Cloud Hosting Series, Part 5: Do You Sell Cloud?

As a hosting company we hear this question all the time, but it usually misses the mark of what hosting consumers are actually asking for. And a misunderstanding about what hosted Cloud services are and do can lead to solutions that might not fit the problems customers are trying to solve. So what do consumers actually mean when they ask, “Do you sell Cloud?”

Due to the server-centric types of products that hosting companies have typically offered, when traditional hosting consumers ask if a hosting provider “sells Cloud,” they are likely asking if that provider offers a Cloud IaaS solution when, in fact, their needs might be better served with a PaaS or even SaaS solution. Confused yet? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Let’s take a minute to look at these terms to try to understand a little better just what Cloud has to offer the hosting consumer.

IaaS
IaaS—or Infrastructure as a Service—refers to the now ubiquitous “server in the Cloud” concept. With an IaaS solution, you receive a virtualized server OS and a generalized application stack on top of it (such as a LAMP). This basic unit of hosted Cloud IaaS is known as an instance, and it can be delivered on top of virtualization technologies such as Xen, KVM, or even Virtuozzo Containers. With IaaS, everything beneath the OS installation and the virtual networking provided with it (i.e. the virtualization software, the hardware, and the physical network build-out) is a “black box” to the end user, which is fine because few users have a real need to interact directly with the server hardware.

PaaS
Platform as a Service is a conceptually higher layer than IaaS. In PaaS the operating system joins the hardware and virtualization as part of the black box that users cannot see into. The end user simply interfaces with a programming language such as php, Java or Ruby. PaaS offers this programming environment—the platform—to the user.

Anyone familiar with these terms knows that this is something of a simplification of the IaaS/PaaS relationship. After all, the definitions of these terms are somewhat of a moving target in the industry right now. For an interesting article that illustrates some of the nuance of why simple definitions do not always suffice, click here.

SaaS
There’s another higher-order layer that is important to mention and will come up again later in our discussion: Software as a Service. In SaaS, a single application such as WordPress is exposed to the end user. The functioning application itself is the service while everything beneath it that makes it run is hidden from the end user. WordPress is a great example of SaaS when hosted on wordpress.com.

So, if you’re wondering if you can buy a highly scalable virtualized Cloud instance to move your server into, the question is not Do you sell Cloud? but Do you offer a hosted Cloud IaaS solution? But is asking whether you can move a server into the Cloud, really the right question?

To be clear, one -aaS is not better than another, each just targets different levels in the technology chain to solve problems. In fact, SaaS and PaaS solutions are most likely delivered on top of IaaS—and SaaS may be delivered on top of PaaS. The key is to know what you’re looking for and shop accordingly. Do you need a turn-key solution for a single application that stresses ease-of-use and low maintenance? Look at SaaS for that particular application. Or do you need a highly-customizable environment from which you can build one-off applications? Look to PaaS for a single programming environment. Or look to IaaS for the ultimate in flexibility to design your solution.

Some of you may remember in Part 2 of our Cloud Series I discussed some of the truly awesome new possibilities with Cloud hosting technology, and the associated learning curve: the ability to divorce the application from the OS and the hardware and have many instances working in tandem to accomplish a greater goal, each instantaneously scalable and clonable to meet traffic demands on the fly. This is where Cloud IaaS shines.

To be sure, individual applications can be custom built on top of IaaS server instances and tap into the incredible scaling some Cloud solutions offer, but being able to leverage a PaaS or SaaS solution allows you to skip some of the complexity of having to build a one-off solution in an IaaS environment. As the future of Cloud unfolds PaaS solutions that are specifically tailored to languages like Java, Ruby and PHP as well as SaaS solutions that offer turn-key application environments like WordPress, phpBB, and Magento will become the norm.

So, back to the original question, “Do you sell Cloud?” The answer you receive to that question may not provide you with the information that you really need when choosing a provider. However, you will quickly be able to home in on the right answer and provider if you know what you’re looking for, or if you find a provider who is willing to work with you to help you determine the optimal solution for your requirement.

Photo by Liber

Cloud Hosting Series Part 2: VPS to Cloud?

I have to admit, I’m a bit baffled by some of the messages I’ve heard coming from our competitors and from customers recently about what Cloud Hosting means to our industry. I often get questions from customers and read advertising from other hosting companies that equate Cloud Hosting to being the obvious replacement for dedicated server or VPS hosting. We hear things like, “upgrade to our Cloud solution” and “host your website in our Cloud,” as if your website wasn’t working on its current platform, or with the advent of Cloud, your website would stop working all of a sudden.

Don’t get me wrong, Cloud Hosting has its place in the market, and it will become increasingly relevant with time. In fact, as a platform, Cloud will become a necessity over the next few years. But, right now – are you ready for it?

In the SMB realm, our industry continues to sell hosting as it has since pre-Cloud days. It’s all still server, VPS, or instance focused. Everything goes back to a software architecture and design philosophy that places the greatest emphasis on managing your operation on the server level, and automating as much of that operation as possible, hence the the proliferation of control panel software over the past 10 years. Control panels attempt to simplify web hosting management, a task that was previously highly technical and arcane, requiring deep knowledge, typically gained after years of experience.

If, as a customer, you think of Cloud Hosting through this server-centric lens, you won’t reach the promise of Cloud. You can have your server in the Cloud, but it won’t give you and your hosting company anything more than a way to more quickly and flexibly provision and bill for VPSs. If you’re looking at hosting the way most do who have been consuming hosting services in the era of mass-market server virtualization, Cloud Hosting offerings in the market today can seem marvelously underwhelming. It’s virtualization with provisioning automation, or — put another way — it’s hosting where provisioning control has been given to the consumer.

Okay, so then why does anyone care about Cloud? What has truly captured the attention of the industry is not what Cloud Hosting currently is for the SMB community, it is the promise of what it can and will be. Cloud will revolutionize hosting, but not in the way that some seem to assume right now. It is not going to make server management more simple, or optimize the software platforms of today. And it won’t simplify your life. Cloud will, however, make possible a paradigm shift in the way that applications are hosted on the Internet.

What makes Cloud revolutionary is the mental shift that it allows in developing web-based applications. The ability for the hosting consumer and/or software developer to control resource provisioning allows development that goes in a completely new direction. Cloud Hosting creates a world in which server instances are transient and disposable. The instance is no longer important — the communication and cooperation between instances is. The developer writes provisioning logic into his application because, by breaking the functional requirements out into logically separable parts, he can build a system that can auto-scale to meet individual application requirements.

The problem is that many seem to assume that they’re going to bring their old applications, control panels, and knowledge to the Cloud, and that it’s all going to work even better. That’s not really the case. You will
be able to bring these things to the Cloud, but they will not take advantage of the true benefits of the Cloud. One solution to this problem is time – time for developers to begin writing applications to Cloud APIs and using technologies that allow for simple inter-server cooperation and synchronized data sharing and manipulation. This will naturally occur over the next few years, and it will come as a result of the creation of new development frameworks that make splitting hosting tasks into logical chunks a simple process.

Ultimately, Cloud Hosting is cool, and it is revolutionary. But right now, if you want to rush to the Cloud, ask yourself what problems you are trying to solve and who are you relying upon to solve them. For your own sake, make sure you know how your Cloud vendor will improve your operation. Otherwise, you might just end up getting sold a good old dedicated server “in the Cloud” — which you might even pay more for.

ServInt Nominated for an NVTC Green Award

At ServInt, we’ve made no secret of our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint. Whether it’s our regular equipment recycling, the ongoing retrofitting of more efficient and environmentally friendly equipment, 110% carbon offsetting policy, or our corporate patronage of American Forests, you certainly can’t say we’ve been standing idly by.

That’s why we’re honored to have been nominated by the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) for it’s annual Green Award.

With that being said, we obviously don’t do this for the awards. We’ve always tried our best to identify and minimize the damage our industry does to the environment. When we first set out to tackle our ongoing green initiative, we took a long, hard look at our infrastructure, our software, our hosting platform, and our facilities. Putting a dent in our carbon footprint meant more than simply buying more energy-efficient hardware, it also meant reengineering our software to increase the performance of our products without increasing the number of resources they consume.

The result is more — and better — performance for our customers, less cooling and energy costs for us, and a healthier planet for everyone. It truly is a win-win situation.

We’ve been a member of the NVTC for years, and as the Northern Virginia/Washington, DC Metro area has expanded, so have we. We’d like to give a warm thank you to the NVTC for nominating ServInt.

In the meantime, as we continue to grow we’ll keep doing whatever we can to build a greener future for all of us.

Green Retrofitting: Corporate Responsibility That Makes Sense

Yesterday, I wrote about a new direction for ServInt’s social media outreach. Basically, I explained that a lot of companies, ServInt included, spend too much time talking about themselves and not enough time talking about their customers. I made a new rule saying that we’d talk more about you .

So, naturally, I’m going to kick that off by talking about us .

Earth Week 2010 is coming to a close and as such I thought it appropriate to reflect on a few of our specific accomplishments in green technology. In our more than 15 year history, we’ve been relatively silent trailblazers. We are pioneers in dedicated and VPS hosting and we were one of the first hosts to actively work on improving inefficient and environmentally troubling urban infrastructure. With that being said, there are some unique challenges that we face precisely because of our status as trailblazers.

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Introducing Our Latest Enterprise Dedicated Server Line, the Solo Series

Greetings blog readers!

As head of our Enterprise sales team here at ServInt, I usually spend my days working directly with customers and I’ve never been a contributor on ServInt’s blog before, but today we have an announcement I’m so excited by that I insisted on being the one to share it. Since it is my job to assist customers with finding the package best suited to their needs, I can’t wait to tell everybody about this series of new Enterprise Dedicated Server products we have available as of today.

Our Enterprise sales team helps to outfit customers with demanding, unique, and sometimes esoteric needs. There was a time when these interactions were relatively rare and specialized, but today, even our entry level products see incredibly complex software setups. It’s amazing and exhilarating that today’s internet is far more accessible, far more organic, and far more democratic, than ever before.

One of the true hallmarks I’ve witnessed in my 12 years at ServInt has been our consistent focus on not just providing a single, static family of solutions. Instead, we’ve cultivated an ecosystem where businesses can grow with ServInt. We made sure that when a business moved to dedicated hardware, going “Solo” meant never truly being alone.

More after the jump…

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