Twitter has exploded as a social networking tool in the last couple of years.  There are a number of influential people in the hosting industry that tweet frequently.  I wanted to share my list of people I enjoy following the most.

@MSFT_Hosting – Topical and useful information for the hosting team at Microsoft.

@DrBobParsons – Arguably the best marketer in hosting, he has built close to a billion dollar company based on great marketing and making big bets.

@the451group – Great information for those interested in hosting and datacenters.

@Scobleizer – Scoble’s employment with Rackspace was brilliant, his execution in the social media space is flawless.

@laughingsquid.com – Scott Beale has transcended hosting to become a Twitter phenomena with almost 60,000 followers.  While his posts don’t focus on hosting, they have built a great business for him.

@LiquidWeb – These guys do social media right, their 16,000 followers are among the largest in the hosting industry. 

@theWHIR  - The WHIR is one of the “go to” sources for hosting industry information, following their tweets helps me stay up- to-date with the latest hosting news.

@utollwi – William Toll from Navisite is a prolific tweeter and one of the best product managers in hosing.  His tweets are topical, insightful and timely.

It’s been a hectic couple of months at MaximumASP, we just completed construction of a new datacenter, moved thousands of servers and relocated our HQ across town.  This is long-winded explanation as to why I am just now wrapping up a post I started on December 29th with some hosting projections for 2010.  Fortunately, none of them have happened yet, so this is all still conjecture.

The Cloud Goes Enterprise – Causing enterprises to go for the cloud.  With enhancements in security huge companies will make the cloud well… huge.

M&A Returns – This has been a quite year from an M&A standpoint, 2010 will see a return of companies buying and getting bought.  Additionally, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an IPO of a large hosting company in 2010.

The Cloud Finally Gets Standards – At some point during the year a group of influential cloud providers will band together and develop the first set of real standards for the cloud.  Interoperability, code portability and certainty will accelerate enterprise adoption of cloud computing.

More Software Companies Will Adopt SPLA Pricing – Software is increasingly sold as a service, the days of large CAPEX buys of software are over.  This will have the tangential effect of enabling PaaS companies to start economically offering most enterprise software’s as a service.

Hosting Will Be Greener – Whether through cap and trade, client demand or the desire to be more profitable this will be the year where hosting companies develop a strong strategy for being friendlier to the environment.

Taxes will Become an Issue for Hosting Companies – States have huge budget shortfalls to makeup in 2010 and beyond.  This need for tax revenue equals the end of the sales tax free Internet (maybe it’s not in 2010, but is coming soon).  This will be an issue for hosting companies because there may be a jurisdictional nexus created by the servers being located in your facility.  Some states will try to claim that taxes are due to their state for transitions that occurred on servers housed in the state.

Since this is all conjecture, who knows what will really happen.  This time last year I thought AIG stock was a good buy and the Eagles were a lock to win the Super Bowl, hopefully the predictions above will be better than those.

As many of you know MaximumASP was Microsoft’s 2009 Hosting Partner of the Year.  I thought it would make an interesting blog post to discuss how to be a better Microsoft partner.  To develop this post, I reached out to Monish Sood who is part of the hosting partner management team at Microsoft.  Mo is based in Redmond and works with hosting partners worldwide.  I have included below excerpts from my interview with him.

Q: Approximately how many hosting partners does Microsoft have?

A: Microsoft works with approximately 8,000 hosting partners worldwide to deliver enterprise-class solutions and rich user experiences to developers, designers, SMBs, enterprises, and consumers by leveraging the Windows hosting platform and services. We’re committed to helping our partners uncover new business opportunities and provide access to our vast training and support resources to serve their end customer and increase satisfaction.

Q: With so many hosting partners, what is the best way for a partner to engage with Microsoft?

A: Every Microsoft hosting partner has access to the vast resources within the Microsoft Partner Network.  It offers partners training, sales support, marketing materials, and technical support.  Partners that acquire the Hosting Competency typically have a designated partner account manager.  Partners without an account manager should start with microsoft.com/hosting for technical guidance and general resources to help on latest solutions like the Dynamic Data Center Toolkit.  For marketing and sales resources, partners should visit the Hosting Community section of the Microsoft Partner Network.  It offers ready-to-use materials like the Web Hosting Sales Kit, which provides customizable Web pages, brochures, and PowerPoint templates to sell hosting services to small and medium businesses and Web developers and designers.

Q: How are you positioning Azure in the hosting community?

A: The Windows Azure platform provides secure, highly available compute and storage.   For most customers this will be only an enabler, not a finished solution. We are counting on our partners, including hosters, to use Azure to build finished solutions. Microsoft for years has been helping its hosting partners move up the stack to offer value-added services vs. pure play hosting, and that goal remains today and in the future.

Hosting partner GoGrid is a good example. GoGrid interoperates with the Windows Azure Platform Application Lifecycle Management Service, allowing its customers to rapidly deploy load-balanced and hybrid servers without purchasing costly hardware. With the release of the Windows Azure platform, GoGrid has been able to extend its services and enable customers to develop, test, deploy, and back up applications built on the Windows Azure platform efficiently and cost-effectively.

Another great example is the work we’ve been doing with Mamut, who recently built Mamut Online Backup on Windows Azure. The idea behind Mamut Online Backup was to create a secure, cost-effective and user-friendly backup solution that ensures important files are automatically encrypted and protected at all times.  Mamut chose Windows Azure given the affordability of the platform and its ability to meet the demands on their server solution as their customer base increased.

Q: You recently launched the Website Spark program, how’s it going?

A: The WebsiteSpark program has been tremendously successful since its launch – we’ve actually signed up roughly fifteen thousand Web professionals (designers and developers).  As you know, the program was designed to help enable business development for professional Web development and design companies with up to 10 employees. The program helps Web Pros drive new business opportunities through increased visibility and connections with partners (including Web Hosters) and customers around the world; WebsiteSpark also provides Web Pros with Microsoft tools and hosting solutions, as well as support and training.

Q: Are there any changes that will impact hosters we can expect over the next 12 months.

A: Microsoft is continually working with partners to improve products, solutions, and SPLA pricing to enable partners to successfully go to market with their services. While we don’t have anything specific to report at this time, I can say that we have enhancements planned for the Dynamic Data Center Toolkit and the web hosting catalogs that drive more demand and traffic to partner sites. Additionally, we are introducing SharePoint 2010 which is will offer native multi-tenant features and functionality for SharePoint foundation and SharePoint server 2010

I saw a press release earlier this week about how iStreamPlanet was working with Akamai and Microsoft to stream the 2010 Winter Olympics for NBC.  I wanted to get some more information on what they were doing, so I reached out to my friend Ray Lyons who is Vice President of Global and Strategic Sales at iStreamPlanet to get some details, below are excerpts from my interview with him:

I see that iStreamPlanet is one of the companies responsible for streaming the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.  Can you tell me a little about the technology and how it works?

Sure, the technology is pretty extensive, the workflow that iStreamPlanet will be providing includes turnkey satellite downlink encoding and production services for Smooth Streaming for Silverlight and the video will be delivered to online audiences over the new Akamai HD Network.  iStreamPlanet will be encoding 23 video feeds for NBC including nine venue feeds, four broadcast feeds, one Olympic News Channel, six Beauty Cams, two Victory Ceremonies and one Press Conference.  All 23 feeds are originating from Vancouver, British Columbia and transported to iStreamPlanet’s Las Vegas Webcast Operations Center over OC12 via IP multicast.

What sort of traffic are you expecting to see from the Winter Olympics?

Massive!  There will be more Live and OD Olympic content available than ever before (almost double the Beijing games at 800+ hours of content).  At the time, the Beijing games produced one of the largest events in “Internet History” in regards to delivered traffic.  Initial expectations were varying prior to the 2010 games but all indications suggest the Vancouver Olympic traffic will be among the largest in history.  I can’t provide exact details because NBC has the legal rights to disclose this information.

How does the Winter Olympics compare to other big events iStream has broadcast in the past? 

In the past year, iStream has delivered the largest high-profile events in the MS Smooth Streaming platform including Sunday Night Football, Wimbledon, the Michael Jackson memorial, Netflix’s Wizard of Oz event, Canada’s MMVA, AVP Tour event schedule, etc.. The major difference between these events and the Vancouver Olympics is scale.  

I notice you are using Microsoft’s IIS Smooth Streaming, how’s it working out on this project?  What sort of advantages does it have compared to other technologies?

Microsoft’s Smooth Streaming has been a wonderful end user experience.  This is a high quality solution that adapts to end-users bandwidth availability.  The IIS Smooth Streaming technology provides the capability to deliver HTTP adaptive streaming and high definition to users with varying bandwidth rates.  If your readers are not familiar with technology, here are the basics: Smooth Streaming dynamically detects local bandwidth and video rendering conditions and seamlessly switches (in near real time) the video quality of a media file that a player receives.  Consumers with high-bandwidth connections can experience high definition (HD) quality streaming, while others with lower bandwidth speeds receive the appropriate stream for their connectivity, allowing consumers across the board to enjoy a compelling, uninterrupted streaming experience and alleviating the need for media companies to cater to the lowest common denominator quality level within their audience base.

I know you partner with a number of hosting companies to resell your product, can you tell me some of benefits that hosting companies typically see from partnering with iStreamPlanet?

There are many benefits in particular to hosting companies. By partnering with iStreamPlanet, hosting companies add considerable services to their portfolio such as: 

• Live and OD webcasting in all formats (MS Smooth, WM, Flash, Apple/iPhone, etc..)

• Application services - authentication/security for live and OD, Digital Asset Management, CMS customizations, etc..)

• Player Development (SL3, WM, Flash)

• Experience – iStream has been streaming as long as any provider (since 2000)

• Business development and revenue.  iStream has truly built-up a niche in the live event delivery arena by delivering such high-profile events in not only Smooth Streaming but many platforms including WM, Flash, iPhone.  Many of the companies we are working with today ask iStream to include hosting in their solution.  

Check out the NBC Olympic site and see the amazing user experience that this technology is delivering   http://www.nbcolympics.com/.

I recently spoke with a client who is selling about $3000 per hour on his site which equates to about $26 million per year.  When configuring his hosting solution this client elected not to implement many of the tools that we offer to ensure 100% uptime.  Ultimately this sounded like good material for a blog post.  I specifically wrote this post for educate hosting consumers on the high availability options available from their providers.  Most of this will be a basic review for the average hosting industry operator.

As a precursor, most quality hosting providers have significant redundancy built into their facilities and networks.  This guaranteed redundancy typically is expressed as either 4 or 5 - 9’s (99.99 – 99.999%) of facility redundancy.  A facility with 4 - 9’s is engineered to have no more than 53 minutes of downtime in a year, a facility with 5 - 9’s is engineered to have no more than 5 minutes of facility downtime per year.   Typically providers will refer to these facilities as either Tier 3 or Tier 4 datacenters. Hosting providers reassure clients with Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) that pay their customers penalties for downtime, but these payments can be insignificant when compared to the sales lost by an outage.  Often clients focus on the facility and network redundancies provided by their hosting company and pay less attention to the redundancy of their individual solution.  Unfortunately, more downtime is caused by server and security issues than facility and network issues.

If your website requires 100% uptime you should implement the following technologies:

• RAID – It doesn’t matter (to me) if you implement RAID1, RAID5 or any other variant - hard drive failure is one of the most likely events to impact a client.  It almost seems comical to include this, but in the past I spoken with people who can’t tolerate downtime but say they can’t afford RAID. 
• Load Balanced Web and Application Servers – No single server can run indefinitely without failing.  Load balanced servers are some of the best investments you can make in eliminating downtime.
• Clustered or Mirrored Database Servers – Again servers have limited life, they get old… they fail.  The chance of two failing simultaneously is much less likely.
• Hot Secondary Site – No single datacenter can run forever, this option will double your cost but prevent the 5 - 53 minutes of possible annual downtime from the failure of a single Tier 3/4 facility described above. 
• Backups – Classically backups are to prevent data loss, with the redundancy described above you may not think you need them.  But the most common form of data loss is accidental deletion of data.  If the only data you have is live data, this can cause issues.
• Appropriate Security – This includes an application firewall, Intrusion Protection System (IPS), antivirus, updated patches and redundant physical firewalls.  Security issues and hackers can cause significant downtime unless reasonable precautions are taken.

While the configurations describe above aren’t for everyone, if you require 100% uptime you need something similar.  Otherwise you are making the financial decision that some downtime is acceptable and likely.  How likely is based on what combination of the above strategies you implement.  Finally if you are hosted in the cloud, most cloud implantations natively utilize some of this redundancy (like RAID) but these best practices should be equally applied to cloud installations to ensure high availability.  For more on the cloud see my previous post - How can the cloud be down?  http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Stacy_Griggs/123009_How_can_the_cloud_be_down