Cloud computing offers many benefits. When deciding how to best upgrade our own hosting platform we quickly saw the value in implementing the Cloud concept. Basically we have designed in extra capacity that can be either kept in reserve for peak times, partitioned off and held as stand-by web servers or leased to clients as dedicated virtual colocation packages.

It's a great concept and it scales well. Businesses can implement the same sort of network solution in-house. Our PEER 1 facility now contains multiple physical web servers, each containing virtual web servers. On a regular maintenance plan the production web servers (virtual machines) are copied across to the redundant machines and/or held on separate storage devices. In the event of a failure of a primary host computer a stand-by host computer is brought online, the result is less down-time and increased reliability.

This method of deploying web servers also allows Iboza to quickly expand to service customer growth. To meet our current needs and future growth we have added NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices to accommodate the - typically - large files that are created by our virtual machines.

Cloud hosting offers increased portability. Virtual web servers can be moved to any physical server that is deployed on the VM Ware platform. The IT managers need only to specify addresses, memory and drive space requirements in order to bring another virtual machine online.

The environment benefits too. The basic power and capacity of Dell's web servers has increased exponentially in recent years. It is now possible to put a dozen virtual servers into the same foot print occupied by one in the past. This equates to less power consumption, less floor space and a drastically reduced IT infrastructure.

At Iboza we feel so strongly in this technology that our office has gone Cloud! With a small effort, we were able to virtualize our work stations. Rather than having individual work-station computers for accounting, design, IT monitoring and programming development we have deployed (in-house) VM Ware work stations were the virtual machine can be easily backed up, restored, accessed and re-located. Our office is more efficient and our data is much safer. Please ask us how this can work for your business.