Managed Hosting Service Options By Derek Rogers At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Managed hosting offers many options for the client company. The common thread running through them is taking the burden off the client company by making sure its computer system is always up and running, as well as eliminating the need for an IT team, which can be expensive.

The benefits found in outsourcing hosting includes zero downtime. This means that the client company's servers will never be offline. They will never be inaccessible to the client, which prevents a loss of productivity and thus possible profits. Managed hosting keeps the clients business in operation 100 % of the time. In the event that a hard drive should fail, what is known as "a hot spare" can be used to guarantee continuity and performance while repairs are underway. The client selects its initial storage requirements, but these are always able to be upgraded if necessary, and this upgrade is carried out online, eliminating any system reboots or data loss.

Two more advantages of managed hosting are:

Increased performance (striping data across many different hard drives).

Increased reliability.

For increased reliability, there is data striping and mirrors across the disks, some of which are redundant. There are also hot spare disks that come into play if one of the primary disks fails.

Managed hosting is easily scalable. Traditional storage forces the client company to plan for capacity, but by outsourcing, it can buy what it needs and scale up when necessary. Volume can be upgraded without having to reboot the server, something that is impossible with a standard dedicated server.

Increased security is one more advantage of managed hosting. By physically limiting access to servers and SAN devices, and by isolating SANs from public networks, data can be protected, no matter where they are on network paths. This ensures that data is accessible only to those individuals authorized to access it.

A shared standby server protects data and the system in the event that the primary server should fail. If this occurs, the servers IPs are transferred to the standby server. The client company can also request dedicated standby servers.

Another way data is protected is through the application of redundant firewalls. Redundant firewalls offer 24-hour monitoring and management including the implementation, operations, ongoing configuration management, and any other changes and additions the client company might request. This prevents hackers from entering the system and stealing confidential data.

Finally, the server management includes licensing, the installation of the operating system, any Microsoft applications that might need to be installed, hardware upgrades, configuration of the operating system once installed, and server monitoring. Also, the client company can entrust the managed services provider with taking care of automated security patching or choose to do it on its own. In addition, the managed services provider offers technical support in the event that the client company has a problem with its computer system and remote access.

To summarize, there are many reasons why a company might outsource its hosting to a managed services provider: it eliminates the need for onsite staff, it is guaranteed, and the client company's resources are freed up to handle its own business.

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