HOSTING

DESIGN
The design phase begins with an exploration of an organization’s requirements and concludes with the creation of a solid plan for how the cloud environment will take shape. We start with a Discovery Workshop where we gain an understanding of business objectives, in addition to technical and performance requirements. Then, we look at existing systems and labor resources. With this information, we are able to develop a fully customized cloud architecture and managed service design.

At this phase, we can also provide companies with an accurate monthly cost estimate that is both predictable and more affordable than doing it on their own. Also, because our financial model is based on monthly fees, there are no capital expenditures required.

Once there is consensus on the high-level design, the next step is building it. Learn about the next phase of our cloud methodology—Build.

BUILD
Once we’ve developed an overall design, the next step is to build out the architecture in one or more of our cloud data centers. We do this by merging the organization’s specific requirements with our own set of certified configurations and inputting them into HOSTING's automated provisioning engine to build the cloud environment.

Organizations get the best of both worlds with a cloud environment built specifically for them, combined with our experience and a tested set of configurations. The result is a purpose-built, fully proven cloud environment where mission-critical applications are supported by our managed cloud. It’s fully customized—and fully supportable.

Once the new cloud environment is built, the next step is to “move in.” Learn about the next phase of the cloud methodology—Migrate.

MIGRATE
Rather than diverting an IT team from other business priorities, organizations can trust migration to the HOSTING experts. Using a proven methodology, we plan, implement and test the movement of data and applications into the new cloud-based architecture. Because company needs are unique, our customized migration services include project management, risk management and progressive schedules.

Our team of talented professionals use the experience gained from the successful migration of thousands of machines in hundreds of client environments to ensure that systems remain online and data stays secure. The process requires limited involvement from an organization’s IT team, allowing the focus to stay on other business objectives.

Once migration is complete, it is time to go live. Learn about the next phase of our cloud methodology—Manage.

MANAGE
When it comes to management, our model is managed services. We manage the cloud platform, but our customers get visibility and overall control. We do this with a comprehensive set of customer support and management capabilities. As shown in the diagram to the left, we wrap our services around the organization (YOU) in the middle. The first level of interaction is with our Customer Portal and monitoring tools. We reinforce those tools with an Entourage support team – a dedicated team of support engineers. Organizations are also supported by a customer relationship manager who provides ongoing consultation and guidance during longer-term strategic initiatives. This is all backed by a number of Centers of Excellence. These centers leverage the experience of subject matter experts in areas such as Cloud, Network, or Security Data Center Operations.

As we manage the environment, we use policies, procedures and work instructions based on the ITIL methodology. We are ITIL-certified and committed to using ITIL best practices to deliver service excellence to our customers.

An essential element of managing a mission-critical application is making sure it remains Always On. Learn about the final phase of our cloud methodology—Protect.

PROTECT
An essential element of managing mission-critical applications is making sure they are Always On. We start by offering services to provide high availability and disaster recovery. High availability provides redundant capabilities so the failure of any one component won’t cause the entire system to go down. Disaster recovery provides failover to an alternate site in the event of a disaster. This can range from just backups to having real-time replication of data for immediate switchover. We offer differing levels of both availability and recovery to meet an organization’s requirements and budget.

Security ShieldNext, we provide multi-level security services to ensure data is truly safe and we protect organizations from the consequences of a breech. We start with a combination of physical and network security. Then we layer in additional services to prevent, protect against, detect, and mitigate threats to meet specific security needs.

We also provide services to help achieve specific regulatory compliance. We have extensive experience with all of the major regulatory compliance bodies. We have been Level 1 PCI certified since 2009 and we were one of the first managed cloud service providers to complete the SOC 2 and SOC 3 independent audits. Additionally, we provide the necessary services for customers in the healthcare industry to comply with HIPAA security requirements and standards.

Now that you have learned about our Lifecycle approach to Designing, Building, Migrating, Managing and Protecting cloud-based mission-critical applications, learn about our managed cloud hosting services.