If you are on the market for a new web hosting solution, you have undoubtedly heard the term “Virtual Private Server hosting.” You may also be intrigued by the concept of cloud hosting. What are the differences and similarities between these two solutions? Which option is most ideal for your personal computing needs?

A Virtual Private Server—known more commonly within the industry simply as a VPS—offers customers a configuration that is entirely customizable and manageable. VPS users pay a fixed subscription each month for this type of hosting. This type of architecture can be installed within a data center or on personal premises.

Cloud hosting is a newer technology that allows customers to be billed according to their personal monthly usage. Hardware and other resources, typically located inside a secure data center, are rented out to multiple users, further promoting the inherent cost-effective strategy.

In terms of flexibility, VPS hosting allows users to easily manipulate the architecture to suit their most current needs, but it is important to note that additional resources such as disk space, memory and processor space will need to be purchased and installed. Cloud solutions provide a little more flexibility, as customers can scale their resources instantaneously and receive a fully customized invoice to match this change.

Truthfully, making the decision between a Virtual Private Server hosting solution and a cloud hosting plan may not be easy. To learn more about the differences between these two options and to discover which hosting solution best fits your needs, contact Atlantic.Net today at 1-800-521-5881.

Posted in Cloud Hosting, VPS | Tagged , | Leave a comment

To start things off here is a great blog which describes various facets of cloud computing: All those definitions you never really wanted to understand.

The Basics of Cloud Computing | Proforma Blog


The Basics of Cloud Computing | Proforma Blog | Proforma Blog | How to Grow Your Business Online | Scoop.it

From www.proformablog.com - May 17, 3:04 AM

Commonly mentioned in both the technology and marketing business sectors, the cloud is a concept that was originated in the 1960’s.

Juliana Payson‘s insight:

Briefly mentioned above are Iaas, PaaS, and Saas. These are the three most important aaS options but by no means are these the limit of this space. Additional aaS options include Network (NaaS), Storage (STaaS), Securtiy (SEaaS), Data (DaaS), Database (DBaaS), Test Environment (TEaaS) and so on.

However, software development, networking and infrastructure are changing all the time, for example Adobe’s recent announcement of focusing their whole business model moving forward onto the cloud. The lines between these various services hosted in the cloud  are beginning to blur.

Platform-as-service offerings blurring lines between cloud packages


Platform-as-service offerings blurring lines between cloud packages | How to Grow Your Business Online | Scoop.it

From www.pcadvisor.co.uk - May 16, 11:53 PM

Cloud-based infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is for renting storage and compute capacity from a service provider, delivered via an Internet connection.

Juliana Payson‘s insight:

But recently, Gartner researcher John Rymer, who closely tracks the PaaS market, says the lines between IaaS, SaaS and PaaS are beginning to blur. You have platforms (PaaS) like WordPress, who are also Hosting on their infrastructure (IaaS), like WordPress.com and that would be simple example. Creative suites and SaaS will soon adopt streaming services which will also bring them into the web hosting world.

The great thing about Software as a Service, or (SaaS) are its ability to free up your individual processing capability, so that you can focus on the management side of your project. Whether it’s a business, or a sideline, paying for usage of cloud computing services is undeniably the efficient way to move forward wherever you can adopt these workflows. However, a recent article suggests that IT individuals may not necessarily be aligned with the business focus, and their personal fear of remote services may conflict with what could be good for the business.

IT’s Attitude Problem


IT's Attitude Problem -- InformationWeek | How to Grow Your Business Online | Scoop.it

From www.informationweek.com - May 17, 12:04 AM

Few of our 446 respondents will change their IT strategies as a result of the cloud. That spells lost opportunity.

Juliana Payson‘s insight:

This means IT is either inept at communicating why it does what it does (including resisting the cloud) or fundamentally misaligned with the needs and priorities of the organization. Especially with attitudes like “I don’t trust the cloud, why should I put it in place for anyone else” and similarly bizarre statements. This brings up an interesting question for your IT resources: Are they really up to speed on Cloud Hosting advances?

by - Juliana

Posted in Business Trends, Cloud Computing, Cloud Hosting | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Retail is a continually changing industry that relies on meeting the expectations of customer demands, while finding new ways to improve business operations. What retailers are trying to accomplish today is how they can do more with less, something cloud computing can offer businesses who are faced with the challenge of meeting demands, improving customer service, and connecting with consumers. Cloud servers give retailers the potential to house massive amounts of data in a cost-effective way that benefits their overall operations.

Cloud servers offer retailers a way to explore data and analytics to understand the needs of their customers. By analyzing information that could influence purchasing decisions, and even by understanding the way a customer stops at displays, cloud hosting offers businesses a way to upgrade technology that helps improve the effectiveness of merchandising. Any of these applications use huge amounts of information and data, which is where a cloud based solution would be economically feasible.

In the cloud, a server can hold massive amounts of data with the ability to expand data storage as needed. This is good for the retail industry because thousands of different applications/software are used for various business purposes, all of which can easily receive heavy use during peak times. For example, retail stores like Target utilize planogram software, which maps out item placement on shelves and is only used about once a month. Many companies order data storage capacity based on anticipated usage, but when applications, software, and data are all stored in the cloud, the company only pays for the space being used. The elasticity of cloud hosting is beneficial for retailers whose businesses are particularly seasonal, where paying for unused storage space is now unnecessary with the implementation of cloud servers.

To optimize the in-store experience, cloud hosting opens the door for businesses to use data to market to each customer, and to maximize the customer experience using information stored in the cloud. Retailers can create a new way to think about analytics and data storage while utilizing the innovation of cloud hosting.

Rather than storing data on a server that doesn’t have the ability to scale based on what you use, consider moving your data to the cloud today with a cloud server from Atlantic.Net. For a quote and a free consultation, contact us at 1-800-521-5881.

Posted in Business Trends, Cloud Computing, Cloud Hosting | Tagged , | Leave a comment

We are pleased to announce today that we are including 1TB (1,000GB) of free outbound data transfer with all our VPS & Cloud Servers. We did this to increase value and remove any obstacles anyone might have in trying our service.

We’ve spent quite a bit of time and effort in developing the platform (servers up in 30 seconds, free backups, now more free bandwidth!) and we’re really excited about people trying it.

Our plans start at only about $5 a month and with per-second billing, our platform is great for development & testing. When you’re ready to launch, you can always resize to a larger server as you need to!

Give it a shot, here is a link to the free trial and tell us what you think.

We always appreciate constructive feedback!

-Marty

Posted in Cloud Computing, Cloud Hosting, VPS | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

I think I’m suffering with brain overload; not that I’m trying to defeat the object of learning. I just decided to quantify in this article how much storing data on the cloud affects us. It’s no small thing I’ve discovered, and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Here at Atlantic we are operating at always increasing our upper limits of capability, redundant internet service and backbone connections, to make sure that we can provide optimum services in the event of peak loads. Here’s 3 articles that allow you to grasp the unseen efforts of data management:

Colocation Communities Are a Match for Cloud » Data Center Knowledge


Colocation Communities Are a Match for Cloud » Data Center Knowledge | How to Grow Your Business Online | Scoop.it
From www.datacenterknowledge.com – 1 month ago

As more enterprises put their internal servers under scrutiny, they are noticing that legacy enterprise data centers are becoming increasingly ineffective, writes Kevin Dean of Interxion.

Juliana Payson‘s insight:

IDC predicts that the total number of U.S. data centers will fall from 2.94 million in 2012 to 2.89 million in 2016. However, while new data center facilities themselves may be on the decline, the data they house certainly isn’t, given that 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day, with fewer facilities to house them. This implies that for hosting companies data management is becoming rather like NASA, failure is not an option. At Atlantic, we benefit from being able to service cloud facilities from our data centers as well as colocation communities, thereby strengthening our overall service to businesses.

Let’s take a look at Google’s Data centers, now available in street view!

A Rare Tour of a Google Data Center (video)


A Rare Tour of a Google Data Center (video) | How to Grow Your Business Online | Scoop.it
From techfeit.com – 2 days ago

A data center is a centralized location for the storage and management of vital data and information organized around a particular knowledge or business. The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), for example…

Juliana Payson‘s insight:

From the networking room to taking special note of the cooling towers outside of the facility, you can explore the different areas of a Google data center in this guided video tour. Learn more about what you’re viewing in Street View above, and see some of the equipment in motion.

Managing this enormous amount of data produces a huge amount of heat, which we have to exchange with the outside environment via the use of cooling towers. In a research paper just launched by MIT, there is a suggestion that computational efficiency of data management can reduce the load and energy requirement by as much as 35%!

Smarter Algorithm Could Cut Energy Use in Data Centers by 35 Percent


Smarter Algorithm Could Cut Energy Use in Data Centers by 35 Percent | How to Grow Your Business Online | Scoop.it

From thetbleconomy.com – 2 hours ago

Storing video and other files more intelligently reduces the demand on servers in a data center. New research suggests that data centers could significantly cut their electricity usage simply by st…

Juliana Payson‘s insight:

With the new technology, any individual data center could be expected to save 35 percent in capacity and electricity costs—about $2.8 million a year or $18 million over the lifetime of the center, says Muriel Médard, a professor at MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics, who led the work and recently conducted the cost analysis.

Going green is no small issue. Recently, a report issued by the Carbon Disclosure Project stated that by using cloud computing, you can reduce your energy consumption and carbon emissions, while saving on IT resources and improving functional efficiency within your business. Any small effort to reduce energy consumption cumulates to significant effect especially on bigdata with cloud servers. It’s no surprise here that increasing efficiency from the root level of coding can reduce processing requests on servers, and therefore load demands.

by - Juliana

Posted in Cloud Computing, Cloud Hosting, Colocation, Data Center Tips | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Many of us have heard the purported advantages of moving business operations (including web hosting and computing power) to the cloud. But what does this really mean? And how does it immediately help your business?

Let’s start answering the questions by taking a quick overview of the definition of cloud, and cloud hosting provided by Chandrus Writes!

A Brief History of Cloud Computing


A Brief History of Cloud Computing | How to Grow Your Business Online | Scoop.it

From chandrus.wordpress.com – 2 Weeks ago

There are probably as many definitions of Cloud Computing as there are self-acclaimed Cloud Specialist. Most of those definitions include pay-per-use, instant availability,  scalability, hardware abstraction…

Juliana Payson‘s insight:

A concise summary would be “Cloud Computing is a new way of delivering IT services: end users can deploy the services they need when they need them. Many of those services are available over the internet and users are only charged for what they consume.” – I agree with Chandrus here, hardware abstraction is a little hard for people to really grasp.

Since you only pay for what you use, this must make more sense for businesses especially start ups who won’t make full use out of features until they reach a sort of break even point with demand. Which brings me to the next interesting article that goes to qualitatively prove that Cloud computing services are accelerating in growth surely not just due to their popularity. It seems to make sense that Cloud services have satisfied the need of businesses to the extent that even start up businesses are not excluded from taking up the opportunity. The result: a wider market, which seeds the economy for new growth in online business.

Why Cloud Computing is Accelerating in the Enterprise – Enterprise Irregulars


Why Cloud Computing is Accelerating in the Enterprise - Enterprise Irregulars | How to Grow Your Business Online | Scoop.it

From www.enterpriseirregulars.com – 2 days ago

Translating time into dollars matters far more to many CEOs I’ve spoken with versus what platform their applications are running on.
Juliana Payson‘s insight:

My interpretation of these findings is that cloud services such as cloud hosting, you’re paying only for your usage. This means not just that your business is more scalable, but the diverse costs of establishing a business are prorated down until you can saturate your level of demand. If enterprises can lower their bottom line subscription costs of web hosting via cloud services it makes sense that one would see a growth and accelerated profits in the cloud industry, as no one is excluded from business service opportunity

Although this seems like an indirect correlation to the verifying the increased uptake of cloud services; I’ve found a few questions here that are the common concerns of businesses looking to transfer to cloud hosting. See if these questions and answers satisfy your decision to transfer to cloud hosting:

4 Questions To Ask When Choosing Cloud Providers | Business 2 Community


4 Questions To Ask When Choosing Cloud Providers | Business 2 Community | How to Grow Your Business Online | Scoop.it

From www.business2community.com – 2 weeks ago

Small businesses are often aware of the advantages offered by cloud computing services, such as low upfront costs, flexible access to software and inexpensive

Juliana Payson‘s insight:

Users comfortable with basic cloud computing concepts will often still have questions about security. The service provider should offer an overview of its data storage and security in addition to answering any questions about specific details, such as compliance with industry and governmental regulations. Not only are these the questions you should be considering, but I think you’ll find once you acknowledge them you’ll know whether transferring to cloud hosting is the right choice for you or not.

by - Juliana

Posted in Business Trends, Cloud Computing, Cloud Hosting, Hosting Services, News & Events, Security, Virtualization | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

According to a recent article in Forbes, many in the manufacturing industry are seeking cloud-based services in order to increase efficiency from a supply chain, distribution, and services standpoint. In fact, more than a few manufacturers have already adopted cloud-based applications throughout their companies. According to MintJutras, a research-based consulting firm that specializes in analyzing the business impact of enterprise applications, SaaS applications make up 22% of all manufacturing and distribution software installed today. Additionally, this number is expected to grow to 45% within ten years.

The main goal of manufacturers is to make themselves easier to work with both externally and internally. Manufacturers are constantly facing pressure to increase accuracy, improve process speed, and effectively utilize their internal intelligence so that they can make every supplier, distributor, and service interaction worthwhile.  Cloud-based services are helping to give these companies the chance to do just this.

Experts say that cloud-based services have the potential to streamline key areas of business so that manufacturers have more time to sell their products and invest in new ones. As mentioned in the Forbes article, here are just a few of the ways that cloud computing is revolutionizing the manufacturing industry:

  • Capturing and applying company-wide data through the use of analytics, business intelligence, and rules engines.
  • Piloting and quickly moving to full launch of supplier portals and collaboration platforms, complete with quality management dashboards and workflows.
  • Accelerating new product development and introduction strategies to attain time-to-market objectives.
  • Managing indirect and direct channel sales from a single cloud platform that tracks sales results at the individual, group, and divisional level.
  • Automating customer service, support and common order status inquiries online.
  • Increasing reliance on two-tier ERP strategies to gain greater efficiencies in material planning and supplier management, as well as to reduce logistics costs.

Cloud computing is seen as the future of the Internet as more and more industries are starting to see the potential that the cloud offers different aspects of business.  At Atlantic.Net, we provide cloud hosting, colocation hosting, dedicated hosting, virtualization, and more. Contact us today by calling 800-521-5881 to learn about how our cloud-based services can benefit your business!

Posted in Business Trends, Cloud Computing | Tagged | Leave a comment

If you own a small business or e-commerce store, you’ve most likely heard of the term “cloud hosting”. No, it has nothing to do with the fluffy white things in the sky, but it does have everything to do with your data. Simply put, the cloud is the latest and greatest way for an individual or organization to store, share, and protect their data.

Cloud hosting has become what is arguably the most popular hosting solution in the industry today. It allows businesses to scale services to meet their specific needs. Rather than spending money on services they do not need, cloud hosting provides a virtual network that allows businesses to store, share, and protect their data while paying only for what they use. This notion of being able to pay for only what you use means that you can promote your site without worrying about high traffic counts bogging down your server.

Cloud hosting follows the software as a service (SaaS) model, which delegates the maintenance of hardware and software to the hosting provider. This in turn reduces a business’ overall IT costs because they are essentially outsourcing most IT procedures to the hosting company. In addition to the IT costs a business can save, cloud hosting is generally more efficient than relying on traditional dedicated servers and hardware to perform the functions of a small business website. Good cloud hosts have optimized their cloud servers for the best performance, reliability, etc.

Another benefit of cloud hosting is that website applications can be accessed via any web browser with a connection to the Internet. By utilizing this feature of cloud hosting, business owners can save a great deal of time when updating their website. They can even make changes to their website on the go through a mobile app!

If you’re interested in cloud hosting for your business, check out our cloud hosting solutions! We recently announced a steep price reduction of up to 50% off on all Windows and Linux Cloud Server hosting plans. Take advantage of this pricing today! With our variety of solutions and benefits, we want to give you the opportunity to make your business more innovative, while saving you time and money. Contact us by calling 800-521-5881.

Posted in Cloud Hosting | Tagged | Leave a comment

Nobody starts an online business with dreams of working twelve hours per day, every day of the week. The goal is to gain more freedom while doing what you love. Sadly, many fail to find success at all. Those who are successful are often constantly on call to their websites. I have found maintaining my own personal interest websites, and that of my husband’s business site more intense than I could have imagined!

As the internet continues to mature, and new technologies for customer service and engagement are developed, this is only going to get worse for many. Technologies like click-to-call are attractive, but many businesses are ill equipped to implement them properly…

In fact, services like click-to-call may very well cause businesses to regress as owners face burnout and begin to neglect their work. Here is why.

Four Key Ways Entrepreneurs Can Leverage Technology for Success | Business 2 Community

What's in the bag? Business of Software 2010

From www.business2community.com

For small businesses, effectively managing technology can be a daunting task, and for the thousands of new businesses launching this year, understanding how…

The online business world looks much like the brick and mortar world. Most businesses are small, “mom and pop” businesses with too few resources to conduct themselves in the same way as the larger sized operations.

The idea of having a way to boost customer service and make the most of new leads is appealing.

However, a technology like click-to-call can actually hurt these prospects.

The ability to instantly react to your website’s visitors is great. That is, unless you lack the resources and manpower to make the most of it. For those running a small operation who try to use this type of service, they may find several serious drawbacks.

First, they may find that they are offline too often to add any value to their business. Second, when they are online, they may find it nearly impossible to get away and work on other aspects of their business. In the end, everyone is frustrated and little good has been done.

How Important Is Your Web site? Should You Use Web Conversion Tools?

Tim Berners-Lee: The World Wide Web - Opportun...

From frhebasements.com

The answer of course is… It depends.  If your service or product is commonly found on the Internet, or more correctly, searched for on the Internet, then your website may be very important. I am…

Implementing discussion forums for support, as well as starting an engaging email strategy are both better options. For the average business, being on call to their website is a serious drawback.

Forums and email for support and engagement are both better options than click to call. Both of these offer ways for customers to get the answers they need, to learn about previously unknown options, and to learn about any new features your customers may want.

A forum also provides the opportunity for customers to help one another, saving both time and effort on behalf of the business owner and any staff he or she may have.

This allows more time to be put into making the business stronger and attracting new leads. Once the company has grown, new staff may be hired to make a click-to-call option viable and valuable for all parties. I’ve seen many raves of click-to-chat systems on Google Plus:

John Banks | Google+


John Banks - Google+ - Excellent stuff from +Andi Leeman showing us a fantastic… | How to Grow Your Business Online | Scoop.it
From plus.google.comToday, 6:58 PM

Excellent stuff from +Andi Leeman showing us a fantastic customer service tool. Great for any website owner!

Juliana Payson’s Insight: Don’t Be On Call To Your Website

The main points of starting any business are to address the needs of a market, create personal freedom and make money. This cannot happen if you are constantly on call to your website with little time for anything else. I recently implemented a click-to-chat system on my own websites using Zopim and Google Talk, and I am finding it a personal challenge to manage the service.

Posted in Business Trends, Cloud Computing, Computing Technologies, Hosting Services, Mobile, VPS, Virtualization | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

If you watch the news at all, it really does seem like the world is full of hackers who are prowling throughout the Internet, looking for your passwords and other sensitive information in order to disrupt your everyday life for their personal gain. Especially since technologies such as the cloud are on the rise, can anything—or anyone—be considered safe on the Internet?

To be blunt, all information is vulnerable. Whether this information is in the form of a Post-It note on your work desk, a file in a locked drawer or a document stored within Google Docs, it can be accessed by anyone if they want it badly enough. You can rest easy, though. Doing proper research and taking appropriate security measures can easily protect all of your digital information.

When researching cloud service providers, you need to also look into the security services offered by these companies. Atlantic.Net, for example, utilizes biometric palm readers, proximity card readers and 24-hour digital camera monitoring, along with other services.

The customer is also responsible for controlling sensitive information in a secure manner. Make sure to create strong passwords that use a combination of letters, symbols and numbers. If possible, use a random password generator to create the strongest passwords.

In terms of security, your business should ideally stay away from public cloud services (such as those offered by Google, Dropbox and others) and instead use private cloud or hybrid cloud options. A hybrid cloud server will keep your sensitive information in-house and will store less-sensitive information within the cloud environment.

The responsibility of minimizing vulnerability within the cloud lies with both the service provider and the consumer. By working together, you can remain confident that your information is safe from unauthorized access.

If you are interested in learning more about the hybrid cloud options offered by Atlantic.Net, contact us today for a free consultation. 1-800-521-5881.

Posted in Cloud Hosting, Data Site Orlando, Security | Tagged , | Leave a comment