
|  | What's New | Michigan Colocation, Data Centers and Dedicated Server Hosting | |
Recent News on Michigan Colocation, Data Centers, Dedicated Server Hosting and Disaster Recovery
| |
|
| July 01, 2009 Excerpt from: Michigan Data Centers | | e-Tip #4 - Technology Can Amplify Your Success or Failure | We discussed how the process controls are the toughest and some of the
most important controls to have in place. The good news is that
technology is great for automating the processes. If you automate the
process properly, you can build in the change management, such as
logging of all changes, with no additional overhead.
Automating work flow with a database and email integration can help you
reduce operating costs and increase the quality of your controls. We
took advantage of the audit to justify automating a number of business
processes. This automation provided the necessary logging and change
management tools. In the end, by using technology to prepare for SAS
70, we improved our infrastructure and reduced our operating costs.
One secret we stumbled on years ago that has proven incredibly helpful
is the integration of email into our databases. This enabled our
tracking systems to read emails between our staff as it relates to
orders, support tickets and other important business information. Our
systems read the email and put it directly into our OTPortal management systems.
This allows our stakeholders (clients, staff, and vendors) to use their
favorite and most common interface – the inbox – to interact with our
core systems. This increased usage, increased documentation trails and
allowed us to gather more information. | | |
| July 01, 2009 Excerpt from: Michigan Data Centers | | 1% Vision and 99% Process - The Process Really Counts | Encryption, firewalls, intrusion detection, anomaly prevention and a
plethora of other technologies provide a robust suite of security tools
for network protection. Unfortunately this entire security net can be
undone by a few incidents of poor practice - intentional or not. Common
culprits are weak and seldom changed passwords; typos during a
configuration change to critical infrastructure; and out of date
documentation.
For this reason, a well designed set of controls must address policies
and their adherence. Password policy is a common place to start. For
example, you might have a policy that says all passwords must be
changed every 90 days. What controls are in place to assure adherence
to that policy? What controls are in place to mitigate risks should
someone violate that policy? Change management is one of the most important policies. It describes
how it is that the organization manages changes to critical components.
For example, you might have a change policy that allows no changes to
be made without signoff by more than 1 engineer on certain network
devices. How do you enforce that policy? What documentation do you have
to show who authorized the change and when? These change control
policies protect you against accident or intentional changes to
critical devices. They are an important component of a successful SAS
70 audit.
At Online Tech. we have a documented change management procedure that we
summarize into an acronym called PACT: Plan, Approve, Change, and Test.
The details of the process are determined by the category of the
change. We have four categories of change, determined by the severity
and risk of the change itself. A category I change is the least risky
while a category IV change is the riskiest. We also have a separate
change category for emergency situations. | | |
| June 30, 2009 Excerpt from: Data Center Disaster Recovery | | Online Tech Offers Cost Efficient SAN to SAN Backup | Many companies are still using SAN-to-Tape Backup and Online Tech is offering an alternative, SAN-to-SAN Replication. SAN-to-SAN replication means:
1) Lower costs of disk storage
2) Cheaper Internet connectivity costs
3) Continuous replication
Additionally, backing up directly to a Dell EqualLogic SAN at Online Tech's SAS 70 secure data center provides peace of mind that the SAN data can be restored at any time, without delay or lost data as in tape backup.
According to Online Tech's recent press release, clients can now purchase a monthly SAN backup package that includes:
1) SAN colocation with locked rack and redundant power
2) SAS 70 data center network and physical security
3) 5 Mbps bandwidth for up to 50GB transfer/day
4) Secure VPN network connection into the SAN
To read the full press release on SAN Replication, click here.
| | |
| June 22, 2009 Excerpt from: Michigan Data Centers | | e-Tip #2 – The Scope Will Make or Break You | The SAS 70 audit covers the controls you claim to have. However, there
are no standards for those controls. To control the scope of the audit
you need to control the scope of your claim. Claim less and the audit
is easier. Claim too little and the auditor’s opinion on your controls
will be weak. Claim more than you can reliably deliver every time and
you will fail the audit.
We found it helpful to craft the controls so that they address the core
motivation for the audit. If the motivation is to assure superior
service delivery then your list of controls must be complete enough to
ensure that superior service.
In Online Tech’s case, the core motivation was to deliver a reliable and repeatable set of secure data and network services.
Therefore, we designed our controls to assure reliability and security.
An example of a control for reliability is that “generators are tested
and that the test is documented on a regularly scheduled basis”. An
example of a control for security is that “all requests for firewall
rule changes must come from approved sources and those sources must be
verified on a specific schedule”. Both these controls were claimed and
audited because they pertained to our core business and were in scope.
This is another reason executive leadership is critical. As you craft
your controls, you are really describing how you assure your business
model is being followed. This is exactly what executives want to know
about their organization. | | |
| June 17, 2009 Excerpt from: Online Tech Data Center News | | Online Backup is secure and cost effective with OTVault | With OTVault, our data is securely sent to SAS 70 certified data centers with redundant fail-safe systems. We found OTVault to be a cost effective option for our disaster recovery. As bandwidth keeps getting cheaper and more accessible, IT departments can reduce costs and improve recovery times without turning to expensive DR products from the likes of Sungard, IBM, or EDS.
For example, Memsic, Inc. of Andover Massachusetts, a producer of sensor technologies, needed online backup that was cost effective and Sarbanes-Oxley compliant for their disaster recovery and they chose OTVault, Online Tech's new online data storage
product. "With OTVault, our data is securely sent to SAS 70 certified data
centers with redundant fail-safe systems. We found OTVault to be a cost
effective option for our disaster recovery ” said Cheryl Merino, a
Manager at Memsic.
Unlike other online "vaults" that require you to install special software
on all your machines, OTVault maps to a drive on your servers and
supports a plethora of protocols – which means you can use your current
backup software by simply pointing it to OTVault as the destination.
The backup storage also eliminates the costs of tapes, hardware
maintenance, offsite tape delivery and storage, and the personnel costs
to manage the tape rotations.
To celebrate the launch, Online Tech is offering an OTVault trial free for 15 days. | | |
| June 14, 2009 Excerpt from: Data Center Disaster Recovery | | Online Backup to a Secure Data Center Delivers Cost Effective Disaster Recovery | With the announcement of OTVault, new online data storage, businesses can take an easy first step towards disaster recovery by backing up their data online to one of Online Tech's SAS 70 certified data centers.
Backups at many businesses are often poorly managed - inconsistent backup schedules or leaving the backup data on site are just some of the problems that can be overcome by automating electronic backups to online data storage.
OTVault lets businesses map the online storage to their in house servers as a drive and use their current backup software to write backups and critical data at Online Tech’s SAS70 certified data centers.
OTVault starts at $199 for 100 GB of online data storage and only $99 for each additional 100 GB. More on OTVault Online Data Storage.
| | |
| June 13, 2009 Excerpt from: Managed Data Center Services | | Lower Cost, More Reliable Alternative to Tape Backup | We've been long on preaching that data is as valuable as money for most businesses. Now we're offering another way for businesses to protect their valuable data.
OTVault is our new online data storage product - an easy, cost effective solution for backing up your servers or archiving your data from any location into a secure, SAS70 certified data center.
OTVault is not targeted at consumers, laptops, or desktop backups. The product is designed specifically for businesses that need to back up their servers or archive data to between 100 Gigabytes to 10 Terabytes of online storage.
Unlike Mozy, or other low end solutions that limit upload speeds to limit the amount of backup data which can be transferred each day, OTVault starts with over 50 Gigabytes of data transfer per day and can be upgraded to higher speeds.
And here's the cool part - the price: OTVault starts at $199 for 100 GB and $99 for each additional 100 GB, which now makes online backup a cost effective alternative to traditional tape backup. | | |
| June 12, 2009 Excerpt from: Michigan Data Centers | | e-Tip # 1 – You Need Executive Sponsorship to Survive | A successful SAS 70 audit begins with one or more executives committing
the corporate-will to the cause. Often the SAS 70 audit is assigned to
the security department or an IT staffer, but in reality, security is
everyone’s job. Only an executive has the perspective and authority to
make changes that affect everyone’s job. To successfully engrain
security or reliability throughout an organization requires a
company-wide, cross department perspective that is the purview of
executive leadership.
Online Tech’s CEO and CFO worked closely with its auditors and the
entire organization to engrain the proper attitudes. They began by
articulating the motivation for the audit to the entire company,
rallying the staff around the process and gaining their acceptance of
the procedures and structures that SAS 70 requires. The result was
positive as new procedures and practices were deployed on behalf of the
audit. This would not have happened without executive sponsorship for
SAS 70.
| | |
| June 04, 2009 Excerpt from: Dedicated Server Hosting | | Dell Dedicated Server Specials | To help you select the best Dell server for your web hosting needs check out current Dedicated Server Special page!
- We use only branded DELL hardware.
- We manage the server for your peace of mind.
- We keep the server updated with all security patches.
- We take care of security & keep hackers away.
- You have 24x7 root level access to your server.
- World class SAS -70 datacenters & hosting servers.
| | |
| June 03, 2009 Excerpt from: Dedicated Server Hosting | | Tip #7 – Monitoring Your Server 7x24 | Servers are very
reliable today. But the demand for them to work 7x24 has increased
dramatically over the years. For this reason, many aspects of a server
should be monitored. How are you going to monitor that the server is
not low on disk space or running out of memory before you have a
problem?
Leased Server: You can contract a
number of online providers to monitor your server (about $10-50 per
month) and notify you if a threshold is met. It is then up to you to
get to the server (either physically go to the server or log in
somehow) and see what the problem is, diagnosis it and fix it. It’s the
response and repair that can be really expensive, especially if you
need it on very short notice.
Dedicated Server: At Online Tech we monitor your server from multiple monitoring locations
(including some from other geographies on the Internet) so that we
always know the state of your server. Any issues cause alarms to be
immediately sent to multiple engineers who then will pounce on the
problem and work to resolve the issue and get the server back on line.
Savings: $10 - $50 per month plus response time to alarms. | | |
| June 03, 2009 Excerpt from: Dedicated Server Hosting | | e-Tip #6 – The Power Isn't Free | Did you know that
for some servers it can cost as much to power the server as it does to
purchase it? When calculating the power costs, don’t forget the
cooling. If you have a server that draws 500 watts of power, it will
cost at least another 500 watts to cool it. 500 Watts of power costs
about $40/month (.12 cents / KWHr), plus the cost to cool it is another
$40/month – so that’s $80/month just for the power. And that’s “raw”
power (see our blog entry on data center power). You also need to
protect against power spikes and brownouts as they can actually damage
the server.
Leased Server: At a minimum, purchasing
an Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) to keep your server running for a
few hours when you lose power will run about $1000- $1500. After
several hours, you need a generator to keep the server, network and
Internet connection gear powered. Generators are extremely capital
intensive.
Dedicated Server: All dedicated servers at Online Tech are kept in one
of our SAS-70 audited data centers which include industrial size
Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) and at least one generator.
Savings: $1000 - $1500 plus generator backups. | | |
| June 01, 2009 Excerpt from: Dedicated Server Hosting | | e-Tip #5 – Consider the Costs of Backing Up Your Data | How
are you going to backup the information on the server? How are you
going to protect from data-loss due to fire, flood or theft of your
data?
Leased Server: You can purchase a tape
backup system with tapes or a disk backup system and take the data
offsite to your home or other place regularly. If your building burns
down at least you won’t have a total data loss. You should consider
what happens if you misplace the backup data? Will your data be secure?
Backup hardware and software can run $200 to $1,000. Also be sure to
budget 2-4 hours per week of someone’s time to get the backups prepared
and to make sure the backups are completed properly.
Dedicated Server: Online Tech’s offers tape-less, no-touch onsite and
offsite (replicated through our private network to a data center 50
miles away) backup,
much more cost effectively than having someone come and pick up your
tapes.
Savings: $200 - $1000 plus 2-4 hours per week of time.
Excerpt from "Seven Cost Saving e-Tips to Cut TCO with Dedicated Servers"
| | |
| May 27, 2009 Excerpt from: Dedicated Server Hosting | | e-Tip #4- Consider the Internet Security | A "naked" unprotected server on the Internet will be found and compromised by Internet robots in less than 45 minutes. So how are you going to secure the server from hackers?
Leased Server: Buy and manage security devices such as firewall; Intrusion Detection; Port Scan; SQL Injection and other types of attacks. You can hire a company to audit your server every 90 days and suggest/recommend additional security measures to keep abreast of the threats as they increase exponentially. These can be purchased for between $500 and $5000. Budget 4-8 hours of engineer time ($400 - $800) to setup the device and a few hours a month to monitor it do updates so you can stay ahead of the hackers. You’ll also need to budget 20% of the price of the security device for an annual subscription for virus updates. In the end the security will cost you more than the server and you just can’t live without it.
Dedicated Server: All Online Tech dedicated servers are protected by hardware firewalls with an easy upgrade to the state of the art Universal Threat Management offering powered by WatchGuard. These provide protection against Port Scans, Intrusion Detection and other nefarious threats.
Savings: $900 - $5800 plus $100 - $1000 per year on maintenance.
Excerpt from "Seven Cost Saving e-Tips to Cut TCO with Dedicated Servers" | | |
| May 21, 2009 Excerpt from: Dedicated Server Hosting | | e-Tip #3 - Consider the Quality of Your Internet Connection | How are you going to connect your server to the Internet? Will it be
secure? What happens if your internet connection goes down for a few
hours? How expensive is an Internet failure?
Leased Server: For the same level of
uptime, you’ll need to contract for two different Internet companies
and put both internet connections into a network router and program to
sense when one of the connections fails and automatically fail over to
the backup connection. Cost: $500 to $1000 for the network device and
programming plus an additional Internet connection. An extra T1 line is
likely to cost an extra $400 - $500 per month.
Dedicated Server: All Online Tech dedicated servers have dual, redundant connections to
our redundant Cisco network which is connected to two separate Internet
providers over gigabit fiber connections. It’s an infrastructure few
companies can afford for themselves.
Savings: $500 - $1000 upfront and $400 - $500 per month.
Excerpt from "Seven Cost Saving e-Tips to Cut TCO with Dedicated Servers". | | |
| May 18, 2009 Excerpt from: Dedicated Server Hosting | | E-Tip #2- Consider the Physical Security Costs | Where are you going to put the server? Will it be secure? Could the janitor pick it up and walk out with it?
Leased Server: For any level of security, you’ll need to commit to a
data closet with a locked door, proper cooling, maybe webcams or
biometric finger print reader, alarms and other systems to protect the
server from physical damage or loss or at least provide some forensic
evidence as to who stole it should it go missing. The closet with
proper cooling can start at $1000.
Dedicated Server: Online Tech places your dedicated server is in our SAS-70 audited data center
with dual-factor authentication and biometrics for physical access,
video cameras and locked in a secure private cage or rack. Savings:
approximately $1000.
Excerpt from "Seven Cost Saving e-Tips to Cut TCO with Dedicated Servers" | | |
| May 16, 2009 Excerpt from: Dedicated Server Hosting | | e-Tip #1 - Consider the Setup Costs | Who’s going to unpack, configure, test and fire up your server? It’s easy
to underestimate the time and importance of setting up a server right
the first time. If you don’t build the server properly, the software
won’t run properly or it will be highly insecure.
Leased Server: Hire a Systems Engineer
to configure the server properly. To properly build, test and deploy a
server can take 2 days of an engineer’s time. At $100/hour that’s
$1,600.
Dedicated Server: Online Tech sets up the hardware, tests it, mounts it
in our server racks, installs the OS all patches, scans for viruses,
sets up the security, networking and firewall, installs multiple OS add-ons and any other software you wish.
Savings: $1,600.
Excerpt from "Seven Cost Saving e-Tips to Cut TCO with Dedicated Servers"
| | |
| May 14, 2009 Excerpt from: Michigan Colocation | | How to managed IT demands efficiently | |
As the demands on IT increase, managing the expertise and resources required to support the entire IT delivery stack is becoming more difficult and more expensive for many mid-size firms. Many firms are finding that colocation offers an attractive alternative – outsourcing the data center infrastructure to experts that can provide higher levels of uptime at the same time keeping the mission critical knowledge of their data and business applications inside the company.
Colocation is a cap-ex free (no capital expense required) alternative to maintaining your own data center. Rather than invest the capital in backup generators, UPS and HVAC units, and network and the operating expense in trained data center expertise, colocation lets you leverage a multi-tenant data center that has already made the investment in the infrastructure and personnel.
By colocating in multi-tenant data centers, firms can take advantage of very high levels of expertise and uptime at a fraction of the cost of running their own data center. The multi-tenant data center effectively shares the infrastructure, operating costs, and access to experienced data center staff across a number of companies. | | |
| May 14, 2009 Excerpt from: Online Tech Data Center News | | Online Tech's President takes on Dick Beedon, Josh Linkner, and Keith Brophy in NEF Battle | Come see Mike Klein, Online Tech's President & COO, take on 3
fellow entrepreneurs including reigning champion Dick Beedon in what is
sure to be a good time for all. For two years straight, it's been
claimed that Dick Beedon has redefined “the pitch” with eccentric,
energetic performances that are yet to be matched, earning him the NEF
Battle of the Elevator Pitch trophy.
The contestant this year are all successful, experienced
entrepreneurs. Can Mike Klein out-pitch the defending champion and
bring the coveted Elevator Pitch trophy home to Online Tech? Dick is
cunning and quick on his feet, but Mike has a few tricks up his sleeve
as well. And we can't underestimate Josh and Keith - both of which are
noble competitors. | | |
| May 13, 2009 Excerpt from: Dedicated Server Hosting | | The difference between a leased server and a dedicated server | What's the difference between a dedicated server and a leased server?
A lot. It’s like the difference between leasing a ship and taking a
cruise. The difference isn’t just between a raw component and a complete service, it also impacts the total cost of total cost of ownership (TCO).
The e-Tips article gives 7 tips for how you can cut costs by leveraging a dedicated server solution over leasing a server. The 7 tips discuss set up costs, physical security, quality of the Internet connection, Internet security, back up costs, power and monitoring.
A good way to net out the difference between a leased server and a dedicated server is shown in the following table:
|
Summary
|
Leasing Server
|
Online Tech
Dedicated Server
|
|
Cost of Server
|
$ 2,000
|
$ 0
|
|
1 year Operating Expenses
|
$ 12,100
(does not include engineer time)
|
$ 6,000
|
|
Support Engineer (patches, maintenance etc.)
|
$ 3,600
(3 hours / month $100/hr)
|
$ 0
|
|
Total 1 year expense
|
$ 17,700
|
$ 6,000 (average $500/month for mid-tier fully managed server)
|
|
Total 3 year expense
|
$ 36,900
|
$ 18,000
|
Summary
Dedicated servers come at a premium over a raw leased server, but when you add up all the costs involved, the total cost of ownership can be a lot less with a dedicated server.
| | |
| May 11, 2009 Excerpt from: Online Tech Data Center News | | Online Tech and UHY team up for a repeat performance on How to Survive a SAS-70 Audit | You Don't Need to Fight the SAS-70 Audit
Online Tech & UHY have partnered for a
seminar for CIOs and IT Directors of publicly held companies or firms
servicing publicly held companies on how to survive a SAS-70 Audit.
SAS-70 is a nationally recognized audit standard for evaluating process and security control procedures across the data center. A SAS-70 audit is done by a CPA firm and a data security expert with experience in data center and network security.
Certain types of data, by regulation, require a SAS-70 audit.
Specifically, Sarbanes-Oxley calls for testing of internal IT controls
that relate to financial reporting, even for outsourced IT functions.
HIPAA also has specific data handling controls that can be confirmed
with a SAS-70 audit report. PCI and CISP compliance can be more easily
accomplished by starting with a SAS-70 audit.
Online Tech has successfully thrived through a number of SAS-70 audits.
They recently completed an audit on all their data centers and have
assisted a number of colocation and dedicated server clients survive
their own SAS-70 audits. It’s these experiences from both the auditee
and the service provider’s perspective that has helped identify the
five key elements for not only surviving a SAS-70 audit, but thriving
as a result of the audit. Join Yan Ness, Chief Executive Officer of Online Tech and Angela McBride, Principal, UHY, LLP
in sharing with you the "auditee" and the "auditor" view of the SAS-70
audit process and tips for successfully surviving the audit.
| | |
| May 08, 2009 Excerpt from: Online Tech Data Center News | | Join us for Ann Arbor's Chamber of Commerce Morning Edition featuring Yan Ness | Come hear Yan Ness, CEO of Online Tech at the May monthly lively
morning program sponsored by the Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce to keep
members up-to-date on community and business issues.
Yan Ness talks about how data centers are really banks
for data. Some people still keep their money stored under a mattress,
but most keep it in a bank.” Where do you “bank” your data? Yan will
give an overview of how companies can protect their digital assets with
outsourced data centers.
Please pre-register by noon on Tuesday, May 19th. $25 Chamber members / $35 Prospective members
Questions? Contact Barbara Davenport at 734.214.0104.
| | |
|
|
|  | |