Bits & Bytes

Host.net is the new standard for Colocation, Cloud, Connectivity, and Continuity solutions through our 4cNxGn™ Smart Cloud Architecture Solutions Suite. Our blog is a forum to discuss the new paradigms and challenge the status quo in cloud computing! (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));

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The Cloud and the Changing Face of Legacy Infrastructure

Following up on last week's announcement of Microsoft and Oracle "getting in bed together" after years of bickering, Oracle announced the following day Oracle announced another "marriage" with Salesforce.com.  To most "old timers" these are seismic events in the IT world having lived through the many squabbles these tech giants have gotten into but in the end the stark realities of the changing face of the technology landscape's customer sunk in; "old foes have come together because they have both been wrong-footed by the speed at which business customers have shunned their costly packaged software and maintenance contracts in favor of cloud-delivered services." The combined power of disruptive technologies with customers having a say (and meaning) is forcing "accepted" standards to be revisited and turned upside down.  Business is changing at a vertiginous speed and IT Departments long known for being slow to change due to the "technology" constraints of amalgamating disparate platforms, loyal (often to a fault) to what "works" as to not rock stable platforms, and responding to their internal and external clients by being very slow to adapt and change  can no longer continue down this path.  The Cloud has arrived and it is here to stay.  It is now a matter of not only embracing it, but being at the forefront when doing so.  At Host.net we take great pride in pushing the envelope to ensure our clients have the latest in cloud technology.  Our new 4cNxGn™ Smart Cloud Architecture represents a groundbreaking framework that solidifies our position as providers of both IaaS and  PaaS solutions in the marketplace.  

We hope you enjoy this article that further solidifies the above.

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Calling All South Florida Technology User Groups

Has your IT Group organized an end of year event?  Join South Florida’s biggest holiday event- ITPalooza!  Over 1,000 attendees expected from over 50 South Florida Tech Groups!  Hosted by NSU Graduate School of Computer and Information Science

Get FREE TABLE SPACE to promote your group

Get FREE CLASSROOM SPACE to hold a year end meeting

Network with hundreds of South Florida’s IT industry leaders

This is THE BIG ONE – ITPalooza

All your favorite South Florida Technology Groups will be getting together to host the first of its kind networking party this holiday season.

Bringing the South Florida Tech Community together  all in one place at one time. ” …Lenny Chesal, Drummer extraordinaire

Where’s The Party!

ITPalooza – South Florida Tech Holiday Party Where: NSU Graduate School of Computer and Information Science When: December 12, 2012 Time: Breakout Sessions begin at 3pm

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The addition of phase four on our Boca Raton campus was driven by the ravenous demand for high-end colocation.  Specifically, larger clients are demanding the security and flexibility of a private cage.   Healthcare, financial, manufacturing, and professional services clients with compliance requirements continue to fuel the rapid growth in our managed services lines of business.  Additionally, more and more of our clients are leveraging our enterprise, private cloud solution or virtual private data center (vPDC), to create hybrid environments.  We expect this growth to continue and increase with an expected 35 billion terabytes of data to be stored in the “cloud” by 2020. A formal press release will be available on Tuesday 10/2/12.

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A preview of our new PIV - Phase IV Boca Colo!

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What are you doing with your left over floppy disks from the 90's?

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HearUSA Selects Host.net to Manage Private Cloud

HearUSA, the nation’s only URAC accredited hearing care network, selected Host.net to manage their new corporate private cloud infrastructure at Host.net’s Boca Raton colocation data center and provide additional network services.

Host.net - A Broadband Company

“Host.net was the best provider in South Florida, so we selected them over all the others,” said Kevin Beninati, senior vice president of HearUSA. “The benefit to us is the high level of service and support we get from the staff at Host.net.”

Boca Raton, Florida (PRWEB) July 24, 2012

HearUSA, the nation’s only URAC accredited hearing care network, selected Host.net to manage their new corporate private cloud infrastructure at Host.net’s Boca Raton colocation data center and provide additional network services.

The customer’s platform will provide both voice and data applications to the nationwide chain of hearing centers and their corporate HQ in North Palm Beach, Florida. Additional network services will be provided to support this installation, which will be permanently housed in Host.net’s new phase IV data center, scheduled to open later this month.

“Host.net was the best provider in South Florida, so we selected them over all the others,” said Kevin Beninati, senior vice president of HearUSA. “The benefit to us is the high level of service and support we get from the staff at Host.net.”

Colocation enables HearUSA to provide secure, remote data storage and processing, with full redundancy for backup and recovery capability—enabling them to serve their network of audiologists and hearing centers in a private data center they can access safely from anywhere. Voice applications will be provided by VoIP, Voice over Internet Protocol, a scalable, cost-effective way of integrating an entire telecommunications network through existing network structure.

HearUSA joins Host.net’s other healthcare clients in secure storage and access of healthcare records.

HearUSA

HearUSA is a recognized leader in hearing care and is partnered with managed care organizations across the country. Through its Hearing Care Network of nearly 2,000 independently practicing audiologists, hearing care professionals and its more than 180 company owned hearing centers, HearUSA administers hearing benefits and provides related products and services to both third party and self-referred clients. HearUSA is currently the nation’s only hearing care network accredited by URAC, an independent, nonprofit health care accrediting organization.

HearUSA 10455 Riverside Drive Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410 Toll-free: [phone] Fax: [phone]

About Host.net Host.net is a multinational provider of managed infrastructure services focusing on colocation, cloud computing and storage, and network transport and transit for education, finance, government, healthcare and other enterprise organizations as well as wholesale and carrier clients. The company operates multiple enterprise-class data centers connected to an extensive fiber-optic backbone delivering Internet, MPLS and layer 2 communications using a wide array of last-mile options. It serves customers in most major metropolitan regions of North America as well as portions of Europe. Founded in 1996, Host.net is headquartered in Boca Raton, FL.

For more information about Host.net, visit http://www.host.net.

Host.net Contact: Lenny Chesal, CMO & VP of Strategic Sales Host.net Tel. [phone]         F: 561.869.3321 lchesal(at)host(dot)net http://www.host.net

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Host.Net Celebrates 1,000 Days of vPDC Uptime

Host.net Contact: Lenny Chesal, CMO & VP of Strategic Sales Host.net Tel. [phone] F: 561.869.3321 [email protected] www.host.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

BOCA RATON, FL (July 17, 2012) – Today, Host.net marks their thousandth day of continuous uptime, providing additional access and security to a wide variety of enterprise clients through the company’s Virtual Private Data Center (vPDC) services, which enable businesses to manage their computing and storage needs with unsurpassed access, reliability, speed and security. 

“Our vPDCs are at the core of our clients’ needs and the basis of our growth,” said Host.net CEO Jeffrey Davis.  “The continuous uptime proves the reliability of our advanced, multimillion-dollar vPDC platform, which enables businesses to create their own private clouds in a secure and efficient way, meeting the growing demand to outsource enterprise data services.”

Host.net’s vPDCs let businesses migrate their data center operations to an enterprise virtual platform to eliminate capital expenses, decrease physical server needs, eliminate in-house maintenance responsibilities, and add security features including redundancy for disaster recovery. Using the latest VMware enterprise server virtualization platform and the most robust enterprise SAN solution available, the vPDCs provide access to terabytes of storage, increased performance over standard SAN solutions, geographically spread SSAE 16 SOC2 certified data center hosting, and 24x7 system and security monitoring—all on Host.net’s layer 2 network.

“A thousand days of vPDC is just one milestone in many satisfying our clients and growing our services,” adds Davis, citing Host.net’s decade of managed services, including colocation and, now, enterprise and private custom hybrid solutions. “The significance of this achievement is the uninterrupted, high levels of protection, availability and functionality for our clients.”

Host.net vPDC architecture is a custom-built, multi-million-dollar environment engineered with best-of-breed hardware and software from Cisco, DataCore, Dell, StillSecure and VMWare, which is designed to ensure the security, integrity and availability of vital data.

About Host.net

Host.net is a multinational provider of network infrastructure services focusing on colocation, cloud computing and storage, and network transport and transit for education, finance, government, healthcare and other enterprise organizations as well as wholesale and carrier clients. The company operates multiple enterprise-class data centers connected to an extensive fiber-optic backbone delivering Internet, MPLS and layer 2 communications using a wide array of last-mile options. It serves customers in most major metropolitan regions of North America as well as portions of Europe. Founded in 1996, Host.net is headquartered in Boca Raton, FL.

For more information about Host.net, visit www.host.net.  

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Research data on cloud growth and focus

New research from VC firm, North Bridge, adds to the body of evidence that cloud continues to take hold in the enterprise.

Image credit: Cloud Watching by Michael Krigsman

Although cloud growth may seem self-evident to those in the industry, traditional companies are slow to change and adapt new technologies. To serve these companies, the industry must prove its worth and provide solutions that these folks find valuable and useful. Studies such as this can help identify where businesses see opportunity in the cloud and where they are nervous about cloud solutions.

Highlights from the research, which has the grandiose title Future of Cloud Computing 2012, include:

Fifty percent of respondents are confident that cloud solutions are viable for mission critical business applications.

Scalability remains the top reason for adopting the cloud, with 57 percent of companies identifying it as the most important driver for cloud adoption. Business agility ranked second among drivers for cloud adoption, with 54 percent of respondents focused on agility.

Security remains the primary inhibitor to adoption in the burgeoning cloud marketplace with 55 percent of respondents identifying it as a concern, followed by regulatory compliance (38%) and vendor lock-in (32%).

Software as a service (SaaS) is currently, and is expected to remain the primary type of cloud investment, with 82 percent of respondents citing it as in use today, and 88 percent expecting to use it five years from now.

Platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) will see significant growth in the next five years, with PaaS growing from 40 percent to 72 percent and IaaS growing from 51 percent to 66 percent.

Eighty percent of respondents identify big data as the most likely sector to be disrupted by cloud computing

The majority of respondents (53 percent) believe that cloud computing maintains a lower TCO and creates a less complex IT workflow.

You can see the complete research presentation by clicking here.

It is particularly interesting that the 2011 survey had 417 respondents in contrast to 785 respondents this year. Aside from any other conclusions, this alone demonstrates increasing frothiness in the cloud market.

Although it does not break significant new ground, the research adds to our understanding of cloud growth and is a worthwhile contribution to the industry.

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The staff at Host.net participated in the American Cancer Society Relay for Life bowling fundraiser last weekend - A great time was had by all!

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Of course, we’re hearing more and more about cloud computing these days – but what is cloud storage, and how can it benefit your business?

The fact is that you’re probably already using the cloud without even realizing it. If you use a web-based email provider such as Gmail or Hotmail, you are using the cloud. If you’ve ever used Skype video calling or video interfaces like Vimeo or YouTube, you’ve used the cloud. If you’ve ever backed up data on the Internet rather than an external device, you’ve used the cloud.

Although the cloud in its current form is a relatively recent development, interest in cloud computing continues to grow. Cloud computing has a great number of benefits — here are the top five:

1. Cost Savings

One of the most appealing reasons to switch to the cloud is the cost savings. With cloud computing, the need to pay for large amounts of disk and storage space is instantly removed as well as the need for buying, installing and upgrading pricey software. With the cloud, you’ll pay for applications only when needed and many applications are included free of charge. Usage can easily be scaled to fit your needs and adjusted for peaks or troughs in demand.

This “a la carte,” incremental way of paying can save your business a lot of money. Pay-per-use reduces (or in some cases eliminates) the cost of maintaining in-house servers. The savings applies to your desktop, too — with SaaS (software as a service), desktop software need not be installed, which saves your business both time and money.

2. Ease of Use

Quite simply, cloud computing is easy to get up and running. Instead of having to download and/or install software yourself, in the cloud it is all done for you. The cloud also offers virtually unlimited storage capacity relative to typical hard drive and server limits. The cloud is also adaptable. If you need more storage, it’s instantly available for a slightly larger fee per month. Since your business data is stored in the cloud, your employees will be able to access software and data anywhere from nearly  any device that has Internet connection.

3. Increased Storage Capacity and Automation

The cloud offers virtually unlimited storage capacity when compared to typical hard drive and server limits, and is flexible — if your business needs more storage, you can upgrade at any time. Also, the cloud keeps software up-to-date with the latest versions, so you’ll never have to worry about doing software updates yourself. File sync with all of your devices as well as file back-ups are also fully automated. Your data will continually be kept consistent and current among all of your devices in use.

4. Agility, Flexibility and Scalability.

Cloud computing also offers far more flexibility and agility compared to past computing methods. Your employees will no longer be tethered to their desks and will be able to access files and data from wherever they are, 24 hours a day. You’ll also be able scale your cloud usage up or down on an as-needed basisand only pay for what you are actually using. In the past, making changes to your service could take months. Now, with the cloud, this can be done in minutes.

With the cloud, your staff will be able to access information from home, from clients’ offices, on the road, or even from their smartphone . Your staff members can also work collaboratively on documents and files, even when they are not physically in the same room. Also, documents can be viewed as well as edited simultaneously from multiple user locations.

5. Freeing up Your IT Staff

Since the cloud does most everything for you, there is no need to use valuable IT staff resources on things like maintaining servers, fixing bugs or taking care of software updates. Your IT department will spend less time on maintenance and be free to spend more time focusing on strategic initiatives to increase your company’s bottom line.

What is cloud storage? It could very well be exactly what your company needs.

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Cloud computing continues to be a hot topic, as more enterprises explore cloud deployments, whether public, private or hybrids of both. Is disaster recovery one of them? Find out by reading the full article HERE.

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As the conversations from FIRE sink in, I start to see IT evolve away from the conventional (and highly standardized) data center design to more advanced and highly-tuned architectures customized for particular operating missions.  For all of the buzz about commoditized infrastructure there has been very little discussion about the need for customization. What do you think about customizing the infrastructure?

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"The Lighter Side Of The Cloud" Comic by CloudTweaks – David Fletcher

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How CIOs Migrate Their IT Applications to the Cloud

As the role of cloud computing is growing around the globe, many CIOs and other senior IT decision makers are facing challenges with their existing network infrastructure -- to support the migration of their business applications to the cloud. A new international study by Cisco Systems revealed the ongoing challenges associated with public or private cloud deployments. These latest research findings provide insight into the current state of cloud service adoption and the chasm between IT expectations and network realities. The survey also examines the experiences of IT professionals regarding the level of difficulty and time required to update their networks and migrate their applications to the cloud.

The 2012 Cisco Global Cloud Networking Survey addresses the applications that are most critical for businesses to move to a cloud services delivery model, as well as the network challenges and potential disruptions and road blocks they are facing during this process. The report also takes a closer look at the typical length of these cloud migrations, and how confident IT professionals are in the ability of their own network deployments to securely deliver an optimal cloud application experience. Among its findings, the study reveals that updating the network is one of the top focus areas for cloud migration. In order to successfully move more applications to the cloud, the majority of respondents cited a cloud-ready network (37 percent) as the biggest infrastructure element required for further cloud deployments, ahead of a virtualized data center (28 percent) or a service-level agreement from a managed cloud service provider (21 percent). This data expands on the Cisco Global Cloud Index, which predicts that more than 50 percent of computing workloads in data centers will be cloud-based by 2014, and that global cloud traffic will grow over 12 times by 2015, to 1.6 zettabytes per year – the equivalent of over four days of business-class video for every person on Earth.

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Where are your Y2K backup diskettes now?

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