Internet Data Centers offer an attractive option for companies with the need to host applications that are delivered to a geographically dispersed user base.
For costs that are well within the IT budget of virtually any small business (often starting as low as $100 per month), companies can immediately enjoy the advantages of housing their equipment in a professional-grade Data Center whose benefits include Internet availability that usually exceeds 99.999% uptime, greatly reduced savings in management expenses due to the elimination of common infrastructure failures, lighting-fast Internet connections that are usually at least 60 times faster than the fastest Internet connections available to most small businesses, the highest levels of physical security, and electrical power that is immune to blackouts, brownouts, and internal breakdown.
Data Centers offer useful features including "remote hands" capability, a service in which Data Center staff can provide rudimentary but valuable assistance such as pushing a reset button or power cycling a server. This value-added service avoids the cost of having your in-house support personnel travel to the office to perform simple troubleshooting steps. Better yet, such Data Center services are available on a 24x7 basis, 365 days a year, relieving stress and cutting expenses by dramatically simplifying the logistics required to maintain high network availability.
There are over 75 mission-critical class Internet Data Centers in Northern California, and Progent's Data Center consulting experts can help you select one that meets the particular requirements of your business, including geographic proximity, space, connectivity, affordability, and value-added features and services.
For companies concerned about the risks associated with potentially catastrophic impacts caused by major earthquakes in the Bay Area, world-class Data Centers in the Sacramento area offer close proximity to your business while significantly reducing your network's exposure to damage from seismic events.
Internet Data Centers are especially appealing to small businesses because of their affordability and feasibility in comparison to taking a do-it-yourself approach. Trying to build an in-house data center with even a minimum level of fault tolerance by installing features such as a local computer room generator for power protection, redundant air conditioning systems, multiple Internet T1 lines, and a physically secure infrastructure, is for most small businesses either impossible due to facility limitations or financially prohibitive.
By using multiple data centers, businesses can enhance not only fault-tolerance but also performance. For example, by deploying F5 Networks' BIG-IP controller in each data center to load balance a farm of web servers, and then F5's BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager (formally 3-DNS) product at each data center, Internet traffic will be spread automatically between multiple, geographically dispersed sites. The BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager routes web requests to different data centers based on their proximity to the requester, availability and current utilization/response times.
This approach can accelerate application performance by up to three times, ensure that priority applications are served first, and offload expensive server cycles. For more information about Progent's support for fault tolerant technology from F5 Networks, visit Load Balancing Consulting.
Other High Availability Solutions Provided by Progent's Experts
Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-certified consulting experts can assist your company build an affordable, fault-tolerant IT architecture that addresses critical challenges covering a broad array of networking solutions and operations such as:
Workplace Recovery Planning
Progent's business continuity engineers can show you how to create a workplace recovery strategy so you can restore IT functionality in the event of an IT system disaster. Progent can assist you to define a comprehensive disaster recovery strategy that incorporates scheduled disaster recovery evaluations and testing. Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-certified professionals can also help you create an affordable, zero-downtime network solution that takes into account availability issues involving a broad array of infrastructure technologies and processes. To read more, see Disaster Recovery Consulting Services.
Fault Tolerant Internet Connectivity
Progent's Cisco-authorized IT professionals can help you design an economical, fault tolerant Internet connection architecture that can achieve 24x7 Internet access via a broad array of fault tolerant Internet access technologies including fault tolerant BGP, automatic fail-over, and redundant Internet Service Providers. Progent can provide CCIE professionals to help you apply the most advanced technology for fault tolerant Internet connectivity to build an economical, completely redundant Internet interface with automatic failover and other features to deliver non-stop Internet availability. To read more, see Non-stop Internet Access Architecture.
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters
The clustering technology incorporated into the high-end editions of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 is dramatically redesigned to simplify the installation, setup, and management of server clusters that provide greater levels of network dependability, protection, performance, and versatility. New or enhanced features include automated cluster verification, revamped configuration and deployment, improved cluster management, new cluster architecture for increased availability, better security and quorum structure, elimination of failure points, more disk and RAM capacity, and enhancements for geographically dispersed clusters. To read more, go to Windows Failover Clustering Support.
Microsoft 2003 Clusters
Progent offers Windows Cluster Server assistance to help your company deploy non-stop clustered servers designed to provide 24x7 uptime. Clustered Windows servers for zero-downtime systems include Windows 2003 Cluster Server, Microsoft SQL Server Cluster, and Microsoft Exchange Cluster. By helping you design non-stop server clustering environments based on Microsoft Windows Server Cluster 2003, Progent’s certified Windows professionals ensure that your zero-downtime clustered servers are set up to maximize the business advantage of your information network. To read more, visit Microsoft Server Cluster Expertise.
High Availability Load Balancing
Progent offers high availability load balancing support covering system load balancing, load balanced applications, LAN/WAN infrastructure routing, and content delivery technology including F5 Networks 3DNS. Fault tolerant load balancing products for which Progent can provide consulting expertise include Windows 2003 and 2008 Server Network Load Balancing Manager, Citrix Metaframe and Presentation Server, Cisco CSS, Cisco Distributed Director and ACNS, and F5 Networks BIG-IP. To learn more, see High Availability Load Balancing.
Failsafe Inter-office Connectivity
Progent’s inter-site network infrastructure engineers can help small organizations achieve zero-downtime branch office connectivity by means of fully redundant system architectures featuring automatic failover. Progent’s Cisco-certified CCIE engineers can plan and deploy fault-tolerant Inter-office networks supported by zero-downtime EIGRP network routers or zero-downtime OSPF deployment of Cisco routers. Progent can show you how redundant connectivity and automatic fail-over offers economical 24x7 interoffice networking. For more information, see Non-stop Interoffice Connectivity.
System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) Data Recovery Consulting Experts
Progent's certified Data Protection Manager consultants can help your company to create an effective disaster recovery strategy, implement a cost-effective zero-downtime IT architecture, configure a DPM-based recovery system, thoroughly validate your DPM system, educate your IT personnel or local consultants how to maintain Microsoft Data Protection Manager, or provide complete IT outsourcing such as off-site hosting of DPM machines in Progent's data center facility. To read more, go to Microsoft DPM Consulting and Support Services.
Why Choose Progent for Disaster Recovery Planning and Fault-tolerant Networking Consulting?
Because Progent is a Microsoft Gold Partner and offers high-level application support for a wide range of small business software programs, Progent can help clients to arrive at efficient information technology solutions that optimize the business value of your network. As a Registered Partner with Cisco Systems, Progent offers the support of qualified consultants and specialists with expertise in architecting, configuring and maintaining networking solutions based on Cisco Systems technology. The breadth of Progent's IT experience and Progent's familiarity with the needs of small companies make Progent a great partner for creating and running a cost-effective, high-availability information system.
How You Can Access Progent's Engineers for Non-stop Network Services
In order to ask Progent about engineering support for high availability LAN design, phone 1-800-993-9400 or email fault-tolerant-help@progent.com.
