Amazon AWS vs IBM SoftLayer: Why IBM cannot dominate Amazon as a Cloud Computing Services Provider?

Amazon AWS vs IBM SoftLayer: Why IBM cannot dominate Amazon as a Cloud Computing Services Provider?

Can IBM SoftLayer ever dominate Amazon AWS? Today, Amazon is the biggest Cloud Computing Services provider. Amazon AWS already has a number of large enterprises running production workloads on it, and the trend is accelerating. IBM is unquestionably a strong brand with deep customer relationships — it exerts a magnetism for its customers that competitors like HP and Dell don’t come anywhere near to matching. 

Why IBM SoftLayer cannot dominate Amazon AWS?

1. Is IBM SoftLayer worthy?

IBM's own cloud did not work, and now it has thrown out that strategy and is now pinning its hopes on SoftLayer, which was never a credible AWS competitor to begin with. IBM acquired SoftLayer last year and announced addition of more than 1,500 customers just after three months of its acquisition of SoftLayer.  It certainly helps immensely that SoftLayer is a more compelling solution than SCE, but customers continue to acknowledge that they don’t necessarily feel they’re buying the best solution or the best technology, but they are getting something that is good enough from a vendor that they trust. SoftLayer has always competed to some degree against AWS (philosophically, both companies have an intense focus on automation, and SoftLayer’s bare-metal architecture is optimal for certain types of use cases), and IBM SoftLayer will as well.

2. Amazon is not limited by the traditional IT constraints

The fact that Amazon does not have a long history in enterprise IT is precisely why it's the preferred public cloud solution. It doesn't have legacy baggage, so is not limited by the traditional constraints we place on IT and IT technology providers such as IBM. Amazon AWS is also very disruptive to traditional enterprise vendors because Amazon doesn't care all that much about profit margins. Amazon's stated strategy is to invest more money in growing market share and capability rather than taking profits. Amazon was able to build its offering from the market requirements up. It doesn't have to deal with maintaining synergy with existing and ageing product lines, nor does it have to deal with the internal politics as IBM does.

3. IBM won't beat Amazon -- or the other major cloud providers, for that matter -- because IBM is, well, IBM. IBM has done a poor job in both understanding the cloud computing marketplace and providing compelling products to capture the market.  Although IBM does understand the enterprise and certainly has the sales force to go sell stuff to enterprises, it doesn't have a culture prepared to promote public cloud services, which are very different than enterprise hardware and software. 

In addition, the more cloud services that IBM sells, the less money it will make. In essence, it will displace existing IBM hardware and software with its own public cloud offering. If not, Amazon, Microsoft, Rackspace, and Google will displace IBM hardware and software. It's truly a no-win situation for IBM, but other large enterprise providers are in the same boat.

Statistics

If you go with a cloud services only argument, AWS is twice as large as IBM. If you include hardware in the cloud revenue equation, the two are about equal on revenue give or take a few million. IBM claims that IBM Cloud supports 270,000 more Web sites than Amazon and supports 24 of the top 25 Fortune 500 companies. Amazon took in around 35 percent of the $1.2 billion spent globally on public IaaS in the fourth quarter of 2012, and IBM came in a distant second with 5 percent, according to Synergy Research Group. Other studies show the same (or worse) for IBM, with a few analyst firms leaving IBM off the research altogether, instead naming Rackspace, Microsoft, and Google as Amazon's true competitors. Gartner states that Amazon AWS has 5 times the size of the next 15 cloud vendors combined. 

As for pricing comparison's IBM's SoftLayer has the most AWS-ish pricing schemes. SoftLayer's pricing is transparent. IBM's other cloud calculators take a bit more work. The biggest takeaway is that AWS is on its enterprise rivals radar in a big way.

Conclusion

IBM SoftLayer has a strong value proposition for certain use cases, but today their distinctive value proposition is a different one than AWS’s, but a very similar one to Rackspace’s. But IBM SoftLayer is still an infrastructure-centric story. I don’t know that they’re going to compete with the vision and speed of execution currently being displayed by AWS, Microsoft, and Google, but ultimately, those providers may not be IBM SoftLayer’s primary competitors.

Devexpress vs Telerik vs Infragistics: Which one to choose and why?

Devexpress vs Telerik vs Infragistics: Which one to choose and why?

Devexpress, Telerik and Infragistics are the great third party tools for you for both your windows and web application. These third party tools mainly support .NET technologies like WinForms, Silverlight, ASP.NET and WPF. Devexpress also supports windows application built in Delphi programming language and I am currenty working on it. Also I have heard some other third party tools like ComponentOne, SyncFusion and Januscontrols but never worked upon them. Which one is good, which one to choose and why? Although this is difficult and time consuming task, but let's try to solve the confusion.

Why do we require these third party tools for our application?

These all thrid party tools are mainly used for improving the user interface which standard controls cannot provide. Devexpress, Telerik and Infragistics third party tools provide a lot of exciting features and components which you require like attractive dashboards, advanced reporting tools, sorting, searching, grouping, paging, filtering, databinding, drag and drop features, intelligent editors, smart control panels, importing and exporting features, attractive ribbon bars, complex tree views and graphs, cool transition controls, rich textboxes, navigation contorls, charting controls, complex themes and much more...

Devexpress vs Telerik vs Infragistics: Which one to choose and why?

Which tool is best? This is very hard to say. This question seems philosophical to me. There's no one answer.

Devexpress, Telerik and Infragistics have their own strong and weak points. Each and every tool has some learning curve to understand its way of doing the things. These all tools provide excellent performance and great convenience to the user. 

It is upto you and your needs to choose one of these. Following are some humble suggestions which you can consider before choosing one of these tools for your windows or web application.

1. What is your requirement?

What is the nature of your application and what functionalities do you want to put in? This should be the first questions striking in your mind before choosing any thrid party tool for your UI. Once you finalized your requirement, then move to these contorls and read their documentation, features list, online demos, try trial versions to implement your functionality. If the tool is giving you your desired functionality, consider it.

2. Your familiarity with tool

A good choice, nevertheless is to choose one you know. I would start by expressing my opinion that the best tool set is the one with which you gain your greatest familiarity. I think the market demonstrates that there is a sufficient percentage of buyers to support all these three tools. I would also conjecture that the longer you work in any one, the more you will like it. 

My observation is that each library comes with its own set of presuppositions: about structure, nomenclature, interface and class design and inheritance; about consistency and your mental model of the controls and events; about many things. 

Some of these presuppositions blend easily with the way some people think. Others blend better with other brain architecture. It doesn't mean one is better or worse. It means one is different than the other. You have to find the one that works for the way you think and program. Otherwise you will be twisting on a right-hand nut with a left-hand wrench.

3. Which tool your co-workers and other teams of your company are using?

You should also investigate with other teams in your company if they are using any of these tools. If yes, learn from their experience. 

4. Support and Documentation

Evaluate each tool in terms of their support and documentation. Go with tool which provide solid support, documentation, sample examples, tutorials, example codes and demonstrations. All the component libraries should be well-represented and documented. When you will use a third party software or tool, you will need much help from those people. The tool vendor should have good forum.

5. Cross browser compliant

If you are looking for Devexpress, Telerik and Infragistics for you web application, must ensure that all the features which you need from these third party tools run same on all the browsers. 

6. Cost and Licensing 

Cost should be reasonable and licensing should be simple. 

Conclusion

To be fair, all grid components will do great if you're on the standard track. As soon as you'll have something to implement that is not a general purpose usage it will get harder. This is true for all third party controls.

Compare demos and trial versions based on your needs. I would encourage you to evaluate the controls on your own to see which control will best meet your needs. That's the best suggestion I can suggest.

Linux vs Windows Web Server Hosting: Which one to choose and why?

Linux vs Windows Web Server Hosting: Which one to choose and why?

When you think of hosting your website, the first question strikes in your mind is that which web server hosting should you choose? Should you go for Linux web server hosting or Windows web server hosting. I have tried to compare both Linux and Windows web server hosting. Choosing between Linux and Windows web server hosting mainly depends upon your need and the nature of your website, which programming language and database are you using etc. Let's discuss in detail on choosing between Linux and Windows web server hosting.

1. Which programming language are you using?

You should choose a Linux Web Server Hosting if you are using PHP, Perl, Python, or CGI scripting. On the other hand, if you are using ASP.NET, go for Windows Web Server Hosting.

2. Which database are you using?

Mainly, the Linux Web Server Hosting accounts use MySQL database and Windows Web Server Hosting accounts use SQL Server (MS SQL). 

Advantages of Linux Web Server Hosting over Windows Web Server Hosting

The following are the advantages of using Linux based web server compared to Windows based web server:

Stable: Linux/Unix operating systems have traditionally been believed to be very stable and robust. A web site housed on a Linux operating system will have very high up-time (of the order of 99.9%). Of course, other factors such as power supply, network admin skills, and network load etc. also matter when it comes to maintaining the system uptime.

Low cost: The Linux OS comes free of cost (or at very insignificant cost, usually cost of distribution). Also, it has full fledged server, and desk top applications that comes free along with the OS. These server applications (such as FTP, Web Server, DNS Server, File Server etc.) being free, are also very stable.

Ease of use: When it comes to web hosting, it is easy to host on Linux web servers. The process of uploading and hosting is almost same for both Linux and Windows web servers. 

Easy to move between hosts: A web site designed to be hosted on a Linux based web server can be hosted on a Windows web server easily, where as the reverse is not always true.

Most widely used: Linux/Unix based web hosting is most widely used compared to Windows based web hosting.

Scalability: A web site is dynamic. Usually, a web site starts with a few pages of html and grows over a period of time to suit the customers requirements. It is preferable to design a web site keeping this requirements in mind. A web site designed for compatibility with a Linux/Unix based web server meets the scalability requirement easily without making any site wide design changes.

Disadvantage of Linux Web Server Hosting 

Less ASP and .NET support: Linux based web server is not fully compatible with Microsoft technologies. While there are many software that enable ASP.NET on Linux machines, it is far less common to find a Linux web hosting platform that supports ASP or .NET. If you are using Microsoft based technologies for your web site, it is preferable to host with a Windows based web server. 

Top 4 Dedicated Web Server Hosting Services Providers

Top 4 Dedicated Web Server Hosting Services Providers

If you have decided to choose dedicated web server hosting for your business application, following is the review of top 4 dedicated web server hosting services provider which might help you in choosing the best dedicated web server hosting provider for your business application. We have reviewed 100TB, InMotion, HostV and SingleHop in terms of their features, performance, reliability and customer service support.

1. 100TB

100TB is a web hosting company that was started in a bid to offer hosting services to people from all over the world. The company since its inception has been able to compete with those already existent companies and has still managed to grow steadily thus getting a slot among the industry leaders in web hosting.

The 100tb web hosting company has been in the hosting industry for several years now and has managed to keep its reputation among the leaders in the web hosting industry. Moreover, the company offers clients great customer support that ensures that their stay at the company is comfortable. 100Tb more so has a reputation of have the latest and state of the art technological equipment in their data centers thus high performance.

Features

1000tb web hosting company prides itself in offering clients the best web hosting services to best suit their needs. This is why the company employs use of the most cutting edge technology and state of the art equipment in their data centers. The servers that the company uses are given back up by redundant state of the art data centers. Better yet, the company offers cloud servers and dedicated servers.

The company offers 100TB worth of bandwidth and unrestricted tier on a monthly basis. Some of the other features of the 1000tb web hosting include, a fast replacement of hardware, SSH Full Root and also FTP. It supports both Windows and Linux based hosting and a user can have up to 8 IP addresses. For Linux, 1000tb offers Web min and has a carrier and redundant network. The company employs the use of different control panels, c Panel for Linux at $25 monthly, PLESK that holds up to 30 domains costs$15 monthly and PLESK supporting 1000 domains goes for $20 monthly. The clients are also given a free domain that one can use for life.

Performance

Customers at 100tb web hosting services receive an up time of up to 99.9% uninterrupted which ensures that clients are well served. With an up time of 99.95 it is guaranteed that the clients’ websites are up and running throughout without interruptions. Their servers are very powerful, of the best quality and high performance which ensures that the services that clients get from them are the best available and on top of that the performance it offers clients is dependable and thus the best. More so, the company offers several free services that clients can enjoy thus making their stay at 100tb more comfortable.

Reliability

The company uses high quality and state of the art hardware and servers to ensure that their customers’ needs are adequately catered for. There are some free services that the 1000tb web hosting company offers their clients such as installation or re installation of a customer’s operating system, Free installation and re installing of a client’s control panel along with free transfer from one host to another.

Customer Service

1000tb more so, ensures that the web hosting needs of their clients are the most important thing and thus customers can access 24/7 customer support from their technical team both in the USA and UK.. Clients can reach the technical team either via e-mail or telephone and on top of that clients have a toll free number they can call to reach 1000tb web hosting.

2. InMotion

The Inmotion Incorporated web hosting company was founded back in the year 2001 and has swiftly grown since then. Since it was started, the company has been able to steadily gained prominence n the web hosting industry to become a leader in offering web hosting services. They offer great hosting services to all types of clients, be it for individual or business use. The company offers great and affordable hosting services to clients from every part of the world. They look to offer affordable hosting services especially to small and medium business enterprises around the world.

The company has a reputation of offering great technical and customer support as they make their clients the primary focus when offering their services.  Furthermore, Inmotion web hosting company upholds a reputation as having great up time statistics which are indisputable. They also have feature-rich hosting services which are designed to attract customers and retain them at the hosting company, along with give them all rounded hosting services. Inmotion is also known as a trusted and reliable web host throughout the world.

Features

Inmotion web hosting company employs the use of the renowned c-Panel control panel which is the most preferred in the industry. The c Panel is widely use thanks to its great features and better yet the user friendly interface which makes it very easy to use. The company offers their clients web hosting services that is packed with e commerce features. On top of that, each client gets a free domain name on setting up an account with the company. The company offers three types of hosting services: VPS hosting, shared hosting and dedicated hosting services to their clients. Inmotion web hosting company has never failed to deliver on their advertised network up time of 99.9% that is advertised on their web site. Other features include: free domain registration, easy data backup and restore for every clients’ website, high speeds for professional hosting for businesses, various hosting plans to suit each clients needs, Word Press, Joomla and Drupal and last but not least secure hosting for e-commerce websites. Inmotion web hosting company web sites are powered by Unix and Linux Operating Systems.

Performance

The company’s up-time is just great which is a plus as clients do not have to experience any down time and their web sites are up running all through the day. Clients more over get the data backed up on a daily basis to ensure that it is safely kept just in case of anything.  In case the company’s performance does not suit the clients needs before 90 days are over, there is a money back guarantee by the company to refund unsatisfied clients. Clients are offered a guaranteed network up time of up to 99.9% which ensures that clients websites are running throughout.

Customers are able to ask for help 24/7 by phone, calling their toll-free phone number, via live chat, emails or community forum. Are you a ‘do it your self’ person? Their knowledge base is right for you; here you can find out how to get started with your hosting account, learn from video tutorials and improve your webmaster skills.

Reliability

The company’s reliability can only be described as awesome. Their clients get extraordinary customer and technical support from the customer care team round the clock, which ensures that their clients needs are adequately looked after. More so, their network up-time statistics are great. In short, the company’s servers rarely ever collapse, they are always up and thus very reliable. Clients furthermore get daily data back ups which help protect their information better.

Customer service

Clients of Inmotion web hosting company are entitled to rounded the clock U.S based support and more over have access to a toll free number that they can use to reach the customer care desk. The customer care desk is available 24/7 regardless of what day of the year it is.The customers are more over entitled to a 90 day money back guarantee in case they are unsatisfied with the services offered.

3. HostV

HostV web hosting company was founded in 2007 and was part of the Cirtex Corp which was started back in 2003. HostV prides itself in employing the most experienced staff in the industry and offering quality hosting services along with outstanding customer care. These are just but a few of the reasons why the company has grown to become a leader in offering VPS hosting services and dedicated server hosting services. The company operates from two very well equipped data centers in the U.S, one in New Jersey and the other in Chicago.

HostV web hosting company is held in high esteem when it comes to expert staff, as they employ only the best and the most experienced in the industry. On top of that they are known to use only the latest technologies in their hosting services thus powerful and high quality hosting services. They are also seen as among the leaders in offering VPS and dedicated server hosting.

Features

The company offers dedicated server hosting services along with VPS hosting services and for both, the company offers clients three basic hosting plans that they can choose from, the Z 1 hosting plan, Z 2 hosting plan and the Z 3 hosting plan. Some of the features of their Virtual private servers include: Full Root or rather administrator access, the use of powerful Quad Core Nodes and are powered by Virtuozzo with 16 Linux distro and better yet they are well equipped with a variety of features to suit the various needs of clients. On top of that, all software comes readily installed and is updated and configured to the suit clients needs. Their dedicated servers also come with some features that set them apart and make them among the best in the industry and these are the fact that they run on a Linux CentOs, use the world renowned c Panel control panel and on top of that allow for Full Root administrator access and better yet they come with independent servers and services. HostV’s hosting services further come ready with all the latest technologies in the industry from programming languages such as Ruby, Perl, Python, CGI,PHP, MySQL, FFMpeg, Red5,SSH, SFTP, SSL, FTP, POP3, Imap, Smtp, Web-mail along with the option of choosing between two control panels: the cPanel  and the WHM and so much more.

Performance

The hosting services at HostV web hosting company are quite reliable considering that they operate at a fairly good hosting speed and are full of various features to suit the varying client needs. The company also offers a guaranteed network up time of 99.9% along with an expert team of engineers with experience to look into the various needs of their clients. They employ the use of powerful servers to ensure that their clients get the speed, power and quality that they are looking for.

Reliability

A network up time of 99.9% ensures that the clients of the company have their web sites online throughout, regardless of what time of day or night it is. They also show fairly good hosting speeds and great customer and technical support.

Customer service

HostV has a very dedicated customer care desk that can be reached round the clock, all through the day and night to cater for the needs of their clients. The technical team of experts is also very responsive and available to cater for technical issues that may be curbing their clients.

4. SingleHop

The Singlehop web hosting company was founded back in the year and is based in Chicago. The company is among the industry leaders when it comes to offering hosting services. It offers a variety of services ranging from dedicated server hosting, cloud computing services, managed hosting and so much more. The company has been steadily growing at a very fast rate since its inception back in the year 2006 and has been able to maintain a portion of the market share even in an industry that is swamped with companies. The company is an industry leader in offering cloud computing services to clients from all over the world and thus competes with the giants in the web hosting industry.

Single Hop has created a reputation in the web hosting industry as the fastest growing hosting company that offers great hosting services. On top of that, the company uses powerful state of the art technology equipment to power their hosting services. Great up time statistics and outstanding customer care are some of its strong points.

Features

Single Hop offers cloud hosting that comes with 25GB of space, unlimited e-mail accounts, a 99.9% network up time guarantee and 3000 GB of bandwidth for only $149 each month. They use a self created control panel known as LEAP that provides a uniform platform for the deployment and management of the cloud infrastructure. The company more over has come up with an Ajax platform that allows clients to open a number of windows simultaneously to control new tasks from restarting the servers to checking with the bandwidth and graphs and so forth. The company offers their clients a 30 % discount coupon and more so provides 24/7 customer care support via live ticket and telephone support in less than 15 minutes. Some of the other features that the company has to offer include the use of powerful SATA  disks, their servers are either single core, dual core or quad core.

Performance

The Single Hop web hosting company has very good features and uses the latest and state of the art equipment in their data centers to ensure that clients get the best, powerful and speedy hosting services available in the industry. More so the company offers an undisputed network up time of up to 99.9% which ensures that their servers are never off line.

Reliability

Single Hop web hosting company uses state of the art technology and leaves nothing to question in terms of powerful, speedy and feature rich hosting services which form the basis of a dependable we host. On top of that, their customer care and technical desk are always at the clients disposal in order to cater for their needs.

Customer service

Single Hop’s customer care desk and technical support team are at the clients disposal all day and night to look after the needs of their clients. They are more very responsive to client queries and can be reached throughout the day and night. The technical team is made up of experts in the industry and thus the clients are well catered for.

Dedicated vs Managed vs Colocation Web Server Hosting Services

Dedicated vs Managed vs Colocation Web Server Hosting Services

Which form of web server hosting service to choose: Dedicated, Managed or Colocation? The answer of this question is very difficult and it totally lies upon your business need. In this article, we will compare Dedicated, Managed and Colocation Web Server Hosting Services in terms of their cost, flexibility, uptime, reliability, storage space, bandwidth, software and hardware requirements etc. 

What is Managed Web Server Hosting?

Managed Web Server hosting means that the hosting provider will manage everything that is required to give you an online presence for your website - the hardware (web server and networking equipment), software (web server and email software, site creation software), the internet backbone connection, maintenance, upgrades, backups, and so on. Once signed up, all you have to do is to create your web pages, set up your email boxes, and order any other additional services you want.

What is Dedicated Web Server Hosting?

As with managed hosting, your provider owns and manages the hardware, and takes care of all the infrastructure details (networking and internet connectivity), backups and maintenance. But in this case, the entire server is dedicated for just your use. Typically, the software installed on the server will allow you to host more than one website, and you are allowed full control over how the server itself functions, which is NOT the case with managed accounts. Your IT team can manage all the software and hardware installations.

Dedicated servers are leased on a monthly or yearly basis. The most common use for a dedicated server is for Web services. Dedicated server offerings are typically limited to server configurations that are popular and sell quickly as most providers don't want to stock server inventory for long periods of time. Most dedicated server providers offer very low end equipment that is not backed by any type of SLA. The service is a best effort service. Additionally, dedicated servers are usually provided as an unmanaged service. This means you are responsible for managing all aspects of the server. If you need additional management assistance, additional fees will be incurred. Businesses that host multiple Web sites are excellent candidates for dedicated servers. Be aware that few if any low priced dedicated server solutions come with any guarantee. If your business and your clients expect a high degree of uptime assurance, a colocated solution will be better in the long run.

What is Colocation Web Server Hosting?

Businesses who colocate use their own equipment. The equipment is sent to the colocation provider's facility, installed and typically not touched by the provider unless there is an issue that requires immediate intervention or unless the business has negotiated a management agreement with the provider. Equipment is typically owned by the business that is securing colocation services. In addition, software licenses are owned by the business that owns the equipment. Colocation gives your business the flexibility to plan for growth, to incorporate mirroring, load balancing and other options that are not available on a leased basis.

Comparison between Managed, Dedicated and Colocation Web Server Hosting

Although it is less expensive to lease a dedicated server, managed hosting provides extra features and services that make it a valuable investment. For instance, it can greatly reduce the resources required to power your ecommerce website. With a managed hosting, you will not require an IT staff to run the server and you will not have to buy the hardware required  for the server infrastructure as the host provides the hardware and you can choose your needed software applications. As well as saving on operating costs, you will save on the office space that would normally be required to maintain the physical equipment.

With a dedicated server, you have more freedom and control over your server, however, this means it will be a 24/7 job to maintain the server, including its security. With a managed hosting solution, you will have the time to expand your website instead focusing on the technical administration and monitoring. You also save time because the host takes care of administering the server 24/7 allowing you to focus on growing your business. It is a cost efficient and trouble-free way to host a website and you can be assured of effective security. As well, you do not have to have a fully managed hosting service as there are partially managed hosting solutions available so you can have the control you need.

Why Choose Colocation Hosting?

There are many, many factors that will go into deciding which solution (Colocation, Dedicated and Managed Hosting) makes the most sense for you, making it nearly impossible to employ a simple 'checklist' approach. But, there are some major considerations which can get you going in the right direction, as follows.

YOU NEED ROBUST OR CUSTOM HARDWARE AND/OR LOTS OF BANDWIDTH. 

A big limitation of Managed Hosting is that your provider will typically select the hardware and software that you get, though they may give you some choices as to the 'class' of product. If you only wish to host a simple home page, almost any basic server setup will do. But if you need to host database applications, audio/video streaming, websites like search engines and portals which generate lots of traffic, online applications, or anything else that requires lots of bandwidth or hardware resources, typical managed solutions are likely to come up short. With Colocation, YOU are in control and can implement the hardware and software that will give you the most bang for your buck - and you can get it from the vendor of your choice. While the initial entry cost for a Colocation plan can be high as compared to a simple managed plan, you'll generally find that, when dealing in large amounts of bandwidth, you'll get a better deal with Colocation.

YOU NEED TO SET UP SERVER CLUSTERS, LOAD BALANCING, REDUNDANT HARDWARE, ETC. 

These kinds of things are beyond the realm of the typical Managed Hosting provider. They have a cookie-cutter approach, and can host thousands of home pages cheaply, but enterprise-class stuff like this is usually too exotic for them. Colocation allows you to use multiple servers, dedicated internet appliances (such as firewalls, load balancers, etc) and custom devices, and to interconnect these as you see fit, even creating your own mini-network, which you then uplink to the public internet using the interface provided by your Colocation vendor. 

YOU NEED TO HOST CONTENT OR SEVICES NOT ALLOWED BY MOST MANAGED HOSTING PROVIDERS. 

It is not uncommon for Managed Hosting providers to place restrictions on the types of content and services they will let you host. Many will not allow any adult content, or hosting of IRC channels, for instance. On the other hand, Colocation service providers generally will allow any content or service, as long as it's legal.

YOU NEED A DEDICATED TELCO LINE TO YOUR SERVER(S). 

If you simply want a dedicated line for remote control or monitoring, or you are setting up a VoIP server, a VPN or some other special networking application, a Colocation provider - especially one who uses a carrier-neutral facility (meaning that the facility is available for service from all telcos), regularly does this and will be able to accommodate you.

YOU WANT FREEDOM FROM ARBITRARY OR COSTLY LIMITS. 

As you may have gleaned at this point, Managed Hosting providers will typically impose a range of limits on your service. They may seem insignificant at first, but when you find yourself bumping up against limits on the number of domains you can host, types of services or content you can use, processor overhead available to you, IP addresses available to you, etc, things can get frustrating - and if these limits can be lifted, you will pay for the privilege! Colocation typically imposes no such limits - you will pay more if your power/cabinet space or bandwidth usage increases, but you will enjoy 'bulk rates' that will become even more cost-effective as you grow.

YOU WANT/NEED TO BE IN CONTROL. 

There could be a thousand reasons why, but the bottom line is that YOU want to be in the driver's seat of your Internet presence project. Colocation puts you there.

Best Free Open Source Small Business Accounting Software Solutions

Best Free Open Source Small Business Accounting Software Solutions

Do you own a small business and do not want to spend a lot on expensive accounting software packages? If your business needs are small, then there are a lot of free and open source small business accounting software solutions which can help you to maintain your accounting tasks and will help you to focus on your core needs. We have picked top 8 free and open source small business accounting software packages for you: TurboCASH, TAS, GnuCash, Express Invoice, xTuple PostBooks, VT Cash Book, Invoice Expert XE and Adminsoft Accounts. These free and open source accounting software packages are equipped with all basic and required features for your business like  stock control, invoicing, debtors, creditors, general ledger, VAT accounting, balance sheet and income statements, and plenty of reports - and also supports multiple users, and even multiple companies. These are well configurable as per your need. Lets have a look at them:

1. TurboCASH 5

TurboCash is an open source small business accounting package, which the developers say has more than 80,000 users worldwide.

It has all the usual standard functions - stock control, invoicing, debtors, creditors, general ledger, VAT accounting, balance sheet and income statements, and plenty of reports - and also supports multiple users, and even multiple companies.

As with any similar package, if you're new to accounting in general then there's a great deal to learn. TurboCASH does make things easier with example books, though, and a detailed online manual helps you to get started.

The program is also highly configurable, and it's also a relief to use a free accounting tool which isn't always demanding that you "upgrade".

2. TAS Basics

TAS Software (a division of Sage) sells several accounting packages, but gives Basics away for free. This means it has plenty of limitations - you can't record sales orders or create invoices, for instance - and there's no real support, but if you can live with that then Basics proves to be a very straightforward package.

It can maintain customer and supplier records; you're able to maintain multiple bank accounts, recording the money in and out; simple reporting means it's easy to record who owes you money (and who you own money to), and you get useful help with your VAT return.

3. GnuCash

First released back in 1998, the open source GnuCash has been constantly developed ever since, and it's now a very flexible accounting system.

A straightforward register makes it quick and easy to enter transactions, but there's also plenty of power here: customer and supplier tracking, invoicing and bill payment, scheduled transaction support, and a host of reporting tools.

Advanced features include budget management and stock portfolios, while each of your accounts can be in different currencies. Double entry accounting and a reconciliation tool help you uncover any errors, and with versions available for Windows, Linux and Mac (and even an Android app) you can run the program just about anywhere.

4. NCH Express Invoice

Express Invoice is free only for businesses with less than five employees, and annoyingly you're asked to confirm that every time the program launches. That aside, though, Express Invoice is a very easy-to-use invoicing package.

After installation, you can create a quote or invoice immediately; just entering a customer's name, product details and so on creates those records for you, and you can print, email or fax the results from within Express Invoice.

It's straightforward to schedule recurring invoices, you can track payments as they come in, and reports keep you up to date with outstanding invoices, item sales and more. If you only need invoicing then check out Express Invoice first.

5. xTuple PostBooks

PostBooks is another open source tool with all the usual accounting features: general ledger, accounts payable and receivable, invoicing, bank reconciliation and more, all accessible via a well-presented interface. But that's just the start.

The program also includes equally capable modules like Products, Inventory, Purchase, Manufacture, CRM and Sales, for instance, while an integrated OpenRPT report writer helps you create the reports you need.

Unsurprisingly, this also comes with a steep learning curve, but PostBooks could be useful for larger businesses, and you can upgrade to commercial packages later if you need more power.

6. VT Cash Book

If your accounting needs are simple then VT Cash Book might appeal, as it's just about recording your income and expenditure. So there's no database of customers or suppliers, no invoicing or purchase order module: instead you'll spend most of your time simply entering transactions via VT Cash Book's straightforward interface.

Still, the program does support multiple accounts, has a simple reconciliation option, and can help with your VAT returns. So if you're a small trader, and just looking for a way to record your cash transactions, then VT Cash Book is worth a look.

7. Invoice Expert XE

Invoice Expert XE is the free version of a commercial product, and has some major restrictions, the most significant being that you're limited to 100 customers and products.

It's still packed with powerful features, though - comprehensive quote and invoice creators, detailed inventory and customer management, useful reports, and more.

There are lots of configuration options, and an excellent interface makes the program very easy to use. The 100 customer limit will be a big problem for most people, then, but if you have a small business where that isn't an issue, Invoice Expert XE's mix of power and simplicity could make it a reasonable choice.

8. Adminsoft Accounts

Adminsoft Accounts is the work of a single developer, rather than the usual large team, but it doesn't look that way from the feature list.

The program is a double entry accounting system which supports accounts payable and receivable, general ledger, invoicing, purchase order processing, stock control, payroll and more. And there are even a few specialist modules (AutoManager helps run a garage, for instance).

Learning how to use all this can take a while, as there are a vast number of menus and dialog boxes to explore. But if you need a lightweight program with plenty of functionality then Adminsoft Accounts could still be a good choice.

Intuit QuickBooks vs Sage Peachtree: Small Business Online Accounting Software Comparison

Intuit QuickBooks vs Sage Peachtree: Small Business Online Accounting Software Comparison

Are you searching for best accounting software for your small/medium business? There are a lot of online free and cheap small business accounting software packages available but we would recommend you to pay some dollars to get a good accounting software for your business. We have shunted out two good accounting software solutions for you: Intuit QuickBooks and Sage Peachtree. We will provide a brief comparison of features of Intuit QuickBooks and Sage Peachtree. We will help you to decide which accounting software is the best option for you? Which accounting software package (Intuit QuickBooks or Sage Peachtree) best matches your accounting and financial demands?

As a small business owner, your to-do list is a mile long. It’s stressful enough handling customer demands or vendor requests, but then there’s day-to-day administrative tasks that must be completed as well. While accounting software programs can’t keep tabs on your new competitor down the street, they can at least make one part of your job a little easier.

Sage Peachtree and Intuit QuickBooks own major share of the small business accounting software market. They both provide excellent solutions to many, if not all of a small business’s bookkeeping conundrums. 

QuickBooks is usually considered the easiest accounting software to implement for someone without an accounting background but the competitor Sage Peachtree also offers intuitive features like Setup Advisor and Sage Advisor, a tool that follows user activity while explaining how the software can handle different tasks.

When it comes to tracking financials, there are simply no substitutes for accuracy, usability or quality reporting. While you can certainly find basic accounting and financial management solutions for little or no cost online, these bare-bones programs typically offer few if any real capabilities. And it’s in usability and depth that QuickBooks and Peachtree both really shine.

Intuit QuickBooks

QuickBooks boasts a well-developed and easy to use invoicing system dubbed the Collections Center. QuickBooks Premier includes the ability to track data from different departments, locations or funds, all in one report. Batch invoicing is another new feature that QuickBooks offers, allowing one invoice to be created and applied to everyone in a group.

From top to bottom, QuickBooks has updated their offerings to keep pace with software and technology trends enabling easier online integration. For example, all versions of QuickBooks can be used in conjunction with your online banking and web-based email account (e.g., Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail). They can also be connected via QuickBooks Sync to Intuit’s online servers, making information seamlessly available.

Sage Peachtree

Peachtree, on the other hand, is great for loads of specific small business tasks and offers a very customizable tool set. Each version of Peachtree can deftly manage workflow analysis, volume pricing, complicated inventory concerns (e.g., multiple warehouses) and vendor reports. Peachtree has also teamed up with business intelligence firm Alchemex to provide Excel-based business intelligence summaries for Complete and Premium users.

With Peachtree you can keep an eye on cash flow with preset alerts that send email notifications when inventory amounts get too low or an account’s balance passes a predetermined threshold. Perhaps the most valuable tool that Peachtree offers is its Internal Accounting Review that audits your data to detect common accounting mistakes. This makes sure that your hard earned money doesn’t slip through the cracks.

Conclusion

These are slightly different products being catered to slightly different crowds, and they aren’t cheap, but they are well worth the investment in terms of both dollars and hours saved. In fact they will allow you to get back to the really fun tasks of running a small business. You can visit official websites of Intuit QuickBooks and Sage Peachtree to learn more.

Windows Server Performance Monitoring Tools

Windows Server Performance Monitoring Tools

Today Windows Servers are used in heavily to maintain a lot of big applications. It is normal for a window server's performance to diminish over time as more applications, drivers, etc. are installed. Eventually though, a system's performance may reach an unacceptably low level. 

When this happens, you need to know what to do about the problem. Windows Server Performance Monitoring Tools can help you here to detect what is going wrong with your windows server and why the performance of your windows server has declined?

Windows Server Performance Monitoring Tools helps you to identify potential bottlenecks and threats to your network and windows servers before your users are affected. For example, you will see if CPU or memory usage gets too high on a Windows server, if you are running out of disk space, or if an application creates an unusual amount of network traffic.

Windows Server Performance Monitoring software gives administrators insights into file system, OS and application conflicts that can result in poor server performance. Windows Server performance monitoring software can identify problems with Windows servers and automatically trigger corrective measures. Depending on how it is configured, Windows Server performance monitoring software may try a range of healing operations and, if none are effective, notify the administrator.

There are several performance monitoring tools available to Windows Server administrators. Which tool you use will depend on what you are trying to accomplish, your operating system and your technical skills.

Features of Good Windows Server Performance Monitoring Tools

1. Ease of Use

A good Windows Server Performance Monitoring Tool should be easy to setup, configure and use.

2. Distributed Site Monitoring

A good Windows Server Performance Monitoring Tool should provide multiple-location monitoring and make it possible to distribute the load for CPU-intensive tasks such as packet sniffing. 

3. Access Through Your Web Browser

A good Windows Server Performance Monitoring Tool should be accessible from anywhere at any time. The interface should work perfectly in any modern web browser including the iPhone.

In short, A good Windows Server Performance Monitoring Tool should monitor your Windows servers and your entire network 24/7 and notifies you if something needs your attention. This means you can stop worrying about the status of your windows servers and concentrate on your many other tasks. It should give you peace of mind, because you can rely on the Windows Server Monitor to inform you if you should really worry about anything.

List of Windows Server Performance Monitoring Tools

1. Paessler's PRTG

Paessler's PRTG server monitoring tool continuously checks server availability, health and performance for you and send you instant alerts of any problems.

PRTG can track availability of many types of servers, including web servers, file servers, email servers, FTP servers, database servers, etc. 

The software's comprehensive feature list makes it also the perfect solution for monitoring network bandwidth, usage and availability of networks of all sizes. 

PRTG is a professional server monitoring tool that scales up to 20.000 and more sensors. 

PRTG as a professional server monitoring tool comes with comprehensive features for monitoring web servers as well as SQL servers and entire networks. It offers more than 190 sensor types, bandwidth management functionality using SNMP monitoring, NetFlow and packet sniffing (port sniffer), remote probes for monitoring locally distributed networks and much more.

Quick and easy installation and configuration make PRTG an extremely user friendly server monitoring tool. Additionally PRTG comes with an easy to use web-interface. Monitoring results can be published in many different ways and comprehensive rights and roles management allows you to set up different users with precisely defined rights.

2. SolarWinds WMI Monitor

SolarWinds WMI Monitor monitors any Windows application or server, giving you amazing insight into real-time performance. Use built-in, community-sourced, or custom templates to start monitoring immediately!

Setting up Windows Management Instrumentation monitoring for your Windows servers and apps can be time consuming and tedious. Ready to take the guesswork out of determining which Windows Management Instrumentation counters to use for applications like Microsoft Active Directory and SharePoint? Want to look like an application expert without sifting through boring Windows Management Instrumentation tutorials?

SolarWinds free WMI Monitor is the answer. This free tool makes it easy to monitor your Windows applications and servers and gives you amazing insight into real-time performance with a slick desktop dashboard.

With WMI Monitor, you can monitor virtually any application. Choose from pre-built application templates in the tool or explore templates created and posted on thwack by the SolarWinds community of tens of thousands of system administrators. You can also create your own custom templates and share them with one click to help supercharge our free tools!

3. Windows Performance Monitor

Windows Performance Monitor is a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in that provides tools for analyzing system performance. From a single console, you can monitor application and hardware performance in real time, customize what data you want to collect in logs, define thresholds for alerts and automatic actions, generate reports, and view past performance data in a variety of ways.

Windows Performance Monitor combines the functionality of previous stand-alone tools including Performance Logs and Alerts (PLA), Server Performance Advisor (SPA), and System Monitor. It provides a graphical interface for the customization of Data Collector Sets and Event Trace Sessions.

4. ManageEngine Windows Health Monitor Tool

System performance and availability is crucial for business productivity. Windows Health Monitor tool is easy to use and monitors up to 20 servers/desktops simultaneously. ManageEngine Windows Health Monitor Tool is equipped with following features:

System Monitoring: It monitors system CPU, memory, disk space, number of ports open, response time and network bandwidth utilization.

Response Time: Windows Health Monitor Tool tracks the response time of the servers/systems in an intuitive graph and ensure that the user doesn’t have to wait long to use an application.  

 

Dashboard View: View top 3 systems memory, CPU, disk utilization along with their name and IP address details. Watch for color-coded alerts showing the systems with high resource utilization.

Threshold Settings: Set warning and critical threshold values for CPU, disk and memory usage.  

TCP Port Scanning: View open ports in the selected server with its description.

Port Scan Setting: Configure the port scan setting by adding the port numbers which you want scanned or by specifying the from-port and to-port numbers that needs to be scanned. Windows Health Monitor scans all the ports in the specified range.

Report Generation: Generate reports for a particular server with CPU, memory, disk space, number of ports and bandwidth utilization. The report is available in PDF format.

Email: Trigger an email about the server status to your team by attaching the device performance screenshot as a report.

5. NewRelic Server Monitoring Tool

NewRelic Server Monitoring Tool is a good option for server administrators. New Relic's server monitoring allows developers and sys admins to look at the same data in the same web interface. Three most important characteristics for an APM tool are End-User Performance, Server Performance and Application Performance. At this point, New Relic delivers all three for IGN. Using NewRelic Server Monitoring Tool, you can:

A) Get alerts for server health issues, including CPU utilization, memory utilization, disk I/O utilization, and disk capacity.

B) See which servers have capacity issues so you can take corrective action.

C) See processes prioritized by memory or CPU consumption.

D) Track server health availability in cloud, physical, or hybrid environments

6. Semonto Server Monitoring Tool

Semonto will email you the exact warning or error message when a check fails. If you have an iPhone or iPad, you can download Semonto free iOS-client to receive Apple Push Notifications. For those who haven't, Semonto offers the possibility to be alerted via SMS, Twitter or even a webhook (POST).

Semonto has multiple test servers around the globe. That way you can choose which server needs to check your server. It is also possible to select a different server for every host, so you can test the connectivity to your host from several countries. With those multiple servers, we eliminate the false-positives.

Semonto offer webapplication tests like measuring the latency, checking if a webapplication contains some defined words, or simply don't contains. You can also test servers like doing ping-tests, port-tests. When your Semonto small webapp on your server, you can also test your server load, database-server, memory-usage and more. You can implement custom tests as you want, eg to monitor queues.