LogicalSolutions.net’s June eNewsletter

COMPANY NEWS
 
Mark Your Calendar 
EarthLink will be hosting our Technology Networking Event this summer. Keep your eyes open for more details and a date coming soon!

Free Virtualization Cost Assessment
Sign up today for a Free Virtualization Cost Assessment! One of our trained engineers will evaluate each of your current application servers and give you a cost and best practice recommendation on moving your servers to a virtualized environment. Dramatically decrease the number of servers you have using by server consolidation and reduce your support and overall operating costs.
Sign up now
 
New Windows VPS Remote Control Panel
We have recently launched a new feature with our Windows Virtual Private Server that includes an OS Level Control Panel that allows a user to self service their Dedicated Virtual Server remotely. Current features in the Control Panel allows you to reboot the server, hard reboot the server, start the server, monitor processor load and more!
Read more and sign up for a demo
 
DID YOU KNOW

Premium Disaster Recovery with Boston Data Center
Did you know EarthLink has a partner Data Center in Boston? We know the distance of your DR facility is important. So whether you’re looking for offsite backup, or full failover replication of your primary facility, EarthLink has you covered.
Click here for more information.

VPS Online Ordering
We now offer easy signup and configuration with online ordering for our Windows Hyper-V and Linux Virtual Private Server offerings. Simply click the link below to Build a VPS, follow the short few steps and you’ll be up and running within a couple hours! Click the links below to take a look.
Windows VPS Cloud Ordering
Linux VPS Cloud Ordering

BLOG-TIME
FEATURED BLOG POST
“Advantages of a VPS?”
by Anthony Giordano

Traditionally there have been two options when it comes to website hosting. You are either setup in a shared hosting environment or a dedicated server. Moving to a dedicated server can be costly preventing most from ever considering it. This is no longer the case. Now there’s something in between that provides most of the benefits of a dedicated server, but at a fraction of the cost. But how do I know if a VPS, or Virtual Private Server, is right for me?  
Read the full story.
 
SPECIAL PROMOTION
Double Your Hard Drive Space Free
Sign up today for a Virtual Private Server and we’ll double your hard drive space for free! Click the link below and mention the promo code “DOUBLE”.
Click here

When it comes time to start thinking about Virtualization, here are 5 important factors to think about.

When it comes time to start thinking about Virtualization, here are 5 important factors to think about:

1. Platform: Which is the most Suitable Platform?

There really are only three major competitors: VMWare, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Parallels Virtuozzo. Each one of these platforms offers Competitive advantages as well as different pricing models.  For Example, running Microsoft Hyper-V allows you to run unlimited Windows Operating Systems under a single License which would lower the license costs for your organization, but might it may not be the best candidate if you are a Linux based organization. 

2. Number of Containers: How many virtual servers can you fit on each Server?

This really depends on the current CPU/RAM usage of your current environments.  One commonly made mistake is overloading the host server with too many Virtual Instances which will cause poor performance. 

3. Domain Controller Placement

Another thing to take into consideration is failover and proper disaster recovery for your Domain Controllers.  Placing your Primary and Secondary DNS server on Separate Virtual Nodes is best practice as well as having enough failover machines to handle the event of a Virtualization Host Failure. 

4. Migration Strategy

Determine a Migration Strategy and evaluate all your current candidate applications to migrate to your virtual environment.  Note that not all applications should be migrated to virtual environments.  For example, some versions of Microsoft Exchange are not supported on select Virtual Platforms.  Doing your homework  is one of the most important step that needs to be taken before moving to a new environment and/or platform.

5. Failover and Backup Plan

Now that you are running more environments on fewer servers, backup and disaster recovery become even more critical.  Setting up a proper backup strategy for all of your Virtual Environments is crucial.  On the disaster recovery side, even if you run your virtual servers in house, you should secure a failover Virtual environment.  At EarthLink, we offer failover Virtual Environments that will run your applications in the event of a failure.

When it comes time to start thinking about Virtualization, here are 5 important factors to think about

When it comes time to start thinking about Virtualization, here are 5 important factors to think about:

1. Platform: Which is the most Suitable Platform?

There really are only three major competitors: VMWare, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Parallels Virtuozzo. Each one of these platforms offers Competitive advantages as well as different pricing models.  For Example, running Microsoft Hyper-V allows you to run unlimited Windows Operating Systems under a single License which would lower the license costs for your organization, but might it may not be the best candidate if you are a Linux based organization. 

2. Number of Containers: How many virtual servers can you fit on each Server?

This really depends on the current CPU/RAM usage of your current environments.  One commonly made mistake is overloading the host server with too many Virtual Instances which will cause poor performance. 

3. Domain Controller Placement

Another thing to take into consideration is failover and proper disaster recovery for your Domain Controllers.  Placing your Primary and Secondary DNS server on Separate Virtual Nodes is best practice as well as having enough failover machines to handle the event of a Virtualization Host Failure. 

4. Migration Strategy

Determine a Migration Strategy and evaluate all your current candidate applications to migrate to your virtual environment. Note that not all applications should be migrated to virtual environments.  For example, some versions of Microsoft Exchange are not supported on select Virtual Platforms.  Doing your homework  is one of the most important step that needs to be taken before moving to a new environment and/or platform.

5. Failover and Backup Plan

Now that you are running more environments on fewer servers, backup and disaster recovery become even more critical.  Setting up a proper backup strategy for all of your Virtual Environments is crucial.  On the disaster recovery side, even if you run your virtual servers in house, you should secure a failover Virtual environment.  At EarthLink, we offer failover Virtual Environments that will run your applications in the event of a failure.