What is Cloud Hosting?

Also known as clustered hosting, cloud hosting is a solution that often uses virtualization technology to facilitate load balancing, security and system resources over multiple servers.  This basically means that instead of relying a single piece of hardware, your website and applications can benefit from the resources of multiple servers.   In the typical shared hosting environment, a website is limited to the bandwidth, disk space, RAM, processing power and others resources allocated to the physical machine.  Cloud hosting is a concept that frees you of these limitations, providing you with on-demand access to an infrastructure that is virtually inexhaustible.  The mere structure of the cloud makes it easy to scale up or down based on your individual requirements.

Who Needs Cloud Hosting?

Throughout the years, a countless number of websites have been the victims of their own success.  This is the website then ends up suffering because of its sudden boost in popularity and traffic.  The environment in which this situation occurs the most is shared web hosting.  Once your website exceeds the limitations of a single physical server, it is susceptible to choking.   Cloud hosting is the perfect alternative as it gives you access to a cluster of servers, allowing your website to benefit from additional bandwidth, RAM, processing power and other resources it might require.  The major selling point to this solution as that you can obtain this extra boost in computing power when you need it.  If the popularity of your website subsides a bit, you can easily place the resources back into the cloud and make them available to other users.

Are There Other Benefits?

Cloud hosting services offer benefits from numerous angles.  The most obvious advantages are its scalability and cost efficiency.  Being that cloud computing is a highly scalable technology, websites and applications can be expanded greatly thanks to the additional resources.  Dealing with slow responses and frequent crashes just because your site experienced a sudden surge in traffic is a common thing in the shared hosting environment.  The cloud’s scalability allows you to avoid this problem with ease.  Another major benefit of cloud hosting is the flexible pay-per-usage model.  When signing up with a provider, you are only charged for the amount of computing power you use, similar to how you pay for your gas and electrical bill.   No longer do you have to lease and maintain a costly and complex dedicated server just to improve performance.   These are a few of many benefits that have made the cloud the talk of the IT world.

OS Hardening

The configuration for virtual machines and switches must be hardened just like your physical boxes and network switches. The underlying operating system must also be hardened through routine patches and updates, removal of unused components and maintaining secure settings. The EMC report suggests modeling virtual systems after the guidelines from the CIS (Center for Internet Security) and DISA (Defense Information Systems Agency) as they are viewed as well established security practices.

Configuration and Change Management

Since virtualization technology makes it simple to deploy new virtual machines and modify their set ups, it becomes very easy to fall into a chaotic state of configuration when it comes time to managing the environment. Even when systems are adequately hardened during installation, it is still important for organizations to stay on top of the environment to ensure a secure configuration. This means that when system settings are modified or new software applications are added, administrators are making sure the virtual system continues to meet what the EMA report calls the “gold standard” of configuration.

Access Control

Practical security polices such as least privilege and separation of duty should not be thrown to the wayside just because virtualization has come into the picture. Instead, such principles should become more essential than ever. The presence of virtualization results in increased density of all the systems and applications on your server. This is more convenient for your organization as well as the intruder who may be able to manipulate these systems if proper access control is not enforced and maintained. The report suggests that solution providers aid their staff and clients in understanding the importance of role-based access control both in and out of the virtual environment.

Network Security and Segmentation

Companies operating virtual servers lacking any sort of segmentation are far more vulnerable to exploit and exposure than organizations making use of virtual switches to incorporate those virtual machines into virtual local area networks like their physical counterparts. The security report explains that one of the most essential factors in compliance is ensuring that data is isolated and not mingled with or available to users on other virtual machines. Organizations that possess expertise in the network security field should put it to use in the virtualization environment. This can be done by obtaining virtual switches and other virtual security mechanisms such as firewalls and intrusion protection systems to protect network perimeters.

]]> http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/10/14/how-secure-is-virtualization-technology/feed/ 0 http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/08/25/layer-technologies-breaks-through-on-inc-5000/ http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/08/25/layer-technologies-breaks-through-on-inc-5000/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:06:16 +0000 CommunicateBetter http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/?p=489 Many companies are struggling during the recession, but you couldn’t tell by viewing a certain list featuring a comprehensive look at 5,000 of the nation’s top-performing privately owned firms.

Based in Plano, Texas, web hosting provider Layer Technologies, Inc., just added another accolade to its long list of honors by ranking number 622 in Inc Magazine’s the third annual Inc. 5000.  Thanks to Northern Capital Insurance, the number one company on the list this year, insurance is leading the way as the nation’s leading industry with an average growth rate of a whopping 667%.   Other notable brands representing their respective industries featured on the list include beverage brewing company Honest Tea, rental car service Zipcar and internet powerhouse GoDaddy.

Jim Melloan, Inc. 5,000 project manager, says that the Inc. 5,000 is the best source for learning about new private companies that achieve success through innovative business models and older privately owned corporations that are still profiting and growing at an impressive rate.  Melloan noted that this is the reason investors and other spectators look forward to the list every year.

Layered Technologies made the prestigious Inc. 5,000 list due to its tremendous growth rate of 441% over the past three years.  The firm invests faithfully in research and development to implement the new technologies and features that has helped it remain one of the top 10 global web hosting providers.  Layered Tech evolved from a regionally known dedicated hosting provider to a world-renown web host with a scalable infrastructure that powers a broad range of internet applications and millions of websites.

Many are viewing Inc.’s 2009 list as a report card on the U.S. economy.  In light of the harsh economic climate, aggregate revenue of companies that made the list increased by an estimated $29 billion since 2008, with an average three year growth rate of 126%.  Since its inception, Inc. has played an active hand in creating more than one million jobs, serving as the perfect example of the positive impact fast growing businesses can have on the economy.  You can view the complete results of the Inc. 5000 list by criteria such as industry and region on the Inc.com website.

About Layered Technologies

Founded in 2004, Layered Technologies Inc. is a web hosting provider that specializes in managed hosting, dedicated servers, virtualization, cloud computing and a broad range of additional web services.  Leveraging the best of technology and a world-class infrastructure, the firm delivers the level of support that enables businesses of various sizes to eliminate costly upfront investments and save significantly on operating expense while focusing on the core aspects of their business.  Its highly scalable infrastructure lends its power to millions of websites and a host of web solutions and applications such as SasS (software as a service), SQL Server and content distribution among others.  Boasting one of the largest customer bases in the industry, Layer Technologies clients range from cutting-edge startup companies and thriving medium enterprises to some of the most successful integration and consulting firms in the world.

Uncovering the Truth

As a customer, it is important to understand that web hosting is a major industry with a terminology all its own.  What a particular term means to you can have an entirely different meaning in this environment, as is the case with unlimited in regard to domains.  Although several companies will lead you to believe that you can launch websites until your heart is content, you can probably host up to 5 domains before things go haywire.  Anything more increases the likelihood of draining critical resources such as bandwidth, memory and CPU.  When this happens, you might not have a single website available let alone 5 of them.  Therefore, you should look at unlimited domain hosting as another clever tactic similar to the incredible disk space and transfer offerings used to entice unknowing customers.

Instead of allowing you to broaden your web presence, an unlimited domain hosting solution could end up creating unlimited ways to get your sites shut down.  Despite the advertisements, some of these plans come attached with complex stipulations and restrictions that typically don’t work in your favor.  Beneath the technical jargon and fine print you will discover limitations on CPU and RAM usage, file size, FTP uploads and the list goes on.  All these complications in an arrangement that is supposed to offer the freedom of unlimited.  Go out of bounds and you could find yourself trapped at the mercy of an unruly web host.

Save Yourself

It may not be fair, but it is pretty easy to understand why companies heavily promote unlimited domain hosting packages.  It is just another way to sell a service to customers who simply don’t know enough about how the technology works to realize the ploy.  In most cases, no harm, no foul.  Others however, turn out be disastrous.  The truth is that some of the industry’s leading providers are making their names off of these misleading yet ingenuous marketing gimmicks.  It is up to you to know the game and read between the lines.  There is a great chance that unlimited domain hosting will continue or eventually be replaced by offerings promising even more irresistible capabilities.  While you can’t change the hosting market, you can prevent yourself from getting stuck in a jam.

]]> http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/05/19/avoiding-the-pitfalls-of-unlimited-domains/feed/ 0 http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/04/16/novella-reveals-plans-for-new-it-solutions/ http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/04/16/novella-reveals-plans-for-new-it-solutions/#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:58:28 +0000 CommunicateBetter http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/?p=291 Last week, IT solutions provider Novell, unveiled a marketing strategy for what it is calling a “Service-Driven Data Center”.  The plan includes a line of integrated products the company says is custom designed to help clients enhance their agility while reducing complexity, risks and costs.  This concept is Novell’s latest move towards delivering more service-driven and business-centric IT solutions.

According to Novell, the new solutions will provide services designed to create, manage and effectively measure an advanced data center that enables IT executives to deliver flexible, cost efficient business services to their customers.  The plan is said to couple the SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Server platform with the recently acquired ManagedObjects and PlatSpin in the company’s portfolio of integrated products.

The Service Driven Data Center has been set to function in a heterogeneous environment.  It utilizes management and automation tools to measure the performance of complete IT services against their business objectives.  Novell’s concept is based on the following core values:

Build

Build is the company’s dedication to creating a flexible, highly efficient data center using SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 as its platform.

Manage

The manage characteristic relates to a holistic approach to virtualization and workload management.  This is made possible by using PlateSpin Workload Management solutions to leverage the company’s assets.

Measure

Lastly, the Measure aspect refers to the utilization of ManagedObjects, which provides business service management across multiple platforms and hardware types.

Released in March, 2009, Novell’s SUSE platform offers open-source benefits of the Linux environment along with enterprise features such as support for Xen virtual machines and Microsoft Management Tools.  It also offers a level of scalability that allows customers to run an unlimited amount of virtual machines.  This past February, SoftLayer Technologies made a similar move by adding SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to its line of server operating systems.

Reps at Novell say the solutions allow customers to maximize the utilization of their IT assets within a compliant and secure framework, enabling those who have plans of running a server farm, building an internal cloud or leveraging an external cloud.   Jeff Jaffe, Novell chief technology office and executive VP of business units, says that the company has received helpful feedback from a number of customers and partners.  The one thing they heard the most is that IT exists to deliver services to meet business demands.  Jaffe says Novella is confident that the new solutions are what IT teams need to meet those demands.

The news of Novell’s vision for its data center comes at a time when several of the industry’s key players are making announcement to gain a competitive edge in the very lucrative data center market.  Just last month, Cisco revealed Unified Computing System, a new data center strategy that unifies server, network, storage and virtualization resources into one energy efficient system.  Ironically, Sun Microsystems recently turned down a $7 billion acquisition offer from computer giant IBM.  It is reported that the move would have improved Sun’s infrastructure to compete with market rivals like Hewlett Packard.

What is a VDS?

Short for Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS), a VDS is created by virtualization software that partitions a single physical server into multiple isolated servers.  The result is a powerful platform that gives you the enhanced security of a dedicated server at a price that it isn’t too far off from shared hosting.  After being partitioned, a VDS is allocated with its own disk storage and data transfer for added stability.   The server has its own operating system along with isolated web server instances, a mail server and root access for custom software installations. This technology functions in a way that no matter what occurs on another customer’s VDS, it will have absolutely no impact on your environment.   Unlike its virtual counterpart VPS, a VDS is virtually like having the resources of an entire server.

VDS vs Shared Hosting

In a shared hosting arrangement, multiple websites are generally stored in a single directory.

The mere structure makes this a security risk.  With the average setup, shared customers have a dangerous level read and write access, meaning they could possibly access and modify your files. Other issues relate to stability as customers are required to share a variety of critical resources.  This includes the operating system, disk drive, CPU, memory and applications.  Depending on the severity, an error on a single account could force the entire server to run slow or even crash.  With VDS, the servers are completely isolated, giving you a level of privacy that is equivalent to running the server all by yourself.  In a VDS environment, you are completely protected from all the actions of other users hosting on the machine.

On a shared server, performance can still be an issue when no malicious actions or mistakes have been made.  For example, if one customer starts to experience a heavy load of traffic, their excessive bandwidth usage could slow down the entire machine.  This could result in a loss of HTTP requests and ultimately visitors for other customers on the server.  Additionally, the possibility of their being hundreds or thousands of domain owners on a single machine makes shared hosting very susceptible to sluggish performance.  This is especially true when many of them are using memory-hogging applications.

VDS is the perfect alternative to shared hosting as you are assured critical resources and the privacy you need from other customers.  In this environment, you will not have to worry about anyone consuming all the server’s memory and bandwidth or having the ability to view and edit your sensitive files.  The additional stability and security you get with VDS hosting makes it the next best thing to a dedicated server.

Benefits of VPS Hosting

The major benefit of VPS hosting is enhanced performance as well as tighter security at a price significantly cheaper than a dedicated server.

If you plan to move from shared hosting yet can’t afford the high-end price tag of a dedicated server, VPS hosting is the solution you are looking for. Virtualization is becoming more popular, resulting in a price drop on VPS hosting packages. This type of arrangement can serve benefits to a wide range of users. With your platform and operating system isolated from other customers, you will enjoy guaranteed resources in terms of CPU, RAM and disk space.

Who Needs VPS Hosting?

Virtualization is quickly become the preferred option amongst entrepreneurs involved in reseller hosting. VPS provides you with a greater level of control on the services you can offer your customers, resulting in a edge over competitors still utilizing traditional shared servers. The power it provides is well suited for developers looking to a create highly functional blog or demanding social networking site. VPS is also an ideal platform for the webmaster that is already proficient at managing a shared hosting account and wants to upgrade their server administrative skills without fully being exposed to dedicated hosting. All users will have the freedom to install custom applications and change modules on the server. When considering the added privacy, extra layer of security, guaranteed resources and a higher level of performance, it’s no wonder that VPS hosting has become so incredibly popular.

Conclusion

Both shared and dedicated hosting will always serve their purpose but the Virtual Private Server is here to stay. This arrangement makes the perfect solution for anyone who requires more control over their hosting environment yet do not have the resources to invest in an entire server. With VPS, you get a cost not too far removed from shared hosting with a level of control and flexibility similar to a dedicated server, an ideal compromise that allows you to enjoy the best of both worlds.