Rarely is the jack of all trades an expert on everything. This applies to the business world, where let’s face it, some companies do things better than other companies. For example, most would probably argue that Starbucks pours a better cup of coffee than Quizno’s, but the deli offers better sandwiches than the coffee shop.
Partnerships allow involved companies to benefit from the complementary skills the other possesses. For example, Barnes & Noble recognizes the fact that many view Starbucks as a premier purveyor of coffee. At the same time, Starbucks recognizes the fact that Barnes & Noble generates a lot of foot traffic and that when people visit bookstores, they might want to browse through a book while sipping on a latte. So the two companies partnered, and Starbucks coffee is poured at many Barnes & Noble bookstores.
With the cloud market expanding at a rapid rate – research indicates that 57 percent of enterprises have already adopted Software as a Service (SaaS) applications while 38 percent have adopted Platform as a Service (PaaS) applications – forward-thinking companies should consider partnering with web hosting providers to bolster many vital aspects of their business.
The inevitable move to the cloud is a scary one for many businesses. But it doesn’t have to be. Very few companies – if any – can do everything on their own. That’s why it’s worth considering focusing on what your company does best while letting a team of skilled professionals take care of supporting your computing infrastructure.
Why are partnerships with cloud hosting providers so important?
They help you grow your business.
Looking to expand your portfolio and offer cloud services to your customers? Partnering with an industry-leading cloud provider allows you to offer cutting-edge solutions to your customers before you’d otherwise be able to do so. The cloud is here, and the longer you wait, the less you’re able to offer what your customers want. Similarly, if you offer cloud solutions your competitors do not, their customers will get wind of that and migrate under your wing.
They help you grow your revenues.
Looking for a way to break into the cloud market and add value for your customers? Partnering with a provider that already has the infrastructure necessary to support the immediate offering of products and services is a great way to quickly open up another revenue stream.
They help you grow your influence.
If cloud is ultimately going to change the way the entire business world operates, be on the forefront of that technology. By partnering with a cloud provider and white-labeling their products, your business will be seen as a thought leader. The cloud is continuing to grow, and by offering cloud services, you make certain that your business and its reach grows with it. You become – and remain – part of the cloud dialogue.
When you partner with Hostway, your business is free from the challenges of striking multiple vendor agreements, building and integrating user interfaces and training staff to understand and sell these new products. Hostway will focus on what it does best, so you can focus on providing your customers the stellar service they’ve grown to expect.
Reference: http://www.cloudtweaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/cloud_adoption_infographic.png
In this world of on-demand information retrieval, we expect a certain level of access to our documents wherever we are. It is highly likely you have emailed yourself a document from your work machine to your home computer via a personal email account. It is even more likely that you, like so many others, have a favorite thumb drive that acts as both a transport and data storage device.
USB thumb drives are everywhere. They are given away at tradeshows as promotions. You may have a few squirreled away from your college days that you still use. But do we treat these devices with the same regard as we do other data carriers?
There’s significant risk involved when you combine a lax attitude about a USB drive with a habit of storing important files locally. It has the potential to sabotage your network, and possibly compromise company trade secrets or sensitive personal information.
So why is this important?
It’s human nature to pick up bad habits. Desktop reliance is among them, even if you always lock your computer when away from your workspace; even if your machine locks after a few minutes of inactivity. Despite these safeguards, the issue runs deeper.
Consider the ease with which a person could use your unlocked computer to “click and drag” critical documents, personal information, even your saved passwords from your internet browser within seconds, leaving no evidence behind.
So why is a USB Drive a Bad Idea?
Despite the best efforts of IT administrators and your own best habits, the USB thumb drive is still the greatest threat to your network security.
Several factors make this possible:
1) People are curious: The curious nature of people in general can be exploited by virus-makers. You may have heard an anecdote about a guy that finds a USB drive in a parking lot and plugs it into his computer. Believe it or not, this happens. The most infamous examples involve viruses like Stuxnet and Conficker infiltrating Top Secret networks via introduction an innocent-looking USB thumb drive. Funny story: At a conference in Australia last year, IBM handed out thumb drives that turned out to be infected by malware. It was a computer security conference.
2) Viruses and malware are subtle: The majority of contemporary computers feature either a plug-and-play or autorun feature which allows any dormant malware or virus to be quietly uploaded into your system without your knowledge.
3) An “empty” USB drive can still be data-mined: Data on USB devices (and in general) can be restored using commonly available data recovery tools – modern data forensics methods can recover deleted files and documents. This applies to portable storage devices. Photos, spreadsheets, passwords and more can be recovered even after deletion with a surprising degree of accuracy. So even though your thumb drive appears empty – it’s your greatest liability if it falls into the wrong hands.
So what can you do to protect yourself and your company?
1) Never save important documents locally, whether it is a cozy corner on your desktop, a folder on your local computer, or your USB thumb drive. If you must save documents or data locally, treat them as though they could walk off at any minute. It will get you in the habit of safeguarding your information.
2) Get into the habit of saving your important documents in a safer location, such as a secure folder on your company’s network. It won’t protect you from having your local machine compromised, but you’ll have peace of mind that your data can be replaced.
3) Consider backing up your data to an offsite location or the cloud. Not only is this safer than storing files locally, it also provides essential features such as data security, data recovery and on-demand accessibility that even the best USB drive simply can’t provide.
How can Hostway help?
Hostway provides a low-cost alternative to storing your critical data locally. Hostway’s robust infrastructure consists of geographically dispersed, state-of-the-art data centers with round-the-clock reliability. For less than the price of a new 64 gigabyte USB drive, you can get 5 gigs of Hostway’s Cloud Drive service, and the complete data security and accessibility that comes with it. Eliminate the risk of losing files due to drive defects, and enjoy your documents, music, videos, photos and other files from any computer, tablet or mobile device.
Source: Reasons why you shouldn’t use a USB drive –http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2010/10/dont_stick_it_in.html
Whether you’re building your website or outsourcing the job, it’s vital to have a good idea of what your ideal end product looks like. Careful preliminary planning yields a better end product, so it’s important to have a website plan to serve as a blueprint for the entire project.
Your blueprint should detail the underlying site architecture, forcing you to think through potential problems before they happen. Beginning with an organized structure makes the website logical and intuitive for future visitors.
Develop your plan in four easy steps:
Goals give you direction for every choice from functionality to color palette. They can limit the scope of your project and provide criteria for measuring success. Who is your ideal audience? What features will best attract that audience? What is its principal purpose? What must your update schedule look like? Where’s the content coming from?
Construct a catalog of everything you believe you'll need on the website. From that list, prioritize the elements that are most crucial to serving your site’s purpose. Chart out what will lead where, how your site’s hierarchy will work. What links should be available from all pages? Creating this initial navigation structure will make it much easier to set stages of your project and track progress. It will also help you evenly distribute content creation duties among the available resources.
3 Document the User Experience
Try to view the browsing experience from your visitors’ perspective. What frustrates you about your current setup? How can you change that to be more appealing? Explore your diagrammed project. The best websites are intuitive and communicate clearly. You can make or break your site before a single graphic is designed or page is built.
4 List the Content and Functionality You Need
What will each page of your site look like, and what can you accomplish on each? What functionality do you envision each page having? List your intentions for each page, as well as for a universal navigation panel that should appear on all pages. Always have in mind providing the best user experience.
With these steps complete, you’re ready to being contemplating website design. Who will make your vision a reality? You have many choices, from do-it-yourself templates to hiring a designer.
For more information on the crucial choices that come with your first website, check out our whitepaper, “6 Steps for Getting Your Small Business Online and In Front of Customers.”
From September 30 to October 4, Hostway will join thousands of IT professionals at New York's largest IT Event, Interop. If you’re going to be visiting the show, stop by booth #700 to discuss the daily keynote, chat on the latest industry trends, or learn about our new offerings, like Parallels APS for FlexCloud Servers or the soon-to-launch Windows Server 2012 public cloud.
Chances are you’re familiar with our basic offerings since you’re on our blog. But if you’re not, more than 600,000 customers use our scalable, customizable IaaS solutions, including:
FlexCloud Servers: A scalable, on-demand cloud computing solution that combines the flexibility of a public cloud with the reliability and performance of an enterprise-grade virtual environment.
FlexCloud Private: Built to provide multiple virtual servers dedicated and configured to your needs with the freedom to run your software of choice and control the virtual machines running within your cloud.
Managed Hosting: Best-of-breed physical servers optimized to perform at maximum efficiency to manage the applications that drive your business and ensure that your critical data is never compromised.
Hybrid Hosting: Leverage the best of managed servers, cloud environments, private clouds and your internal IT architecture by combining them into a single optimized IT infrastructure.
If you’re coming to Interop to find IaaS partner opportunities, check out our Partner Program. It provides aggressive incentives and generous volume discounts on our award-winning products to enable all types of businesses to incorporate hosting services into their current product offerings.
Hostway's also part of the Interop Passport Program: While at the show, collect stamps from all passport participants on the expo floor. Once your passport is complete, turn it in to the Interop passport booth for prizes. Hostway is part of the stop - Come see us at booth #700.
If you have an active website, the computer storing your files needs Web server software in order to process requests and deliver data. Chances are that software either Apache or IIS.
Apache HTTP Server
The Apache HTTP server is an open source Web server application developed by the Apache Software Foundation. The server software is freely distributed, and the open source license means users can edit the underlying code to tweak performance and contribute to the future development of the program.
Although Apache will run on pretty much any operating system, it is frequently used in combination with Linux, which is also open source. These two – combined with MySQL and PHP database and scripting language – comprise the popular LAMP Web server solution.
Apache and LAMP have several principle advantages:
Microsoft Internet Information Service
Microsoft’s IIS is the second most popular Web server software. It consists of a series of services including File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and others that enable a Windows machine to manage Web sites. The latest version also includes various modules for security, filtering, caching, ASP.net integration, compression, redirects, logging and diagnostics.
Because IIS is provided for Windows systems only, the choice to use IIS necessitates the choice of a Windows Server, and therefore increases running costs. Windows is also prone to more malware attacks, and has a reputation as a less secure server option. So why might you consider a Windows/IIS option over a LAMP system?
Summary
If cost is your primary consideration, the LAMP combination will work out cheaper as there are no licensing costs. Where security is concerned, Apache is widely acknowledged as the more secure option. If you want to run anything other than a Windows operating system on your servers, you not be able to run IIS. However, if you want to run a script that relies on ASPX, you’ll want to go with IIS, which does present some troubleshooting advantages over LAMP.
With the devastation of Hurricane Sandy and Tropical Storm Irene still fresh in our minds, businesses increasingly understand the importance of implementing business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plans. A recent study showed that 87 percent of companies which lose access to their data for more than a week are destined to go out of business within one year, and 80 percent of companies that experience a disaster but don’t have a disaster recovery plan in place close within 18 months. With statistics like that in mind, business continuity planning is the top priority for SMBs and the second highest priority for enterprises.
Whether it’s a natural disaster, human error, computer virus or hardware failure, disasters are bound to happen from time to time. In fact, 93 percent of businesses admit to enacting their disaster recovery plans at some point. With the average cost of downtime estimated at $336,000 per hour, it’s no wonder more businesses are urgently mapping out their BC/DR plans. In addition to the tremendous costs associated with downtime, businesses also lose customers and reputation due to the expectation of 24/7/365 access. In today’s ultracompetitive business world, your business operations can never afford to stagnate.
While decision-makers in the past have been more reluctant to set aside funding for disaster recovery plans, the rise of cloud computing – which allows data to be stored remotely – has reversed this trend. The draw of backing up data in real time is proving persuasive.
Data stored at hosting company facilities is subject to many precautions, including physical safety mechanisms like fire suppression, on-site security and up-to-date firewalls. Virtual private network (VPN) connections add another layer of security. Storing data at geographically dispersed locations is another safety measure, so that if a natural disaster strikes one area of the world, businesses can mirror their environments to other locations.
Cloud computing data backup methods have made prior formats obsolete by providing business owners a security blanket for business continuity without investing in data center maintenance.
Furthermore, cloud-based BC/DR plans utilize a skilled team of IT professionals to help keep their operations up and running. Your local IT team might have their energies devoted elsewhere during a crisis, but a third-party team will be on the job at all hours to secure your data and systems, giving you an additional layer of assurance – and one less thing to worry about.
Shoppers want online purchasing options: They are an expected convenience these days. From a retail perspective, giving your customers as many opportunities as possible to spend their money makes perfect sense.
But transactions conducted online require special protection. If your customers’ credit card information is compromised, they’ll have to deal with a huge headache, and it will reflect poorly on your company. If such breaches become common, you should prepare for an exodus of business.
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a widely adopted policy for companies that deal with the processing and storage of credit card data. It was designed by a consortium of major credit card companies with the intent of minimizing credit card fraud. Companies that adhere to the PCI DSS receive a compliance certificate which allows them to place a secure transaction emblem on their websites. That compliance is routinely checked.
When it comes to PCI compliance, credit card companies rank businesses on different levels. In order to be compliant, businesses first need to figure out what level they are ranked by the various credit card companies associated with PCI compliance. Those rankings will determine what kinds of specific safeguards need to be put in place, such as Self-Assessment Questionnaires (SAQ) and Quarterly Networks Scans (QNS).
PCI is not a law, but those who are not in compliance with it might be subject to fines if their websites are breached and data is compromised.
According to recent figures, 83 percent of recent data breach victims were not targeted – they were victims of opportunity. That means that even if you operate a quiet, under-the-radar kind of business, you’re still susceptible to attack. Of those victims, 89 percent were not PCI-compliant, meaning the data vital to their customers was vulnerable. If important credit card data has been stolen, non-PCI-compliant companies could face fines up to $500,000 following a breach.
Visa, for example, says top-tier merchants (Level 1) are those who process at least 6 million Visa transactions per year; the second tier of merchants (Level 2) processes between 1 and 6 million yearly transactions; the third tier (Level 3) processes between 20,000 and 1 million transactions each year; and the lowest tier (Level 4) tallies fewer than 20,000 Visa e-commerce transactions per year and all other merchants, regardless of acceptance channel, processing up to 1 million Visa transactions per year.
A recent study points out that 47 percent of Level 4 merchants were “unsure” about or “not at all” familiar with PCI DSS. Imagine the impact a $500,000 fine would have on those businesses. In addition, of the businesses surveyed, 69 percent thought there was no chance they’d be victims of a breach. Isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?
In order to focus your attention on the most pressing issues facing your business, consider employing the services of a managed security provider who will take care of the important background functions to make sure your online business is safe and secure. Managed security providers can give you confidence that your customers’ personal information won’t fall into the wrong hands.
When combined with your company’s internal administrative and physical safeguards, Hostway’s PCI Complete solution will provide 100 percent coverage of the vital data that powers your business, drastically reducing the risk of a data breach. To learn more about how the solution is right for your business, visit Hostway’s website.
Sources:
http://www.merchantuniversity.org/101-education/security-pci-101/pci-compliance-fines.aspx
http://www.pcicomplianceguide.org/pcifaqs.php#2
http://www.transactionworld.net/articles/2013/january/compliance.html
What's worse than forgetting to renew your domain name registration? Getting your domain deleted as a result of not renewing and it having it registered by someone else. They may demand an exorbitant price to sell it back, or worse, sell it to one of your competitors, who takes all your customer traffic and email.
Many people fail to appreciate that domain name registration is for a set period of time. Most domains can be registered for 1 to 10 years. Once your registration term expires – or better yet, before it expires – you must renew it or risk losing it.
Although we send expiry notices multiple times prior to the domain expiry date, many customers leave the process of domain renewal to the last minute. This is not recommended, as other priorities can distract you from completing this simple and necessary process. Next thing you know, you've forgotten about renewing your domain altogether.
There are other factors that can also result in a losing a domain due to non-renewal. You might assume someone else in the organization will take care of the renewal. The registration contact person might have left the company, leaving the expiry notices to bounce back. Unfortunately, many people don't realize the true value of their domain name until they lose their registration.
The results of losing a valuable domain are costly, ranging from a relatively low cost of around $125 to redeem the domain at the registry (if it can be redeemed), to fees in the thousands of dollars charged by domain auction houses. Those vendors will price the domain based on a number of factors, including the amount of traffic coming into the domain, the number of years the domain was previously registered for, and the type of company that previously registered the domain. That last one opens the market to your competitors to secure the registration from you.
There is one simple and free solution to keep this nightmare from happening: Set up your domain to auto-renew. Our auto-renewal feature ensures your domain name will always be renewed before it expires as long as the billing info in your account is up to date. This feature adds another layer of protection not only to your domain, but also other services associated with your domain, such as web hosting and email, by preventing service interruptions that can cost you money.
Setting up auto-renewal is easy: simply log into your SiteControl account, select your domain(s), and enable the auto-renewal service. You have complete control over this feature and can opt out at any time.
Hybrid clouds are one of the fastest growing types of Infrastructure-as-a-Service offerings in the market. They can provide a number of special benefits to companies with a specific set of characteristics. NFL blogging site, FanSided is a good example of the type of business for whom hybrid was a perfect match.
As FanSided.com grew to a national blogging network, their sites were strained during the traffic-heavy NFL season. If this sounds familiar to you, then you’ll recognize the importance of choosing infrastructure that is responsive to and allows for easy management of traffic fluctuations.
FanSided’s prior infrastructure comprised of two web servers and a dedicated database server. This sufficed during spring and summer, but NFL-season surges would cause crashes. This was turning off FanSided visitors and hindering the network’s array of bloggers. The combination of a public-facing website or application as well as a private database is a strong indicator for a potential hybrid use case.
In summer 2012, FanSided searched for a more reliable solution to handle the changing load while remaining cost-effective. They were used to dealing with a turnaround time of three full days for additional temporary servers. A hybrid setup would drop that to a matter of minutes by placing their website in a public cloud so they could easily adjust for traffic fluctuations. In addition, they would save costs because they could turn off resources they were not using as needed to avoid expenses on unused resources.
For this particular set-up, Hostway recommended a platform which linked a managed server through a private VLAN connection to the cloud servers. Since the database played a critical role, a dedicated database server became part of the equation. This offered both the stability and security they needed for their database-intensive backend as well as the ability to increase and decrease resources in the cloud on the fly throughout the year for their website.
After FanSided’s trial, they officially signed on citing Hostway’s reliability, flexibility, ease of use and customer support as their reasons for making the move.
FanSided is just one example of the type of business that benefits from hybrid cloud. If you business experiences any of the following, talk with your IT department or Hostway about whether a hybrid cloud is right for you.
Follow this link for the rest of the FanSided story.
Hostway marketing copywriter Stephen Fontenot serves as Assistant Director and Central Texas Coordinator for the Texas Quiz Bowl Alliance (TQBA), an organization that facilitates high school, college and middle school academic competition across the Lone Star State.
In this role, Stephen started San Antonio's first quiz bowl circuit from scratch in Fall 2011. TQBA held its fifth San Antonio-area event in April 2013, and has 23 local high schools participating in the four-on-four buzzer-based competition.
During an average school year, Stephen works at about eight tournaments, including traveling to the Middle School and High School National Championship Tournaments as a volunteer. 2013's national events were held in Chicago and Atlanta.
"At the most basic level, quiz bowl is about broadening horizons, about learning things you may not encounter in the classroom, from Salk to Saint-Saëns to Saramago," Stephen said. "It rewards academic achievement in a way that isn't necessarily found elsewhere. It's fun, and it fosters teamwork skills among those who might be used to being self-reliant."
Stephen has been involved in quiz bowl since his freshman year of high school -- sadly, 21 years ago, he notes -- and has been volunteering as a moderator and coordinator at these events for 15 years.
"Seeing the standard of knowledge grow year over year is really fulfilling," Stephen said. "What students need to know today is well beyond what we were asked decades ago."
In May, Stephen received an Alumni Community Award from Alpha Phi Omega’s Alpha Gamma Kappa chapter at his alma mater, Southwestern University, for his work with TQBA. APO is a national co-ed service fraternity.
To learn more about TQBA's efforts, visit http://www.texasquizbowl.org.
