Cloud Hosting

Migrating mission-critical applications to the cloud is fundamentally different from migrating less critical applications and processes to the cloud. Picking the right cloud hosting provider is among the most important decisions you'll make when planning the migration of your Tier 1 applications. After all, cloud providers that typically focus on developer services can quickly find themselves out of their depth when dealing with production applications.

"The requirements and capabilities that an organization needs when running a production application are very different than one that's catering to developers," says Craig McLellan, cloud architecture author and chief technology officer of Hosting.com.

[Related: How to Choose Your Cloud Service Provider]

[Related: 10 Disaster Preparedness Questions to Ask Your Cloud Services Providers]

[Related: Is Your Cloud Provider Exposing Remnants of Your Data?]

Tier 1 applications often stand to benefit the most from the efficiency and scalability offered by a cloud environment:

Consolidation and infrastructure efficiency

Faster provisioning of applications and better configuration management

Universal high-availability services

Automated resource optimization, and dynamic scaling of applications.

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5 Signs Your Cloud Service Provider Can't Handle Tier 1 Apps

SAN DIEGO (August 22, 2012)M5 Hosting, a worldwide leader in customized, high performance Linux and BSD dedicated server hosting solutions, today launched M5 Cloud, a next-generation Cloud hosting platform designed to compete with industry giants, in both performance and affordability.

Cloud hosting, which offers exceptional value for start-ups, growing ventures, and businesses with a dynamic or seasonal need for servers, utilizes clusters of high performance servers and software automation to achieve unrivaled performance, flexibility and low operational costs. Moreover, the elastic nature of Cloud hosting infrastructure allows for easy absorption of traffic spikes and dynamic work-loads.

Our customers asked for a reliable, high-performance, flexible Infrastructure as a Service Cloud. Cloud hosting requires sophisticated network infrastructure, high performance server hardware, and a team of exceptionally talented system engineers. We have spent a full year building and testing every component and configuration to deliver a very powerful Cloud solution that builds on our decade-long track record of stable, powerful, and price competitive hosting, said Michael J. McCafferty, CEO of M5 Hosting.

M5 Clouds solution is among the most competitive in the marketplace today, even rivaling industry giants. For example, recent measurements show that M5 Clouds storage solution is at least 200% the speed of Amazon EBS and 400% the speed of SoftLayers CloudLayer SAN, and M5 Clouds costs are aimed to be 15% lower than Amazon Web Services. Moreover, M5 Cloud offers hybrid hosting solutions, which can provide dedicated servers in the same data center and network as Cloud instances. M5 Cloud is also unique in its use of the InterNAP Flow Control Platform for performance-based route optimization, which can dramatically reduce latency by routing around congested areas of the Internet.

The company has been planning its Cloud deployment for more than a year. Its purpose-built network infrastructure is highly available and designed specifically for speed and flexibility. M5 Cloud allows users to create virtual machines within minutes, using a convenient Web interface or a programmable API.

Other unique features of M5 Clouds solution include the industrys highest maximum RAM capacity per virtual machine, automatic migration on hardware failure, and an out-of-band console. Moreover, clients can independent configure RAM and CPU power allotments individually. RAM ranges from 1GB to 80GB, and CPU from 1% of 1 core to 100% of 24 cores.

In July, M5 Hosting acquired over 13 miles of dark fiber, providing an additional 10Gbps of throughput between the companys two data center facilities in San Diego. The additional capacity will enable the company to offer a wider variety of other specialty services, including multi-site load-balancing, multi-site clustering, and other multi-site services requiring low-latency synchronization of data.

To learn more about M5 Hosting, please visit http://www.M5Hosting.com.

About M5 Hosting

As an industry leader in customized Linux and BSD dedicated server hosting solutions, M5 Hosting serves hundreds of small to medium sized business and enterprises worldwide. M5 Hosting specializes in managing unique client needs, ranging from supporting an individual project or building highly- available, distributed hosting solutions for mission-critical applications. M5 Hosting is based in San Diego, California and was founded in 2001 as a division of M5 Computer Security. The company has earned a perfect A+ score from the Better Business Bureau.

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M5 Hosting Launches New Cloud Hosting Platform

DALLAS, TX--(Marketwire -08/22/12)- Secure cloud hosting company, FireHost, today announced that CEO and founder, Chris Drake, has been recognized as one of the most accomplished Dallas-area businesspeople under the age of 40.

This year's Dallas Business Journal "40 Under 40" award recognizes executives who excel in their respective companies and industries, and show dynamic leadership in their communities. Drake was selected by the publication's editorial team and a panel of previous winners, who are well versed on what the combination of business success and commitment to the North Texas community looks like. Awards will be presented at a special cocktail reception on Thursday, August 23rd at the Granada Theater.

"Our entire team is pleased that FireHost's contributions have been recognized within the Dallas area," said Drake. "We help make cloud hosting a viable technology platform for businesses of all sizes. It's rewarding to watch the company grow and innovate in a way that supports and secures businesses around the world."

FireHost protects thousands of customers every day, including many Fortune 50 and Fortune 500 businesses such as 3M, Hamilton Beach, and Farmers Insurance Group. The company anticipates strong growth to continue in both the US and Europe throughout 2012.

Drake has led FireHost to be recognized as the industry's leading secure cloud hosting company. Over the past 12 months, FireHost has blocked more than 50 million attempted hacks for its customers, secured $10MM in series B funding, opened a European headquarters, and been lauded by analyst firms for its approach to securing cloud data. Gartner recognized FireHost as "One to Watch" in its Cloud Hosting and Managed Hosting Magic Quadrants, and has named the company in its "Cool Vendor" report, citing its innovation and accomplishments.

About FireHost

FireHost is a secure cloud hosting company focused on protecting companies' sensitive data and brand reputations with an architecture built for security, scalability and performance. Customers with specific compliance or performance needs subscribe to FireHost's PCI, HIPAA or high traffic solutions, including some of the largest companies in the world, as well as many fast growing eCommerce, SaaS and healthcare IT providers. FireHost provides services from Dallas, Phoenix, London and Amsterdam. For more information, visit http://www.firehost.com

Follow FireHost on Twitter and the FireHost blog: twitter.com/firehost http://www.fireblog.com

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FireHost CEO and Founder, Chris Drake, Named to Dallas Business Journal's "40 Under 40" List

DALLAS, TX--(Marketwire -08/15/12)- FireHost, the leading secure cloud hosting company, today announces new business continuity choices supported by DYN DNS hosting. DNS hosting extends FireHost's business continuity capabilities beyond high-availability and load balancing solutions. The new business continuity options support clients who require constant uptime and sophisticated failover configurations for their websites or Web applications.

"FireHost has been ahead of the curve with regard to securing a public cloud environment and finding advanced ways to boost performance," said Jason Rieger, CTO of FireHost. "Now we move ahead again by multiplying our business continuity offerings, helping our customers prep and plan for the unexpected, and keeping their systems and applications online all the time, even when disaster strikes."

FireHost's new business continuity solutions, powered by DNS hosting, let customers make proactive choices about distributing Web traffic between 17 different failover facilities that are dispersed across five continents. Customers that require additional control can "layer on" advanced DNS hosting features:

FireHost has an exclusive DNS hosting partnership with Dyn, which provides the secure host with an enterprise-grade, globally diverse IP network, eliminating the worry of extended downtime and management of domain name servers. By participating in such a robust business continuity program, FireHost customers can survive disruptions of any scale, maximize their Web performance and ensure a high quality Web experience for their own end users.

FireHost Secure DNS Hosting options are available immediately.

About FireHostFireHost is a secure cloud hosting company focused on protecting companies' sensitive data and brand reputations with an architecture built for security, scalability and performance. Customers with specific compliance or performance needs subscribe to FireHost's PCI, HIPAA or high traffic solutions, including some of the largest companies in the world as well as many fast growing eCommerce, SaaS and healthcare IT providers. FireHost provides services from Dallas, Phoenix, London and Amsterdam. http://www.firehost.com

Follow FireHost on Twitter and the FireHost blog: twitter.com/firehost http://www.fireblog.com

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FireHost Expands Its Global Business Continuity Solutions

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

United Bank & Trust, a community-based financial services company, and Online Tech, the leader in secure and compliant hosting, have partnered for private cloud hosting services.

During the review of their business continuity and disaster recovery plans, United Bank & Trust completed an evaluation of the flexibility and resiliency of their existing, in-house IT infrastructure. Uniteds approach was to complete a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis comparing the enhancement of their existing in-house environment against leveraging a managed services arrangement with a 3rdparty partner. A complex cost and services model was developed, which included forecasts covering 5-year and 10-year periods, that served as the critical tool to use during the evaluation of the various internal and external scenarios.

Uniteds conclusion was influenced by not only the economics identified in the TCO analysis, but also by the proliferation and affordability of private cloud based services within the financial services industry.

We found that there was no real competitive advantage for United Bank & Trust to invest in building and managing a new data center. Our analysis showed that partnering with a state-of-the-art provider would give us more than we could build ourselves, helping us more efficiently manage our costs and service levels, says Don Griffiths, United Bank & Trust Senior Vice President of Information Technology. Our core business is providing financial solutions and servicing our clients -- not data center management.

United went through a lengthy selection process to identify a data center partner and evaluated several national, regional, and local providers. Key criteria included technical solution and managed services offerings, cost and value-added analysis, security/compliance capabilities, and ability to perform as a strategic partner.

During the evaluation and discussions regarding our current and future challenges, Online Tech was very careful to listen, challenge where appropriate, and ultimately help us develop a model to fit our service delivery needs, said Mike Collins, United Bank & Trust Chief Information Officer. The technical solution they brought to the table, coupled with their responsiveness to satisfy our requirements and understanding of our need for a strategic partner, distinguished them as the clear winner.

Online Tech offers a progressive infrastructure with three, fully redundant facilities interconnected via private fiber and connected to multiple Internet Service Providers (ISPs) with multiple points of entry. The top tier data centers are uniquely located 53 miles apart on different commercial power grids for the ideal offsite backup and disaster recovery. All facilities, products, services, and staff are also independently PCI, HIPAA and SOX audited to meet the highest national compliance requirements.

Online Techs culture of compliance shows it is a company that knows the discipline of documented processes and can meet a wide of variety of compliance requirements, states Griffiths.

About Online Tech

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United Bank & Trust Partners with Online Tech for Private Cloud Hosting