting company, in its' attempt to increase the popularity of their products, would provide a wide range of options for the web site developer. But, limitations would still be there. For example, if a customer needed a non-standard program installed or maybe wanted to use a privileged account in order for a particular utility to run, he would be completely not be able to achieve these goals.

A good example would be a web site which required a database to store the precious information in. Many hosting companies provide the standard MySQL database to use on their servers. If your application requires another type of database though, then it could prove to be incompatible with the shared hosting account. And trust me, databases are a very important element in the success of your internet business.

A dedicated web server can be customized anyway you want. But, there's also a catch. Because it can handle much more traffic than a shared hosting account, the far better performance doesn't come cheap. On average, dedicated web hosting can cost the savvy webmaster hundreds of dollars per month depending on the size of the server, network connectivity and the amount of management required from the hosting company.

Webmasters who don't quite fit into the standard shared hosting model and find that it doesn't work for them, or whose sites grow very popular and require a large amount of resources have the alternative of dedicated web hosting.

Reliable, affordable dedicated web hosting service
Dediated web hosting.
http://www.dedicatedwebhostings.com
More tips and advice on web server selection

http://www.webhostingbin.com

Dedicated Server vs. Co-location Web Hosting

2009-03-17T04:30:00.000-07:00

So - you know shared hosting no longer cuts it, and your single office connection is not enough to host a web server - so which is best, leasing a dedicated server or buying your own server and co-locating it someone's data center?

Difference

For those that are unsure of the difference, here it is in a nutshell. When you co-locate, you are simply renting space within someone else's facility to store your own server or servers. It's like a high tech gym locker that you are renting all or part of to house your servers. You either ship or deliver your server to your provider. Additional services provided with co-location vary from host to host but it certainly won't include the actual server. With a dedicated server you are getting all the features of co-location, plus the actual web server itself.

Which is better?

While it certainly depends on your particular needs, and there are excellent situations for both the dedicated server option is quickly becoming a better choice in more and more cases. If you already own a web server, or cluster that you prefer to use, then obviously co-location may be your best choice. If you are considering buying new equipment and shipping it off for co-location - please reconsider. The prices and equipment available in dedicated hosting these days are outstanding plus relieve you of the burden of hardware. Most hosts keep identical spare parts on hand for the types of servers used and are quick to react if something fails. Depending on your arrangement with a colocation deal hardware failure could mean paying to have a server shipped back (or you drive to get it), having it fixed yourself then sending it back to the data center.

Running a CGI Script on a Web Server

2009-03-09T05:29:00.000-07:00

For many years I have been writing Perl scripts to process ASCII files of one sort or another on my computer. I typically do this when I need to reformat or tidy up a series of HTML pages, for example.

To run a Perl script that is installed on your computer, which needs to process one or more files on your computer, and where the Perl interpreter is also installed on your computer, is very simple - you just need to double-click the perl script and it does the business - assuming that everything is set up correctly of course, for example, the location of the perl.exe program is defined in your path. You can also open a DOS window and type perl perlfile.pl to run a script (where perlfile.pl is the name of the Perl script you want to run).

However, when it comes to running a Perl script, or CGI script, on a web server, things can be a bit trickier - not too tricky, but a bit trickier.

In this article I'll look at two versions of the same script: one that will run quite happily on a local machine (by double-clicking the script, for example), and one that will run on a web server.

The script itself is very simple - it opens a file, changes some text inside the file, and then saves the file under a different name.

Version 1 - the local version

Here is version 1 of the script. This is the version that will run locally on a computer, without a web server is sight. Note that I've inserted spaces at appropriate places to prevent the code from being processed by your browser. I've done this wherever necessary in this article.

localScript.pl

$name = "before.htm" or die "cannot assign to variable: $!";
rename $name, "$name.bak" or die "cannot rename: $!";
open (IN, "<$name.bak") or die "cannot open: $!";
open (OUT, ">$name") or die "cannot create: $!";
undef $/;
while ($line = < IN >) {
$line =~ s/hello world/goodbye cruel world/s;
(print OUT $line);
}
close (OUT);
close (IN);
rename "before.htm", "after.htm";
rename "before.htm.bak", "before.htm";

This script opens a file called before.htm, uses a regular expression to change the string 'hello world' to 'goodbye cruel world', and writes the contents to a file called after.htm. If after.htm does not exist, it is created.

The file before.htm simply contains one line - hello world. So it's not even a proper HTML file in fact, but that doesn't matter for this exercise as it's the script that's important, not the file that's being processed.

Version 2 - the web server version

Here's the web server version of the script. It contains everything that's in version 1, plus a bit more. Again, I've inserted spaces where appropriate to ensure that the code displays correctly in your browser.

webScript.cgi

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use CGI qw(:all);
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser warningsToBrowser);
warningsToBrowser(1);
use strict;
print header;
my $name = "before.htm" or die "cannot assign to variable: $!";
rename $name, "$name.bak" or die "cannot rename: $!";
open (IN, "<$name.bak") or die "cannot open: $!";
open (OUT, ">$name") or die "cannot create: $!";
undef $/;
my $line;
while ($line = < IN >) {
$line =~ s/hello world/goodbye cruel world/s;
(print OUT $line);
}
close (OUT);
close (IN);
rename "before.htm", "after.htm";
rename "before.htm.bak", "before.htm";

A couple of initial points to note:

1. Why does the script have a .cgi extension instead of a .pl extension? CGI is an abbreviation for Common Gateway Interface, which is a specification for transferring information between a web server and a CGI script. So CGI iteself is not a language, but CGI scripts can be written in a number of languages of which Perl is one. If you write a Perl script with a .pl extension, and then change that extension to .cgi, the script becomes a CGI script, and providing it conforms to the CGI specification, it will run on a web server.

2. If you call this script webScript.pl it will run without any problems on a local disk - just as version 1 did. That's to say, all the extra code will not prevent it from running locally.

Ok, lets go through the script line by line to see what's going on.

Running the script

To run the script you need to first upload the script and the file before.htm into the cgi-bin directory on your web server. On your web server the cgi-bin directory might be called something else, but it will probably be recognizable as the place where cgi scripts need to be located.

By default, when you upload a file onto your web server it will probably have permissions of 644. You need to change these to 755 so that the script can be run by anyone. Your ISP should provide you with a way to do this. If not, contact me at john@dixondevelopment.co.uk and I'll send you a script to change the permissions for you.

Once you have uploaded the files and changed the permissions, all you need to do is browse to the script in your favorite browser. If the browser window is blank, then everything has probably worked OK. Check in your cgi-bin directory to see if the file after.htm has been created and that it contains the words 'goodbye cruel world'.

About the Author: John Dixon is a web developer and technical author. He enjoys developing database-driven websites using PHP, Perl, and MySQL. John is also interested in anything to do with computer history. Visit http://www.computernostalgia.net/listDocumentsOutline.htm to see the current list of computer history articles on his site. To find out more about John, visit http://www.dixondevelopment.co.uk.

Choosing the Right Web Server - Part 3 of the How To Build Your Web-Site Series

2009-03-02T02:47:00.000-08:00

In my previous articles in this series (Part One & Two on How To Build A Web Site both available here at EzineArticles.com) I began to outline just what is needed for the "real" web-site to succeed. In this article we are going to discuss the first important decision that you will have to make and which most people do not understand the far-reaching consequences that can affect and effect your web site way down the line as you get more sophisticated.

In the previous article Part Two of the How to Build Your Own Web Site series the first challenge we mentioned in our "Cookbook" was:

1. Web Server - Two choices here: Linux or Windows (and it does make a difference) And what else will my provider offer me?

Okay, so the first thing you may want to do to get an answer to this is to ask a few friends who are "techies". Before you do that get ready with some suitable body armor and make sure you can handle people frothing at the mouth and getting very excited about such a subject. You may find that some people will tell you:

"You are nuts to use a Linux Server. They are decent servers and fast that is true, but they require an incredible amount of attention and a System Administrator at the web hosting site that lives, breathes, eats and drinks Unix, Linux, RedHat etc. ."

And the others will tell you:

"Hah! Windows as a web server? Are you crazy? Open to attack. Vulnerable. Slow. Horrible to deal with. Crashes. Dll's all over the place that simply just crash. Microsoft? Keep them for Office. Big Boys use Linux!"

Okay, so now you are really confused. So let us get a few facts out there.

Both types of servers are vulnerable to attacks. Period.
Both types of servers need professional maintenance from trained professionals.
Both types of servers have been known to crash.

These are NOT the points you need to consider. What you do need to consider is the following:

Are you going to use a pure HTML site (all .htm pages) and are you going to use FrontPage or the equivalent to build it? In this case go with a Windows server.
Are you going to use ASP technology? - Must have Windows server.
Are you going to use Php? - You can use either Linux or Windows. However if you use Windows you must make sure you service provider supports PHP. Only they can answer that. Most people who use PHP use Linux servers and control access with the FTP changemod commands and a file called .htaccess. However, you can still use a Windows server with PHP and very effectively, I might add.
Are you going to need to need MYSQL Database? Database generation is sophisticated, but sometimes needed and often very important. Here I will make one clear point. Do not use Access for Web servers. It is slow, it is not made for large databases and it is very difficult to maintain on a web site. If you insist on using Access, then make sure you have a Windows server to support it. Don't forget to make sure that your web provider supports Mysql and gives you the ability to deal with your tables directly.

Still all mysterious for you?

Think ahead a bit. In actual terms you do not need to know nor should you care what server is being used as long as you have ftp access to your site and you can directly update it. However, if you are even an emerging "techie" then taking into account:

Database

PHP

ASP

HTML

FTP access

are all critical.

In truth the majority of web servers are not Windows servers. However, do not be fooled by that comparison. Remember, the Unix, Linux, RedHat variations are either totally FREE or very cheaply priced for the Web Farm compared to their purchase of a Windows Server License. That is one MAJOR reason that the Linux servers are out there and so popular.

So when you want to look for a web provider ("Server-Farm") on the net you will usually see that they offer either Windows Plans or Linux Plans. Consider what you think you will need in the future. Database? PHP? ASP? HTML?

In the next article we will discuss exactly what you should demand from your web provider (the Server-Farm) as part of the package.

Ted Gross runs Virgin Earth Article Submissions which is designed to accept articles about any country, place historical event or current events in the world. Virgin Earth Article Submissions gladly accept articles about travel and places and countries - and of course places of interest. From small towns and museums to the MET in NYC. From ball parks to zoos. Places of interest all over the world. Ted Gross is also a published author and maintains a web site for his works And of course maintains his blog when the muses hit him.

Dedicated Web Server Hosting

2009-02-21T05:47:00.000-08:00

Web hosting is one of the revolutionary breakthroughs brought to us by the advent of cyber technology. Now you can learn, play, interact, make friends, draw, or compose music on the Net. Dedicated hosting means creating a site and making it available on the internet. Nonetheless, Websites with multiple numbers of pages, or Websites which are commercial and business oriented, are hosted at various prices. Obviously, for that there has to be a registered domain name to run the related Website. Dedicated servers are meant for faster processing and more disk space and RAM than shared hosting. A dedicated server not only allows an individual to customize and individualize server settings for his unique requirements, but also augments all kinds of Web-based works with faster delivery and maximum performance. Service Level Agreements (SLA's) are another important part of the dedicated Web hosting server requirement systems.

A combination of highly technical characteristics contributes a lot to the optimal performance of a dedicated Web hosting server, to exercise total control over the Web and its other affiliated programs and other things.

A few of the most desirable features for the ideal dedicated Web-hosting server are:

a) High availability of data processing units

b) High performance data centers for maximum output in minimum time

c) Multiple backup generators along with battery backup

d) Fiber entry on two sides of the facilities

e) Superfluous path fiber to upstream providers through multiple transport providers

f) Total of more than twenty-five gigabyte Internet connections

g) Redundant network cores and total of 30 backbone routers for optimal output mode

h) Two network operations centers staffed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Dedicated Hosting provides detailed information on Dedicated Hosting, Dedicated Web Hosting, Dedicated Hosting Servers, Dedicated Web Server Hosting and more. Dedicated Hosting is affiliated with FTP Site Hosting.

Web Server Hosting

2009-02-17T02:40:00.000-08:00

A successful website does not end with a well designed website. If you have a website for your business, it should have an online presence in order to generate traffic. One of the most effective ways to do this is through web server hosting.

Web server hosting is a web hosting solution committed to providing you with the advanced changes in technology. It gives your online business exposure on the worldwide web in order to reach your target market. This makes you more competitive, and helps you keep up with the fast-paced online technology.

With so many web-hosting companies, packages for web server hosting also begin to look very similar. That is why you have to look at all the features and small details included in the package such as articles, images, shopping carts and music.

Before you choose a web server-hosting package, you must first know your specific needs such as the amount of traffic per month, size of disk space, number of needed email addresses and price. After determining your needs, you can start your search for a server hosting company with a web server hosting service that features 24/7 live support, a 30-day money-back guarantee, Windows and Linux hosting, shared SSL and free setup.

When looking for a web server hosting company, you can begin your search by going online. You can also rely on word of mouth. Sometimes, colleagues can recommend a company. Online and printed advertisements can also help you in your search.

With stiff competition in the online industry, it is necessary that you rely on web server hosting solutions to better give you an online presence. This way, your competitors will not leave you behind the scene.

Server Hosting provides detailed information on Server Hosting, Dedicated Server Hosting, Web Server Hosting, SQL Server Hosting and more. Server Hosting is affiliated with Free ASP Hosting.

Web Server And Web Hosting Services - An Overview

2009-02-14T00:07:00.000-08:00

Web hosting providers provide the following basic services for web servers - anything else can be considered add-on features in theory, although in practice they are essential to run a successful Internet business or business website.

A web hosting provider should provide the following functionality for your web server:

1. Hard Disk Space.
This is what you are actually renting, for all practical purposes. You need hard disk space on a web server to host your website. A website really consists of a lot of files, much like MSWord documents, or Excel spreadsheets. These files take up hard disk space. The web hosting provider provides you with space so that people around the world who has access to the Internet can access those files on that web server.

The price or hard disks have come down dramatically over the past year or so and it is not unknown for a hosting provider to make provision for packages from 250Megabytes up to 2000 Megabytes and even more.

How much would you need? The average web site that just makes use of static HTML pages need about 5 MB to 10 MB of space. If you use a dynamic website where some of your data is stored in a MySQL database the database will also take up space. These types of sites require more space and anything between 100MB and 250MB should be enough.

If you are going to store emails on your server you need to add these into your calculations. Emails can take up a lot of web space very quickly if people send you large files. You will need to monitor the space taken up by Emails very carefully since I have seen individual mailboxes go up to 50 or 60 MBs very quickly.

If you want to host video or audio files on your server, you will have to make provision for quite a lot more disk space. One audio file can easily take up 30 to 40MB.

2. Bandwidth
Bandwidth depends on your traffic. Every visitor to your website will consume bandwidth since this is what they will use when they open any pages on your site. Once again, if you have video and audio files on your site you will require more bandwidth. A good rule of thumb is to have an allocation of about 100KB (Kilobytes) for every visitor. This means that 500 visitors per month will consume about 50MB of bandwidth - although this is only true for an average site with mostly text and a few pictures. If you have large picture galleries, audio and/or video files you should rather work on 150KB per visitor or even more. Search engine spiders also consume bandwidth! You should monitor your bandwidth usage through your CPanel control panel or your website statistics and make sure that you communicate early enough with your hosting provider in case you need to purchase more bandwidth to prevent penalties and/or lockouts.

3. Access to your site
Under this can be counted access to a control panel, such as CPanel, Plesk or Helm, that will help you with setting up of emails, sub-domains, software installations and your MySQL database if you are running dynamic functionality such as shopping carts, forums, Content Management Systems etc.

You are also going to need FTP access to upload files to your web server. Without being able to use FTP you will not be able to maintain the content on your site (unless you make use of a Content Management System). FTP access is still required even in that case since you will definitely have occasion to have to upload files such as pictures, audio, video and other files to your server.

These are the very basic functionality that a web hosting provider should provide!

Christine Anderssen is the owner of Tailormade4You Web Design and Web Development Services and Internet Web Hosting for South Africa. Read the original article on http://www.internet-web-hosting.co.za/webhosting-info/web-server-and-web-hosting-services.html

Applying Data Center Performance Measurement to Mitigate Challenges

2009-02-11T03:41:00.000-08:00

Organizations increasingly depend on their IT infrastructure to support mission-critical activities. IT personnel are held accountable for managing this infrastructure and data center performance measurement is a vital tool in maintaining high performance and delivery. From assessing and ensuring the availability of critical facilities, monitoring geographically dispersed environments, and improving the overall organizational bottom line, IT personnel require tools that allow them to measure performance and proactively identify and mitigate potential issues. Several industry-related publications and groups have noted the importance of data center metrics, and have named the need to measure data center performance as a key issue for 2006 and 2007. (1)

Recommended Data Center Performance Measurements and Solutions

Issue #1: Ability to Track and Assess Equipment Availability
For most organizations, the cost of server or network downtime is significant and internal customers expect network and system availability of “Five Nines” or 99.999% (2). On a daily basis, IT managers need to be able to assess availability/reliability of equipment and all external components that support operations, so that they can reduce downtime, identify and mitigate issues, and provide a secure environment for an organization’s mission-critical equipment. IT professionals also need an effective way to review historical trends to identify equipment or systems that need to be redesigned or replaced.

Meeting the Challenge: Environmental monitoring solutions provide real-time feedback about critical systems with continuous, proactive monitoring of all pertinent factors including temperature, amperage draw, humidity, dew point, and physical security. These solutions allow administrators to set thresholds for environmental conditions and send alerts securely via e-mail, text message, or SNMP if said thresholds are exceeded. In addition, environmental monitoring systems provide valuable historical reports, alert information, and logs that allow administrators to identify trends and adapt practices accordingly. This data can help with statistical analysis, modeling, and forecasting.

Centralized Environmental Monitoring Solution

Issue #2: Ability to Assess Availability/Reliability of Critical Facilities
When assigning critical resources, IT professionals need to determine the highest-priority sites and facilities. Several organizations have proposed systems to help administrators classify and rate their facilities. For example, the Uptime Institute applies a four-tier classification system based on factors such as fault tolerance, useable capacity, sustainability, and concurrent maintainability (3). As another approach, the Syska Hennessy Group provides a seven-level criticality classification system that aims to help data center managers evaluate facilities that are vital to the mission of their organizations and provides a framework to help assess potential data center vulnerabilities (4). After determining critical sites, administrators need to be able to implement appropriate management and control systems.

Meeting the Challenge: Enterprise management solutions, such as KVM over IP or service processor aggregation appliances, provide administrators with 24/7 access to servers, serial devices, remote power, and other equipment both locally and remotely. These solutions provide BIOS-level access to mission-critical equipment, reducing system and network downtime by enabling immediate access to failed resources and centralizing data center management. These solutions also provide visibility to daily operations and occurrences through comprehensive audit logging and reporting tools. Enterprise-level management tools provide redundant architecture, including primary failover access at both the hardware and software levels.

Issue #3: Ability to Measure Energy Consumption in the Data Center
Across almost every industry, rising data center power consumption and heat are major issues, particularly as organizations are incorporating blade servers and high-density server racks into their IT infrastructures. Many organizations are studying how power consumption can be reduced in the data center. For example, the EPA is studying ways to make computer servers and data centers more energy efficient, and is considering a possible Energy Star designation for servers and other data center equipment. (5) The Green Grid, a newly formed non-profit consortium of information technology companies, is proposing the use of Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and Datacenter Efficiency (DCE) metrics, which would enable IT personnel to estimate the energy efficiency of data centers, compare results against other data centers, and determine if energy efficiency improvements need to be made. As defined by the Green Grid, Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)= Total Facility Power/ IT Equipment Power; Datacenter Efficiency (DCE)= IT Equipment Power/ Total Facility Power. (6)

Meeting the Challenge: Utilizing PUE and DCE information, IT personnel can begin to evaluate their own energy efficiency. Using these metrics, as well as application-specific data, data center managers should start to consider ways of reducing data center power consumption. Standalone data centers can also use the EPA Energy Star building performance rating tool, Portfolio Manager, to rate a facility’s energy performance in comparison to similar facilities (at the whole-building level). Some answers include transitioning to 208V or three-phase power provisioning. Higher voltage power reduces amperage requirements, allows equipment to operate more efficiently, and can reduce the amount of hardware required. IT personnel should conduct a thorough audit of equipment, determine if any servers can be consolidated or discarded, and clean up any clutter under the data center floor, such as cabling, that might be impeding air flow. The use of blanking panels and cable management accessories in the rack can also assist in these efforts.

References:
(1) Stansberry, Matt, “Top Ten Data Center Stories of 2006.” http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid80_gci1232599,00.html; MacKinnon, Chris, “How Is Your Data Center Performing? A Metric To The Madness.”http://www.42U.com/quicklink.aspx?url=http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/p2826/09p26/09p26.asp&guid=&searchtype=&WordList=&bJumpTo=True; and “Optimizing Datacenter Performance and Building ROI: The TeamQuest Approach”, IDC/TeamQuest, http://www.42U.com/quicklink.aspx?url=http://www.teamquest.com/pdfs/whitepaper/idc-roi.pdf

(2) Brill, Kenneth; Pitt, Turner; and Seader, John. “Tier Classifications Define Site Infrastructure Performance,” Uptime Institute, http://www.42U.com/quicklink.aspx?url=http://www.upsite.com/file_downloads/PDF/Tier_Classification.pdf

(3) Brill, Kenneth; Pitt, Turner; and Seader, John. “Tier Classifications Define Site Infrastructure Performance,” Uptime Institute, http://www.42U.com/quicklink.aspx?url=http://www.upsite.com/file_downloads/PDF/Tier_Classification.pdf

(4) Burkhardt, Jerry and Dennis, Richard. “Assessing criticality levels in the data center”, Data Center Management Advisory Newsletter, http://www.42U.com/quicklink.aspx?url=http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid80_gci1218937,00.html

(5) “Enterprise Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency Initiatives” http://www.42U.com/quicklink.aspx?url=http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=products.pr_servers_datacenters

(6) “Green Grid Metrics: Describing Datacenter Power Efficiency”, http://www.42U.com/quicklink.aspx?url=http://www.thegreengrid.org/downloads/Green_Grid_Metrics_WP.pdf

This article was written by Lauren Nowenstein, Technical Writer, with guidance and input from DirectNET’s team of Solutions Sales Engineers. If you would like to send us feedback about this article, or have any questions, please write to us.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lauren_Nowenstein

More On How To Choose A Data Center

2009-02-02T05:52:00.000-08:00

As a follow-up to an earlier article "How To Choose A Data Center"....here are just a few other considerations / concerns I would recommend. Combine the lists from both articles and you're more likely to make a smart decision choosing a data center.

Current Customers:

This is not a guaranteed seal of approval, but a Data Center's current customer base should give you an idea of the type of due diligence that others have performed on the Data Center you are evaluating. If numerous Fortune 50 companies are at a Data Center then there is a good chance it is a reliable place to keep your servers. NOTE: Some Data Centers will take on a "marquee" client at a loss in order to get the brand name. Make sure there are at least 2 high profile companies colocated there.

Employee Retention:

Ask the company how long the facility engineers have worked for that particular Data Center. High turn-over can be an indication of a number of things (including issues).

Power Outages:

Ask about the last power issue / outage they suffered - time-frame, length of the outage, reason(s) for the outage, mitigation steps. Most Data Centers will face some time of issue over the course of its use and you want to make sure they are honest with you about past issues, and have taken steps to correct any errors.

Bandwidth Connectivity:

How many "separate" bandwidth feeds are coming into the facility? A lot of companies say they have peering with "numerous" providers. BUT, all of that fiber may be coming into the building in single conduit. That means that if someone is digging a trench your Internet access may be cut off.

Expansion:

If your company makes it big, will you have room to grow? Right now there are a LOT of Data Centers out of space and / or power. Make sure you aren't in a position where you have to choose another place to go down the road.

SLAs (Service Level Agreement):

Although there is no compensation for your e-commerce site taking a hit for an hour, make sure there are strict SLAs in place which will bring some financial relief in the case of an outage.

Managed Hosting:

There is a trade-off between owning the equipment (and keeping it at a Data Center), and utilizing a managed hosting provider. Make sure analyze the pros and cons of both based on the current and future needs of your business. If you have older equipment, don't want to staff-up, I.T. isn't your core competence, etc, then consider going managed.

Data Recovery:

No matter where you go...make sure you have a DR plan in place. Keep backups of everything off-site and have a plan of action (hot-spares, DNS change-over, contact list, etc).

Fire suppression systems:

What provisions does the facility have for fire suppression? Is it a regular sprinkler system, Dry Pip Pre-action, gaseous CO2 or something else.

A Water based system is to protect the building, it will not protect the systems or the data because you're spraying water on computer systems in the event of a fire. A Pre-action system with dry pipes that only charge when there is a fire detected (smoke and heat detectors) is better because it prevents a construction accident where a sprinkler head is bumped or a pipe is broken from causing an incident.

Gaseous CO2, Energen, Halotron, Halon, etc are best, but more expensive. A combination of CO2 where power is run (under the floor perhaps?) and Pre-action sprinkler's above allows for a small fire to be contained in the underfloor space before water enters into the equation.

One thing to be very wary are what kind of hand held extinguishers are in the Data Center space? Are they Dry Chemical? If so, that's bad. Very bad. A fire (say in a garbage can) that would not jeopardize the data center or building can be made worse (in terms of the protection of the data center) because when someone goes to fight that fire, they're going to perhaps put the fire out (likely if small) but very likely spread a corrosive dust around the data center which will require either replacement of the systems OR professional cleaning of them. Look for halogenated or CO2 type extinguishers in the data-center for handheld use.

Physical Security:

Armed security guards are better than not armed in my opinion. Better training (ie more) and a more serious perspective on security of the building and the people. Guards more able to respond to serious problems are preferable to an old retiring that's more of a night watchman who calls 911 when there's an issue.

Physical Structure security is also important. What kind of walls does the building have? Are they several layers of concrete block or just one layer? Is it glass? Bullet Resistant glass (also good in storms) and is there an inner layer between the glass and the rest of the facility?

Do they have spill protection kits for dealing with water leaks? If there's a major rain storm and the roof is damaged, how does this impact the facility? Badly, slightly, total shutdown? Look for drip pans over critical infrastructure like PDUs and UPS systems.

Logistics:

Does the facility have a good loading dock that's near the data center or sufficiently proximate? If not, you're going to have a harder time getting your systems to the data center to install them. A good sized door large enough for the largest of racks and gear is important. Is there a lab where you can diagnose problems with your systems there? An area where you can stand up your systems if you need to? How are you getting final configuration work done at the site?

Generator Power:

Fuel Supplies cannot be underscored. A large on-site bunker is a good thing to see. A contract with a fuel supplier to be able to provide supplemental fuel on a daily basis is also important. I've seen an instance where a call center was left without power because the backup generator ran out of fuel after running for 24 hours. No-one thought o check the generator and get a fuel shipment to the call center.

Generator Maintenance can be important as well. A periodic maintenance contract with a major service company is good. But having someone that rides herd on the generator and power systems themselves is also important. Many small things that would not be noticed by a rotating batch of mechanics would be noticed by someone that can get a feel for all of the systems and perform periodic checks. It could be as simple as noticing that Generator No 2 sounds off and realizing there's an exhaust leak or as complex as a lubrication problem that is only found by periodic oil and coolant analysis by a lab that specializes in such tasks.

Periodic maintenance of the fuel is also important. Fuel that becomes contaminated with water can stop a generator system cold if bacteria begin growing in the fuel. The sludge that the bacteria produce will clog injectors and pumps as well as the fuel filters themselves. Periodic checks of the fuel as well as polishing and treatment is important.

There you go. Now you're fully armed with all the details you need to select just the right data center to meet your needs....and expectations.

Michael is the owner of FreedomFire Communications....including DS3-Bandwidth.com and Business-VoIP-Solution.com. Michael also authors Broadband Nation where you're always welcome to drop in and catch up on the latest BroadBand news, tips, insights, and ramblings for the masses.

Top Three Factors to Consider While Choosing a Data Center for Your Business

2009-01-30T22:48:00.000-08:00

Data Centers are the core of the Internet. The computer servers that power the Interne,t call Data Centers their home. If you think of how many billions of online transactions that happen every day you will be amazed to know that the final resting place of all these stored transactions is the Data centers. This Amazement quickly turns into Panic when you think about how much private data and vital data is stored there. Over years the Data Center technologies have evolved a lot into much advanced techniques like server virtualization and high speed power houses. There are more than 100 factors one should evaluate a data center against before choosing one to home their servers. In this article we will see the three main that in turn dictate the rest of the factors.

1. Security: We just now saw how much data is stored, processed and served by the data centers. All these are vital data that makes or breaks a global economy. Security includes the data encryption capability of the servers, the security of the uplinks or the backbone networks that are employed. It includes security mechanisms like the Public key dongles and the capability to store the data securely and safely. The less talked aspect is the physical security of the box and the whole data center itself. We are talking about limiting snooping and sniffing the packets, but what happens if one person just walks in carries off a server. How much credit card data, transaction details, bank details and the SSN’s get compromised! You can have a slow box but an insecure one creates a ton of problems in the form of countless lawsuits. Choose the data center that excels in all aspects of security. Ask pointed questions, expect the right answers.

2. Reliability: The next important aspect is the reliability of the systems and the data center infrastructure itself. We are just not talking about backup machines or RAID 5 HDD. We are talking of highly available power systems with sufficient backup time and in house generators for emergencies. The additional aspect to consider is reliability of the company that offers the data center and the persons working for the company. You many want to talk a little bit about their hiring and daily authentication and authorization process if you are even a mid-sized company. Disaster recovery systems are critical for the five 9’s in reliability don’t be stalled because a California power-company had a complete emergency shutdown due to an earthquake or a hurricane in Florida. You should be able to gracefully failover to alternate sites.

3. High Speed: The third aspect is the much needed speed. This is more complex than you think. Adding a word saying that we have the high end servers making a data center a high speed infrastructure is minimum requirement. The network uplinks and the Internet backbone the center are connected to are also very important. You have to ask for custom solutions like caching technologies, load balancing blueprints and high end routers, switches and backplanes.

This article just touches on these major concepts and you have to do sufficient research on the keywords employed in this article. As I said there are 100 factors to consider before choosing the right datacenter. Any good company owning a data center would openly help you evaluate their infrastructure against these factors.

You can find a good Data Center with many of the good capabilities discussed in this article in fastpcnet.net. Ask them about their custom solution and how they measure against the deciding factors and you will be happy at the answers.

Author Holds a Masters in Distributed computing and does freelancing for many great Internet companies through the no fee free freelance website freelancefree.com.

Upgrading Your IT Data Center Affordably

2009-01-27T00:17:00.000-08:00

Your IT data center is the heart and nervous system of your business. Almost every transaction depends on having reliable, supportable technology. Servers, storage devices, routers, switches, cabling, telecom systems, even the simple KVM switch all play important and mission critical roles in making sure your business can run like a well oiled machine.

All businesses with data centers are constantly juggling the competing demands of price and functionality. How can you provide a stable, secure, and robust IT infrastructure while not spending too much money? Finding affordable solutions is always a top priority.

One of the best solutions is to buy refurnished products from top-quality brands with a proven track record. That way, you can have the latest Cisco switch or HP server, and not break the bank. This equipment is refurbished and tested to the highest OEM specification. Refurbished IT data center equipment can be supported by the manufacture so it will be easy to find the help and documentation your IT team depends on to keep your IT data center running smoothly.

Your IT data center relies on a variety of different types of equipment from enterprise servers to cabling. The key to an affordable solution is finding a one-stop shop for all of your equipment needs. A good IT data center equipment dealer will be able to help you choose the best solutions and provide refurbished equipment when it will save you money. Rather than spending your valuable time evaluating each manufacture, a good dealer will help you sort through the variety of options. Should you buy a Dell, IBM, HP or Sun server? Find a dealer that will listen to your business needs and help you choose the most affordable and effective product.

Networking equipment, like routers and switches, can seem foreign to many IT departments since they do not support them every day. There are so many options and it can be difficult to choose whether the CISCO WS-C6509 with 9 slots and Maximum PoE Scalability is a better choice than the Cisco Catalyst 2924 LRE XL Switch with Long Reach Ethernet. A good equipment dealer will help you choose and can provide refurbished CISCO equipment at a fraction of manufactures retail price.

Upgrading your IT data center is a continuing process and finding affordable solutions an integral part or your business budget. A quality IT equipment dealer who can provide refurbished equipment for pennies on the dollar will be the best vendor to help you navigate the variety of choices to build a reliable and robust IT data center.

RICOM Inc. offer refurbished servers and network equipment at affordable prices. For more information about purchasing refurbished Cisco Catalyst 6509 and other used Cisco networking equipment visit http://www.shopricom.com

Benefits of Working In a Data Center

2009-01-13T02:34:00.000-08:00

As the Internet continues to grow and produce large amounts of traffic the need for data centers and data center management increases. This continued growth creates data center jobs and IT careers in the technology field. Data Centers not only provide large hubs for Internet traffic, but it also completes the network infrastructure of most mid-large size companies. Data centers usually house thousands of computers, servers, and technical components. This in itself tells why it is a tremendous benefit to working within a data center. Just the amount of knowledge you can gain while on the job is rewarding enough. Having a data center job puts you on the bleeding edge of technology and hi-tech equipment. By working in a data center you will naturally be more advance than your peers who work in different industries experienced in technology.

Data center jobs consist of many different job types which fall under information technology, such as: system administration, network administration, IT security, computer operations, help desk support, server administration, pc repair, engineering, and so much more. If you ever been to school for a computer-related field or you always had an interest to work with computers then working in a data center should have been at the top of your list. Though, most do not consider data center jobs when looking for a job in the information technology field. This is mainly because data center jobs are merely overlooked. Most individuals consider working for a company or corporation in an industry other than data centers, mainly in a company like where they previously worked, before being technically inclined. Gaining a data center job is exactly why you went to school or aligned yourself within the technology field of work.

Data centers are inhabited with individuals who are fairly intelligent, usually skilled professionals with an educational background. The benefit of surrounding yourself with knowledgeable individuals is that it enhances your own technical aptitude and empowers your keen technical sense. Another benefit to working in a data center is many times the operations are around the clock (24/7), which means you may have the option of being flexible and working flex schedules, at your leisure. The biggest benefit of working in a data center is “stability”. The fact being that so many operations, calculations, and transactions depend solely on data centers - society cannot afford to lose data centers. Data centers will always be around and continue to thrive, so this means data center jobs will never fall short. Even in the wake of economic hardships, data centers still did not take a plunge or lose its clarity. If you are reading this article right now, then more than likely at some point a data center involvement allowed me to deliver this article to you. Data center jobs are for life!

Ant Onaf is the owner and founder of DataCenterLife which is a job portal dedicated to data center jobs and information technology jobs. Primarily, DataCenterLife.com offers job searching, resume searching, job posting, and resume posting for individuals, companies, and recruiters in the data center industry and profession.

How to Choose a Data Center

2008-11-04T01:48:00.000-08:00

When evaluating a data center to support your business much of your focus is on bandwidth, reliability, QoS, and so forth. But there's much more to consider in order to make a smart decision. Over look it...and you're liable to make a big mistake.

The Building Security....

You want to see a building that has quality security systems and staff. I want to see some form of man trap with some type of biometric or scanned ID card system at any entrance to the building. This prevents just anyone from walking in any door. After the man traps I want to see a 24/7 security guard and some type of video camera system. In the better facilities, when you get on the elevator you have to do another swipe of your card again just to get to your floor. This is good security, it stops someone who is not authorized to be on your floor or area from getting off where they have no business. Once you are on your floor you should look to see if it has video cameras that cover the entire floor. You may need to have your card scanned once more or have another form of checked access. After that you want to make sure your racks or caged area has a secure lock. In one of our data centers you have to go through 6 security scans of one kind or another plus a guard an then a lock on the cage space and the cabinets to get to your servers. You will be also covered by cameras from the second you enter the building to the time you leave. Is this to much? No not at all. When you are dealing with either customer data or customer equipment you must show that you are providing the best possible security. One of our largest clients is a medical facility. We were told we got the contract to host 30 servers for them because we had the best physical security. I don’t care what data center you are in they should have a minimum of 2 security/ID scans, 24 hour video and at least one 24/7 security person, A tech is not a security person.

Power System....

Initial Power: In the ideal situation the data center should be connected to 2 city power grids with multiple entry points from each grid to the building. This usually only happens in major cities in downtown districts where there is the normal power distributed to the area plus an additional power grid that is meant to support emergency services such as government or medical facilities. Even if the data center is only on a single power grid, which is most common, you want to make sure it has multiple entry points for power. I’ve seen several data centers that if a truck ran in to the wrong pole, or a fire started or a construction accident occurred in the underground pipes, the entire datacenter would be without power for a number of days because it was only routed one way.

The power distribution panel(s) need to be clearly marked and ID’d. Ideally the data centers network equipment will be separate from the client’s equipment. Each rack should have 1 or 2 breakers that are exclusive to that rack. General electrical outlets or public outlets should not be on the same distribution panels as networks or servers.

Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS)....

The transfer switch senses when utility power is interrupted, and starts up the generator if the utility power remains absent. In about five to ten seconds, when the generator is producing full power, the transfer switch disconnects the load from the utility and connects it to the generator, restoring electricity to the load. The transfer switch continues to monitor utility power, and when it is restored, switches the load from the generator back to the utility. Once the generator is disconnected, it goes through a cool-down routine and is automatically shut down.

Transfer switch types include open transition, momentary closed transition, and bypass isolation

Open transition transfer switches are the simplest kind, and are mechanically interlocked. They disconnect the load from one power source before making the connection to the other.

Closed transition transfer switches (CTTS) eliminate momentary power interruption when both sources are present and synchronized, by transferring the loads with an overlapping contact arrangement. The momentary closed transition switch transfers the power within one hundred milliseconds, which does not require utility protective relaying.

The soft load closed transition switch extends the overlap time to multiple seconds, for a smoother transition of load to the generator. These switches are available in 100 to 2600 amp configurations.

The better brands are Caterpillar, ASCO, MGE and Hubble

Generators....

If a datacenter doesn’t have its own generators and fuel storage don’t host there. It’s that simple. The generator should be able to handle at least 125% of the load for a minimum of 24 hours without being refueled. A really great data center will have multiple generators. One of our data centers has an individual generator for each floor and two backups. The building can route power from any generator to any location in the building and they can transfer fuel from any generator to another.

One thing you want to do and see for yourself is that they test the generator system. I’m not talking about just starting it on but that they actually put part of the data center load on the generator. I’ve asked about a dozen of the data centers we’ve looked at to allow me to be there when they did their “weekly” test of the system. It was funny how they hemmed and hawed and came up with excuses why I couldn’t be there to see the system tested. If they won’t let you watch them go through their testing it should tell you they are probably not doing more than just starting the generator and hoping the rest works in an emergency. That’s just not good enough to tell you if the generator system is really working or not.

PDU/UPS....

Every cabinet should have its own PDU. It should run a minimum of 10 minutes with a full load. It can often take generators or other systems a full 10 minutes to come on line. Ask to see the batteries of the PDU. The terminals or poles should be clean and without any corrosion or other stuff on them. Most batteries these days have dates stamped on them. Make sure they are no older than 2 years old. Ask the data center how often the replace or update their battery farm. PDUs should also provide on-line power conditioning, with a wide input supply range that reduces battery over-usage, surge protection, EMI/RFI filtering, and harmonics attenuation The better brands are Liebert, MGE and Powerlink.

Power Monitoring....

A good data center has some form of dedicated power monitoring system. The system should monitor the status of an SNMP-equipped UPS system over a standard Ethernet network. Additionally, the software should be programmed to automatically shut down network loads upon power failure, and even send alerts to notify personnel of power problems. It should also be possible to remotely control specific UPS output receptacles on single-phase UPS systems. The better systems will provide audio alerts, emails and SMS messaging

Remember to include the above factors in your data center evaluation checklist...and you're more likely to make a choice that makes good business sense.

Michael is the owner of FreedomFire Communications....including Business-VoIP-Solution and DS3-Bandwidth.com. Michael also authors Broadband Nation where you're always welcome to drop in and catch up on the latest BroadBand news, tips, and insights.

What Is A Data Center?

2008-10-30T02:51:00.000-07:00

Get more info at Data center site

Managed Hosting: The Death Knell of Colocation Services

2008-10-20T04:13:00.000-07:00

What is Managed Hosting? This is a question I found myself asking recently when I took a look at a website I knew previously to only provide colocation services. At first I was a little bit upset, because I knew that this particular provider provided excellent colocation services and was a little bit annoyed at the fact that they'd apparently changed their company's services to some new fangled thing I'd never heard of: Managed Hosting.

However, after doing some reading I found that this new and mysterious service they offered drastically reduced the complication involved in the project I was intending on launching. Allow me to explain...

Before I get into defining what Managed Hosting I believe that I should first explore the details of what colocation even is, for those that may have stumbled onto this article unaware. Colocation is a service provided by an internet service provider. Essentially, you provide them with a computer with your choice of operating system and software installed on it (depending on their policies), and they provide you with the bandwith and uninterrupt supply of power you need to run things on the internet. This can be anything from computer game servers to webservers for websites that are in demand of a large amount of resources.

There's a number of problems with this scheme of doing things, however! If you're providing the computer and software than that means you're going to also be administrating every aspect of it. This means that you're going to have to get it initially setup in the first place, make sure it is secure against all the known forms of attacks that can happen to your server, doesn't go down for days while you're upgrading software, and keep your software on your system up-to-date! This can all be very time consuming, and is vital to running a safe and ecommerce business. Afterall, you wouldn't want the website taking in orders for your business that holds all of your customers information to get HACKED, would you? This is something that I've been very hesitant of risking myself.

The truth is, the risk of running your own ecommerce business through the use of a colocation can be such a gamble if you don't know what your doing, that it may not be worth taking. But colocation offers possibilities for expansion (because of the large amount of computer resources at your disposal) and control that something such as webhosting may not give you.

This is where Managed Hosting comes in. Managed Hosting bridges the gap between the ease-of-use of standard webhosting services to colocation. Managed Hosting is essentially a service where you have complete administrative abilities over a system provided by your internet service provider, but they set it up, provide the computer to your specifications, and keep it up to date. Many of the service providers, such as RackSpace, also offer a zero-downtime guarantee and 24/7x365 phone and email technical support. This, in a very real way takes away much of the risk associated with colocation while still giving you the ability to put up a system to your specifications and it be SECURE. This alternative to colocation is taking the internet by storm, and is quickly becoming the standard of the industry for an easy and safe solution for internet business owners.

If you're interested in more information, tips, and information related to eCommerce head over to: For Building e-Commerce Web Sites!

Four Power System Problems Common in Colocation Facilities

2008-10-13T05:30:00.000-07:00

American Internet Services is the premier San Diego colocation service provider with state-of-the-art Internet data center technology. http://www.colocation.ccccom.com

What You Need To Know About Colocation

2008-07-22T23:28:00.000-07:00

Colocation is the purchase of a web server by a company. The web server is physically on the premises of a third-party company. This third-party company provides networking services. Colocation is for those companies that require complete control over their server configuration. This essentially means that a company will connect a server that it owns to the Internet. Additionally, the company owning the server must provide necessary technical support. When the web hosting company owns a server, it is referred to as a “dedicated server”, whereas in a “colocated environment”, the company opting for the service owns the server.

Colocation services are accompanied by costs. These are of two types: rental fees and connection charges. For rental charges the company pays for having the server in the data center of the web host. There are certain terms that a person needs to know, such as the height of the server expressed as “1u” or a “full rack”. Nearly all servers have a configuration of either 1U or 2U. Those that have a larger number of hard drives come in the capacity of 3u or 4U.

Connectivity charges are also included in a collocation agreement. There are a number of gigabytes that are transferred every month. Hence, a standard is used for calculation. If a 1mpb/s connection is used, then the average is calculated on the basis of 1 megabyte per second. This is not all though. There is a certain method by which the “transfer” is measured. The widely accepted method is through a system referred to as “95th percentile”, where bandwidth measurements are recorded every 5 minutes. Thus at the end of every month the data shows the highest readings, which are obtained when the top 5% are not needed and hence not considered.

For a customer, it is important to have first-hand knowledge of the physical location of the server. Natural disasters can occur, and the safety of a server that contains volumes of data is of paramount importance.

Colocation provides detailed information on Colocation, Colocation Services, Colocation Hosting, Colocation Facilities and more. Colocation is affiliated with Bandwidth Management.

What You Need To Know About Colocation

2008-07-04T22:39:00.000-07:00

Colocation provides detailed information on Colocation, Colocation Services, Colocation Hosting, Colocation Facilities and more. Colocation is affiliated with Bandwidth Management.

Colocation Facility Cooling System Considerations

2008-06-29T22:55:00.000-07:00

Most companies know to find a colocation facility that has good Internet service and Internet provider and carrier options. However, cooling systems are often overlooked. Most servers now are made to operate at normal office conditions, which mean that two environmental factors should be met:

The temperature should stay between 72° F and 76° F
The humidity should be between 45% and 60%, with 45% ideal
Cooling units must be on continuously, so servers will not overheat (this precludes standard HVAC units).

If the cooling system goes down, it can cause the equipment to overheat, causing the network to go down and even damaging equipment. Colocation facility cooling systems include three areas: the facility layout, chillers, and computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units.

Facility Layout
Servers generate heat as they run. This is generally blown out the back of the server by fans; cool air is taken in through vents at the front. Server racks and rows should be laid out to manage hot air coming from the servers and conditioned air going to their intakes by designating “hot rows,” which face the server fans, and “cold rows,” which face the intakes. Designated hot and cold rows keep air circulating in the best directions to keep servers from overheating.

Facility Design
There are two kinds of building design for colocation facilities: raised floor and solid floor. Raised floor was the preferred structure when servers were towers because the mesh flooring allowed air conditioned air to blow from the bottom directly across their intakes. However, since servers are stacked in racks, cold air must reach the tops of the racks to cool machines. Solid floor facilities are a better option. The facility should take into account the following:

Solid floor designs must have mesh front and rear doors for th server cabinets to allow hot air to escape.
For raised floor designs, cold air must have enough air pressure to force air to the top of the server cabinets. Ideally, special duct work will be in place to force the airflow upward.
For raised floors, server cabinets should not have vents in the doors that would let cool air escape.

Chiller Systems
Chillers pipe water or water/glycol coolants through the CRAC units. Chiller systems include pumps, pipes, and the chillers themselves. The following points should be considered to make sure that the system is adequate to cool the facility:

Sufficient capacity
Backup units for the pumps and chillers which switch over automatically
Regular maintenance

CRAC Units
CRAC units are massive, dedicated air conditioners which manage temperature and humidity. They have many parts and are complicated – meaning failures can be common. The CRAC units should be well maintained, but the most important thing is redundancy. Redundancy is determined by the overall capacity of the CRAC units; there should be enough units that even with a failure, the facility will still be adequately cooled. As with chillers, capacity for CRAC units is determined by tons per square foot.

Verify Capacity
Capacity is determined by the ratio of tons per square foot. To determine whether a system has sufficient capacity, divide the total tonnage of the units by the square footage of the building. If there are four 30-ton CRAC units in a 4,000 square foot facility, then the CRAC capacity is .030 tons per square foot (120 tons / 4,000 square feet). The ideal ratio of tons to square feet for the CRAC system is .030 ton/square foot or higher; the ratio should not be below .025 tons/square foot. This same formula is used for chiller systems, with the same ideal ratios.

It is important to look for a colocation facility that has Internet provider options and backup power systems. Equally important is a facility with the right design, chillers, and CRAC units to cool the server room. Keeping equipment from overheating will keep networks up and makes equipment last longer. Like Internet connections, network uptime, and power backups, cooling systems signify a quality colocation facility.

American Internet Services is the premier San Diego colocation service provider with state-of-the-art Internet data center technology. http://www.colocation.ccccom.com

Colocation and Disaster Recovery Facilities

2008-06-23T23:29:00.000-07:00

How valuable is your data? Does it mean the world to you? If yes, your worst nightmare is probably loss of all or part of the data. And if just the thought of that makes you cringe, it’s time you educated yourself about the existence of disaster recovery options and how collocating your data can save you a lot of headache and financial loss.

There are many reasons you could be faced with a disastrous situation. Especially if you are in the IT sector and/or if most of your data resides in electronic format. If you depend on computers for storing, accessing and using your data, you are potentially at risk. Some of the main reasons you could face a disaster of data loss are:

Deformity in the firmware
Tampered tape
Undesirable formatting of hard disk drive
Logical failure
Dropping of a storage device
Disturbed semiconductor

While these examples are mostly hardware related issues, there are also similar problems that could develop due to software problems. So how do you safeguard your data and the business that runs off of it?

There are many companies out there who specialize in safeguarding your data at remote locations and in a variety of ways. There are two main ways of safeguarding your data:

Data Loss Prevention is perhaps the surest disaster recovery service. This method emphasizes the creation of a back-up system to prevent future data loss. That means your business has minimal downtime and continuous operation of critical business systems.
Creating a warm or hot site away from your existing physical setup and colocating your equipment in a data center can ensure that even in the case of a physical disaster, your time taken to get back up and running is minimal.

Data centers have all your data stored and can have it ready for use soon after a problem is detected. These are critical especially for small and medium-sized IT set-ups. Roughly, they can be divided into:

Cold sites: These are essentially empty areas that allow you to set-up your equipment and start operations again. These sites offer no recovery options, just storage.
Warm sites: The main difference between these and cold sites is that they offer basic communication equipment for plug-in connectivity. Some back-up equipment like servers and storage are also available to begin work on restoration.
Hot sites: These are the duplicate data centers with all the necessary equipment and connectivity you would need to switch over and go ‘live' almost instantaneously after a disaster has occurred. In most cases, this option will serve you the best, although the costs of using this are just as high.

Some of the main benefits of using outsourced colocation facilities are:

No need for capital investment in realty
No need to invest huge sums in a data center facility, you pay only for the resources you use
You can remote manage the back-up servers as well
Huge bandwidth cost savings
Dedicated technical support to take care of your data

In a lot of cases, you can procure your own server and send it for set-up at the facility saving costs on procurement of minimal hardware.

The most important part of your company’s disaster recovery solution is going to be your disaster recovery plan. Having the process documented and tested is the only way to ensure that in the event of a disaster you will be sure to be back up and running with minimal downtime.

John Tourloukis is the founder of Fast PC Networks, we provide Colocation and Disaster Recovery Services

The Facts of Colocation Hosting

2008-06-18T23:10:00.000-07:00

Colocation Hosting

Collocation hosting is a recent buzzword in technological breakthroughs. Collocation is best defined as the process of locating of equipment in another location. On the contrary the client in alternative locations defines collocation hosting as the location of personal servers – usually the collocation is of high-end data center. This data center is invariably a packaged composition and this process of collocation hosting includes the likes of – a high speed internet connection, space, highest level of security, regulated air temperature and professionally managed server solutions to name a few. Collocation. The collocation service providers could come in different hues which could extend from space service providers who rent space in the data centers and are companies in their own right, the data center owners or even those who are collocation resellers and not even located on site.

The Collocation Hosting Option

Collocation hosting of services by self may not be the simplest of procedures but they are invariably accompanied by innumerable advantages. The collocation hosting service providers would enable the client to benefit from the data center’s security, network and environment at all times. This collocation of hosting services is done at the state of art high-end data centers and need to focus on numerous factors if they are to be a success story. The start up operations would depend on the number of servers that need to be collocated, the bandwidth service providers, the business strategy being adopted and the location of data center of choice – these and more would determine the start up costs of the project.

Service Profiling

A visit to a few data centers could be very informative – a commonality factor which is visible in all data centers is what is known as the ‘rack’ and this rack is important for the collocation service hosting provider charges a monthly rental for the rack space used. The servers in data centers are stored in cabinets, which in turn are stored on racks. The collocation hosting follows a few protocols which are fundamental to the collocation hosting services and need to well comprehended by all collocation hosting services user at best – the upkeep and maintenance of the servers is the sole responsibility of the user and not the collocation hosting services provider and the cost of the high speed internet is borne by the user and not the service provider.

Evaluation Protocol

The choice of an ideal data center is not by cost – rather it is by the quality of the data center. The data center of choice needs to adhere to a set protocol which will include – high end security, fast internet connectivity, environment, power backup and fire protection measures to name a few. The collocation hosting service providers selection then is more than merely selecting a high end data center – it is rather a combination of numerous factors the most important – other than the selection of a data center – being flexibility and control which is best exhibited by the freedom to select the software and the hardware configuration of choice.

You can visit http://www.colocationamerica.com David can be reached by phone: 323-933-9291

Advantages of Data Center Colocation

2008-06-09T03:42:00.000-07:00

In today’s fiercely competitive environment, any business – small, medium or large – can succeed only if it maintains business continuity, which in turn, is mostly dependent on automated data handling systems. In the wake of recent natural and other calamities, companies have increased their investments in highly secure storage and retrieval systems for their data.

For companies whose core business is not IT, it makes better business sense to outsource the storage and maintenance of these systems. This strategy allows them to save time and money while harnessing the power of IT as a force multiplier for their core business.

What is a data center? A data center is simply a room that facilitates the storage and management, of servers and other computing equipment of any company in a precision-controlled environment. But for small and medium businesses, an in-house data center is an expensive proposition in many ways:

High initial investment in space and equipment
High day-to-day
management costs
Hiring and retaining personnel to maintain
the data center
High cost of upgrading technology and acquiring
newer services

In this scenario, it becomes far more economical to outsource this service to a colocation data center.

What is colocation? A colocation (also known less popularly as ‘co-location’) data center is a facility where the servers and other computing equipment belonging to different companies share space. Each company’s equipment is physically secured in a wire cage or cabinet with high security locking systems.

Why colocation? Colocation offers businesses several advantages with regard to time and money.

You don't have to worry about recurring capital costs if you
are upgrading since you can rent more space (or give up space if you are
downsizing)
You are saved the expense of hiring and training
your own personnel to operate and maintain your systems. If you have to
upgrade, having your own personnel means additional training costs or paying
outside consultants.

Who uses colocation data centers? The answer is: almost any company whose business continuity is dependent on smooth access to flow of data and for whom system downtime is not an option.

Web-based e-commerce companies use the colocation data center facilities
to ensure a safe environment for their equipment, plus economical and redundant
connections to the Internet
Major non-IT entrepreneurs use the facility for economic data storage and
management, as well as safety from disasters
Telecommunication companies use colocation data center facilities to exchange
traffic with other telcos and also to provide reliable access to potential
clients

Facilities at Colocation Data Centers Colocation data centers offer physical space on lease to customers for housing their servers and other computing devices. You install your servers and/or other telecommunication equipment in the physical space leased from the data center. The leased space is typically comprised of either full cabinets or portions of a cabinet measured in Rack Units or RU (1RU corresponds to 1.75 vertical inches of space). Much larger spaces, like a caged section of a room or complete private rooms or suites, are also available depending on your requirements.

All leased space is supported by:

Precision-controlled air-conditioning systems
with incorporated redundancy
24x7 power back-up systems for all equipment to
ensure zero downtime or minimal disruption in operations due to power failure
High-capacity, reliable power generators
State-of-the-art fire detection and suppression systems to guard against
potential losses due to fire
Sophisticated onsite security through surveillance cameras and advanced
biometric systems to prevent unauthorized entry
Networking equipment including state-of-the-art, fully redundant high-end
switches and routers, BGP4 routing for optimal path selection and full redundancy,
etc

Most colocation centers also offer SLAs (service level agreements) to support a host of computer and networking services like server reboots, software updates, hardware repairs / replacements, disaster recovery, etc.

Advantages of colocation

Financial Gains: Small and medium companies have a lot
to gain by opting for colocation. For one, there is an enormous amount of
money to be saved (between 25%-75%) on infrastructure, technology and human
resources. This leaves them free to concentrate on their core business areas.
Better Connectivity: Acquiring and maintaining a T1 line
or a fiber optic line to connect your networks is an expensive proposition.
Moreover, if your ISP turns out to be unreliable, you could lose valuable
business. Provisioning a T1 or fiber optic line at a colocation data center
is economical and most centers support multiple ISPs through fiber optic
lines or VSAT. Also, colocating mission critical servers at data centers
with fully redundant network connections ensures that business critical applications
will always run smoothly.
Easy disaster recovery: Data centers also create disaster
recovery sites. In the event of a snag with the primary server, the entire
network automatically switches to an alternate mirrored site within a few
minutes. So outsourcing disaster recovery also costs much less than what
it would to set it up in-house.
Improved Network security: Most data centers offer state-of-the-art
network security, including fully updated firewalls / IDS applications to
detect and prevent unauthorized intrusions into their clients' systems. They
employ qualified technical personnel with certifications like CCNA and MCSE
to monitor the networks 24X7 and alert clients of any potential trouble.

In the wake of disasters like 9/11 and other natural disasters, depending on a single office to keep business-critical applications running is risky. Most companies are now taking steps to plan for such events by implementing a disaster recovery plans that include colocation facilities inside internet data centers. Data centers provide the best data management, system maintenance and up-to-date security services without the issues that accompany owning and operating a similar facility.

By utilizing collocation services in a data center facility, you will realize an immediate benefit in terms of costs saving and improved redundancy.

John Tourloukis is the founder of Fast PC Networks, we provide Colocation and Disaster Recovery Services

Choosing A Reliable Colocation Facility

2008-06-06T23:48:00.000-07:00

There are no industry standards to designate a good colocation facility, but key areas can help identify one: power, cooling, Internet connection, and service. Good colocation facilities offer reliability through redundancy, maintenance, and service, meaning more uptime for networks and longer equipment lifetimes. Ask questions, be prepared to research answers, and look for the facility that meets the needs of their customers.

Power A good colocation facility will have a power system with backup units not only for the generator, but also the universal power supplies (UPS) and transfer switches or circuit breakers.

UPSs run the servers while power switches from regular electricity to generators. Regardless of quality, UPSs fail regularly, so facilities must have multiple UPSs running sufficiently below capacity to manage the total server load if one fails. Transfer switches or circuit breakers switch power to the generators.
Circuit breakers are more dependable than transfer switches, but it is important to have a backup for either system so that power can be transferred regardless of equipment failure.
As the primary source of power during an outage, the generator must be large enough to handle 1.5 times the total building load. If there are multiple generators, the colocation facility must be able to transfer the load between generators, otherwise a failure could disable all generators.

Cooling An overlooked consideration for uptime and equipment maintenance is cooling. All servers generate heat yet are designed to operate at room temperature, between 72°F and 76°F. Computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units, chillers, and facility layout ensure that all servers receive adequate cooling. High-end colocation facilities regularly maintain cooling systems and monitor temperature, humidity, and power usage for optimum server performance.

Chillers pipe cooled fluids to the CRAC units. There must be redundant pumps and chillers which automatically take over in case of failure so that the CRAC units continue to operate.
CRAC units are large (20 to 30 tons), specialized air conditioners which constantly blow cold air. The minimum number of CRAC units to cool a facility is .030 tons per square foot. If there are four 30-ton units and the facility is 4,000 square feet, then there are .030 tons per square foot (120 tons ÷ 4000 square feet).
The facility layout should have designated hot and cold rows. Server fans blow hot air from the back of the servers into hot rows; the CRAC units blow cold air down cold rows across the front of the servers. Solid floor facilities should have return vents on one side of the room to draw hot air from the servers, and cold air vents in the ceiling blowing down the top of the server racks. Raised floor designs should blow the cold air with enough pressure to force air to the top of the racks.

Internet Connection There are two major types of Internet connection.

Tier 1 providers create national networks which are dependable and fast but tend to have high latency and poor out-of-network performance.
Tier 2 companies buy access from multiple tier 1 networks, so they have speed and dependability combined with better latency and performance from a wider network. Some tier 2 providers offer performance routing to route traffic more efficiently between networks, boosting network performance by 50% and creating a self-healing network.

Service A quality colocation facility offers extra service, including any of the following:

A dedicated, 24-hour customer service line, plus onsite engineers for emergencies.
Changing backup tapes and storing them in a fire-proof safe.
Crash carts with monitors, keyboards, and other tools available when a computer crashes.
Structural designs to withstand earthquakes, storms, and floods.

Tour of the colocation facility, take notes and ask questions about their systems, backup systems, and maintenance, and find the facility with the service, access, and quality care to give your business reliable, dependable network.

American Internet Services is the premier San Diego colocation service provider with state-of-the-art Internet data center technology. http://www.colocation.ccccom.com

A Guide to Server Colocation

2008-05-30T04:54:00.000-07:00

Basics of Colocation

Server colocation is usually for those who own their own server hardware and require complete control over the server configuration. Colocation specialists will house and connect a server you own, to a fast internet connection, usually in a secure datacentre, with 24/7 support.

It is important to choose a colocation provider that either has their own data center or has a presence in one of the leading "data hotels." World Class data centres are located in major industrial cities (New York, London, Frankfurt for example). Here they are able to take advantage of the convergence of high capacity network connectivity that occurs in a major commercial centre. For instance fibre, and metrolinks and ease of connection to major Points of Presence (POPS) to the major telco's. For this reason only a very few of the leading ISP's or colocation specialist operate their own dedicated centre's due to the costs of providing remote connectivity, redundant power sources, air conditioning and filtered clean air.

Also not all internet connections are equal. You really need to enquire if your colocation specialist is "multihomed" using the BGP protocol by having at least two connections to Tier One providers. Tier One providers are very large ISP's or Telco's who operate their own fibre links and networks without having to operate traffic (or transit) over another ISP's network. An example of a Tier One provider would be Level3 communications.

In addition to Tier One connections, the colocation specialist should have peering arrangement's at major exchange point's such as LINX. A peering point is where a number of ISP's arrange to "meet up" to exchange traffic between each other rather than pay for transit over someone else's network. In a way they are "cutting out the middleman!" This not only improves redundancy but also reduces latency; people will be able to access the websites and content hosted on your colocated server much faster if you colo host is well peered.

Quite often a web host or Colocation ISP will negotiate many peering arrangements with other ISP's with whom they are exchanging a lot of traffic. Not only does this give them more resilience, but it also reduces their own transit costs with the Tier One providers enabling them to offer more competitive data transfer pricing.

Latency is particularly important when it comes to game server hosting and colocation. Quite often an ISP specialising in games hosting will give you an IP address for you to test ping times and carry out traceroutes.

Hardware Choices

Server housing costs in London or New York can be expensive. Not suprisingly your hardware should be "rack optimized." Colocation is usually priced "per U." A "U" is 1.75 inches (or 4.44 cms). So rack servers, unlike desktop machines are long and flat. Data Centre's also employ different types Rack Cabinets which are typically 42U in height, enough to house 42 1U servers though some of this space is used to accomodate switches, cabling. Often some space is left free to allow for efficient air distribution in the cabinet.

It's often worth liasing with your colo specialists over the choice of the physical hardware and especially the case and rack mounting. The colocation specialist will know which brands work in their racks. Personally I have found Dell Rack Optimized Servers and rail kits the quickest and easiest to rail up.

So you have decided on the hardware, and you are about to ship your server to the remote colocation data centre. Bear in mind your server will shortly be hundreds of miles away, indeed if you are in the USA, it might even be few hours flight away so there are a few technical points to consider before the machine is boxed, shipped and colocated.

Make sure the Operating System reboots

All colocated dedicated servers run "headless." This means without the use of a keyboard or monitor attached. Therefore you will need to ensure that the servers gets past the BIOS screen and boots the desired kernel without having to press any keys. It might be possible to set the BIOS on your dedicated server to stop on "no errors."

If your are running Linux the kernel you will need to ensure the correct kernel is booted without intervention. This is usually determined by the configuration on /etc/grub.conf if the GRUB boot loader is used, or /etc/lilo.conf if the LILO boot loader is used. After any changes have been made to the LILO configuration remember to run "/sbin/lilo -v" and ensure there are no errors.

Also make sure the kernel "works" properly with the hardware. This is especially true if have compiled the kernel yourself or are using specialist hardware.

Make sure the server "Auto Powers" on

Most colocation facilities provide an auto power cycler from a web interface. However this can fail if the machine does not auto power back up (requiring the intervention of a techie). Most server BIOS's are equipped with either "OFF", "LAST STATE" or "ALWAYS ON". In this case you will require "ALWAYS ON." it is possible to hack cheaper ATX motherboards to be "ALWAYS ON" but it is better to consider a more expensive motherboard.

Properly Configured Network

Make sure you configure the network addresses, DNS server and gateways properly prior to delivery of the dedicated server. This information will have been provided in advance by the colocation provider. Also make sure you can get back into the server remotely by having the SSHD daemon running (telnet is not secure).

OpenSSH is shipped with all the main Linux distributions. You might wish to consider configuring SSH (usually done in /etc/sshd/sshd_config) to work with Protocol2 only, disable root logins (or only allow public key exchanges with the `without-password` option) and to turn off X11 forwarding as this is not required on a production server.

Many servers have multiple ethernet connectors, so it an be helpful, if you are not using the second interface to either mask it off with tape or label the correct ethernet device. Set up a Serial Console

This is sometimes called "out of band" management. Quite often a colocation provider will have a serial terminal on site. This is basically a server itself but with loads of serial ports. This enables you to connect to your server if the network has failed to your server for any reason.

The most common serial port settings are 9600 8n1 (we do not recommend running it a faster speed). If you are running a Red Hat Linux server serial console access is usually configured in "/etc/inittab." Try inserting the line below:

co:23456:respawn:/sbin/agetty ttyS0 9600 vt100

Cooling Considerations

Servers run pretty hot mainly due to modern processors. Even in a fully air conditioned environment. It will pay you look into cooling. A lot will depend on rack density however this is one more reason why you should consider a rack optimised server, as the air cooling in a colocated environment should have been taken into consideration. You can also familiarise with the chipset architecture of your motherboard and consider setting up "sensors." You can then monitor the temperature of your CPU and motherboard and graph it using MRTG. Cheap Colocation Providers

Well apart from us that is! However the following London based colocation providers come highly recommended. In other words, they are in demand, know what they are doing and possess "clue."

Bogons - http://www.bogons.net/ - Based in Telehouse, but they may only usually Sun Netra servers.

Black Cat Networks - http://www.blackcatnetworks.co.uk/ - Based in Redbus Harbour Exchange.

Jump Networks - http://www.jump.net.uk" - Also based in Telehouse North, Docklands.

Additional Thoughts

You may wish to consider disc or hard drive redundancy. Although the "MTF" or Mean Time to Failure" quoted by hard drive manufacturers is impressive, hard drive failure, especially IDE failure happens depressingly often. With advent of S-ATA drives there is really no excuse, expecially if your are on a budget. You should consider cheap S-ATA drives (if you cannot afford SCSI) with Linux software RAID. Modern Linux distributions come with tools to administer and monitor the performance of software RAID arrays.

It can be helpful to duty technicians if all the main power lights are working. The power light, hard drive activity light and network light can be very useful. It goes without saying that the server should be correctly labelled at the front with it's hostname and IP address so it can be identified quickly.

Paul Lee has over six years experience in the web hosting industry and was formerly Senior System Administrator with Simply.Com Limited. He currently lives and works in London and runs his own consultancy and hosting company Weycrest.

Buying Colocation Space

2008-05-27T04:43:00.001-07:00

A colocation service is one that will connect your server that you own to the Internet. Many of these companies will actually build you your own server if you don’t already have one. While this might sound a lot like dedicated servers, there is a huge difference because with a dedicated server the web hosting company owns the actual server, but with colocation the web hosting company simply connects the server that you own to the Internet. Colocation services are not for everyone, they are for those companies and individuals that want to have complete control over their server configurations.

When you are considering purchasing colocation space you will need to think about rental fees as well as connection fees. Rental fees are the costs that you will incur as a result of having your server located in the host’s data center. The space is measured from one unit to a full rack, with most servers in the 1U or 2U category, though they can be as big as 3U or 4U if the server has many hard drives. Rental fees vary and will depend on how big your server is as well as all of the services that may or many not be included.

You should also expect to pay connection charges when you are looking into colocation charges. Connection charges are not measured in the total number of gigabytes that may be transferred; instead an average will be used. This can be a very confusing aspect of colocation charges, so be sure that you read and understand all of the information before you rent space with a colocation service.

Before you buy colocation space with any company you’ll want to know where they are physically located as well as the type physical infrastructure where your server and personal data will be stored for safe keeping. You should also ask questions about who will be able to access your server as well and bandwidth available to you. You’ll also want to inquire about what other options and services will be made available to you. It’s also important to consider uptime guarantees that the company will offer you. With any web host or server you want to know that your information will be available to visitors and customers all of the time, and because you will be paying for the premium of a colocation service, you need to ask these questions to decide which service is right for you.

Findahost.com has been the premier web hosting directory since 1998. Find a colocation facility to colocate your server at http://www.findahost.com/colocation.cfm

Colocation Facilities

2008-05-25T22:50:00.000-07:00

A collocation center is where service providers keep servers of companies that need expert handling for their data. These third-party companies also provide web connectivity and technical support. They are a good option for companies who want to concentrate on their core product rather than the problems of IT infrastructure. This would also save time spent by the technical department of a company, thereby increasing productivity.

Outsourcing the job to a third party may seem wise, as the basic environment is suitable for such an activity. Broadly, this covers all aspects, including the building that would house the server. Typically, it should be placed near a “glass fiber ring”, with multiple fiber access points. The building should be guarded 24/7 by closed-circuit cameras. There should be relay tracks and cabinets that can help mount the servers. Cleanliness is a factor that is crucial for server set-up, to ensure favorable running conditions for computer hardware. Additionally, there should be a generator back-up in case of power failure.

There are some companies that engage the services of two different companies, one where the server is hosted and the other that provides Internet connectivity. Nearly all colocation centers offer a range of services to their customers, such as suites and racks for servers. Some providers offer services like a backup plan in the case of adversities, troubleshooting devices, bandwidth of the web connectivity and also assist in hardware replacement. Collocation facilities come at a price that differs from one service provider to another. Higher server configurations are more expensive. These companies also encourage the use of SLAs, or Service Level Agreements, that promise a wide range of services.

Colocation provides detailed information on Colocation, Colocation Services, Colocation Hosting, Colocation Facilities and more. Colocation is affiliated with Bandwidth Management.

Colocation Services

2008-05-25T22:49:00.000-07:00

Companies that require complete control over their server configuration opt for collocation services. Typically, these companies place their servers on the premises of a third company, and then these are connected to the Internet. Some companies also offer to “build” servers for those who do not already have them. There are certain factors that need to be assessed prior to handing over the server to such a company. First and foremost, the location where the server is going to be placed needs to be checked. This is important, as the data in the server might be crucial and as such should not face any natural disasters.

Security is an important aspect, especially in cases where only authorized personnel are allowed access to the server. The information may be vital to a company, and any leak could cause irreparable losses.

The rate at which data is transferred, i.e., the bandwidth, should be at an optimum speed. The host should also have a “back up” plan in case there is a break in the Internet connectivity. Internet protocol, commonly called IP, is the connectivity of the machine to the Internet. In instances where there are game servers, multiple IPs are required. This increases the cost and thus should be considered before selecting a collocation service. When a company provides hosting services, it is essential that it has experienced hands with sound knowledge of technology in case of any difficulty. They must be experts in troubleshooting.

Some companies use the services of two different companies, where the server is hosted with one and the other provides the Internet connectivity. Here, there are issues with cross-connection fees, which can complicate the matter. The host must be able to provide uninterrupted connectivity without any major hiccups. Prior to signing the contract, the terms of service, charges, uptime guarantees [the amount of time the site is online in a month] and the duration must be discussed in detail.

Colocation provides detailed information on Colocation, Colocation Services, Colocation Hosting, Colocation Facilities and more. Colocation is affiliated with Bandwidth Management.

Colocation Hosting

2008-05-22T04:56:00.000-07:00

When companies place their servers on the premises of a third party, it is known as colocation hosting. The third party, or hosting company, also provides web connectivity. Dedicated hosting is suitable for those companies who want to have control over their website and its operations. There are others who require net connectivity services and hardware delivery, in which case they can opt for internal hosting. Here, the company only pays for the networking services. Companies that opt for collocation hosting own the server and ensure that all the required information is loaded onto it. Once this is taken care of, the server is ready to be placed on the premises of the third party. Such companies also assist their customers in building a server as per their requirements, i.e., they customize a server as per directions.

Colocation providers offer “Server Monitoring” contracts, wherein the norms for providing the service are stated. As such, they are required to keep a watch over the operations of the system. This ranges from facilities provided for placing the server, the accessibility/security aspect, the backup plan, troubleshooting devices and bandwidth. Hence, the contract should be signed taking into consideration all of the issues mentioned above. Servers have standard configurations of 1U or 2U. Those with a greater number of hard drives come with a capacity of 3U or 4U. The costs increase with server capacity. Typically, the costs for colocating a 1U server are less than those for a higher configuration.

There are companies that offer “cheap hosting services” with excellent performance and service. However, when opting for such hosts, care should be taken that the required contract documents contain all the important issues related to colocation hosting.

Colocation provides detailed information on Colocation, Colocation Services, Colocation Hosting, Colocation Facilities and more. Colocation is affiliated with Bandwidth Management.