Dedicated Server Hosting is one of the highly demanded hosting services. Dedicated Server Hosting Service is also called managed hosting service. In this type of hosting service, the service provider owns and manages the machine and lease out the full control to the client. Management of the server includes continuous monitoring of server and ensuring uninterrupted, effective, and efficient working of the server. This can further include the backup services, installation of security patches and various levels of technical support.
Dedicated Hosting offers its clients the peace of mind of hosting on dedicated infrastructure where the client owns the entire control over the server in high security data centers. The client enjoys technical support 24 X 7 X 365 by a dedicated team of expert technicians and also account managers in many cases. This is in fact a reliable solution from a single web server to a comprehensive multi server solution. Dedicated hosting gives its customers the hardware and management services they need just for a low fixed monthly fee. Dedicated Web hosting reduces up front costs while providing the customers with the luxury of flexibility to expand and change as per the business requirements. The Planet is highly respectable name among the largest dedicated server hosting service providers in the world.
Dedicated Server Services and Management
Servers are the foundation of any hosted application or a Web site application. In addition to providing the full array of leading servers from Dell, every self-managed dedicated server from The Planet comes with everything the customer needs to start hosting its Web site or web application. And the best thing over this is that these all services are included in the base price in the industry. Choosing the right level of services and management is very important thing as this will determine if the buyer of the service gets the most out of its purchased service. At The Planet, depending on needs of the customer, they offer to choose exactly how much dedicated server management a business would require. At The Planet all dedicated servers include the essential tools and support the customers would need to enable their hosted IT infrastructure and applications. The customers can also get the Add – on Management Services and Managed Dedicated Servers if they are looking to off-load specific administration and support tasks for their hosting applications.
Dedicated Server Support
Dedicated servers are ideal for organizations that want to take advantage of the enterprise class hardware and network infrastructure of data centers at The Planet. Internal resources for day to day server management at The Planet are quite reliable. At ThePlanet, the servers are hosted in the SAS 70 Type II certified data centers, connected to a enterprise grade network, and here the customers enjoy the benefits of basic technical support services included with every dedicated server. All these high end services come to the customers for a reasonable monthly fee.
The services for the customers of Dedicated Server from The Planet include the following:
S. No.
Service / Facility
Brief Description
1
24 x 7 Technical Server Support:
The Planet provides its each and every customers with 24 X 7 customer support and its every server with essential technical support delivered by highly experienced, highly dedicated professionals.
2
Web-Based Ticketing System:
Technical Support at The Planet is always open for business, as close as the keyboard of the customer, through their Web – based customer portal.
3
Phone Support:
The customers at The Planet enjoy the luxury of having open help desk privileges with a qualified support technician reachable through a simple phone dialing.
4
Web-Based Live Support Chat:
The customers have instant access to the skilled Support Team of The Planet through online “The Planet’s Live Chat system”.
5
Network-Based Security Protection:
The Planet constantly monitors the system and protects of the customers against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and ensures a secure service to them.
6
Bandwidth Monitoring and Tracking:
Through the Orbit customer portal, the customers of The Planet can continually track bandwidth allocations and usage on a per-server basis for all their applications.
7
Open Access to Knowledge Base:
The expertise and experience of the hosting professionals of The Planet professional team is available to help its customers in solving everyday server issues.
Managed Dedicated Server Services
Managed Dedicated Server Service is an enterprise class service that includes the facilities of monitoring and remediation of hosted applications, managed back-up and a one hour hardware replacement guarantee from a team of certified IT experts. This enterprise class service is available on select dedicated servers. To augment the dedicated servers at The Planet, Alpha Professional Managed Dedicated Servers provide the enterprise – class services and high – quality support the customers may need for hosted infrastructure of their business. With Alpha Professional, the customers are confident that they are backed with a team of certified engineers always available to support and respond to their business needs.
Whether the customer requires a single dedicated server or a highly complex hosted infrastructure, Dedicated Servers managed by Alpha Professionals provide the customers with the freedom to focus on their business rather than the IT infrastructure, because the highly professional and skilled available with them right there when they need. The customers of Managed Dedicated Server enjoy the following enterprise class services from The Planet.
S. No.
Service
Brief Description
1
First – call Problem resolution
The Planet does not want its customers to keep waiting for a right person when they call for a help from Customer Support Team nor it want its customers to pass through different channels to reach to a right person. Rather whenever the customer is in need, and makes a call to the customer support team, a certified team of experts at The Planet is ready to respond and take personal ownership of support incidents for the most important servers of the customers. With Alpha Professional Managed Dedicated Servers, the person who receives the support request will manage the incident through completion. Every member of the Alpha Professional team is a senior member of support staff at The Planet, and each one of them is certified on key hosting technologies including RHCE, MSCE and CCNA.
2
One hour hardware replacement Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Mostly in the hosting services, the customers worry about spare parts availability or simply need their business back online as soon as possible in case of a hardware fault. The Planet offers a one hour hardware replacement SLA to provide its customers with peace of mind knowing that the expert team will have the failed components exchanged within one hour and hence the customer can get back to their business.
3
Managed Backup
The Planet gives its customers the peace to sleep well at night knowing that they have a dedicated team of certified system administrators watching their backups 24 x 7 x 365. In the event the customer requires a restore or the customer would like to modify the backup scheduling, the expert team at The Planet is available to assist them round the clock. 20 GB of high-availability redundant storage is included with Alpha Professional. Plug-ins are available at no additional cost for MS SQL, MySQL, Exchange, and SharePoint.
4
Server Monitoring and Reaction
The team of expert monitoring engineers at The Planet is constantly on standby watching for service notifications from the server. If a critical fault is detected any time round the clock, they immediately jump into action to resolve the service issue. In the event the service issue is lasting longer than anticipated, the expert team will reach out to the designated contact(s) to provide updates and guidance on a correct course of action and ETA on a resolution.
5
Additional Services
First-call resolution – a certified engineer provides a single point of contact per incident
24 x 7 x 365 support availability
Unlimited access to the support team
A team that acts as a first line of defense against monitored alerts
Fully managed customizable daily backups of the hosted environment
Alpha Professional is available for $99/month per server
Add-on Server Management Services
Dedicated server management services are available on all dedicated servers, providing economical access to server monitoring and remediation, server security management, managed backup and system administration services. The Planet also offers its customers to buy the Alpha Advanced Services or the Add on Server Management Services that allow them to purchase individual management options specifically designed to assist them with the administration and maintenance of their dedicated servers. Alpha Advanced Services professionals are available around the clock to ensure the stability, security, uptime and backups of the dedicated servers of the customers. Following are the Add on Server Management Services offered by The Planet to its customers.
S. No.
Service Name
General Cost
Brief Description
1
Alpha Managed Server Backup
$40/month per server
This service provides the customers with the facility of using the enterprise grade software stored on The Planet’s own highly available and redundant storage arrays. Managed Server Backup Service is ideal for individuals and small businesses that require backups of their most critical data. The experienced team of system administrators at The Planet works on the behalf of the customers to ensure their data is safe.
2
Alpha Server Monitoring
$25/month per server
Alpha Server Monitoring Service includes 24 x 7 server and service monitoring, including rapid response and customized escalation procedures. In the event of unscheduled downtime, the experienced team at The Planet stays ready to get the server back online almost immediately.
3
Alpha Server Security
$40/month per server
This is a comprehensive ongoing server security management service based on industry standards and years of Web hosting experience. This service ensure the hosting servers to be securely deployed and kept patched and hardened throughout their life cycle.
4
Alpha Monitoring & Security Bundle
$55/month per server
This service bundle maximizes the value with the purchase of Alpha Server Monitoring and Server Security together. This bundle ensures that the servers are continuously monitored, patched and hardened by the team of hosting experts.
5
Alpha Server Administration
$37.50 per thirty minutes
This service provides the customers with On-demand system administration, migration and custom issue resolution from the team of hosting experts. System administration time is available at a discount to Alpha Advanced Services servers (Server Monitoring, Server Security and/or Managed Backup at $37.50 per ½ hour). Customers without Advanced Services can request system administration assistance on-demand at $62.50 per thirty Minutes.
Orbit 2.0 Customer Portal
The Planet enhances the experience of its customers to the next level with Orbit 2.0, a free online tool to manage all of the hardware, software and network needs of the customers. The following are just a sampling of the self-service functions that the team at The Planet created with the customers, and the technical and business users in mind.
S. No.
Service or Facility
Brief Description
1
Service Management
With this facility, the customers can view all aspects of their hosted environment. They can rescue and reboot hardware, reload Operating Systems, manage DNS, access real time graphs to best monitor and manage their hardware and network needs. They further can add bandwidth or service features quickly to optimize the online performance of their business.
2
Ticketing
The customers with this facility can issue, view and check status on any device, network or billing tickets submitted to The Planet team for assistance.
3
Online Billing
This is a great feature of the service to the customers with which they can view invoices, make payments and change credit cards, if needed, to better manage their cash flow and billings.
4
User Permissions
With this facility, the customer can configure about that which users have rights to configure or view settings on the hosted environment.
5
Quick Links
With its Quick Link Facility, The Planet provides its customers with their most used functions to be only a click away from anywhere in Orbit 2.0.
Network Security
With the growing business the needs of infrastructure also grows and once the needs grow beyond a single server, multiple servers are bought and interconnected with a network. This requires dedicated server environment enabled with a network and security infrastructure. Multi-tier environments may include private back end server networks to segregate communications, firewalls to control access and load balancers to enable scalable and redundant applications.
Virtual Racks
Virtual racks composed of a private network environment with unlimited back end connectivity that allows the servers and other components in the hosting infrastructure to grow with the business needs. Virtual Racks my be considered as the foundation for complex dedicated server hosting.
Virtual Racks are the considered as ideal solutions for hosting the Web application infrastructure of the customer business to provide an environment that allows clusters of servers to easily work together. They provide the most cost-effective solution for customers who require unlimited server-to-server connectivity, pooled bandwidth and access to a wide array of advanced firewalls and load balancers. The customers of Virtual Racks can create a custom virtual rack solution, or start with the per-configured virtual rack solution bundles of The Planet.
Following are the key strengths and benefits of Virtual racks Infrastructure of The Planet:
S. No.
Benefit / Facility
Brief Description
1
Unlimited Server-to-Server Transfer
Multiple servers within the same Virtual Rack solution provide dedicated and unlimited connectivity so that the customer need not to pay for the bandwidth between different servers. All Virtual Rack servers come with two network interfaces, one is public and other is private. They come with a bandwidth of one hundred Mbps standard and an optional upgrade to 1 Gbps is also available on offer.
2
Reduced Risk of Bandwidth Overages
Virtual Rack solutions offer the ability to pool bandwidth across all servers in the environment. The customer need not to play the guessing game of which server may have a bandwidth overage and which may have the underage use, only to find others in the environment below their limit. The servers in the established network share the pooled bandwidth that comes included with Virtual Rack solutions from The Planet.
3
Access to Advanced Security and Hosting Technologies
A complete hosting solution for complex environments requires advanced firewalls, a load balancer and storage. Virtual Rack solutions from The Planet allows its customers to take advantage of these advanced capabilities across the multi-server applications.
4
Scalability and Customization
A Virtual Rack from The Planet allows the customers to quickly respond to changing business needs. Whether they need additional servers at a short period notice or a new, secure network for internal communications, The Planet quickly and professionally deliver the best solution for all types of business needs related to hosting infrastructure.
5
Globally Redundant Infrastructure Options
Using a combination of multiple data centers and advanced load balancing technology, the Virtual Racks of the offerings of The Planet enables its customer organizations to distribute their applications across data centers in the Texas and London facilities of The Planet.
6
High Speed Infrastructure
All Virtual Rack of The Planet servers come with a 100 mbps public network up link and an unmeasured 100 mbps private network connection.
7
Enabled with High End Technology
Virtual Racks Capabilities of The Planet includes Private Back end network. They provide benefits of pooled bandwidth, Gigabyte Network Speed, Cisco ASA Firewall Security, Load Balancing Facility, Direct Attached Storage (DSA), Storage Cloud Facility, Geographic Redundancy, Storage Area Network, Redundant Power, and High Availability Configuration.
8
Upgrade Offers Available
The products listed below are available for all Virtual Rack environments:
Gigabyte up links – $10 per month per server
Bandwidth pooling – $25 per month per server
Load Balancers – starting at $75 per month
Firewalls – starting at $220 per month
Direct Attached Storage – starting at $300 per month
Content Delivery Network – starting at $0.15 per GB per month
Storage Cloud – starting at $0.25 per GB per month
Storage Area Network – starting at $650 per month
Customized Private Rack Solutions from The Planet
A dedicated private cabinet environment built specifically to the custom requirements of the customers. The Private Racks are ideal for customers with high availability or redundancy needs in their businesses. Private Racks are ideal for larger environments which need a “built to order” solution designed to meet specific, complex requirements. The Planet has a proven history of deploying complex, customized networks, network and power redundancy, and high performance SAN solutions. They can deliver multiple site redundancy with global load balancing from their Houston and Dallas data centers and additional sites may be available for larger deployments.
Private Racks Capabilities of The Planet are equipped with the benefits of pooled bandwidth, Private Back End Network, Gigabyte Network Speed, Cisco ASA Firewall Security, Load Balancing Facility, Direct Attached Storage (DSA), Storage Area Network (SAN), and Redundant Power. Following are in brief listing of the features of Private Rack Service from The Planet:
S. No.
Benefit / Facility / Feature
Brief Description of the feature
1
Unlimited Server to Server Transfer
This facility in Private Racks provides Multiple servers within the same private rack which is dedicated and provides unlimited connectivity so that the customer need not to pay for bandwidth between the servers.
2
Reduced Risk of Bandwidth Overages
Private rack solutions allow customers to pool bandwidth across all of the servers in the environment. No longer do the customer need to play the guessing game of which server will have a bandwidth overage, only to find other servers in the environment are below their limit. Pooled bandwidth lets the customers to purchase the servers to share the bandwidth that comes included with every server from The Planet.
3
Access to Advanced Security and Hosting Technologies
A complete hosting solution for complex environments requires advanced firewalls, load balancers, and storage solutions. Private rack solutions from The Planet allow customers to take advantage of these advanced solutions across their multi-server applications.
4
Scalability and Customization
A private rack from The Planet will allow its purchasers to quickly respond to changing business needs. Whether the customer needs additional servers at a short notice or a new, secure network for internal communications, The Planet is capable deliver it quickly and professionally.
5
Private Rack Space
Private Racks from The Planet comes in affordable and custom sizes and can be availed as per the needs of the business.
The Half Cabinet of Private Rack Space costs just $750 per month. This is a rack space of 100 mbps network up link, a 24 port Cisco Catalyst 2960tt switch and 17U of usable rack space for servers, storage devices and additional network gear.
The Full Cabinet of Private Rack Space costs just $1200 per month
A full-cabinet comes with a 100 mbps network uplink, a 24 port Cisco Catalyst 2960tt switch and 39U of usable rack space for servers, storage devices and additional network gear.
6
Default Cisco Catalyst 2960tt Network Switching
The 24 port Cisco Catalyst 2960tt is included with every private rack of The Planet. Additional switches are available for network redundancy or for deploying isolated networks on the demands of customers. An additional 24 port Cisco Catalyst 2960tt network switch in The Planet costs just $125 USD per month whereas a 48 port Cisco Catalyst 2960tt network switch costs $225 USD per month. A setup fees of $100 is also charged.
7
Advanced Cisco Catalyst 2960G Network Switches
Today’s high traffic, high data environments often require more than 100 mbps. The Planet offers the Cisco Catalyst 2960G gigabit switch to meet these high performance demands when ordered. An advanced 24 port Cisco Catalyst 2960G network switch costs just $350 USD per month and a 48 port Cisco Catalyst 2960G network switch costs just $450 USD per month. A setup fees of $100 is also charged additionally.
8
Additional Products
The products listed below are also available with the Private Rack at The Planet:
Load Balancers – starting at $595 per month
Firewalls – starting at $220 per month
Direct Attached Storage – starting at $300 per month
Storage Area Network – starting at $650 per month
Content Delivery Network – starting at $0.15 per GB per month
Storage Cloud – starting at $0.25 per GB per month
Load Balancing
The Planet allows the customers to add redundancy and scalability to their servers with the wide range of shared and dedicated load balancing appliances. Network and server load balancing allows the customers to add redundancy and scalability to their network more easily, which is critical to any well designed and functioning application. Load Balancing enables a group of servers to intelligently distribute service requests made to a single domain name or address. This ensures significantly greater performance from the servers.
A “Network Attached Storage” unit is a self-contained computer connected to a network. The purpose of network attached storage is to supply file-based data storage services to other devices connected to a computer network. Data storage, file systems, access to files, and the management of such things are all taken care of by software and the operating system (OS) on the network attached storage device.
A network attached storage device holds data. And even though the network attached storage device can technically run software other than the operating system, its purpose isn’t to execute general computing operations. Network attached storage units usually don’t come with a keyboard or display screen, and are administered via a network. If users don’t have a network attached storage device, they can use desktop or laptop computer as a file server. Really, a dedicated file server is a network attached storage device that features a keyboard, display screen and operating system. It should be noted that the operating system can run other tasks. However, file servers should be used to supply functionality such as supplying database services, email services, etc.
A network attached storage device can increase speed and performance because the unit itself executes the file serving and not the server that’s responsible for all the other processing tasks. The performance of network attached storage unit depends on how the network is used. Heavy network traffic and cache memory traffic influences what the network attached storage device can do. If the network attached storage device offers built-in RAID and clustering, the amount of data that can become available can increase.
The shared and dedicated load balancing appliances at The Planet provide their customers with an ability to Scale the infrastructure up and down as per the need of the business. Server load balancers from The Planet allows its purchasers to manage their IT infrastructure more efficiently as traffic volumes increases or decreases. It also provides the benefits of Flexibility in purchases of infrastructure. Server load balancing and fail over services are built-in to a single appliance, which allows th customers to expertly balance their needs for both performance and redundancy. The service is backed with Expert Server Management. The experts at The Planet set up, configure, monitor and maintain the server load balancers, including firmware upgrades. In the event of a problem, the customer can be assured that the expert team is working on the issue and escalating it to priority support if needed, making sure that the customer stay informed. An Extra Level of Security is also added to the service named as ServerIron load balancer that controls the amount of traffic a particular server receives, which prevents abuse and attacks, and increases the availability of applications without blocking legitimate traffic.
The Top of the line server load balancing technology is now available at a low cost with Shared Server Load Balancers of The Planet for its Virtual Racks. Based on ServerIron technology of Brocade Networks, this service makes the performance benefits and improved scalability of a load-balanced solution accessible to everyone. Key benefits of the service include the following:
Transparent support to load balance any TCP or UDP application (Enhanced and Premium packages)
Content switching including URL, Cookie, HTTP, and SSL ID (Premium package)
Server Load balancing methods: RR (round robin), least connections, weighted RR and response time
Optional global server load balancing functionality (Premium package)
Another option available in Load Balancing Service of The Planet is the ServerIron XL family packs essential application traffic management that features in fixed-configuration 10/100 Ethernet application switches at a great price.
Technical Specifications of this facility are as follows:
Dual 100 Mb Ethernet ports
Up to 1,000,000 concurrent sessions
Up to 19,000 TCP/UDP connections per second
Transparent support to load balance any TCP or UDP application
Load balancing methods: RR (round robin), least connections, weighted RR, response time
Redundant configurations available: high-availability server load balancing with fail over in hot-standby
The ServerIron 4G series, which is another option available in Load Balancing Service of The Planet offers the most feature-rich and affordable application and content management switches of the industry for high acceleration, availability and security of critical enterprise applications in small- and mid-sized networks.
Technical Specifications of this service are as follows:
4 Gigabit over Copper ports
Up to 2,000,000 concurrent sessions
Up to 40,000 TCP/UDP connections per second
Transparent support to load balance any TCP or UDP application
Content switching including URL, Cookie, HTTP, and SSL ID
Load balancing methods: RR (round robin), least connections, weighted RR, response time
Redundant configurations available: high-availability server load balancing with stateful failover in hot-standby
Optional Integrated SSL Acceleration
Optional Global Load Balancing functionality
Load Balancing with The Planet delivers following multiple benefits:
Ability to Scale – Load balancers from The Planet allow user to manage their IT infrastructure more efficiently as traffic volumes increase.
Flexibility – Server load balancing and failover services are built-in to a single appliance, which allows balancing of the need for both performance and redundancy resulting it to a flexible environment with the server.
Expert Management – The experts of The Planet set up, configure, monitor and maintain the server load balancers, including firmware upgrades. In an event of a problem, the customer or the user can be assured that The Planet’s team is working the issue and escalating it to priority support if needed.
An Extra Level of Security – The Planet’s load balancers control the amount of traffic that a particular server receives, which prevents abuse and attacks, and increases the availability of applications without blocking legitimate traffic.
Load Balancer Management – In the complex network configurations it requires an expert server management available at a moment’s notice around the clock. The Planet‘ s highly skilled server load balancer management team is available 24 x 7 to support the specialized deployment. Basic management comes included with all The Planet’s server load balancer offerings. The basic Management includes the following:
The Configuration and provision of the device / service.
A 24 x 7 uptime monitoring with planned reactions.
On-demand upgrades and patch management is also available.
A 10 VIPs per server hosted at The Planet unless otherwise listed.
Modify the server load balancer policies (VIPs, distribution methods, health checks)
Load Balancer Options
S. No.
Model
Business Shared
Enhanced Shared
Premium Shared
ServerIron XL
ServerIron 4G
1.
Dedicated Device
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
2.
Throughput
50 Mbps
175 Mbps
300 Mbps
100 Mbps
1 Gbps
3.
Number of Concurrent Connection
(in thousands)
10
25
50
1000
2000
4.
Number of Virtual IPs
4
12
12
10
10
5.
Number of Real Servers
4
8
16
Unlimited
Unlimited
6.
Price (in US Dollars)
$75
$200
$400
$595
$1350
Content Delivery Network of The Planet to make the content available to a Global Market
The customers of The Planet can rapidly distribute their Web content and streaming media to the end users through the network of global caching servers of The Planet.
The Content Delivery Network (CDN) service of The Planet, delivered via business partnership with EdgeCast, offers a superior, cost-effective global solution that gives their clients competitive advantages in the delivery of digital media. This world-class content delivery system provides customers the cost benefits and flexibility of controlling their own content delivery network, while liberating them from, capital investments and operational hassles.
Key features of this service are as follows:
S. No.
Feature
Brief Description
1
Rapidly Distribute Web Content
A Content Delivery Network at The Planet is an interconnected network of computers that rapidly distributes web content to end users by caching that data on multiple servers and delivering it based on the geographic location of the users. Since the edge-caching servers are placed near end-users, latency and delivery times are lowered.
2
Increase the Maximum Number of Concurrent Users
A Content Delivery Network increases the maximum number of concurrent users significantly that can access the provided data. If the Web site is on a server with a 1 Gbps bandwidth connection to the Internet, only a gigabit of data can be delivered per second. When the data exists on 10 edge servers, each with a 1 Gbps connection to the Internet, the total amount of data that can be delivered to end users increases to 10 gigabits per second, means just 10 times. This is an order of magnitude more than the single server alone. In a Content Delivery Network deployment, the server acts as the origin server for the provided data. The Content Delivery Network edge servers cache the digital content on the origin server based on parameters that the customer define within its content delivery system interface.
3
The EdgeCast Network with Global Footprint
The Planet content delivery system is distributed to strategic global locations from which to store and serve the content of the clients of The Planet. The Planet Team maintains content caching Points of Presence (POPs) in San Jose; Los Angeles; Ashburn (Virginia); New York; Chicago; Dallas; Atlanta; Seattle; London; Frankfurt; Hong Kong; Tokyo; and Sydney. All POPs are strategically located near primary Internet Exchange Points. This places the servers at the center of global network peering and traffic exchange, and puts the end users just milliseconds away from the content.
4
Web Content Caching
If user have images, files or entire Websites that need to be available to a global user-base, CDN solutions from The Planet are ideal. They gain the benefit of lower origin server bandwidth utilization while improving their end-users’ experience.
5
Digital Media Delivery / Streaming
The Planet’s Content Delivery Network is designed to make video and audio streaming simple. It offers the latest in streaming technologies from Windows Media and Adobe Flash, as well as Silverlight and Move Networks streaming. User has access to vital streaming services such as Progressive Download and delivery over HTTP. Most importantly, user can greatly expand the number of users who can stream their content without having to increase the number of servers that house their content.
6
Live Event Streaming
The Planet’s live streaming content delivery service allows for both Windows Media and Adobe Flash streaming to be broadcast globally to audiences of a massive scale. The CDN from The Planet distributes the live broadcasts from multiple nodes, so the end-users will be able to pick up the feed closest to them, delivering the optimal performance for their specific global region and “last-mile” bandwidth provider.
7
Speed of Delivery
Content Delivery Network edge servers are deployed around the world and using EdgeDirector, users will receive their requested content from the fastest node no matter where in the world they are located.
8
Scalability
By using The Planet, customers will have immediate access to hundreds of edge servers located around the world and dozens of gigabits per second Tier-One bandwidth. Nowadays, special events, traffic bursts and popular videos are no longer an issue.
9
Redundancy
Each node is highly redundant residing in some of the world’s most advanced data centers. However, if one node fails, other locations will assume the load providing a seamless user experience. This infrastructure provides user with complete assurance and redundancy in delivering their mission-critical data.
10
One Price for All Services
Finding the right solution for their business has never been easier. Unlike most other CDN providers, The Planet’s CDN does not differentiate between caching or streaming content delivery. Additionally, The Planet’s size and scale allows them to offer the services of one of the top content delivery service providers at a very affordable rate.
Firewalls
The Customer can add a layer of protection between the servers and the Internet with a dedicated security appliance. The Planet provides its customers with the security against risk of intrusion or threats to their servers that could compromise the confidentiality and integrity of their data with the easy implement of The Planet’s firewall solution. The security experts at The Planet configure the firewall to meet the needs of the customers to ensure an extra layer of defense for their servers. The Key benefits and features of the Firewall solutions of The Planet are briefed as follows:
S. No.
Feature
Brief Description
1
Expert Management
The certified security experts at The Planet set up, configure, monitor and maintain firewalls including firmware upgrades. In the event there is any problem, the customers are assured that the team is working the issue and escalating to priority support with different vendors if needed and hereby making sure that the customers are informed all the while.
2
Block Malicious Traffic
Firewall services from The Planet ensure that traffic designed to compromise the sites of the customers is blocked, while enabling their employees, customers, users and partners to access the hosted application seamlessly.
3
Secure Remote Connectivity
VPN services through a firewall appliance secures communication privacy with IPSec VPN functionality and provides strong encryption and authentication.
4
Meet Compliance Burdens
While some compliance mandates such as the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard require a firewall, other compliance mandates call for an assurance of the protection of critical data. Firewalls are well maintained and updated frequently, providing the foundation of critical dedicated server security.
5
Basic Firewall Security Management
Basic Management includes:
Initial provisioning and configuration
24 x 7 uptime monitoring with planned reactions
On-demand upgrades and patch management
Modify firewall rules and policies (up to 200 rules)
NAT configuration for Dedicated Servers; Transparent mode for Virtual Rack; Both modes available in Private Rack
2 Web VPN Users (Cisco ASA firewalls only)
2 Site to Site VPN licenses
6
Additional Service Options available
The following additional services are available:
The Planet provides the additional service options on Cisco ASA firewalls. One of the choice is Private Rack Firewall Services in which The plane provides Additional Web VPN clients (SSL VPN). A set of 10 licenses can be availed for one time setup fee of $ 1,000 UAD. This service also provides a Site to Site (IPSec) VPN Set up for a one time fees of $150 USD. High Availability and Redundancy Configuration is ensured with a one time fees of $300 USD. This requires two dedicated devices. The Port Address Translation (PAT) Configuration is available for a one time setup fees of $150 USD.
Another service option available with The Planet is Virtual Rack Firewall Services in which an additional Web VPN client (SSL VPN) cost $25 USD per month per user and the Site to Site (IPSec) VPN Configuration costs just $150 USD for setup.
SSL Certificates
The customers at Theplanet.com can be provided with the necessary encryption to give their clients the peace of mind to transmit sensitive data. Not only the client but the purchaser of the SSL service also enjoys the same peace of mind. The SSL certificates service of The Planet is described in brief as follows:
S. No.
Feature
Brief Description
1
Strong Encryption
The SSL Certificates at The Plane offer true 128/256 bit encryption ensuring that the hosted data is always secure.
2
99% Browser Recognition Rate
With SSL Certificates, the customers can look to their browsers to ensure the sites they are connecting to are secure and authentic. SSL certificates from The Planet come from GeoTrust, the industry leader in SSL Certificates to ensure the quality and genuineness.
3
Meet Compliance Requirements
Some compliance mandates require encryption, such as the PCI Data Security Standard, while other policies or standards may require critical data protection. SSL Certificates help the customer to demonstrate compliance with these kinds of regulations and policies.
4
Rapid SSL in $14.95 USD
RapidSSL Certificates enable businesses to obtain fully functional and trusted SSL certificates and are ideal for securing internal Web sites. RapidSSL is a 128/256-bit single root SSL certificate. FreeSSL.com owns the root used to issue RapidSSL certificates, which makes it a stable SSL offering. RapidSSL assures browser recognition rates of about 99 percent.
5
Quick SSL in $49 USD
Quick SSL is a highly trusted, highly credible single root install SSL certificate delivered in just 10 minutes. With QuickSSL the customer gets true 128/256-bit SSL encryption which is fully compatible with the leading Web browsers. QuickSSL enables the Web site of the purchasers to activate the browser’s “LOCK” icon, indicating data will be protected from interception or tampering using secure sockets layer (SSL) encrypting technology. Therefore, the QuickSSL of The Planet makes the on-line visitors of confident of safety and security in sending credit card account numbers and other confidential information over the Internet. GeoTrust’s exclusive automates authentication system of The Planet to ensure that QuickSSL certificates are issued only to authorized recipients. Lastly, the Quick SSL offers the same great encryption the customer gets with the Rapid SSL, but the customers also have the ability to get their certificate re-issued if they change IP’s, the RSA key is lost through an OS reload or other circumstance require it.
6
Quick SSL Premium in $94 USD
The Premium SSL package of The Planet includes a highly trusted, highly credible single root install SSL certificate delivered in just 10 minutes, as well as a QuickSSL Premium Smart Seal for posting on the intended Web site. With GeoTrust QuickSSL Premium Web server certificates, the client and the customers of the client can conduct secure Internet transactions with confidence backed by genuine 128/256-bit SSL encryption for less than what the client pays for some other SSL solutions.
7
True Business ID in $79 USD
Full organization validation ensures that online visitors know they are on a genuine, trustworthy website and that the owners of the website have been validated as well. TrueBusiness ID certificates cannot be issued to individuals that simply own and run a website. These certificates can only be issued to an organization. Customers can confidently submit personal information knowing that they are dealing with a trusted site owner. This dynamic site seal has the company name directly on the seal and a date and time stamp for further authentication that the customer have been vetted. This certificate includes a dynamic site seal with the company name printed directly on the seal along with the date and time stamp. The certificate features up to 256 bit SSL encryption for web and mobile browsing, and free, unlimited reissuance during the lifetime of the certificate.
8
True Business ID with Wild card in $479 USD
The customer can get secure unlimited sub domains with one SSL certificate for domains that share the same second level domain and are on the same server. Full organization validation assures online visitors that they are on a genuine, trustworthy website and that the owners of the website have been validated as well. TrueBusiness ID Wild card certificates cannot be issued to individuals that simply own and run a website. These certificates can only be issued to an organization. This certificate includes a dynamic site seal with the client company name printed directly on the seal along with the date and time stamp. The certificate features up to 256 bit SSL encryption for web and mobile browsing, and free, unlimited re-issuance during the lifetime of the certificate.
9
True Business ID with EV in $399 USD
Extended Validation in this service ensures that the website and organization go through a rigorous process of validation. This SSL will turn the browser address bar green, demonstrating to the visitor that the website has been authenticated. This is an instant, visual method of displaying security. The green address bar also provides security against phishers by allowing the visitor to toggle the address bar between the name of the SSL Certificate Authority and the client company. This certificate features up to 256 bit SSL encryption for web and mobile browsers and free, unlimited re-issuance during the lifetime of the certificate.
Following is the process of Generating SSL CSR using The Planet’s Web Server
1.Step 1: Sign into the Web server and select the server to manage.
2.Step 2: Select the Security tab and then Request a Certificate.
3.Step 3: Complete the required boxes and click OK.
4.Step 4: An email is then sent to the email address specified, containing CSR.
5.Step 5: The CSR will be required while requesting certificate.
Anticipation Advantage Methodology for Security Services
A secure IT platform creates a solid foundation for a more stable and dependable environment. That’s why Northstar Managed Hosting follows the Anticipation Advantage™ Methodology engraining security into every aspect of managing infrastructure. The Planet apply best security practices from the ground and perform due diligence to maintain and update those secure practices as the threat landscape changes. Its team of certified engineers keeps security at the forefront of the operation so users can focus on their business.
The Anticipation Advantage Methodology for Security Services is described as follows:
Assess– Keeping user’s business secure is a top priority, so The Planet take the time upfront to develop a security profile that matches the needs of their business. Their assigned staff of certified experts reviews the current threat landscape and collaborates on the optimal security strategy to keep their IT environment secure while still enabling their business to perform at its peak.
Design – Once security is engrained in user’s IT business plan, its team of engineers begins the process of hardening their systems according to the defined security strategy. Acting as an extension of their IT team, assigned engineers follow the due diligence of documenting and maintaining the security procedures for their hosted environment. Using best practices and referring organizations such as The Center for Internet Security (CIS), Microsoft, and Red Hat, their assigned engineers design a secure hosted environment from the ground up.
Examples of the security procedures that their engineers apply to the hosted environment include the following:
Define role-based security model.
Identify and understand any regulatory or industry compliance concerns.
Define operating system and application patching schedules.
Define anti-virus exclusions and regular scanning schedules.
Discuss security hardening procedures and their impact on their systems.
Choose proven hardware firewall solutions from Cisco Systems.
Define firewall security profiles specific to their business.
Maintain – A secure environment requires a coordinated effort from everyone who accesses the hosted infrastructure. To safeguard user’s IT assets and minimize risk, the assigned teams of engineers follow a rigorous schedule of activities to keep their environment secure. They also adopt a well defined change control process that identifies any security updates that are applied to their hosted infrastructure. Examples of the security procedures The Planet manage include the following:
Perform monthly systems patching within a defined change-control process.
Provide regular, full-system virus scanning during defined maintenance windows.
Monitor and evaluate real-time distributed denial of service (DDoS) provided by The Planet Network Operation Centers (NOC).
Schedule regular vulnerability scans during defined maintenance windows.
Measure – The threat landscape is always changing. While applying the Anticipation Advantage Methodology to The Planet’s security services, it is essential that it regularly review user’s security profile. Their dedicated Technical Account Manager discusses reports specific to the security status of the hosted infrastructure on a quarterly basis. Any updates to their security profile are applied to the original security plan for business. These reports are also available through the customer portal. Examples of these reports may include the following:
Software patches successfully applied to the environment.
Anti-virus scans performed highlighting any alerts.
External vulnerability scans.
Firewall health status.
Server & Software
The servers and software are the heart of any Web site or hosted application. The Planet gives its clients a wide range of options so that they can select the hardware, operating system, control panel and other software options that support their needs and fit their budget too. If the client is not sure what the business needs are, the expert representatives of The Planet can help in determining which hardware and software meets the requirements.
All Servers
The Planet offers a wide range of options in hardware and software Infrastructure in hosting solutions. The customer can select a server from this wide range of Dell servers, from value-priced single core Pentium and Celerons to the latest multi-processor, multi-core Xeons. Following listed are the different options offered in packages from The Planet to its clients. Complex multiple server solutions with additional networking, security, and performance options are available at The Planet on their flexible Virtual Rack and Private Rack configurations.
Server Software
The Server Software include the set of Operating systems, control panels, virtualization, anti-virus, billing and web analytical software systems that support different operations in the hosting servers and are defining and dominating factors in the performance and success of the working of servers. Following are the options the Planet offers to its customers: Server Software
S. No.
Software Type
Options Available
1
Operating Systems
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, openSUSE, FreeBSD, and Microsoft Windows Server
2
Database Applications
MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server
3
Hosting Control Panels
cPanel and WHM, Parallels Plesk Panel, Parallels Pro (formerly Ensim Pro), and Helm for Windows
4
Virtualization Software
VMWare ESXi, Citrix XenServer Express, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Parallels Virtuozzo
5
Anti virus Software
Symantec Endpoint Protection (Norton AV for Linux)
6
Billing
Parallels Plesk Billing (formerly ModernBill)
7
Web Analytics
Google Urchin Analytics
8
Back up Software
R1Soft CDPServer
KVM over IP
The KVM stands for “keyboard / video / mouse” over IP. This is a service from The Planet for 24 x 7 remote server management. KVM is an effective tool for remotely managing servers regardless of their physical location. The KVM over IP server management solution provides direct access to the dedicated servers of the clients, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week through any major Web browser. With BIOS-level access, system administrators can monitor and respond to server issues from virtually anywhere over an Internet connection with a simple mouse-click.
The key features of KVM Facility of The Planet as briefly described as follows:
S. No.
Key Feature
Brief Description of the feature
1
Total Control
Featuring the Lantronix SecureLinx Spider KVM server management, The Planet provides full, BIOS-level control of any server, utilizing a secure connection over an IP network.
2
Immediate Access
The keyboard, video and mouse connections of the dedicated server are just a single login away.
3
Any server, anywhere
Our KVM over IP device is platform agnostic. As long as the server supports a USB or PS2 keyboard and mouse, the Spider KVM server management unit will function correctly.
4
Virtual Media
Unlike many other KVM server management solutions, the Spider KVM takes remote management to the next level, allowing the client to connect to its server to read from its local CD-Rom.
ICANN Domain Registration
The Planet offers in its services the Easy, affordable domain registration. As an organization accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to be a Domain Name Registrar, The Planet makes domain name registration more flexible, easier, and more affordable than ever before. The Planet offers multiple options to register domain names for different needs. This domain registration is offered through the Planet’s Orbit Portal. Any existing customer of The Planet’s Servers can purchase the domain name through this application.
The abilities of The Planet have dramatically expanded to include a slew of country code TLD’s, free ‘whois’ privacy, domain forwarding and email forwarding. The customers can now register domain names with The Planet online even if they are not currently a customer with a server account at The Planet. In addition, the Planet is now accepting online registrations, transfers in, and renewals.
The Planet has another attractive plan of Resell One Domain and SSL Reselling Program. If someone purchases the domain names regularly, or anticipate that someone’s domain count may grow large over time, then it may want to consider the ResellOne.net program of The Plane. The value of ResellOne comes from the ability to use the API (Application Programming Interface) f The Planet. This API gives the client the ability to provision customer entered orders directly to The Planet’s back end, allowing the client to offload the work of placing orders to their customer while leveraging The Planet’s strategic alliances. Provisioning to the back end is transparent to the customers, so the customer will never see The Planet’s brand. This program dramatically expands the ability of the client to manage every aspect of their domain name and/or SSL program by providing the ability to customize their solutions.
Database Applications
Database allows the user to store and query the data to support their online applications. The Planet offers both free, open-source MySQL, including in The Planet’s standard Redhat and CentOS server software installations, as well as the commercial version of Microsoft SQL Server software as an optional add-on. The Planet offers the following version of Microsoft SQL Server software:-
Work group Edition
Work group Edition comes with no limits on size or users and provides all the tools required by user to manage and optimize a SQL Server in their environment. Workgroup Edition is limited to servers with up to 2 CPUs and up to 3 GB of RAM.
Standard Edition
Standard Edition provides the same set of tools and functionality of Workgroup Edition, but it also includes advanced business intelligence features as well as high availability clustering for mission critical applications. Standard Edition comes with no memory constraints as that in the Workgroup Edition, but is limited to 4 CPUs.
Symantec Endpoint Protection Anti-Virus
Symantec Endpoint Protection combines industry leading Symantec Anti virus with advanced threat prevention to deliver the best defense against malware for servers. It integrates essential security technologies in a single agent, increasing its protection by stopping malware such as viruses, worms, Trojans, spy ware, adware, bots, zero-day threats and root kits.
Billing with Parallels Plesk Billing Software
Parallels’ Plesk is the most advanced Web-based recurring billing application designed for the Web hosting industry.
It provides for a number of automated functions such as new sign-ups, account provisioning and payment processing, including recurring billing. Supporting almost all hosting control panels and payment gateways, Parallels Plesk makes online billing both quick and easy.
Urchin Web Analytics
Urchin is a log-based traffic analyzer provided by Google for Online Google Analytics; Urchin is installed and managed on one’s own server. This allows reporting on traffic inside secured firewalled protected networks. Additionally, Urchin gives the user the flexibility to configure the server software to specific system requirements and design custom reports from the raw traffic data.
R1Soft CDPServer Backup Server Software
R1Soft CDPServer can turn any server into a powerful backup server. In addition to the other backup solutions, by adding R1Soft CDP Server, the user can transform any dedicated server into a robust solution for protecting their critical data, whether it is stored on servers at The Planet or outside The Planet facilities.
Data Storage and Backup Services
With any Dedicated Server solution, it is vital the customers have the right online data storage platform to support their business and that they backup their critical data on a regular basis. Whether the customers need highly available, high-performance data storage or they are looking for the cheapest price per gigabyte, The Planet offers a broad range of data storage services to meet their needs. The Planet also provides numerous server backup services to ensure the critical data of the customer is always protected.
There are different types of attached storage. Some network attached storage devices are as basic as a hard drive including an Ethernet port while others include USB and FireWire ports. These enable users to daisy chain drives for more capacity. Other network attached storage units feature FTP servers that can connect to data from outside the network and dedicated print servers. And if user’s business is wireless, a Wi-Fi network attached storage device that combines gigs of space with wireless capability might be good.
Additionally, an alternative to network attached storage is “direct attached storage.” The main difference between direct attached storage and network attached storage is that direct attached storage extends to an existing server and is not networked. Network attached storage, on the other hand, exists on a network as an individual unit. Sharing files is generally easier with network attached storage.
These days’ businesses require a huge amount of shared storage. And the more easily everyone can access that data, the better. Purchasing network attached storage devices is an easy way to increase the amount of storage for user’s office. If user’s company seeks an inexpensive way to gain shared storage space, any number of network attached storage devices could work. Just be sure to check for a device’s storage capacity and its extra features that might line up nicely with the way their company already works.
Preparing for Data Loss with Online Server Backup
Online server backup keeps user’s company data safe and ready for use when their local storage is temporary off-line, damaged or unavailable for any reason. When their business can’t access its data, there’s no telling how much the downtime will cost. Problems such as hard drive crashes, virus infections, hacker attacks, etc. can take their company down for long periods of time. Organization expenses can mount if their office relies on a centralized server that becomes unusable.
If their data is lost, there is no telling how many man-hours they will lose. They will probably also lose access to mission-critical systems such as their point-of-sales system, contact manager, customer service system, production file server, and any number of important programs. Loss of these functions can make it so that their customers can’t make payments to their business. It can also make it so that user or user’s employees won’t be able to contact customers, vendors, account files, or internally shared files.
What does an online server backup do?
Online server backup keeps user’s data secure through emergencies. Many companies are still using obsolete methods of backing up their servers such as tapes, external or zip drives, CDs, DVDs, etc. — and some are not even backing up their data at all. These methods are not full-proof and users who rely on them are compromising their data. With online server backup, user’s data is secured by an automated and offsite, remote data backup system that is much more secure, reliable and cost effective than the aforementioned methods.
Importance of online server backup
Information is not only the foundation of businesses for all industries but a key irreplaceable asset. Today, data is threatened more than ever. Hackers from all over the world have gained the knowledge and technology to breach the most complex and guarded of systems. And after the attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Information systems are more at risk than they have been in the recent past.
The results of data loss are increasing. A U.S. Department of Labor study found that 93% of companies that endure a significant data loss lost businesses within 5 years. So, data protection is becoming critical to an organization’s disaster recovery and business continuity plans. Online server backup capabilities and disaster planning, professionals have ensured an uninterrupted operation and immediate recovery of data for companies of all sizes. When users are looking for an online server backup provider, figure out the degree to which that provider can ensure the continuity of their business in the event of an emergency.
Storage Cloud
Storage Cloud at The Planet is highly scalable on-site and off-site file storage platform with usage-based billing. The Planet Storage Cloud is quite simple and the best in price and performance cloud storage platform available over the industry. When combined with a server hosted at The Planet, this unique offering combines the speed and flexibility of on-premise Network Attached Storage (NAS) with the global access and the usage-based billing capabilities of a cloud storage product. All servers hosted with The Planet are well connected by The Planet’s world-class network to the Dallas Storage Cloud node which provides the client with unprecedented performance from a cloud storage platform. Not only is the performance exceptional and the price competitive, with replicated storage nodes in five cities spread across three continents, Storage Cloud is the only high-availability geographically redundant cloud storage platform on the market. No longer do the clients need two separate storage platforms, the one for the high performance on-premise file storage needs and the other one, a separate cloud-based offering for direct global access. The Planet Storage Cloud solves this problem by providing both services in a single account, satisfying both challenges, and providing a simple way to track and understand file-based storage usage. The Planet has partnered with Nirvanix, the premier global cloud storage platform provider to add a storage node directly on the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network TM (SDN) inside one of The Planet’s Dallas data centers. The SDN is a global cluster of storage nodes that intelligently stores, delivers and processes storage requests in the best network location, providing the best user experience in the market place. With the ability to store files in multiple geographic nodes, the SDN cloud infrastructure enables unparalleled data availability for developers, businesses and enterprises. The Planet’s on-site node enables the delivery of local NAS-style performance, and the other nodes in the SDN provide global distribution of data. Storage Cloud’s geographic reach can be further expanded by integrating with The Content Delivery Network (CDN) of The Planet which dynamically caches the customer data on fourteen nodes around the world.
Storage Cloud Infrastructure
The Planet has partnered with Nirvanix, which is the premier global cloud storage platform provider to add a storage node directly on the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network (SDN) inside one of The Planet’s Dallas data centers. The SDN is a global cluster of storage nodes that actively stores, delivers and processes storage requests in the best network location, providing the best user experience in the market place. With the ability to store files in multiple geographic nodes, the SDN enables unparalleled data availability for developers, businesses and enterprises. Storage Cloud’s geographic reach can be further expanded by integrating with The Planet’s Content Delivery Network (CDN) which dynamically caches user’s data on fourteen nodes around the world.
Billing for this service
Usage-based billing promises lower, more equitable charges for services used, but users are often surprised when their vendor presents them with complex, larger-than-expected bills that are inflated by hidden charges. Keeping this in mind, The Planet have created a simple utility billing model for the Storage Cloud that measures only the core aspects of an online storage service: capacity and bandwidth. This ensures the model is easy to understand, and means no surprises at the time of billing.
S. No.
Capacity
Planet Nodes
Remote Nodes
Bandwidth
1
0 ~ 5 TB
40 Cents per GB
25 Cents per GB
15 c
2
5 ~ 10 TB
38 Cents per GB
24 Cents per GB
15 c
3
10 ~ 15 TB
36 Cents per GB
23 Cents per GB
14 c
4
More than 15 TB
Special Price is offered for which the confirmation can be taken from sales staff.
Key Benefits of this service
The key features and benefits of the Storage Cloud service of the Planet are briefly described below.
S. No.
Feature or Benefit
Brief Description
1
Fast, on-premise storage at great rates with cloud capabilities
Pricing starts at 25 percents of the cost the other hosting companies routinely charge which is usually between 50 cents and $1 per GB for equivalent NAS type products. The prices at The Planet start at 40 cents per GB and when user uses more, The Planet provides user discounts on its prices. The Plane offers attractive discounts as the customer uses the service more and more. This on-premise storage is also accessible “via the cloud” which reduces server resource utilization and the need for a separate cloud account. Bandwidth charges are incurred only for outbound transfers and all uploads to The Planet Storage Cloud node are free.
2
The customer can get its data closer to its customers
The Planet offers the only geographically distributed cloud storage platform or Storage Delivery Network (SDN) of the industry. If the customer has a storage intensive business or Web site, data transfer speeds can be dramatically improved by storing data closer to the user. With storage nodes across the U.S. and in both Europe and Asia, they make it easier than ever before.
3
Simple management and Integration
With a single account for managing the hosted environment and cloud storage platform of the client, The Planet Storage Cloud provides an integrated experience unmatched by other hosting or cloud storage providers. The standards-based Storage Cloud platform is accessible through CIFS, NFS, FTP and HTTP, as well as an extensible API streamlining integration. Unlike other cloud storage providers, The Planet bundles free access software (Nirvanix CloudNASTM and Nirvanix FTP ProxyTM) that enables faster integration and eliminates the need to purchase third-party integration products.
4
Cost effective disaster recovery, backup and archiving repository
The client can get the data off its server and out of the data center to protect against all types of disasters, from human-error to loss of network connectivity and everything in between. The Planet provides instantaneous backup recovery to get data off user’s server and out of the data center in order to protect against all types of disasters, from human-error to loss of network connectivity and everything in between.
Direct Attached Storage
Direct Attached Storage (DAS) are the dedicated high-performance data storage devices directly connected to the servers. The Planet’s Direct Attached Storage devices are available to be attached to any Virtual Rack or Private Rack server. Direct Attached Storage is an extremely versatile dedicated solution that addresses many storage problems. Its most common uses are server expansion and low-cost clustering. For instance, if the server is running out of space, adding a direct attached storage which can support up to 15 drives could be the perfect solution to the capacity problems. Application and database throughput is increased with the increased spindle count a direct attached storage provides.
The Key features of Direct Attached Storage are listed as below:
S. No.
Features
Brief Description
1
Scale As the Business Grows
Drives and devices can be added as the business needs expand. This keeps initial costs low and means the customer need not to pay for more than it need and later the storage infrastructure can be expanded as per the needs.
2
Dedicated Performance
SAS architecture is both highly available and extremely fast. The SAS drives are optimized for performance applications and Near-Line SAS drives provide capacity at a great price point.
3
Versatile
A single direct attached storage can serve both database and large file storage use cases by allowing the customer to mix both drive types and sizes, optimizing the device for the business needs
4
Affordable
The direct attached storage offering of The Planet starts at just $300/month which makes it suitable for online backup and archiving applications as well as higher performance database and file storage
Storage Area Network
Many IT organizations are debating whether the advantages of implementing a SAN solution justify the associated costs. Others are trying to get a handle on the current storage options and whether SAN is simply a Network Attached Storage. It is certainly true that storage area networks (SANs) is Network Attached Storage that is designed to provide a way of offering one of the oldest of network services, making access to data storage devices that are available to clients. A SAN is defined as one or two servers that networks the accessing a central pool of storage devices connected to several thousand servers, that are accessing many millions of megabytes of storage. Conceptually, a SAN can also be termed as a separate network of storage devices physically removed from, but still connected to, the network. Storage Area Network (SAN) is dedicated ultra-high performance data storage solution for mission-critical and performance-intensive applications that require high availability and scalability. Adding bigger or faster hard drives to the existing hosting infrastructure of the customer is quite simple and easy with SAN and can be used to meet the scalability, reliability or performance needs of the critical applications of the infrastructure. A Storage Area Network from The Planet is a customizable solution that can include Host Bus Adapters (HBAs), dedicated network switches and an enterprise-class storage array as required. There are options available to meet any performance metric or price point. Technical Specifications of the SAN Service of The Planet include Dell MD3000i SAN (Dell PowerVault MD3000i SAN Array), NetApp Storage Area Network (Network Appliance storage systems), Gigabit Network for iSCSI (Cisco 2960G Switch). All NetApp Storage Area Network solutions are customized to the needs of the customer.
The key benefits of MD3000i SAN Service and NetApp SAN Service from The Planet can be briefly mentioned as below:
S. No.
Service Type
Feature
Brief Description of the Feature
1
MD3000i Storage Area Network Service
Scale As The Business Grows
Drives and devices can be added as per the needs of business expand, which keeps initial costs low. This means that the customer need not to pay for more than the required.
2
Versatile
A single MD3000i SAN can serve both database and large file storage use cases. The customer is able to mix both drive types and sizes, optimizing the device as per its business needs.
3
Affordable
The MD3000i SAN offering of The Planet starts at just $650 USD per month. This makes it suitable for online backup and archiving applications, as well as higher performance database and file storage.
4
NetApp Storage Area Network Service
Scalability
The NetApp range is extremely scalable. This starts from the entry level 2000 series, right up to the enterprise class 6000 series which can hold 1176 Tera Bytes of data on a single array.
5
Expert Management
The certified storage expert Team of The Planet setup, monitor and maintain the Storage Area Network for its customers. In the event of a problem, this team will take care of the issue and make sure that the customers are kept informed during the entire process.
6
Performance
High-performance applications, such as transaction processing databases, require I/O that is simply not available through local disks. With a dedicated Storage Area Network, the customers get special-purpose hardware designed for serving data. The applications of the customers will experience higher I/O, less latency and provide a better end-user experience.
7
Availability
Storage Area Networks can be configured with redundancy at every layer – from the HBAs and network switches, through the storage array itself – which ensures that the applications of the customers are is always up and running
Backup and Data Protection Solutions
The Planet understands the importance of old data and requirement of the effective maintainable of huge data repositories, their archives and backups. From fully managed data backup service to self-managed dedicated data backup servers, The Planet has the right solution to protect the critical data for applications. This service in fact sufficiently protected the customers from data loss that could devastate their business. Backup and data protection solutions eliminate these worries, allowing the customers to focus on the critical areas of their business. All of the backup offerings from The Planet are disk-based, which allows for faster restores and easier off-site data retention than tape-based systems ever could. The world-class data centers of The Planet provide the infrastructure and support necessary to manage the data protection needs and easily accommodate the requirements as of business expands.
Following is a brief description of the available Backup service offerings from The Planet.
S. No.
Service Type
Feature
Brief Description of the Feature
1
Alpha Managed Back up Service
Summary
The Alpha Advanced Services group has teamed up with the Storage & Data Protection group to provide the customers of The Planet with an enterprise class Managed Backup Services. Backed by the same group of 24 x 7 dedicated web hosting professionals who currently provide the customers with Alpha Server Monitoring and Alpha Server Security. This is a solution for the customers who are unsure of how to backup their data or what technologies to use and who are using unreliable and unsupported backup utilities of their control panels.
2
Customized Solution
The Alpha Advanced Services dedicated team of professionals will work with the customers to customize a backup solution that fits their needs
3
Simplified for customer
The team of experts at The Planet works in the background to ensure that the backups of the data of customer applications is archived every night. In the event of an error, the professionals act on the behalf of the customer to ensure uninterrupted backups.
4
Highly Available Large Size Storage
This service of The Planet provides its customers with 20 Giga Bytes huge size of high availability and fault tolerant storage.
5
24 X 7 Monitoring and convenient freebies
24 x 7 monitoring and reaction of the backup processes
and Daily incremental backups (differential available)
with Five restores included per month are included in the purchase package.
6
Affordable Costs
The service is quite affordable at a nominal cost of $40 USD per server per month. The customer is also offered $1 per Giga Byte for each additional GB of storage. This additional storage space is available in 20 GB increments.
7
R1Soft CDP ServerService
Summary
R1Soft CDPServer is a data protection solution that runs on both Linux and Windows servers. CDPServer is available as a software add-on to any dedicated server. Offering both continuous data protection and bare metal restore abilities, CDPServer is a true data protection offering, not just a backup product. CDPServer is ideal for the administrator looking for automation capabilities beyond Network Backup or seeking more advanced data protection abilities than EVault Backup offers. R1Soft CDPServer software includes unlimited licensing enabling the client to backup as many servers as it needs. This simple-to-manage, incredibly powerful software allows the client to schedule backups down to the minute, while efficiently managing bandwidth and CPU, to save time and disk space.
8
No More Backup Windows
With continuous data protection, the customer data is protected as it changes. This means the latest version of the data is always backed up, including open files.
9
Quick Restores
Like all backup offerings from The Planet, CDPServer is a disk-to-disk solution, as a result the customer do not have to wait for tape drives to deliver lengthy restores.
10
Bare Metal Restore
In the event of a total system failure, a complete disk image can be restored to another server in minutes.
11
Increased Security Through Dedicated Hardware
Organizations that require full end-to-end control of their data can rest assured it will never reside on a system with information of another customer. Both in-flight and at-rest data can be further protected with integrated encryption.
12
Designed with Web Hosting Resellers in Mind
Resellers can leverage the volume and user features, as well as delegated administration authority and quotas, which let multiple end-users purchase a defined slice of a server – R1Soft CDPServer allows its customer to backup servers both inside and outside of The Planet’s data centers allowing for flexible business models.
13
Affordable, High-Capacity Backups
This solution is extremely cost effective — enabling the customer to utilize a dedicated Data Protection Server or an existing server with spare capacity to provide the lowest priced per GB backup solution.
The R1Soft CDPServer Software are available at affordable costs of $20 USD for Archiving Plugins, $30 USD for MySQL Plugin, $50 USD for CDP Server and $600 USD for Data Center Edition. Not only this, but the CDP for Control Panel available is absolutely free of cost.
14
Additional Features
– R1Soft CDP Server Data Center Edition that allows the management of multiple CDP servers from one web interface.
– MySQL plugin that is the only near-Continuous Online Backup solution for MySQL servers.
– Archiving Add On which schedules regular archive jobs to other storage targets, such as Storage Cloud. The combination of CDP Server with the Archiving Add On and a Storage Cloud account can give the true geographic redundancy which is the ultimate in data protection.
15
Self-Managed Backup from Evault
Summary
EVault Backup from The Planet offers its customers a quick, easy and affordable way to backup and protect their business data. EVault Backup includes software that runs on the server, and stores backups on the highly redundant and fault-tolerant storage infrastructure of The Planet. Using a simple interface, the customer can manage all aspects of its backup and recovery operations, including data-retention periods, backup schedules and data restoration. Once configured, EVault Backup is fully automated, saving time and ensuring accurate backups.
16
Broad Platform Support
In addition to Windows and Linux, optional plug-ins are available to backup key applications such as Exchange and SQL Server.
17
Quick Backups and Restores
Like all backup offerings from The Planet, EVault Backup is a disk-to-disk solution. This means the customer do not have to wait for tape drives to deliver lengthy restores.
18
Affordable
The cost is as low as $1 USD per GB per month.
19
Storage Space for Network Backup and Archiving
Summary
The Planet’s Network Backup solutions provides a simple, flexible and highly available location to store the backup and archive network data to ensure that it is available in the event of user error or hardware failure. Network Backup is a storage array that can be directly accessed over Ethernet using standard IP protocols such as CIFS (using Samba) and FTP. The Planet’s Network Backup solutions can be accessed from any server the customer have hosted at The Planet.
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Application and Operating System Agnostic
The Network Backup solutions at The Planet provides a target for the backups that the customers manage. Whether it is a simple job of copying files directly or the backup function of a control panel writing to a share, the Network Backup space can be easily accessed over the network.
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Scalability
Not all businesses have the same amount of data. The Network Backup solutions at The Planet provide a scalable and highly available backup target starting with as little as 10 GB of storage.
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Quick Backups and Restores
Like all backup offerings from The Planet, Network Backup is a disk-to-disk solution which means the customer need not to wait for tape drives to deliver lengthy restores.
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Affordable
This no-frills network backup offering is available for th cost as low as $0.50 USD per GB per month, making it the lowest cost backup solution in the industry.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated Server Solutions
Dedicated Server Hosting is one of the highly demanded hosting services. Dedicated Server Hosting Service is also called managed hosting service. In this type of hosting service, the service provider owns and manages the machine and lease out the full control to the client. Management of the server includes continuous monitoring of server and ensuring uninterrupted, effective, and efficient working of the server. This can further include the backup services, installation of security patches and various levels of technical support.
Dedicated Hosting offers its clients the peace of mind of hosting on dedicated infrastructure where the client owns the entire control over the server in high security data centers. The client enjoys technical support 24 X 7 X 365 by a dedicated team of expert technicians and also account managers in many cases. This is in fact a reliable solution from a single web server to a comprehensive multi server solution. Dedicated hosting gives its customers the hardware and management services they need just for a low fixed monthly fee. Dedicated Web hosting reduces up front costs while providing the customers with the luxury of flexibility to expand and change as per the business requirements. The Planet is highly respectable name among the largest dedicated server hosting service providers in the world.
Dedicated Server Services and Management
Servers are the foundation of any hosted application or a Web site application. In addition to providing the full array of leading servers from Dell, every self-managed dedicated server from The Planet comes with everything the customer needs to start hosting its Web site or web application. And the best thing over this is that these all services are included in the base price in the industry. Choosing the right level of services and management is very important thing as this will determine if the buyer of the service gets the most out of its purchased service. At The Planet, depending on needs of the customer, they offer to choose exactly how much dedicated server management a business would require. At The Planet all dedicated servers include the essential tools and support the customers would need to enable their hosted IT infrastructure and applications. The customers can also get the Add – on Management Services and Managed Dedicated Servers if they are looking to off-load specific administration and support tasks for their hosting applications.
Dedicated Server Support
Dedicated servers are ideal for organizations that want to take advantage of the enterprise class hardware and network infrastructure of data centers at The Planet. Internal resources for day to day server management at The Planet are quite reliable. At ThePlanet, the servers are hosted in the SAS 70 Type II certified data centers, connected to a enterprise grade network, and here the customers enjoy the benefits of basic technical support services included with every dedicated server. All these high end services come to the customers for a reasonable monthly fee.
The services for the customers of Dedicated Server from The Planet include the following:
Managed Dedicated Server Services
Managed Dedicated Server Service is an enterprise class service that includes the facilities of monitoring and remediation of hosted applications, managed back-up and a one hour hardware replacement guarantee from a team of certified IT experts. This enterprise class service is available on select dedicated servers. To augment the dedicated servers at The Planet, Alpha Professional Managed Dedicated Servers provide the enterprise – class services and high – quality support the customers may need for hosted infrastructure of their business. With Alpha Professional, the customers are confident that they are backed with a team of certified engineers always available to support and respond to their business needs.
Whether the customer requires a single dedicated server or a highly complex hosted infrastructure, Dedicated Servers managed by Alpha Professionals provide the customers with the freedom to focus on their business rather than the IT infrastructure, because the highly professional and skilled available with them right there when they need. The customers of Managed Dedicated Server enjoy the following enterprise class services from The Planet.
24 x 7 x 365 support availability
Unlimited access to the support team
A team that acts as a first line of defense against monitored alerts
Fully managed customizable daily backups of the hosted environment
Alpha Professional is available for $99/month per server
Add-on Server Management Services
Dedicated server management services are available on all dedicated servers, providing economical access to server monitoring and remediation, server security management, managed backup and system administration services. The Planet also offers its customers to buy the Alpha Advanced Services or the Add on Server Management Services that allow them to purchase individual management options specifically designed to assist them with the administration and maintenance of their dedicated servers. Alpha Advanced Services professionals are available around the clock to ensure the stability, security, uptime and backups of the dedicated servers of the customers. Following are the Add on Server Management Services offered by The Planet to its customers.
Orbit 2.0 Customer Portal
The Planet enhances the experience of its customers to the next level with Orbit 2.0, a free online tool to manage all of the hardware, software and network needs of the customers. The following are just a sampling of the self-service functions that the team at The Planet created with the customers, and the technical and business users in mind.
Network Security
With the growing business the needs of infrastructure also grows and once the needs grow beyond a single server, multiple servers are bought and interconnected with a network. This requires dedicated server environment enabled with a network and security infrastructure. Multi-tier environments may include private back end server networks to segregate communications, firewalls to control access and load balancers to enable scalable and redundant applications.
Virtual Racks
Virtual racks composed of a private network environment with unlimited back end connectivity that allows the servers and other components in the hosting infrastructure to grow with the business needs. Virtual Racks my be considered as the foundation for complex dedicated server hosting.
Virtual Racks are the considered as ideal solutions for hosting the Web application infrastructure of the customer business to provide an environment that allows clusters of servers to easily work together. They provide the most cost-effective solution for customers who require unlimited server-to-server connectivity, pooled bandwidth and access to a wide array of advanced firewalls and load balancers. The customers of Virtual Racks can create a custom virtual rack solution, or start with the per-configured virtual rack solution bundles of The Planet.
Following are the key strengths and benefits of Virtual racks Infrastructure of The Planet:
Gigabyte up links – $10 per month per server
Bandwidth pooling – $25 per month per server
Load Balancers – starting at $75 per month
Firewalls – starting at $220 per month
Direct Attached Storage – starting at $300 per month
Content Delivery Network – starting at $0.15 per GB per month
Storage Cloud – starting at $0.25 per GB per month
Storage Area Network – starting at $650 per month
Customized Private Rack Solutions from The Planet
A dedicated private cabinet environment built specifically to the custom requirements of the customers. The Private Racks are ideal for customers with high availability or redundancy needs in their businesses. Private Racks are ideal for larger environments which need a “built to order” solution designed to meet specific, complex requirements. The Planet has a proven history of deploying complex, customized networks, network and power redundancy, and high performance SAN solutions. They can deliver multiple site redundancy with global load balancing from their Houston and Dallas data centers and additional sites may be available for larger deployments.
Private Racks Capabilities of The Planet are equipped with the benefits of pooled bandwidth, Private Back End Network, Gigabyte Network Speed, Cisco ASA Firewall Security, Load Balancing Facility, Direct Attached Storage (DSA), Storage Area Network (SAN), and Redundant Power. Following are in brief listing of the features of Private Rack Service from The Planet:
The Half Cabinet of Private Rack Space costs just $750 per month. This is a rack space of 100 mbps network up link, a 24 port Cisco Catalyst 2960tt switch and 17U of usable rack space for servers, storage devices and additional network gear.
The Full Cabinet of Private Rack Space costs just $1200 per month
A full-cabinet comes with a 100 mbps network uplink, a 24 port Cisco Catalyst 2960tt switch and 39U of usable rack space for servers, storage devices and additional network gear.
Load Balancers – starting at $595 per month
Firewalls – starting at $220 per month
Direct Attached Storage – starting at $300 per month
Storage Area Network – starting at $650 per month
Content Delivery Network – starting at $0.15 per GB per month
Storage Cloud – starting at $0.25 per GB per month
Load Balancing
The Planet allows the customers to add redundancy and scalability to their servers with the wide range of shared and dedicated load balancing appliances. Network and server load balancing allows the customers to add redundancy and scalability to their network more easily, which is critical to any well designed and functioning application. Load Balancing enables a group of servers to intelligently distribute service requests made to a single domain name or address. This ensures significantly greater performance from the servers.
A “Network Attached Storage” unit is a self-contained computer connected to a network. The purpose of network attached storage is to supply file-based data storage services to other devices connected to a computer network. Data storage, file systems, access to files, and the management of such things are all taken care of by software and the operating system (OS) on the network attached storage device.
A network attached storage device holds data. And even though the network attached storage device can technically run software other than the operating system, its purpose isn’t to execute general computing operations. Network attached storage units usually don’t come with a keyboard or display screen, and are administered via a network. If users don’t have a network attached storage device, they can use desktop or laptop computer as a file server. Really, a dedicated file server is a network attached storage device that features a keyboard, display screen and operating system. It should be noted that the operating system can run other tasks. However, file servers should be used to supply functionality such as supplying database services, email services, etc.
A network attached storage device can increase speed and performance because the unit itself executes the file serving and not the server that’s responsible for all the other processing tasks. The performance of network attached storage unit depends on how the network is used. Heavy network traffic and cache memory traffic influences what the network attached storage device can do. If the network attached storage device offers built-in RAID and clustering, the amount of data that can become available can increase.
The shared and dedicated load balancing appliances at The Planet provide their customers with an ability to Scale the infrastructure up and down as per the need of the business. Server load balancers from The Planet allows its purchasers to manage their IT infrastructure more efficiently as traffic volumes increases or decreases. It also provides the benefits of Flexibility in purchases of infrastructure. Server load balancing and fail over services are built-in to a single appliance, which allows th customers to expertly balance their needs for both performance and redundancy. The service is backed with Expert Server Management. The experts at The Planet set up, configure, monitor and maintain the server load balancers, including firmware upgrades. In the event of a problem, the customer can be assured that the expert team is working on the issue and escalating it to priority support if needed, making sure that the customer stay informed. An Extra Level of Security is also added to the service named as ServerIron load balancer that controls the amount of traffic a particular server receives, which prevents abuse and attacks, and increases the availability of applications without blocking legitimate traffic.
The Load Balancing service of The Planet is available in three basic options named as Shared Server Load Balancers, ServerIron XL, and ServerIron 4G.
The Top of the line server load balancing technology is now available at a low cost with Shared Server Load Balancers of The Planet for its Virtual Racks. Based on ServerIron technology of Brocade Networks, this service makes the performance benefits and improved scalability of a load-balanced solution accessible to everyone. Key benefits of the service include the following:
Transparent support to load balance any TCP or UDP application (Enhanced and Premium packages)
Content switching including URL, Cookie, HTTP, and SSL ID (Premium package)
Server Load balancing methods: RR (round robin), least connections, weighted RR and response time
Optional global server load balancing functionality (Premium package)
Another option available in Load Balancing Service of The Planet is the ServerIron XL family packs essential application traffic management that features in fixed-configuration 10/100 Ethernet application switches at a great price.
Technical Specifications of this facility are as follows:
Dual 100 Mb Ethernet ports
Up to 1,000,000 concurrent sessions
Up to 19,000 TCP/UDP connections per second
Transparent support to load balance any TCP or UDP application
Load balancing methods: RR (round robin), least connections, weighted RR, response time
Redundant configurations available: high-availability server load balancing with fail over in hot-standby
The ServerIron 4G series, which is another option available in Load Balancing Service of The Planet offers the most feature-rich and affordable application and content management switches of the industry for high acceleration, availability and security of critical enterprise applications in small- and mid-sized networks.
Technical Specifications of this service are as follows:
4 Gigabit over Copper ports
Up to 2,000,000 concurrent sessions
Up to 40,000 TCP/UDP connections per second
Transparent support to load balance any TCP or UDP application
Content switching including URL, Cookie, HTTP, and SSL ID
Load balancing methods: RR (round robin), least connections, weighted RR, response time
Redundant configurations available: high-availability server load balancing with stateful failover in hot-standby
Optional Integrated SSL Acceleration
Optional Global Load Balancing functionality
Load Balancing with The Planet delivers following multiple benefits:
Ability to Scale – Load balancers from The Planet allow user to manage their IT infrastructure more efficiently as traffic volumes increase.
Flexibility – Server load balancing and failover services are built-in to a single appliance, which allows balancing of the need for both performance and redundancy resulting it to a flexible environment with the server.
Expert Management – The experts of The Planet set up, configure, monitor and maintain the server load balancers, including firmware upgrades. In an event of a problem, the customer or the user can be assured that The Planet’s team is working the issue and escalating it to priority support if needed.
An Extra Level of Security – The Planet’s load balancers control the amount of traffic that a particular server receives, which prevents abuse and attacks, and increases the availability of applications without blocking legitimate traffic.
Load Balancer Management – In the complex network configurations it requires an expert server management available at a moment’s notice around the clock. The Planet‘ s highly skilled server load balancer management team is available 24 x 7 to support the specialized deployment. Basic management comes included with all The Planet’s server load balancer offerings. The basic Management includes the following:
The Configuration and provision of the device / service.
A 24 x 7 uptime monitoring with planned reactions.
On-demand upgrades and patch management is also available.
A 10 VIPs per server hosted at The Planet unless otherwise listed.
Modify the server load balancer policies (VIPs, distribution methods, health checks)
Load Balancer Options
(in thousands)
Content Delivery Network of The Planet to make the content available to a Global Market
The customers of The Planet can rapidly distribute their Web content and streaming media to the end users through the network of global caching servers of The Planet.
The Content Delivery Network (CDN) service of The Planet, delivered via business partnership with EdgeCast, offers a superior, cost-effective global solution that gives their clients competitive advantages in the delivery of digital media. This world-class content delivery system provides customers the cost benefits and flexibility of controlling their own content delivery network, while liberating them from, capital investments and operational hassles.
Key features of this service are as follows:
Firewalls
The Customer can add a layer of protection between the servers and the Internet with a dedicated security appliance. The Planet provides its customers with the security against risk of intrusion or threats to their servers that could compromise the confidentiality and integrity of their data with the easy implement of The Planet’s firewall solution. The security experts at The Planet configure the firewall to meet the needs of the customers to ensure an extra layer of defense for their servers. The Key benefits and features of the Firewall solutions of The Planet are briefed as follows:
Initial provisioning and configuration
24 x 7 uptime monitoring with planned reactions
On-demand upgrades and patch management
Modify firewall rules and policies (up to 200 rules)
NAT configuration for Dedicated Servers; Transparent mode for Virtual Rack; Both modes available in Private Rack
2 Web VPN Users (Cisco ASA firewalls only)
2 Site to Site VPN licenses
The Planet provides the additional service options on Cisco ASA firewalls. One of the choice is Private Rack Firewall Services in which The plane provides Additional Web VPN clients (SSL VPN). A set of 10 licenses can be availed for one time setup fee of $ 1,000 UAD. This service also provides a Site to Site (IPSec) VPN Set up for a one time fees of $150 USD. High Availability and Redundancy Configuration is ensured with a one time fees of $300 USD. This requires two dedicated devices. The Port Address Translation (PAT) Configuration is available for a one time setup fees of $150 USD.
Another service option available with The Planet is Virtual Rack Firewall Services in which an additional Web VPN client (SSL VPN) cost $25 USD per month per user and the Site to Site (IPSec) VPN Configuration costs just $150 USD for setup.
SSL Certificates
The customers at Theplanet.com can be provided with the necessary encryption to give their clients the peace of mind to transmit sensitive data. Not only the client but the purchaser of the SSL service also enjoys the same peace of mind. The SSL certificates service of The Planet is described in brief as follows:
Following is the process of Generating SSL CSR using The Planet’s Web Server
1.Step 1: Sign into the Web server and select the server to manage.
2.Step 2: Select the Security tab and then Request a Certificate.
3.Step 3: Complete the required boxes and click OK.
4.Step 4: An email is then sent to the email address specified, containing CSR.
5.Step 5: The CSR will be required while requesting certificate.
Anticipation Advantage Methodology for Security Services
A secure IT platform creates a solid foundation for a more stable and dependable environment. That’s why Northstar Managed Hosting follows the Anticipation Advantage™ Methodology engraining security into every aspect of managing infrastructure. The Planet apply best security practices from the ground and perform due diligence to maintain and update those secure practices as the threat landscape changes. Its team of certified engineers keeps security at the forefront of the operation so users can focus on their business.
The Anticipation Advantage Methodology for Security Services is described as follows:
Assess– Keeping user’s business secure is a top priority, so The Planet take the time upfront to develop a security profile that matches the needs of their business. Their assigned staff of certified experts reviews the current threat landscape and collaborates on the optimal security strategy to keep their IT environment secure while still enabling their business to perform at its peak.
Design – Once security is engrained in user’s IT business plan, its team of engineers begins the process of hardening their systems according to the defined security strategy. Acting as an extension of their IT team, assigned engineers follow the due diligence of documenting and maintaining the security procedures for their hosted environment. Using best practices and referring organizations such as The Center for Internet Security (CIS), Microsoft, and Red Hat, their assigned engineers design a secure hosted environment from the ground up.
Examples of the security procedures that their engineers apply to the hosted environment include the following:
Define role-based security model.
Identify and understand any regulatory or industry compliance concerns.
Define operating system and application patching schedules.
Define anti-virus exclusions and regular scanning schedules.
Discuss security hardening procedures and their impact on their systems.
Choose proven hardware firewall solutions from Cisco Systems.
Define firewall security profiles specific to their business.
Maintain – A secure environment requires a coordinated effort from everyone who accesses the hosted infrastructure. To safeguard user’s IT assets and minimize risk, the assigned teams of engineers follow a rigorous schedule of activities to keep their environment secure. They also adopt a well defined change control process that identifies any security updates that are applied to their hosted infrastructure. Examples of the security procedures The Planet manage include the following:
Perform monthly systems patching within a defined change-control process.
Provide regular, full-system virus scanning during defined maintenance windows.
Monitor and evaluate real-time distributed denial of service (DDoS) provided by The Planet Network Operation Centers (NOC).
Schedule regular vulnerability scans during defined maintenance windows.
Measure – The threat landscape is always changing. While applying the Anticipation Advantage Methodology to The Planet’s security services, it is essential that it regularly review user’s security profile. Their dedicated Technical Account Manager discusses reports specific to the security status of the hosted infrastructure on a quarterly basis. Any updates to their security profile are applied to the original security plan for business. These reports are also available through the customer portal. Examples of these reports may include the following:
Software patches successfully applied to the environment.
Anti-virus scans performed highlighting any alerts.
External vulnerability scans.
Firewall health status.
Server & Software
The servers and software are the heart of any Web site or hosted application. The Planet gives its clients a wide range of options so that they can select the hardware, operating system, control panel and other software options that support their needs and fit their budget too. If the client is not sure what the business needs are, the expert representatives of The Planet can help in determining which hardware and software meets the requirements.
All Servers
The Planet offers a wide range of options in hardware and software Infrastructure in hosting solutions. The customer can select a server from this wide range of Dell servers, from value-priced single core Pentium and Celerons to the latest multi-processor, multi-core Xeons. Following listed are the different options offered in packages from The Planet to its clients. Complex multiple server solutions with additional networking, security, and performance options are available at The Planet on their flexible Virtual Rack and Private Rack configurations.
Each individual server is detailed here and you can yourself configure and order all the servers & the Private Networked Servers here
Server Software
The Server Software include the set of Operating systems, control panels, virtualization, anti-virus, billing and web analytical software systems that support different operations in the hosting servers and are defining and dominating factors in the performance and success of the working of servers. Following are the options the Planet offers to its customers:
Server Software
KVM over IP
The KVM stands for “keyboard / video / mouse” over IP. This is a service from The Planet for 24 x 7 remote server management. KVM is an effective tool for remotely managing servers regardless of their physical location. The KVM over IP server management solution provides direct access to the dedicated servers of the clients, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week through any major Web browser. With BIOS-level access, system administrators can monitor and respond to server issues from virtually anywhere over an Internet connection with a simple mouse-click.
The key features of KVM Facility of The Planet as briefly described as follows:
ICANN Domain Registration
The Planet offers in its services the Easy, affordable domain registration. As an organization accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to be a Domain Name Registrar, The Planet makes domain name registration more flexible, easier, and more affordable than ever before. The Planet offers multiple options to register domain names for different needs. This domain registration is offered through the Planet’s Orbit Portal. Any existing customer of The Planet’s Servers can purchase the domain name through this application.
The abilities of The Planet have dramatically expanded to include a slew of country code TLD’s, free ‘whois’ privacy, domain forwarding and email forwarding. The customers can now register domain names with The Planet online even if they are not currently a customer with a server account at The Planet. In addition, the Planet is now accepting online registrations, transfers in, and renewals.
The Planet has another attractive plan of Resell One Domain and SSL Reselling Program. If someone purchases the domain names regularly, or anticipate that someone’s domain count may grow large over time, then it may want to consider the ResellOne.net program of The Plane. The value of ResellOne comes from the ability to use the API (Application Programming Interface) f The Planet. This API gives the client the ability to provision customer entered orders directly to The Planet’s back end, allowing the client to offload the work of placing orders to their customer while leveraging The Planet’s strategic alliances. Provisioning to the back end is transparent to the customers, so the customer will never see The Planet’s brand. This program dramatically expands the ability of the client to manage every aspect of their domain name and/or SSL program by providing the ability to customize their solutions.
Database Applications
Database allows the user to store and query the data to support their online applications. The Planet offers both free, open-source MySQL, including in The Planet’s standard Redhat and CentOS server software installations, as well as the commercial version of Microsoft SQL Server software as an optional add-on. The Planet offers the following version of Microsoft SQL Server software:-
Work group Edition
Work group Edition comes with no limits on size or users and provides all the tools required by user to manage and optimize a SQL Server in their environment. Workgroup Edition is limited to servers with up to 2 CPUs and up to 3 GB of RAM.
Standard Edition
Standard Edition provides the same set of tools and functionality of Workgroup Edition, but it also includes advanced business intelligence features as well as high availability clustering for mission critical applications. Standard Edition comes with no memory constraints as that in the Workgroup Edition, but is limited to 4 CPUs.
Symantec Endpoint Protection Anti-Virus
Symantec Endpoint Protection combines industry leading Symantec Anti virus with advanced threat prevention to deliver the best defense against malware for servers. It integrates essential security technologies in a single agent, increasing its protection by stopping malware such as viruses, worms, Trojans, spy ware, adware, bots, zero-day threats and root kits.
Billing with Parallels Plesk Billing Software
Parallels’ Plesk is the most advanced Web-based recurring billing application designed for the Web hosting industry.
It provides for a number of automated functions such as new sign-ups, account provisioning and payment processing, including recurring billing. Supporting almost all hosting control panels and payment gateways, Parallels Plesk makes online billing both quick and easy.
Urchin Web Analytics
Urchin is a log-based traffic analyzer provided by Google for Online Google Analytics; Urchin is installed and managed on one’s own server. This allows reporting on traffic inside secured firewalled protected networks. Additionally, Urchin gives the user the flexibility to configure the server software to specific system requirements and design custom reports from the raw traffic data.
R1Soft CDPServer Backup Server Software
R1Soft CDPServer can turn any server into a powerful backup server. In addition to the other backup solutions, by adding R1Soft CDP Server, the user can transform any dedicated server into a robust solution for protecting their critical data, whether it is stored on servers at The Planet or outside The Planet facilities.
Data Storage and Backup Services
With any Dedicated Server solution, it is vital the customers have the right online data storage platform to support their business and that they backup their critical data on a regular basis. Whether the customers need highly available, high-performance data storage or they are looking for the cheapest price per gigabyte, The Planet offers a broad range of data storage services to meet their needs. The Planet also provides numerous server backup services to ensure the critical data of the customer is always protected.
There are different types of attached storage. Some network attached storage devices are as basic as a hard drive including an Ethernet port while others include USB and FireWire ports. These enable users to daisy chain drives for more capacity. Other network attached storage units feature FTP servers that can connect to data from outside the network and dedicated print servers. And if user’s business is wireless, a Wi-Fi network attached storage device that combines gigs of space with wireless capability might be good.
Additionally, an alternative to network attached storage is “direct attached storage.” The main difference between direct attached storage and network attached storage is that direct attached storage extends to an existing server and is not networked. Network attached storage, on the other hand, exists on a network as an individual unit. Sharing files is generally easier with network attached storage.
These days’ businesses require a huge amount of shared storage. And the more easily everyone can access that data, the better. Purchasing network attached storage devices is an easy way to increase the amount of storage for user’s office. If user’s company seeks an inexpensive way to gain shared storage space, any number of network attached storage devices could work. Just be sure to check for a device’s storage capacity and its extra features that might line up nicely with the way their company already works.
Preparing for Data Loss with Online Server Backup
Online server backup keeps user’s company data safe and ready for use when their local storage is temporary off-line, damaged or unavailable for any reason. When their business can’t access its data, there’s no telling how much the downtime will cost. Problems such as hard drive crashes, virus infections, hacker attacks, etc. can take their company down for long periods of time. Organization expenses can mount if their office relies on a centralized server that becomes unusable.
If their data is lost, there is no telling how many man-hours they will lose. They will probably also lose access to mission-critical systems such as their point-of-sales system, contact manager, customer service system, production file server, and any number of important programs. Loss of these functions can make it so that their customers can’t make payments to their business. It can also make it so that user or user’s employees won’t be able to contact customers, vendors, account files, or internally shared files.
What does an online server backup do?
Online server backup keeps user’s data secure through emergencies. Many companies are still using obsolete methods of backing up their servers such as tapes, external or zip drives, CDs, DVDs, etc. — and some are not even backing up their data at all. These methods are not full-proof and users who rely on them are compromising their data. With online server backup, user’s data is secured by an automated and offsite, remote data backup system that is much more secure, reliable and cost effective than the aforementioned methods.
Importance of online server backup
Information is not only the foundation of businesses for all industries but a key irreplaceable asset. Today, data is threatened more than ever. Hackers from all over the world have gained the knowledge and technology to breach the most complex and guarded of systems. And after the attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Information systems are more at risk than they have been in the recent past.
The results of data loss are increasing. A U.S. Department of Labor study found that 93% of companies that endure a significant data loss lost businesses within 5 years. So, data protection is becoming critical to an organization’s disaster recovery and business continuity plans. Online server backup capabilities and disaster planning, professionals have ensured an uninterrupted operation and immediate recovery of data for companies of all sizes. When users are looking for an online server backup provider, figure out the degree to which that provider can ensure the continuity of their business in the event of an emergency.
Storage Cloud
Storage Cloud at The Planet is highly scalable on-site and off-site file storage platform with usage-based billing. The Planet Storage Cloud is quite simple and the best in price and performance cloud storage platform available over the industry. When combined with a server hosted at The Planet, this unique offering combines the speed and flexibility of on-premise Network Attached Storage (NAS) with the global access and the usage-based billing capabilities of a cloud storage product. All servers hosted with The Planet are well connected by The Planet’s world-class network to the Dallas Storage Cloud node which provides the client with unprecedented performance from a cloud storage platform. Not only is the performance exceptional and the price competitive, with replicated storage nodes in five cities spread across three continents, Storage Cloud is the only high-availability geographically redundant cloud storage platform on the market. No longer do the clients need two separate storage platforms, the one for the high performance on-premise file storage needs and the other one, a separate cloud-based offering for direct global access. The Planet Storage Cloud solves this problem by providing both services in a single account, satisfying both challenges, and providing a simple way to track and understand file-based storage usage. The Planet has partnered with Nirvanix, the premier global cloud storage platform provider to add a storage node directly on the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network TM (SDN) inside one of The Planet’s Dallas data centers. The SDN is a global cluster of storage nodes that intelligently stores, delivers and processes storage requests in the best network location, providing the best user experience in the market place. With the ability to store files in multiple geographic nodes, the SDN cloud infrastructure enables unparalleled data availability for developers, businesses and enterprises. The Planet’s on-site node enables the delivery of local NAS-style performance, and the other nodes in the SDN provide global distribution of data. Storage Cloud’s geographic reach can be further expanded by integrating with The Content Delivery Network (CDN) of The Planet which dynamically caches the customer data on fourteen nodes around the world.
Storage Cloud Infrastructure
The Planet has partnered with Nirvanix, which is the premier global cloud storage platform provider to add a storage node directly on the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network (SDN) inside one of The Planet’s Dallas data centers. The SDN is a global cluster of storage nodes that actively stores, delivers and processes storage requests in the best network location, providing the best user experience in the market place. With the ability to store files in multiple geographic nodes, the SDN enables unparalleled data availability for developers, businesses and enterprises. Storage Cloud’s geographic reach can be further expanded by integrating with The Planet’s Content Delivery Network (CDN) which dynamically caches user’s data on fourteen nodes around the world.
Billing for this service
Usage-based billing promises lower, more equitable charges for services used, but users are often surprised when their vendor presents them with complex, larger-than-expected bills that are inflated by hidden charges. Keeping this in mind, The Planet have created a simple utility billing model for the Storage Cloud that measures only the core aspects of an online storage service: capacity and bandwidth. This ensures the model is easy to understand, and means no surprises at the time of billing.
Key Benefits of this service
The key features and benefits of the Storage Cloud service of the Planet are briefly described below.
Direct Attached Storage
Direct Attached Storage (DAS) are the dedicated high-performance data storage devices directly connected to the servers. The Planet’s Direct Attached Storage devices are available to be attached to any Virtual Rack or Private Rack server. Direct Attached Storage is an extremely versatile dedicated solution that addresses many storage problems. Its most common uses are server expansion and low-cost clustering. For instance, if the server is running out of space, adding a direct attached storage which can support up to 15 drives could be the perfect solution to the capacity problems. Application and database throughput is increased with the increased spindle count a direct attached storage provides.
The Key features of Direct Attached Storage are listed as below:
Storage Area Network
Many IT organizations are debating whether the advantages of implementing a SAN solution justify the associated costs. Others are trying to get a handle on the current storage options and whether SAN is simply a Network Attached Storage. It is certainly true that storage area networks (SANs) is Network Attached Storage that is designed to provide a way of offering one of the oldest of network services, making access to data storage devices that are available to clients. A SAN is defined as one or two servers that networks the accessing a central pool of storage devices connected to several thousand servers, that are accessing many millions of megabytes of storage. Conceptually, a SAN can also be termed as a separate network of storage devices physically removed from, but still connected to, the network. Storage Area Network (SAN) is dedicated ultra-high performance data storage solution for mission-critical and performance-intensive applications that require high availability and scalability. Adding bigger or faster hard drives to the existing hosting infrastructure of the customer is quite simple and easy with SAN and can be used to meet the scalability, reliability or performance needs of the critical applications of the infrastructure. A Storage Area Network from The Planet is a customizable solution that can include Host Bus Adapters (HBAs), dedicated network switches and an enterprise-class storage array as required. There are options available to meet any performance metric or price point. Technical Specifications of the SAN Service of The Planet include Dell MD3000i SAN (Dell PowerVault MD3000i SAN Array), NetApp Storage Area Network (Network Appliance storage systems), Gigabit Network for iSCSI (Cisco 2960G Switch). All NetApp Storage Area Network solutions are customized to the needs of the customer.
The key benefits of MD3000i SAN Service and NetApp SAN Service from The Planet can be briefly mentioned as below:
Backup and Data Protection Solutions
The Planet understands the importance of old data and requirement of the effective maintainable of huge data repositories, their archives and backups. From fully managed data backup service to self-managed dedicated data backup servers, The Planet has the right solution to protect the critical data for applications. This service in fact sufficiently protected the customers from data loss that could devastate their business. Backup and data protection solutions eliminate these worries, allowing the customers to focus on the critical areas of their business. All of the backup offerings from The Planet are disk-based, which allows for faster restores and easier off-site data retention than tape-based systems ever could. The world-class data centers of The Planet provide the infrastructure and support necessary to manage the data protection needs and easily accommodate the requirements as of business expands.
Following is a brief description of the available Backup service offerings from The Planet.
and Daily incremental backups (differential available)
with Five restores included per month are included in the purchase package.
The R1Soft CDPServer Software are available at affordable costs of $20 USD for Archiving Plugins, $30 USD for MySQL Plugin, $50 USD for CDP Server and $600 USD for Data Center Edition. Not only this, but the CDP for Control Panel available is absolutely free of cost.
– MySQL plugin that is the only near-Continuous Online Backup solution for MySQL servers.
– Archiving Add On which schedules regular archive jobs to other storage targets, such as Storage Cloud. The combination of CDP Server with the Archiving Add On and a Storage Cloud account can give the true geographic redundancy which is the ultimate in data protection.