NetStandard Inc. | Kansas City Data Center Blog

John Leek, NetStandard’s Director of Operations, was recently asked why companies are choosing hosted applications.

Overview

Most small businesses (under 100 users) should not attempt to operate IT if they are not an IT-centric business.  Its not their competency and most of the time they spend significantly more money per employee  than the cost of hosted solutions.  In fact, on a pure business case basis there is no payback for doing solutions in-house vs. hosted/cloud based.

 The key benefits to this approach is:

1. Agility – add services or people rapidly with just a phone call or e-mail OR use our online portal.
2. Its our Business – NetStandard must deliver applications reliably and securely.  Our annual SAS70 audit guarantees that we do what we say we do.  See our SLA’s that provide credits if we fail to deliver.  We are celebrating 3 years of 100% application availability.
3. References – Call our references, they will talk about reliability, responsiveness and performance.
4. Breadth of Offerings – NetStandard offers 30 different integrated applications.  Integrated solutions maximize productivity.  Key applications provide e-mail, calendaring, scheduling, information management, process workflow, CRM, call management, dispatch, warehouse management, document imaging, executive information portal, general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable, BlackBerry, e-mail archival, e-mail encryption, conference bridge, video conferencing, desktop sharing, instant messenger, secure access, 3^rdparty application hosting, retail management system and more.  We can consult with any business and assist them in how to leverage hosted applications to optimize their business.  We can establish a roadmap to address how these applications might be added as their company grows and scales.  

 These are my observations after meeting with customers in the Kansas City area.

1.  Most companies don’t see investing in core hardware and software as strategic or valuable to their business.  Many see it as a necessary evil.  Some actually leverage IT assets for extended periods of time (>4 years) in the hopes of lowering TCO and avoiding capital expenditures.
2. Most companies do not possess a core competency in IT (or accounting for that matter).  What they have is a core competency in their business.
3. Most companies cannot afford the diversity of talents to deliver solutions safely, reliably  and cost effectively.  They go months or years without protecting their resources by applying server and network patches.  Many have significant vulnerabilities and viruses and take risks with their environment, like not performing adequate back-ups.  Software patches and updates are a nuisance.  Many feel that they are held hostage by Microsoft and other vendors because of the need to pay to keep their environment modernized.
4. Many CFO’s complain that in-house IT staff are always asking for more servers and software.   With myappsanywhere, the company can greatly reduce their IT costs. 
5. With myappsanywhere, clients gain the ability to scale back costs in down economic times.  They cannot do that with solutions they purchase.  NOTE:  while they really don’t like to scale up, it can be argued that they should consider these costs as part of an employee’s “load”.  Its predictable and provides an easy path to stay on current technology.

To effectively utilize cloud-based services, like myappsanywhere, customers must have adequate bandwidth to provide a satisfactory user experience.  The happiest clients seem to have at least 100kbps of bandwidth per user.  So a T1 could support 15 users.

In protecting computer equipment from fire, the last thing you would use is a system that would destroy the equipment that it’s designed to protect.

Water-based systems are effective for protecting overall structures. But within a data center, water will destroy equipment. Depending on the gas used, a waterless system may protect the equipment but would be harmful to humans or the environment. A gas may protect equipment during a fire but leave a residue that harms the equipment.

NetStandard’s state-of-the-art data center uses a fire suppression system that’s equally advanced, using a gas that can extinguish a fire in seconds and won’t harm equipment. Most importantly, depending on the event, the data center can continue to operate without interruption

NetStandard’s fire suppression system uses heptafluoropropane, or HFC-227. This gas is also known by its trademarked name of FM-200.

FM-200 extinguishes by removing heat from the fire. The gas is stored in pressurized cylinders and is delivered through a network of pipes and nozzles throughout the data center.

If discharged, FM-200 can be dispersed by opening doors and ventilating the data center for a few minutes. This means that the data center can continue to operate, particularly if the fire was minor or if the suppression system was activated as a precaution.

FM-200 is a hydrofluorocarbon and does not damage the environment by depleting ozone. It was developed to replace gasses that deplete ozone, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). In the concentrations needed to extinguish fires, FM-200  is not harmful to humans. In fact, it is used as a propellant in metered-dose inhalants, such as the ones used to treat asthma.

With NetStandard, your data, and the equipment in which it resides, is protected 7×24x365.