“Google has listed your server as a malware source! Its been hacked into, and is being used to spread malware!”

 
I’m sure this is a message that you never hope to get in your mailbox. But, how confident are you about your server security? Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report for 2012 states that there is a 31% increase in server hacking attempts, and 20% increase in malware attacks in comparison to 2011 statistics.

 
One of the most important mitigation steps proposed by Gartner technology research group is the use of firewall. The report shows the necessity to employ firewall as a security layer for our servers. Firewalls come in two broad categories: Hardware and Software. Making this choice is primarily a factor of what your requirements are and what your budget is.

 
Here I am presenting a quick overview on these two kinds of firewalls so that you can make an informed choice. 
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Isnt shared hosting dead already? In hosting conferences and forums this is a question we’ve heard all too often. But despite all the dire predictions in the past one decade, shared hosting is still alive and flourishing.

 
Every web host on earth has a shared hosting plan, and all website owners starts hosting with a shared space. It is a market that just cannot be ignored, and it is still the most competitive market.

 
What does it take to succeed in this market? There are companies which keep growing year after year, and there are companies which stop growing after they get about 10 servers. Here is a quick overview on what the winners do right, and thus ensure their brand keeps attracting new customers.

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Cloud hosting is a very flexible option that allows you to adjust your hosting plan quickly and easily in response to your changing needs. The technology behind cloud hosting allows us to have a cheap, reliable and scalable architecture. The processing power of the Cloud is unlimited because we can add servers and resources to the Cloud as often as necessary. If you expect reliability, scalability and redundancy for your website and applications, a Cloud Hosting plan can be a perfect choice.

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A log file can grow without bounds if it is not managed well. Larger log files are relatively harder to manipulate and also increase in the size of log file can result in file systems to run out of space. Opening, closing and manipulating data for very large file size consumes system resources and will therefore slow down the server.

An efficient solution to this problem is log rotation. It allows automatic rotation, compression, removal and mailing of log files. Log files can be rotated daily, weekly, monthly or when it grows too large. Read the rest of this entry »

When it comes to speeding up a server, the primary choice of most people is to add more hardware resources. This will certainly improve the performance, but will cost you fair amount of money. The fact is that you can improve the performance by tweaking the services. The basic principle is to identify the services consuming the most of the resources and change their settings to suit your server. You don’t have to be too much technical to optimise your server.

The web and database servers are the frequently used services in a server and they consume most of the resources. Apache and MySQL are the widely used web and database servers. This article focuses on altering the Apache and MySQL services to improve the performance. You need to have shell access with root privileges in the server to modify the configuration settings.

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We know that the internet usage is increasing day by day. We cannot even imagine a day without using internet. Statistics shows that the internet usage is growing from 400 to 1000% a year worldwide. Web hosting providers consume a large amount of energy to run servers and other services such as cooling controls. If energy consumption is increasing in this rate, then by 2020, this industry will be more polluting than airline industry. 0.2% of world’s carbon dioxide is emitted by the data centers alone.

Green hosting is an eco-friendly web hosting service that reduces the energy consumption of the system.

How to implement green hosting:

1. Purchasing renewable energy credits

There are many firms that produce renewable energy. Usage of renewable energy reduces the emission of green house gases. 72,000 square feet of solar panel laid on top of a data center can produce upto 924,013 kilowatt hours (kWh) of clean electricity annually, which is equivalent to offsetting 702 tons of green house gas emissions .

2. Reducing energy consumption

Green web hosting firms need to take several measures to reduce their energy consumption. It includes:

* Use of efficient severs

Based on CERN’s (world’s largest physics laboratory) research, an organisation can reduce total power consumption to almost five times by using the latest Intel® Xeon® processor-based servers (2.46 mega watt) rather than old single- core Intel Xeon processor-based servers (11.81 mega watt). This clearly shows the lower energy consumption by efficient servers. The number of servers used can also be reduced to 1/8 of the number of servers being used now.

* Choose the best TDP

TDP(Thermal Design Power), refers to the maximum amount of power the cooling system in a computer is required to dissipate. Processors running with various clock frequencies are available now. The higher the frequency, the higher will be the processor’s TDP, resulting in higher performance but also higher energy consumption. If the organisation is more concerned with performance per watt than with absolute performance per server, processors with lower TDP sometimes deliver better overall value and are to be selected accordingly.

Summary

The servers which are “green” are small in size but offer excellent bandwidth and memory. They also have excellent units for supplying cooling mechanism. This is possible because they use solar and wind power for these purposes which are unlimited and cost less compared to other resources. Since they use these alternative ways of energy, they emit less carbon dioxide into the air. The traditional servers in comparison emit too much of carbon dioxide in to the air and are also too costly to maintain.

The above is a very rough outline on green hosting , if you have any questions, we would be happy to talk to you!

About the Author :

Greeshma S Giri works as a Jr.Software Engineer in Bobcares. She joined Bobcares in May 2012. She loves reading books and listening to music in her free time.

When almost every business around you is moving towards virtualization, it is important to review some of the facts before making a final decision on your hosting solution. I shall provide some facts that may help you to decide what solution will be best for your growing business.

Virtualization

Virtualization is basically a consolidation of number of physical servers onto a more powerful machine capable of handling the increased load. Generally physical servers use only a small portion of the total CPU, RAM, and I/O, it makes sense to get more out of your hardware.

Dedicated Servers

For every new technology that came, people will adapt and use what works best for them, while others do it in the old fashion way. Let’s check some facts.

1. Cost

The first reason to virtualize is to save money. This may be hardware, human resource, or energy related savings. An ideal virtualization plan should result in lower equipment, power, management and hardware costs. Most businesses will review their current situation and determine where they can save money.

The cost of buying individual servers is much higher than virtualization. Even though you may save costs on hardware, the costs of the virtualization software and licensing may be high. You may have to treat each virtual server as a physical instance like before, so normal licensing costs for each virtual server stays as same.

2. Performance

Performance is not as good if you increase the work load for a single machine must handle. While the virtualization hardware is getting faster and faster each year, you still have more resources being used with virtualization. Performance needs for an application should to be addressed on a case by case basis.

Many dedicated servers are only using about 20% of their computing capacity. This is a waste of usable resource and also one of the main reason companies are looking for virtualization. Trying to get the most out of your hardware is more difficult using a dedicated server environment.

A server that is running one application will be faster than the same server running multiple applications. There are times when a virtual server cannot perform like a dedicated server and we all have to determine when that time comes. For example consider a database server. All things being equal the dedicated server wins on performance but may loose on efficiency.

3. Managing Time

Many of the virtualization products have advanced management tools that help you to monitor and review information quicker across more servers. This can reduce the human resource needed and less 3rd party software that you have to learn along with less errors. When you have more items to manage, the risk of making mistakes also increases.

Dedicated hosting solutions are more complex due to their hardware separation. Hardware management requires more time. For virtualization, many of these items are build into the software package.

4. Disaster Recovery

Most virtualization software comes with a number of features that may increase server up-time. If one virtual server fails, it will come up instantly on another machine. Load balancing is also easier. Many packages also come with their own data backup solutions such as ’snapshots’ to protect data. In case of Physical server, we have to opt other backup and recovery options.

5. Point of Failure

If you have 10 virtual servers on a single piece of hardware and if that goes down, it won’t be good. Minimizing these risks may require additional hardware like redundant physical servers and SANS. This adds more equipment and cost which are the exact items you are trying to reduce.

We can’t let our entire business shutting down due to a single failure. With dedicated servers we know that a single server failure rarely takes down everything. Virtualization increases the risk of a major event when you loose a single server. One of virtualizations selling point is the ability to load balance servers easily. We can say that the separation of services could be a good thing for many different configurations.

6. Security

Setting up a security plan for a virtual server environment is easier because you can focus on a universal security model. A more focused approach for overall security across fewer dedicated machines is easier than security for more hardware, right?

Your virtual server might be on the same physical server of another company. This is especially true if you are using a hosting company on a cloud environment. If you are leasing cloud space from a hosting provider how are they protecting your data from the thousands of other people on the cloud. The security of your virtual server depends on many factors and could complicate a few items when dealing with industry regulations.

7. Ease in IT Growth

Adding a new server or increasing RAM, CPU, or hard disk is as easy as pressing a few buttons using Virtualization. The ease of deploying new servers can decrease the time it takes to launch new products and services. When you have to add a new physical server to your environment it takes some planning. You have to purchase equipment and then load the OS, security patches, and plan out physically connecting the server to your network. Using virtualization you can usually bring up another server within minutes by using a copy of a virtual server. If you are a company adding 10 servers per month then this will be the perfect choice. The virtualization of servers does equal less hardware which can help reducing our net power usage with virtualization.

8. Migration

Many virtualization products come with software that helps you migrate applications from your older dedicated servers to new virtual servers. This means that upgrades to your environment can be much easier as long as you stay with similar virtualization products.

Final Note

Managing thousands of dedicated servers may not be great for a company’s image when there are other choices out there. If you have the money to invest and you intend on developing software for other platforms, then invest in setting up your machine to support virtualization

As I said the benefits are going to be unique to each business case, each user community and enterprise. If you have any suggestions or questions, we would be happy to talk to you!

Sajan Sebastian works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. He joined Bobcares in February 2011. He loves to travel and read books.

Virtual Private Servers are the primary choice of customers who can’t afford to buy a Dedicated Server, at the same time need same amount of flexibility and control. This industry is facing a serious threat from Amazon and Windows Azure Cloud Platforms. This article is focused on running a VPS business which can compete with these cloud platforms.

A thorough understanding of the features that end customers looks for in these services and implementing them at much lower price tag is the key for running a successful VPS hosting services. Windows Azure is an open and flexible cloud platform that enables you to quickly build, deploy and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters. The key features of Azure are:

* 99.95% monthly availability

* Supports different OS and frameworks

* Instant deployment

* Instant Scaling of resources

* Pay only for the resources used

* Quality customer support

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud enables us to create a computing instance in Amazon’s network. The main highlights of these platform are:

* 99.95% availability

* Instant deployment and scalability of computing resources

* Web interface for managing firewall.

* Easy deployment using preconfigured images

* Custom configurations using custom images

* Pay for only the resources used

* Quality customer support

A normal deployment of a VPS server may take days with its regular routine of customer chating with the sales team, then another few days for the technician to set-up the server. Your website should provide the customers an option to create custom configurations, generate its cost and order it instantly. Providing predefined configurations and proper documentation of their pros and cons will also delight the customer. Once the customer has ordered the VPS, you should be able to deploy the server within hours.

Your plans should provide high availability. This can be implemented using high availability configurations like Xen Clusters. A lot of virtualization technologies offers high availability configurations.

Another factor is instant scaling or resources. The customer may be anticipating high traffic in in the next day and he may need to scale up the resource instantly.Scaling of computing resource can be done instantly in most virtualization technologies. An experienced support team can accomplish it in a few minutes. The only requirement is that you keep sufficient free resources in the hardware node. If the hardware node itself runs out of resources, you will need the DC technician to manually upgrade the resources. This can cause considerable downtime for server.

A web interface which allows the customer to login and perform tasks like viewing resource usage of his server, ordering new resources or servers etc will be an added advantage. The billing portal used by most hosting providers can be customized to implement these services unless you are using any third party applications like WHMCS.

Integrating a high availability configuration which provides instant scaling of resources coupled with quality customer support and competitive pricing will make the customer think twice before opting for Amazon or Azure.

The above is a very rough outline on Running VPS business competing amazon & azure , if you have any questions, we would be happy to talk to you!

About the Author :

Dipin.D works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. He joined Bobcares in October 2010. He loves reading books and listening to music in his free time.

Blog edited by :

Appu Joseph Xavier works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. He joined Bobcares in April 2012. He loves to watch movies in his free time.

what is a VPS?

A VPS or virtual private server which works by partitioning a single physical server. The Physical node consists of only one root operating system. Using software such as Parallels Virtuozzo or VM-Ware the same operating system can then be installed over the top of the Hardware Nodes creating multiple Virtual Nodes. These Virtual Nodes use the same registry and system files to maximize efficiency and minimise both memory and hard disk usage. This all allows for independent execution of the virtual servers without interference from the other virtual servers connected to the same physical server.

Different Types of VPS Services

1.Managed VPS hosting service

In managed VPS hosting service the hosting company supply professionals who are well trained in solving numerous kind of hosting relevant specialised problems, able to administrate and handle issues quickly. They also guarantee that your world wide web functions are at safe hands and let you able to concentrate on the other important tasks at the same time. Managed VPS hosting service supply 24/7 service to help you regardless of the location where you are located and time boundary. Further, they guarantee that your server is working actively without any issues.

2.Unmanaged VPS hosting service

In Unmanaged hosting service the hosting company will not provide any support regarding the issues related with software , resource , performance , troubleshooting or need general help in understanding server applications. The user is completely responsible for the management and troubleshooting of the issues caused in the server. Only hardware related issues will be handled by the hosting provider.

Advantages of VPS over shared hosting

1.Security

In the case of VPS hosting your file system is not accessible or viewable by any other customer, your files are ensured full privacy and security.

2.Control

In the case of VPS hosting, you are able to modify server configuration files, install applications or modify system software With administrative or root access.

3.Isolation

In the case of VPS hosting, You are fully isolated from other users and actions on the server. No other customer can slow down or affect your service.

4.Performance

In the case of VPS hosting, Your resources may be guaranteed based on your plan, nothing else on the server will affect the performance of your VPS

Why Purchase VPS Hosting?

VPS hosting is a package that gives you a big part of server for a web project. Most online web companies provide VPS servers only to several companies, all located on one server. So the possibility of bad neighbourhood common for Shared Hosting is incredibly small in case of VPS. Along with server safety you get nice amount of disk space, serious bandwidth, control panel, and a dedicated support.

A VPS server is a good choice if your project is already quite big and in the foreseeable future your site will have to host big amounts of media. For instance, your users will upload audios, videos, images or other documents that take much disk space. All these documents will stay on your server, so you’ll need more gigabytes for it. Also, VPS hosting can process more users coming to your web page.

The prices for this hosting type are quite moderate, but we advise you to check the reliability of any company offering you cheap services. Low price can cover bad functioning, poor hosting features or unreliable customers support.

The above is a very rough outline on advantages of VPS hosting , if you have any questions, we would be happy to talk to you!

About the Author :

Karthikeyan.S works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. He joined Bobcares in April 2012. He loves reading books and listening to music in his free time.

Blog edited by :

Appu Joseph Xavier works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. He joined Bobcares in April 2012. He loves to watch movies in his free time.

There may be instances in which your server goes down and you may need a technician to go to DataCenter and inspect the server. This can cost you both time and money. The fact is you can easily perform this task within minutes using any remote management devices. The primary aim of this article is to focus on Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) which is one of the most widely used remote management device.

IPMI provides the ability to remotely power on, power off, and reboot the server. It also provides a Serial Console and/or Keyboard-Video-Mouse as if you were sitting in front of the physical computer. IPMI uses a secondary network which is completely independent of the main network connection used by the regular users. If you are facing issues in the primary network, you will still be able to access the server via IPMI. It works independently of the operating system and can therefore be used before the Operating System boots up. You can even view the server screen while it is booting up using the remote console in IPMI. The device is password protected and user can’t access the server even though he has managed to access the IPMI’s network. Also, the traffic can be encrypted at hardware level using SSL. This adds to the security of the device. Since, IPMI devices operates on a separate network, an IP address has to be assigned to it.

The common tasks that you can remotely perform using IPMI:

* Remote Console : IPMI provides a remote console which is independent of the Operating System. It will work even if the server is down.

* Hard Reboots : IPMI can be used for hard reboot of the server and power cycling it. A power cycle will cut down the power to the server and then power it up.

* Altering BIOS settings : Since IPMI is independent of the Operating System, we can view the server screen while it is booting up, and alter the BIOS settings similarly to physically sitting in front of the system.

* Reseting the server password

* Monitoring the server via sensors : The sensors installed along with IPMI will provide vital information like CPU temperature, fan speed, power fluctuations etc. An event log is also available along with IPMI which will log events like power failures and BIOS generated events.

* Operating system installation

* Create sub accounts with limited privileges for the customers to perform basic tasks like server reboot.

An alternative technology for IPMI is KVM over IP switches (also known as IP KVM switches). But it is a bit more costly and doesn’t provide an option to mount a virtual drive. Intel Active Management Technology also facilitates remote management. But, it can be installed only with specific processors and the feature set is limited.

IPMI has its own variants that are customized by different vendors. The most common ones are Dell IDRAC and HP Integrated Lights-Out (ILO). Both provide almost same features and the performance. The cost varies according to the specifications of the IPMI card.

Most of the new servers have in built IPMI cards. Installing IPMI cards in a server is a fairly straight forward procedure. You will have to power down the server and plug in the IPMI card. Then boot the server from the installation CD and make the changes to BIOS as mentioned by the provider. An IP address is assigned to the IPMI device as it uses a different network. Since IPMI is independent of the Operating System, no specific software is required to be running in the server unless you wish for a graceful reboot option.

The above is a very rough outline of the IPMI service we provide, and if you have any questions, we would be happy to talk to you!

About the Author :

Dipin D works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. He joined Bobcares in September 2010. He loves reading books and listening to music in his free time.

Blog edited by :

Vivek Kumar works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. He joined Bobcares in April 2011. He loves to watch movies in his free time.