Hosting SOS
We're often asked to help extricate businesses from providers that have either gone bust or are unresponsive to a customer's requests and so we're becoming something of a specialist at unraveling the details and saving companies from a potential Internet blackhole.
Amidst all the madness a few trends are developing. Typically the service providers are very small one-man outfits, but many times we’ve helped customers to migrate their failed services away from very big providers (lookup ‘hosting’ in a search engine and you *may* find one or two).
When customers tell us of their experiences with the big providers (and indeed from our experience of assisting with the migrations) they often cite support problems (e.g. an outsourced helpdesk in India, East Europe and recently Mexico) or their details have somehow disappeared into an account blackhole. Their account (or a part of their service) is routinely deleted and needs to be re-instated. Automated systems and platforms can cause problems and although the problem may eventually be resolved, often the same issue has an uncanny habit of reoccurring.
Outsourced helpdesks overseas are a great development for a UK Plc's bottom-line and will continue to be a favourite of the Financial Director (opportunities in a global economy he'll say), but they are a primary cause of frustration and confusion for many of the stranded customers we advise and migrate to our services.
Clients moving to us from a small hosting provider have experienced different problems and commonly the provider has gone bust and/or they're unresponsive to customer calls or emails. Often, it's because a single person is running the show from their bedroom.
What we find most puzzling and interesting (in equal measure) is that the majority of businesses - the SME businesses with less than 25 employees ( who are indeed the engine behind the UK economy) - still tend to either choose the big-name providers for what they perceive as 'safety ' or the small provider (e.g. one-man-bands) because the offered solution tends to come under budget. Nothing wrong with this and, again, nothing new, but many are finding the provider is failing to live up to their expectations and, as outlined above, can occasionally be a real problem.
The best advice would be to choose a provider from the middle-tier of providers that closely matches your business - not too big and not too small. There are hundreds of providers out there - but only a few worth approaching - so recommendations from those you trust and references are always useful.
Quality UK-based support, communication and focus on customer service is vital when resolving tricky internet and hosting related issues quickly and efficiently. We've always strived to provide this for our customers - nothing new - and we're more than happy to put prospective customers in touch with current customers to prove it. So should any other company included on your potential supplier list!
| Posted by Ryan on January 19, 2008 |
Revolution in the Data Centre
Virtualisation technologies are making huge inroads in Data Centres and provide an important tool for any IT operator looking to reduce their power consumption, cooling requirements, hardware and carbon footprint.
As virtualisation vendors develop their platforms and add functionality as well as the reliability consumers demand, they provide genuine consolidation opportunities for the huge number of hot and power-hungry servers running at low utilisation in Data Centres. At Sleek we're finding more and more companies wish to adopt this technology to deliver their business critical server systems.
For IT Managers seeking to reduce the expense of under-utilised servers within their IT infrastructure, virtualisation dramatically cuts server hardware and operating costs through savings on power, space, cooling and system maintenance. Offering a high performance virtualisation product coupled with an easy-to-use management interface, XenSource supports multiple Windows and Linux environments on a single physical server. Each virtual server has its own virtual hardware (e.g. RAM, CPU, etc.) upon which an operating system and applications are loaded.
Sleek Networks is a hosting and internet solutions provider specialising in high availability and 'greener' server platforms. We architect best-fit solutions for businesses and organisations of all sizes and, as a certified Xen Solution Provider, we aim to demonstrate the benefits of server virtualisation and help make the move to a virtualised world as simple as possible.
Click a link below for more information:
What is Virtualisation?
What are the benefits of Virtualisation?
Sleek Virtualisation Services
| Posted by Ryan on October 30, 2007 |
BCS Corporate Membership
Sleek recently committed to the BCS Corporate Membership scheme, enrolling our employees and ensuring all technical team members are recognised as industry professionals via an external accredited organisation. As a BCS corporate member we are in a position to contribute to the development of the UK IT industry' s official body and the leading Chartered Engineering Institution for IT.
The BCS is committed to making IT the leading profession of the 21st Century by:
- Setting the standards for IT
- Developing cutting edge products and services
- Encouraging IT professionals to continuously develop their skills and competence
- Informing and influencing individuals, organisations and government on key issues
- Initiating debate on IT strategic issues
- Providing international support
The BCS Corporate Scheme underpins our commitment to professional services and high standards of interactions with our valued customers.
Visit www.bcs.org for more information
| Posted by Laurence on October 30, 2007 |
Xen Accredited Solution Provider
XenSource was recently acquired by Citrix in a move that proves how seriously the software operators are taking the virtualisation software platforms. Sleek gained Solution Provider status with Xen earlier this year, consolidating our relationship with Xen and experience with the Xen virtualisation platform and service solutions. Our Data Centres already house a large range of managed Xen platforms for businesses and organisations of all sizes.
| Posted by Ryan on October 25, 2007 |