We exchanged a few phone calls, and I learned that he spoke with Rich Miller at Data Center Knowledge for a CNN Tech article about “The Cloud.” As they discussed the mechanics of the cloud in terms of data centers and servers, Rich pointed out the juxtaposition of this hyped demand of virtualized products with an old-school desire to have the data in a visible, tangible location. Enter The Planet’s #showmemyserver project.

John was very interested in our take on the social media experiment’s success, so it was great to share a little of what we heard from our customers … and we were even able put him in touch with Nate Tallman at HealthTeacher.com to give him a direct customer perspective. Thanks for your help, Nate!

Long story short: John posts A trip into the secret, online ‘cloud’ to quite a bit of fanfare … which isn’t surprising, given its great introductory video:

From the heart of that article, he links to a “Behind the Scenes” blog about The world of ’server huggers’ and investigates his subconscious desire to find the “real” location of his digital data. As any customer who visits one of our data centers can attest, he’s not alone.

If you’re interested in “hugging” your server, stay tuned to The Planet Blog over the next few weeks, and keep your keyboard at the ready. We’ll offer another opportunity just in time for the holidays.

-Kevin

The DC operations crews in Houston and Dallas were great sports about adding this photography project to their normal responsibilities, and we had the pictures out to customers within 48 hours of the contest’s conclusion. Here are a few of the snapshots we took during the contest:

As I warned, some of the pictures didn’t come out as professional photography masterpieces, but that just adds to their authenticity. We couldn’t be happier with the community’s participation, and we’ve heard the repeated requests to rerun the contest. We’ll be offering another opportunity in the near future for customers who missed out on this one. We’ll be tweaking it a little to allow more people to get up close and personal with their servers … even if they live half a world away and happen to be sleeping during the Texas workday.

Thanks to everyone who joined us in the inaugural #showmemyserver experiment! If you have any suggestions on other ways we can give you insight into our business, leave a comment below … We’re all ears.

-Kevin

P.S. If you have some time to kill, visit the #showmemyserver blog and click through to visit some of our customers’ sites in the comments section. The “My Web site is ______, and I’m powered by The Planet” list is a great snapshot of the diversity of our customer base and what they do with their dedicated servers.

Here’s your chance.

If you complete ALL THREE tasks included below within one hour (by 3:30 p.m. CDT today), we will head out to one of our DCs with a camera to give your server a well-deserved close-up. While getting a picture is not the same as meeting your server face-to-faceplate, it’ll at least tide you over until you can make it to Houston or Dallas for an “in real life” data center tour.

Your Mission (you should choose to accept it):

1. Post a Tweet saying “I’m Powered by @ThePlanet. #showmemyserver”
2. Post a comment on this blog that includes “My website is _________, and I’m Powered by The Planet.”
3. Send an email to twitter @ theplanet.com with the name you want included in the picture (or we’ll default to your Twitter name), your The Planet account number* and the IP address** of the server you want pictured.

*This is to help verify your account.
**This information will not be shared or included in the picture. It is simply being used to target your server.

Because this is our inaugural #ShowMeMyServer event, we’re limiting each qualifier to a single server – in case we get slammed with a request from each of our 25,000+ customers in the next hour. If you have a private rack, we can make an exception and snap a couple pictures of the servers on your rack if you’d prefer.

Once we close the window for submissions, we’ll start the photography process. The turnaround will depend on the volume of requests, but we’re aiming to get pictures back to you (replying to the e-mail you sent twitter@theplanet) by Thursday afternoon at the latest. While we employ a lot of talented folks, the people taking your picture might not be professional photographers, but we’ll get the best picture we can … and if a reshoot is necessary, just let us know.

Are you ready?

Go!

-Kevin

EDIT: Comments are Closed as of 3:31pm CDT. Scroll through the comments section and check out some of the awesome sites our customers host with us!

Unfortunately, given the fact that you aren’t close to your server, it’s not uncommon to feel a little “disconnected” from your hardware … You don’t get the warm-and-fuzzy feelings from seeing your specific server on its rack or giving it a hug when it processes a big sale. Maybe that’s why a huge percentage of small- and medium-sized businesses have not outsourced their infrastructure needs: Their “server room” (or “closet” in real estate terms) may not be enterprise-level, but at least they can step “behind the curtain” and see their servers in action if they have the urge.

Naturally, we thought it might be fun to offset some of that “disconnection”:

While this tweet may have just been a thought in passing this morning, the flood of responses and ReTweets coming from that post suggest there’s a healthy demand for some “show me my servers in real life” love, so we’re going to make that happen.

At some point in the next week, we will post a tweet on The Planet’s Twitter page with instructions on how you can get a picture taken of your very own server/rack. We’ll even include your Twitter username on a namecard so you know it’s yours.

This is going to be a limited-time, limited-availability opportunity, and you might have to work to get on the list, but the payoff will be more than worth the effort: a picture of your server that you can print out, frame and hang above your monitor. It’s a chance for you to own a picture of your Web site in its unprocessed form.

Stay tuned and be ready.

-Kevin

He asked me what I did, and after the standard follow-up questions about what in the world a Web Hosting Evangelist does, he started telling me about his business. He owns a growing sunscreen company that does a good amount of business online. He wasn’t a technical guy, but he had a high-level understanding of how his business was using technology.

To begin, he asked me what kinds of facilities we operate. Then he rattled off a lot of other questions like how we ensure that servers stay online; what we do in the event of a site going down; how much servers cost; how we could scale his infrastructure; and how he could be sure support is available when he needs it. After a few minutes of evangelizing, he seemed pretty impressed with how well we were prepared to accommodate the needs of small business owners, but he didn’t say much.

I could tell that he was thinking about something, and after a few minutes, he revealed, “As you were explaining all the safeguards you have in place and the precautions you take, the whole thing seems too good to be true. I was just thinking that I am completely owed good answers to all of these questions – that you need to convince me why I should trust you with my data. Then it struck me … Why should I trust me with my data?”

It’s reassuring for business owners to have complete control over every aspect of their operations, but that control might come at the expense of not getting the efficiencies, expertise and pricing third-parties can provide. He explained that if I asked him the same questions he asked me, he wouldn’t have a single response. But the fact that he could see his hardware and touch his server was the subconscious reminder that he was in control.

His site is hosted on a shared server with a company in the U.S., and his offices in both countries operate from a centralized accounting platform. The server hosting the platform … an administrative assistant’s workstation in one of the offices. This setup worked very well as long as 1) the admin didn’t need to use the workstation while the accounting system was being accessed; and 2) the office’s power and network connections kept the server online 24×7. While he wasn’t setting any records for uptime and speed, his system worked the way he needed it to, and he didn’t have access to any other ways of doing it.

That’s how a lot of small businesses operate: a sort of “just get it working” mentality. The fact that you are reading this blog would suggest I might be preaching to the choir here, but if you’re holding back on a decision to make a change in the way you manage your IT until you get all of your questions answered, make sure you’re concurrently asking yourself the question, “Why do I trust me with my data?”

To make sure this mid-air observation wasn’t a fluke, I posed a question on Twitter this morning: “What do you think is the most important aspect of a business relationship?”

The first response: “We don’t think there is one lone aspect that can be singled out. There are many important aspects. Trust would be considered one.”

Many thanks to @hightekhosting, @complexgeek, @pratt, @pacoblue, @bill1282, @fborrero, @undefined and @buxombbws for the responses and ReTweets!

-Kevin

P.S. I’m including the picture from Sydney so that I can try to expense the flight.

Given the fact that the cloud platform is still in its infancy, Rob and Mitch approach the topic from a very high level — starting with the definition of cloud storage in relation to Gartner’s definition of cloud computing, then diving deeper into the benefits of cloud storage specifically. Rob explains how our cloud storage platform was designed to create a holistic customer experience, leveraging our resources and some of the newest technologies to make adoption of the new platform as seamless as possible.

One of the most interesting parts of the interview is the discussion of the utility of Storage Delivery Networks: locating your data “in the cloud” in specific locations for disaster recovery or end-user speed concerns. Often, cloud providers serve “the cloud” as an ethereal, “out there somewhere” destination, which doesn’t help customers who are trying to design their own internal networks to put data where it needs to be.

If you’ve got a few minutes, head over to The Web Hosting Show to listen to Episode 188 … You can finally put a voice to the posts you’ve read from Rob in the past. And yes, that voice has a British accent.

-Kevin

Naturally, this report is monumental for small business owners — especially in a period of economic uncertainty. Understanding that I couldn’t do the significance of the report justice, I decided to get a little help from the United States of America’s forefathers … A Hosting Declaration of Independence for the Small Business Owner:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for small business owners to establish presences online that will connect them with their customers and to assume among the powers of the hosting industry, the separate and equal station to which they are entitled as a competitive company in this day and age, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation from hosting their infrastructure in their closets.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all businesses are created equal, that they are endowed by their owners with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Cost Savings, Infrastructure Flexibility and the pursuit of Competitiveness. —

That to secure these rights, hosting companies are instituted among Men and Women, deriving their powers from the consent of their customers, — That whenever any Form of Hosting becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Small Business Owners to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Hosting Paradigm, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its business in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Budget and Peace of Mind.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that In-Home Hosting Models long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while their current environments are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the hosting to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of paying too much and worrying about downtime, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such a Hosting infrastructure, and to provide a new Platform for their future security. —

Such has been the patient sufferance of many Small Business Owners; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Methods of Hosting their Servers. The history of the present Do It Yourself Hosting Model is a history of repeated delays, overpayments and outages, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these Small Businesses.

To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world:

SMBs can dramatically cut IT costs by more than 51% when comparing a DIY infrastructure with a hosted option.

A hosted infrastructure offers elements that characterize an enterprise-grade data center, one that meets best-practices criteria for data backup and storage, as well as provides a robust business continuity plan in case of disruption of service. These elements would need to be added to the costs for a DIY data center.

Hosted IT infrastructure places more control into the hands of the SMB. For many businesses, on-site proximity to IT infrastructure and in-house dedicated or contracted personnel provides a comforting sense of control. The truth is the physical location of IT infrastructure is immaterial to users, reputation and credibility are paramount to hosted IT Infrastructure providers, and application control remains in the hands of the business organization.

An IT infrastructure provider brings experienced and trained personnel responsible for choosing infrastructure equipment and suppliers on behalf of all of its subscribers.

Hosted IT infrastructure solutions reduce business risk for the SMB. The hosted provider’s business size, years in the hosted business, and diversity of subscribers that represent multiple vertical industries will, in many instances, exceed similar measurements of its individual subscribers. Also, subscribing to a hosting provider offloads SMB spend and attention to non-core but mission-critical functions.

In every stage of these Oppressions Small Business Owners have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A DIY solution, which is thus marked by every piece of evidence that may define a Poor Business Decision, is unfit to be the hosting infrastructure of a business.

We, therefore, the Representatives of The Planet, in The Planet Blog, Assembled, appealing to the Internet At Large for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good Customers of this Company, solemnly publish and declare, That the Small Business Owners are, and of Right ought to be Free to choose a hosted infrastructure, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to their Legacy DIY Solutions, and that all business connection between them and their server closets, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent Customers, they have full Power to choose their Services, conclude Peace of Mind, contract Alliances with Hosting Partners, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Customers may of right do. —

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Service Level Agreements, we mutually pledge to give our businesses Enterprise Hosting Environments, to Save Money, and to enjoy the Freedom and Flexibility that hosting provides.

- Kevin Hazard (but mainly these guys)

To download the full Stratecast white paper (sans US History positioning) and to learn more about how hosting can save you money, visit http://www.theplanet.com/Hosting-Reduces-Costs/.

-Kevin

The term “cloud” has been around the block once or twice on the Internet – one of its first technological uses was a description of the Internet as a whole. Comparisons to “webs” or “series of tubes” have received a bit more fanfare, but the root of the metaphors is consistent: We need to be able to explain and visualize what this “Internet” thing is beyond bits and bytes and ones and zeroes.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: The Internet is everywhere and the Internet is nowhere.

The fact that we can’t point to anything tangible to define the Internet forces us to conceptualize an image that helps us understand how this paradox is possible. A lot of information is sitting around on servers somewhere out there, and when we connect to it, we have access to it all. Cloud, web, dump truck, tubes … It doesn’t matter what we call it because we’re not defining the mechanics, we’re defining the concepts.

A Cloud by Any Other Name

These days, the term “cloud” has made a resurgence in a different context: Because we’re more intimately familiar with the Internet these days, we’ve come to understand it in terms of servers and connections, but technology has forced us to break free from that interpretation as well … Instead of content being hosted on a single server somewhere, it’s theoretically floating around independent of all hardware. It’s like a grid of servers acting as one … or a cluster of servers … or cloud of servers on the Intercloud (I’m going to trademark that).

Breaking free from hardware limitations is huge. Cloud computing and cloud storage theoretically offer the ability to wave goodbye to those artificial processor and hard drive constraints and move toward a new, never-failing, infinitely scalable platform that cleans your room and pays your taxes. Wait. What?

-Kevin

If you’ve had the chance to visit us, this goal shouldn’t be much of a surprise: we have treadmills set up in our offices for anyone who needs a little more movement than what a desk chair provides, and our vending machines have color-coded dots that point out heart-healthy snacking alternatives. Luckily, the weather we ordered for the walk was delivered on time, and we didn’t have to line folks up for their turn to walk on the treadmills … The sun was out, the birds were chirping and a free healthy lunch was waiting for us on the other side of the finish line.

Check out a few of the pictures we snapped on Wednesday and head to our Flickr page for more:

When was the last time you got up from your desk for a quick walk? If you can’t remember, then use this post as inspiration to get out and get active! If this post isn’t good enough, crank up your speakers and find a copy of “Eye of the Tiger” to push you over the edge.

-Kevin

The Problem: One of my friends has an old server that he needs to pull data from. The server itself is moving beyond its usable life, so putting it into colocation for a day to access that data once doesn’t really make sense. His predicament: he only uses laptops at home, so he doesn’t have a monitor or a keyboard to make the configuration changes necessary to enable access to the server on his home network. But I do.

Instead of bringing the components to his place, he decides that it would be more efficient to bring the server to me … forgetting that it’s heavy and awkwardly sized. After rigging a rolling duffel bag to accommodate this monstrosity of computing power, the server is lugged to my door, in retrospect like a lamb to the slaughterhouse.

The “Solution”: My desk became a makeshift server room.

Pay close attention. If your server room looks anything like the picture, you need to make a change. A word of warning: for those of you who value quality hosting infrastructures, you may want to avert your eyes … the image might be a little too graphic and disturbing.

1. Server Seating. Your hosting provider says “A comfortable server is a happy server, so instead of going with racks or cabinets, we’re moving toward faux-leather seating for all servers in our fleet.” Move your business now.
2. 100% Power. Your hosting provider says “Rather than provide an SLA agreement for power, we’re going a step further by dedicating a whole outlet to your server.” Move your business now.
3. Server Security. Your hosting provider says “Too often, DC personnel rely on screws, rails and ‘bread racks’ to keep servers in place. We’re more confident in the armrests of the aforementioned faux-leather seating.” Move your business now.
4. Cable Management. Your hosting provider says “Too often, cable organization can get overcomplicated with colors and labels. The new wave: use only black cables and let them hang as precariously as possible.” Move your business now.
5. Efficient Airflow and Cooling. Your hosting provider says “Some of our top engineers have been focused on airflow and cooling strategies and they’ve come to a surprising consensus: rather than isolating hot and cold air in the server area, just position the server so half of it is not encumbered by racks or cabinets.” Move your business now.
6. Inventory Management. Your hosting provider says “We don’t need a dedicated area for our parts inventory … We just keep everything laying around to make it easier to access.” Move your business now.
7. Contingency Planning. Your hosting provider says “We don’t think inclement weather should affect your service, so we’ve got dedicated umbrellas for every server in our fleet to keep it online rain or shine.” Move your business now.
8. Accessibility. If your hosting provider says “KVM units allow for remote access to your server’s keyboard, video and mouse controls … we think offering the real thing is even better,” move your business now.
9. Safety First. Your hosting provider says “Because this server room configuration is a little non-traditional, it’s important that the operations folks performing ‘remote hands’ work on your computer are equipped for safety. Hard hats are also useful in physically hitting a server that needs a metaphorical kick start.” Move your business now.

Click on the picture above to see a larger version of the nightmare. Are there any other red flags you notice that you’d point out?

-Kevin

P.S. Again, if your server room looks anything like the picture you see above, call us now. Right. Now.