Easy Ways to Add More Security to Your Cloud

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Terry Myers

The big advantage of using a cloud hosting service is the time and money you save by not having to maintain your own servers. In fact, the emergence of cloud options has essentially eliminated the need for small businesses to spend money on server hardware. But even “outsourcing” all of your site hosting and file storage needs does not mean you can take a passive approach to security. There are still a handful of important security responsibilities that cloud consumers must stay on top of in order to protect their data.

Software and Platform Updates

You can be confident that a trusted cloud supplier is constantly working behind the scenes to block attacks on their servers. However, they still rely on customers to play an important role in security. Your tasks begin with maintaining software and service updates as they roll out.

Did you know that the majority of software updates are security related? You are likely familiar with the frequent updates sent out by Windows Operating Systems, Adobe programs, and CMS platforms like WordPress. The important thing here is that you stay on top of these updates to prevent viruses and attacks from entering your network. Now your cloud provider does have additional systems in place to prevent the spread of infected files, but by maintaining every layer of security you will significantly decrease the odds of a major problem.

Security Training

The more employees you have on your network increases the odds of security breach. This is why it is essential for business owners to train all employees on the best practices for network security. From how to identify phising attacks to proper file management strategies, you simply cannot expect your employees to follow protocol unless you have instructed them in detail. A half-day seminar led by your IT manager has the potential to save you several days of lost work if user errors are prevented.

Semi-Annual Audits

Taking a proactive approach to cloud security includes keeping in touch with your provider. Just like a regular checkup at the doctor, scanning your cloud account for problem areas is a pivotal part of avoiding long term issues. Your account manager will do most of the technical work here, but you will need to answer usage questions and discuss strategy. One thing to update during the audit is your emergency contact list. Make sure you have a way to contact the cloud support team at all times. You don’t want to wait until business hours to reach a technician, especially if a problem occurs over the weekend.

Employing the three strategies listed above should be an easy and inexpensive way to maximize the security of your cloud hosting service. Keep in mind that the most important step is to choose a trusted provider from the beginning. But even the best service in the world still requires your company to do their part. Network security is a team effort, and playing an active role will go a long way to keeping your data secure.

This article is brought to the internet experts at http://internet.inmyarea.com We help you save money on residential internet service by comparing the best companies and offers in your region.

Mexican Cloud VPS Servers from VPS.net

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Terry Myers

As we continue with our goal of putting a cloud in every country, our new Mexican Cloud VPS Servers have gone live. Our Mexican cloud is located in the beautiful Guadalajara, Mexico. Guadalajara is the second largest city inside of Mexico, and is located to the northwest of the country's capital, Mexico City.

By placing our cloud in Guadalajara we avoid many of the risks that are in other locations in the country, primarily natural disasters like Earthquakes and Hurricanes. As well, it's far enough in land, that Tsunamis and other low laying, sea board areas face.

Our Mexican Cloud is considered one of our premium clouds and comes at a price of $65 per node.

VPS or Cloud Server: What’s the difference and which do I want?

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Terry Myers

We interchangeably use the terms VPS and Cloud Server at VPS.net to describe our product. The truest term likely isn't either of these -- Cloud VPS would actually be the best way to describe our cloud product, as it's a virtualized server, on redundant cloud infrastructure. Sometimes we use the term VPS out of habit; other times, there are actual reasons, such as for SEO purposes or commonality to the customer.

So really then, what's cloud and what is just a VPS?

While there’s no formal definition of what the cloud is at this time, we tend to consider there being a requirement of a few basic aspects in order for a service to totally qualify as cloud hosting. Before we go into the differences, lets explain how they’re the same.

Both VPS & Cloud Servers use virtualized environments.
Both VPS & Cloud Servers use resources from a single hypervisor.

As you can see, both a VPS and cloud servers use the same basic virtualized environment to get started. The type of virtualization is going to greatly depend upon the provider, as multiple virtualization methods can be used to offer VPS or Cloud servers. Our software provider, OnApp has support for Xen, VMware and a few others. We've chosen Xen for our virtualization platform.

A popular misconception about cloud servers is that they're able to use the resources of a multiple servers. This is actually untrue. A Cloud Server is only able to use the resources of a single machine. Unfortunately, while technology has come far, we’re still unable to pool resources together from multiple machines to work in conjunction with one another.

What the heck are the benefits of a Cloud Server over a traditional VPS?

Despite the similarities to a traditional VPS, a cloud server has several significant advantages that can be beneficial to a website owner. Cloud Servers have three primary advantages over a traditional VPS.

Near limitless flexibility with resource sizes.
On the fly resource upgrades, sometimes without even requiring a reboot.
Significantly better redundancy
Centralized redundant storage

The first two advantages go together; with a cloud server, you’re able to upgrade to significantly higher server specifications, and you’re able to do it on the fly. This means that if your site starts to receive an enormous amount of traffic, it’s not necessary to migrate your site to a new server. You can simply add more resources, and the changes will take effect immediately, on the existing server.

The second two also go together quite well. In the traditional VPS environment, your server is hosted on a single hypervisor, with typically the hard drives running in a RAID 10 array. Not a bad setup. With a cloud server, your server can be hosted on any of the hypervisors on the cloud, because your data is hosted on a centralized storage system called a SAN. With this arrangement, if a hypervisor fails in the cloud, another one can simply take over the work of hosting your cloud server. Most cloud providers also take it one step further, by replicating your data across multiple SAN units. This means that one of the SAN fails, the other will take over the process of hosting your data.

All and all, cloud servers have essentially taken the traditional VPS and made significant improvements to it. Considering that a cloud server normally runs around the same price range as traditional VPS hosting, there’s really no reason not to consider the cloud for your website.

Sydney, Australia – A Green Datacenter

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Terry Myers

Earlier today our datacenter provider for our Sydney, Australia announced that they had been awarded the LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System™ Gold Certification for its high building standards by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The award was given for 3 primary reasons:

100 percent reduction of potable water for sewage conveyance through the capture and reuse of rainwater.
78 percent of on-site generated construction waste diverted from landfill.
Use of up to 98 percent of the building's existing structural elements -- the LEED Gold Certification required a minimum of 55 percent of elements be reused.
Overall energy cost savings of 22.24 percent.

Prior to its use a datacenter, the Equinix facility was used as a government paper store. The building was designed by famed architect, Harry Seidler.

The U.S. Green Building Council established the LEED certification in 2000. The LEED certification is designed to provide building owners, and operators with a framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions, taking into account factors such as energy savings, water efficiency and CO2 emissions reduction.

This makes the second green datacenter VPS.net uses, as our Amsterdam location also has a plan that has been into action to reduce its carbon footprint.

Indian VPS Servers are here!

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Terry Myers

The VPS.net team has been busy this week! Not only were our guys busy launching our new Australian cloud location, but they also were able to get our brand new Indian VPS servers set up.

Our Indian VPS Servers are located in New Dehli, India, which is located in Northern India, making it ideal for Eastern Asian traffic and traffic originating from the middle east. Our Indian VPS servers start at $65/£43 per month, and come with 100 GB of bandwidth.

To create your brand new Indian VPS, simply login to the VPS.net control panel, and choose the new India location from the menu. All your favorite template options from our other locations are available in India, so once you choose the location, our cloud management system will handle the rest, as it always does.

Australian VPS Servers from VPS.net

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Terry Myers

VPS.net has gone south of the equator with our brand new Sydney, Australia location! This new location represents two firsts for VPS.net; Sydney is not only our first location in Australia, but also the first location for us in the southern hemisphere.

Our Australian VPS servers are located in Equinix in Sydney, Australia. Nodes in our Australian VPS location are charged at a premium rate of $40/£27 per node, and come with 150 GB of bandwidth.

Why should you create a VPS in Australia?

Currently many hosts are providing services to Australian based clients with servers in the United States. While a west coast presence in the United States does provide for a quality hosting experience, latency is still quite significant. With Australia showing positive economic growth, Australian based businesses will also be looking to have their website hosted locally.

Recognize the Brand?

Finally, we've all been pretty excited to launch our new Australian location. It's been a long time coming! We decided we'd have some fun, and turn the logos of some iconic Australian brands into something a little more VPS.net style. What do you think?

: Vegemite Goes VPS.NET

: Qantas Goes Cloud

: Australian for Cloud

Now offering Minecraft VPS Servers

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Terry Myers

We've always offered the ability to create their own Minecraft VPS on the VPS.net network, and some of our largest clients have been successfully doing so since the games release. We've now made things even easier, with an easy to install Minecraft OS template.

The template uses Ubuntu 11.04 with the minecraft server pre-installed for your use. This template can be used in any of our locations, and just like our other templates, your minecraft server can be instantly updated with just the click of a button.

If you want to customize your server, we've put together a short list of items you can do to make the gaming even more fun!

WorldGuard - Download here
WorldGuard is more a security tool for your minecraft server, protecting your server from various problems, while also adding a few new features and administrative options.

WorldEdit - Download here
WorldEdit is an in game editor for your Minecraft Server, equipping you with over 100 different functions that makes building and editing your map easy.

iConomy - Download here
iConomy is a simple and easily setup economic system for your mincraft game, allowing you to add additional functionality. iConomy has support for lottery systems, card games, shops and much more.

Jobs - Download here
If you're going to have an economic system, there's gotta be jobs for people! The Jobs modification, allows players to get played for carrying out numerous tasks, like breaking, placing, killing, crafting and fishing.

NoCheatPlus - Download here
If you're trying to run a legitimate server, there's no way you want any cheaters playing with you. No Cheat Plus analyzes the data sent from the gamer and looks for suspicious behavior. Depending on how you configure No Cheat Plus ultimately determines how it handles players who meet the critieria of a potential cheater.

MCBans - Download here
MCBans is a global banning solution for Minecraft Servers, provided through the Bukkit plugin. The aim of the plugin is to provide server owners with a method of assisting in the prevention of griefers on their own and other's servers, using both local and global bans.

So, pick your favorite location and in just a few minutes you can be playing Minecraft on your very own server!

A Canadian Cloud VPS, eh?

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Terry Myers

This week, as part of our new announcement plans to expand to 21 unique cloud locations, by August of 2012, we launched our new Canadian Cloud. The Cloud is available for use already for all of our customers, and can be used to create brand new Canadian Cloud VPS servers.

What's this aboot?!
Our new Canadian Cloud is located in Montreal, Canada inside of the Netelligent Datacenter. The Netelligent datacenter follows our strict protocols required to host our clouds. The new Canadian Cloud location does come with a slight surcharge of $25 per node, compared to our standard $20 per node. This is due to increased power, space, and bandwidth costs in Canada, compared to our other locations.

If you're looking for a VPS in Canada, it's finally here from VPS.NET! So get started, and let us know what you think. Feel free to use coupon code, "FREEVPS" to receive a single node free for the first month with a new account.