Small businesses face the same challenges in the IT field, as large organizations, but when it comes to disaster recovery, they are more vulnerable. SMB-sector companies traditionally use fewer servers, fewer staff IT professionals and fewer technical resources than the big companies. Therefore, the recovery of such enterprises require more staff and technical resources than large enterprises. According to the American Bureau of Labor Statistics, over the past five years, 93% of companies that have lost very important data left the market. Accordingly, ensuring the smooth operation of IT infrastructure becomes a critical aspect of such companies to survive and grow your business.

Acronis ® True Image for Microsoft ® Windows Small Business Server provides the highest flexibility and reliability in disaster recovery and migration, network servers, small businesses in both physical and virtual environments based on Microsoft Small Business Server.

Every hour of server downtime costing you thousands of dollars? Acronis True Image for MS Small Business Server is a complete solution for backup and disaster recovery of servers, small businesses, which will allow you to quickly rebuild their businesses through minimizing downtime due to failures.

Overview

Acronis True Image for MS Small Business Server is a specialized application that allows you to create exact server disk image based on the SBS Windows, including the operating system, databases and applications, as well as quickly and easily transfer system based on MS SBS between physical and virtual servers.

After a system crash, Acronis True Image for MS SBS fully restore the server for a few minutes. Such recovery can be performed on an existing machine, and the new, where other equipment is installed, as well as on a server colocation(requires components of Acronis Universal Restore).

Acronis True Image for MS SBS is designed for small businesses. Like all other corporate solutions product line, Acronis, Acronis True Image for MS SBS is equipped with all the functionality for secure and reliable backup and disaster recovery.

Part of the package Acronis True Image for MS SBS Acronis Management Console is a convenient tool to manage backup operations on multiple remote servers.

Underlying Acronis True Image exclusive Acronis Drive Snapshot technology allows you to create backup disk images without interrupting server and ensuring their availability 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Options

Seven functions essential for small businesses:

Acronis Universal Restore: Restore to different hardware or to virtual servers
(Note: requires a separate license).

Exclude files from backups: Adding to back up, your most important data saves disk space occupied by backup images.

Backup image encryption

Boot from an image, using Acronis Active Restore Technology ™ (expected to register a patent for this technology): Decrease downtime by guarantee system performance during a recovery.

Control the write speed on hard drives and network bandwidth usage and Minimize interruptions of business.

Planning and notices: Including launching backups after certain events, periodic backup validations, and schedule the creation of cloning operations.

Modify images: Ability to connect a disk in read-write and direct to the changes, such as removing viruses and malware.

Colocation hosting services means locating your IT infrastructure to the third party data centers. The data centers which are highly reliable, secure and has fully equipped redundant infrastructure. Colocating your web servers to the data center is always a wise choice as it provides many benefits and secured  physical atmosphere to your server. Colocation web services offers all the added features and also secures the data from any natural calamity disasters. Colocation is a type of web hosting, whereby customers who have their own server can host it at a purpose built Data Center (or Colocation Center). Customers rent rack space where they keep their server, while maintaining control of it themselves.

There are numerous benefits which can be classified as follows:

Cost effective :
The colocation service is considered as one of the cost effective solutions for your servers to maintain. Basically you don’t need to build and maintain the in-house requirements that your server demands can cost you valuable capital in facilities, Internet connectivity and maintenance personnel. The colocation hosting providers has such kind of full facility available with their infrastructure.

Reliable Uptime :
Uptime is always a major concern for the server owners. With colocation facility one can be rest assured that his server is getting proper uptime. Within colocation facility everything is redundant so that if anything goes down the colocation customers server and network equipment will not even notice it as there are redundant systems in place that automatically replace those that went down. This may include the air conditioning systems, UPS (uninterruptible power systems), power generators, utility power, network routers, redundant Internet backbones with plenty of extra capacity, and redundant onsite network engineering staff.

More Security :
Security is of prime importance when it comes to the servers or leasing any services for your IT equipment. Data centers are generally considered to be secured and well established infrastructure. Data centers should be monitored 24-7. Your systems should be housed in a state-of-the-art data center, with redundant air cooling and filtering systems, designed to operate even in the event of a power failure. Data centers should be located and built to withstand natural disasters, and other emergencies.

Network Speed & Reliability :
Getting good speed and that too with reliability is a matter for every server owner.  The hardware basically resist on the climate controlled environment as well as the power conditioning. Server hosting can allow you to access enterprise level backup, and monitoring tools. Many of the colocation service providers run BGP and have redundant Internet networks and different Internet backbones coming into their facility. When a company sets up a network at an office they usually just get the Internet bandwidth capacity that they need such as a single T3, which is 45 Megabits, or an OC3, which is 155 Megabits without the redundancy.

Outage Protection :
Power redundancy and backup are very important factors to be considered while one is looking to colocate their servers to the data center. Colocation data centers often offer power redundancy through the use of power generators and backup power supplies. This will allow networks to remain up even in the instance of a long-term power failure. Colocation providers often offer server protection from floods and fires as well.

Colocation and Cloud are two different aspects of web hosting services. There are several comparisons between both Colocation web hosting and Cloud web hosting. The basic point is which service is cost- effective while in comparison  with each other. When putting this point that is colocation is cost-effective when compared to cloud? Then there were much contradictory statements which came out : One of the statement was “ Users would have to add their internal costs to begin making the expenditure comparison – something that few enterprises are able to accurately break out from their overall IT expenditure. Beyond this fuzzy cost versus price issue, there is no evidence of operating system, hypervisor virtualization, instance monitoring, images, billing, load balancing, storage, IP addresses (each AWS instance has its own public IP address), security and management console costs thrown on top of the colocation pricing if it were to compare with an IaaS that encompasses all of these components.”

According to a comparison using Amazon Web Services pricing as a benchmark. They posted a spreadsheet outlining the analysis, which finds that an equivalent workload would cost $118,248 at Amazon and $70,079 in a colocation facility. Some commenters have critiqued their data, but his downloadable spreadsheet allows users to plug in different variables, providing a tool to evaluate the economics of different approaches and workloads.

The basic comparison comes with the leasing services and buying it totally. Colocation hosting solutions gives you the option of leasing the services from a secured and well monitored infrastructure whereas Cloud allows you to purchase the services as per the requirement and need one has. The difference is the duty cycle. If you are running infrastructure with a duty cycle of 100%, it may make sense to run in-house.” A duty cycle refers to the percentage of time a hardware asset is in use. Getting peak efficiency out of hardware is a key focus for Google, but the colo math won’t work as well for companies that get less mileage out of their servers. But cloud platforms will be more attractive to companies with lower hardware utilization.

While concluding we can say that buying and leasing/renting the services are two different part which makes any financial decision vital. Here the difference between the colocation web services and cloud hosting services is incomparable as far as the services are concerned. Thus we can say that the cost-effectiveness can be decided upon the fact on the demand and requirements of the services. A subtle conclusion of this type of analysis is that duty cycle optimization for a given application should be a key criterion for cost reduction. And, somewhat conversely, if an application already has a high duty cycle then the opportunities for cost reduction through cloud-based resources will be limited at best. Or, more simply: if you already run highly-utilized servers then you might do better with collocation.

We never see a lot of  discussions and debates related to Colocation web hosting in comparison with other hosting services. However, if it is compared with other hosting plans, it is pretty much expensive. If you are thinking about purchasing a colocation hosting plan, then you may need to think about the following information that accurately assesses  the true value of a colocation plan.

Data centers State-of-the-art

Colocation Plans differ from any other type of services, because instead of “borrow” web servers, colocation hosting offers storage space for individual web servers. If you have a web server that you are storing in your home then you should consider the benefits of a colocation hosting plans. Even though the monthly cost seems unnecessary, it can cost more to replace a web server after dust destroys it or if it is stolen. With a colocation data center you can be sure that your web server is completely safe and well maintained. To provide this type of secure environment for your web server, a number of precautions are taken by the colocation hosting companies, and just the right conditions are tolerated. The cost of maintaining such a facility is not low, so that cost is passed on to the customer. Hence it costs high.

Excellent Security and Surveillance

Another reason colocation hosting is so expensive is the incredible security offered. Each web server is monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (even holidays), not just for cameras and other surveillance devices, but for real security professionals who are technically trained to deal with web servers, in an emergency. The datacenter is protected by high fences and stations that are patrolled by human guards at all times of day and night. To pay for these employees and keep the data center colocation company safe, the data center has to spend much money on wages and safety equipment, and that expense is passed to the client as well.

Extended Life

All the above features of colocation not only increase the cost but also increase the length of time that your server can operate optimally. Eventually, all electronic devices that wear out and must be replaced. However, colocation datacenters preserve your server, keeping it in perfect condition permanently. Theoretically, if a server is maintained under ideal conditions, it can continue to operate indefinitely. Even if the cost of hosting colocation is significantly more than other plans, it is important to note that you will be saving money in the long run, because you never have to replace your web server. With colocation the only time you need to buy another web sever is when your current server has a lack of storage, which is very unlikely unless you are operating dozens of sites with high website traffic.

The Colocation services are extremely essential for any kind of online business, be it small or big. For the smooth running of your business web servers and without needing to create a dedicated environment for these servers and other hardware and hiring expert technicians working round-the-clock, you may find the Colocation services and the Colocation services extremely useful as it gives all the support that you may need while installing, managing, and maintenance of the software and the hardware.

The Colocation services are getting more popular these days. However, once you decide that you need a Colocation server for your website, it becomes extremely necessary that you do not choose any kind of web hosting company that you come across. You will need a Colocation facility for your very important business websites.

First, you must check what the requirements of your website are. If your website is just going to have a very few web pages, and not a lot of visitors are going to check your website, then even a basic web hosting plan would do. A Colocation server is needed when you have a serious online business and needs professional quality hosting environment for your dedicated servers and also need the expert web technicians to look after it round-the-clock.

The Colocation services are mainly used by the top national and multinational companies as they have to work with a lot of data that is important as well as confidential. Such organizations require complete web security and other professional data center facilities which keep the data and the websites secure. The web hosting companies that own the professional quality data centers can help such top organizations in managing the complete web hosting server along with its hardware and other security features.

There are many great features of Colocation services. Managed Colocation Service providers such as ESDS steady power facility which has multiple power grids with top class power generators and has dedicated cooling systems. They even provide uninterruptible power supply which acts as a back-up power generator to your web servers in the event of power outages, thus preventing the loss or corruption of important data or connectivity. Adding to these great features that colocation service provider provides is the equally great feature – a complete customer and technical support system that works round-the-clock, maintaining and performance-tuning the Colocation services and other systems in full operating conditions.

The data centers which offer Colocation services usually provide the server space, web space, power and cooling facilities, security, high-quality bandwidth, and other web tools and applications that makes sure that the data is extremely safe, stable, and secure. The web host who has such great data centers provides their own infrastructure for the Colocation of their important clients’ hosting requirements. Without such continually upgraded data center facilities, the online businesses would indeed face lots of difficulties.

Colocation service providers are exclusively responsible for setting up the entire infrastructure, the software, security features, and also maintainence of the Colocation hardware. Some data centers provide Remote Hands services which on a fee basis. They will perform basic system support functions such as system reboots, tape swapping, etc.

There are many benefits of Managed Colocation services that includes managed redundant cooling that provides optimal temperature for the hardware, uninterrupted power, fire protection feature which make use of modern fire detection systems, very high speed networking, security, and other such facilities. Indeed, Managed Colocation Service providers that offer these services are the very professional state-of-the-art web systems that take the running of the online businesses to a new height of efficiency.