The Planet is widely recognized as an industry leader in network performance, reliability and capacity, so for our loyal customers (and soon-to-be customers), we wanted to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what makes our network great.

Terms like “Tier 1 bandwidth” and “fully redundant” are tossed around in networking circles, but to the uninformed, those terms may make about as much sense as “dual layer lunar module connections” and “space-time transfer warps.”

Have no fear, though. The video below should give you a good education on The Planet’s network, and you’ll avoid the typical Network Engineer initiation (which typically involves multiple pairs of socks and a gallon of peanut butter … I’ll spare you the details).

Stan Barber, our vice president of network operations, gave me a great network walkthrough, and because I think everyone could benefit from his tutorial, I did my best to transcribe the simplistic overview on video a la the UPS Whiteboard commercials.

Video Disclaimer: We are continuing to build our network, so the final schematic is forward-looking and will be fully realized shortly. The connections and their explanations have been simplified to best communicate a high-level understanding of the network … Oh, and I am not an actor nor a Network Engineer.

Right about now, you’re probably expecting me to say something like “The Planet: It’s the Network,” but I doubt Verizon would find that message very original.

We take a lot of pride in our hosting network, so if you have any questions, please let us know and we’ll be happy to answer them for you.

-Kevin

The YouTube link: The Planet Network

Hi there, everyone. It’s been awhile, and in fact, this is only my second blog post. A great customer experience over the past few weeks prompted me to post, so I wanted to take a little time to relay it to you.

At The Planet, we’re not just a service provider — we’re also a customer of a several hardware, software and service vendors. Many of my recent projects have centered around our KVM offering, the Lantronix Spider KVM-over-IP unit. We’ve been searching for the best way to highlight the unique features and benefits of the Spider KVM that distinguish it from a standard KVM option.

We had a number of ideas — a demo unit, a demo video, etc. Lantronix really stepped up to the plate with an offer to produce a demo video that was custom-tailored to The Planet’s deployment of their hardware. I also deployed a demo unit that lets you see, first hand, how the Spider KVM unit functions in a real-world scenario.

Please take a moment to view the Lantronix Spider video. The Lantronix team did a really great job on short notice (it was probably seven days from concept to online publication), and it gives you a good feel for what the Spider KVM is all about.

While you’re at it, you can try out my demo KVM unit. By the way, Kevin told me that a few people have already checked out the KVM demo and requested a Windows demo box. I’m working on it. Thanks for the suggestion!

Back to my central thesis … It’s not just the work on the video: We just met with our account team and Lantronix executive management. Their openness to working with us, both to better promote their product and to build some of our user requirements back into their roadmap for future versions, was truly refreshing. More importantly, it reinforced in me the fact that we’re an important partner to all of our customers. We want to do what we can to make your business successful, so that we can grow along with you.

This is especially true within the Product Management team, since we are responsible for taking your needs and building them into our future releases. I look forward to hearing from you how we can improve our portfolio. Comment on the blog and let me know what you think.

-Aaron

Since I shy away from vending machines, trans fats, Las Vegas and scary ingredients, I will stick to my favorite topic: Storage!

It took perhaps a day for our faithful customers to give us clear feedback on our Dedicated Backup Server (DBS) line when it shipped last September, and we listened. They wanted more space, a lower cost per GB and more power. It took us a little more than a day to answer those requests, but we hope our new addition is worth the wait.

We’re proudly announcing the newest addition to the DBS family, affectionately called “The Beast” by those of us who drool over 6 terabytes (TB) of usable and abusable space, dual quad core XEON power, 8GB of RAM and 8 massive TB of monthly bandwidth!

We actually have been building this configuration for a few months on a custom basis, and so it has been heavily tested and approved by our hard-core TB drinkers: They loved it, and you will too!

The regular monthly price is $1,099, and we are going to have a promotion at the launch to make sure these Beasts do not sit around for long. For a limited time, The Beast can be yours for $999/mo … that’s around 16 cents/GB per month, if my math is any good. This is by far the best value in the line, and comes with the same unlimited pool of client licenses, Continuous Data Protection and block level performance as the humble 500GB, 1TB and 1.5TB DBS configurations we’ve had available since the product’s launch.

We did hit one problem: the dang things do NOT fit in our vending machines, and the silly machines didn’t accept $100 bills.

Don’t worry, we’ve got a call in to our facilities group.

-Brett

With Web2.0 upon us, some customers have difficulty deciding when the time is right to make a new server purchase, particularly amidst a sea of buzz words like AJAX, Ruby, and Content Delivery Network. Which server is best for you? Should you get the Celeron or the Dual Clovertown? How can you choose between them without being bitten by over- or under-purchasing? How many times have you purchased a server with your boss looking over your shoulder? Hopefully, I can share a little of my professional experience to make your next server-buying experience a little easier … maybe when your boss is hounding you about how much you are spending on your next server, you can point to this definitive guide from someone who has done a few tours of duty in the industry.

What’s Your Server’s Application?

It’s a simple and straightforward question: What is your server’s application? I’m not talking about whether you are using apache, fastcgi, php, python, lighttpd, IIS6/7, asp or .NET. I am interested in how your server is configured and its purpose: Is it a Combo (http+db), a Workhorse (http or appserver), a File Server (http, ftp, rsync), or a Media Server (http site + files)?

While I boiled down the general “web servers” category into only those few types, I can almost guarantee that your web server will fall into one of them, and each type has its own needs.

The Combo (http+db)

While this is one of the most inefficient configurations, it happens to be the most common. Combo boxes rely heavily on CPU and RAM because they not only process the web request, but also handle the database queries. Databases queries eat up RAM and so do most web-scripting languages. The server’s CPU and hard disk access will probably be the most limiting factors in this type of application. I wouldn’t recommend spending a lot of money on RAID configurations or extra disks in a Combo machine since you would be better suited to run two purpose-customized non-RAID machines — with money to spare on backup space — for about the same price.

When you are able to break your Combo server down into separate dedicated http and database machines, you will be able to better tune and customize each server’s configuration for most efficient disk patterns, VM subsystem pressure and RAM usage. It may sound a little confusing, but I’ll explain a bit more about the different types of servers’ needs in my next post.

The WorkHorse (http or appserver)

When you don’t have a database on your http or appserver, you are looking at more of a workhorse-style server application. This configuration typically needs a focus on RAM and CPU without much demand for disk access. Typically, you will see servers like this bundled with Tomcat or ColdFusion. Most PHP applications suggest this setup because the ever-growing intensity of database queries and the amount of post processing in the scripting languages can put a strain on a box serving both the http and database requests. As a note, when you’ve set up your dedicated http or appserver box, you’ll have to decide whether to use mysql_connect() or mysql_pconnect() for your web application. A word to the wise: pconnect() is great if used in the right circumstances so don’t write it off if you don’t know how to use it or because it crashed your server last summer while you were on vacation. *wink*

The File Server (http, ftp, rsync)

File servers are the easiest beasts to set up. RAID and RAM!! RAM is for the file cache (which prevents direct disk-read requests), and RAID configurations accommodate multiple spindle heads. You will need 4 or 5 disks to make up for the RAID5 “write penalty.” I’d advise you not to get duped by reading about RAID1’s performance in reading from multiple disks. While it may be “smart” by definition, most hardware RAID controllers do not run “smart” RAID1. Don’t neglect the CPU on these toys since CPU plays an important role in bus transfers between the RAM, your disk controller and network connections. Dual processor or dual core machines would be ideal here.

The Media Server

These are the same as file servers but need a lot more CPU power and probably a separate database server (for the same reason explained in the “Workhorse” explanation). More spindles here = more better.

Do I Need to Upgrade?

Don’t rush into a server upgrade “just because” … look at your current utilization patterns — install sysstat so you can at least use SAR and make RTG’s, and estimate your usage. Is your server running at 25% or 75%? If you are at 75%, you might need to split your web and database servers. If you are at 75% and already have made that split, you may need a much better box with application-level caching and threads. I’d recommend against over-shooting your needs since the monthly cost can eat away at you in the end. If you are speculating a 10-15% increase in usage, just double up on the most important server resources go increase them by about one-and-a-half times if you already have a beast of a machine.

Don’t get caught up with RAID configurations if you would be better served with two machines with more RAM and CPU. In the end, it’s not about uptime or how much you are paying for a server each month; it’s about the most efficient way to use what you have so you can spend your money where it is needed.

Making the Move

Most of the forum posts I’ve read were about people who hate migrating from server to server or about how horrible the process is for their customers typically don’t have much experience in the process. The more you do it, the better you become at it (not really a novel idea, I know). My experienced advice: you need at least two weeks to get it done and done right. Why two weeks? Everyone knows DNS is a pain and so are custom-installed perl/pear modules … remember in ’04 when you installed Compress::LZO for that one customer?

I hope this helps!

-Kevin Landreth, RHCE
Technology Architect

Non-verbal communication is becoming more and more a way of life in the customer service industry. In customer contact centers once dominated by phone calls, companies now communicate with customers via web chat, e-mail and ticketing systems.

Obviously, the technology industry has been at the forefront of this type of direct communication, with customers often placing more trust in these alternate methods than the traditional “give ‘em a call” approach.

Resolving problems with a ticketing system creates an entirely different support management paradigm than answering a phone call. Issues can be tracked and researched via the written record that exists in a ticket, but tickets don’t have the immediate feedback of a phone call. Because the vast majority of our support is handled through tickets, here’s a glimpse at the inner-workings of our support process.

When The Planet receives a customer ticket, the first thing that we do is conduct a “triage” to determine the problem that has been described and which department should take ownership. We have a staff of triage experts who do their best to insure that a ticket is routed to the right department as soon as it is received.

To avoid being “stuck in the slow lane,” give us as much detail as possible when you submit a ticket. While we can work with “my bandwidth is wrong” or “my server isn’t working,” advising us that different software showed a different amount of bandwidth traffic or that you can’t connect to your server will help us route tickets to the right department much more quickly. Give us as much detail as you can about the problem, and chances are we can resolve the problem more quickly.

Sometimes, ticket processing can be slowed when we request additional information from you by updating the ticket. If you have an open ticket, it’s important to keep an eye on it to see if we’ve asked for new information that will help us keep your account secure and resolve the issue. For us, there is nothing worse than missing one last piece of the puzzle, so we are often as anxious to hear back from you as you are to hear back from us.

When you do submit a ticket, there is a level of trust involved that we ARE working on it. It’s true that some take longer than others to process; it’s the nature of the customer service in technology. Resolving an incorrect server charge on your account will probably take less time than figuring out why a server won’t reboot, and it is our responsibility to keep you in the loop, so we have multiple systems in place to do so. Each department escalates tickets to higher priority levels when a ticket has been open too long without an update. We strictly adhere to these limits and take action when ticket times exceed our set warning levels. Our support managers are constantly updated in real time on the pending time to process all tickets we receive, and our support reps work diligently to get responses and resolutions to every ticket as quickly as possible. In the most complex tickets, cross-departmental communication or the need for additional research may keep us from resolving the individual tickets as quickly as we would like, but without these behind-the-scenes steps, we would not be giving you the best answer.

Moral of the Story: To keep your ticket humming along in the fast lane, please include as much detail as possible in your initial ticket and keep an eye out for requests for additional information. Please be patient as we work to resolve more difficult problems, and always feel free to request updates. We pay attention to comments made by our customers regarding the ticketing system, and we are always looking for ways to improve our work-flow and enhance the customer experience.

Keep this post in mind when (or should I say “if”?) you need to submit a new ticket so you can keep your tickets in the fast lane!

-John

As Ali and Kevin have blogged about social networks and “techstalgia,” I sometimes find myself feeling, well, sort of out-of-date.

My first confession - I do remember punch cards. My first statistics class involved the use of punch cards in population samples. Trust me when I tell you that we thought that that was unbelievably cool. I also banged out many a term paper on my Sears electric typewriter, with auto-correct, no less!

My first job, however, introduced me to the world of desktop computing. My first key strokes were on an IBM 360 dumb terminal, and I was enthralled. How cool was it to have all this information right at your fingertips? I do know how to perform a Stand Alone Dump to reset the mainframe.

That thirst for knowledge led me to a role as a trainer when my company introduced the first PC-based hotel front office management system. Those of you who love your laptops will get a kick out of this — I used to fly around the country with an IBM XT packed into three footlocker size cases for system training and demos. The tape drive backup was as big as a shoebox. Sometimes I had to drive more than 300 miles with the equipment in a rented van because airline commuter carriers wouldn’t take such large luggage. I had one of our systems at home, and my friends thought that it was just the best thing. I could play Centipede right in my living room!

Soon, home PCs became common and mandatory in schools as well. My first home PC was an Epson, with a 6GB hard drive. The first thing I did was load Lotus and Word Perfect on it so I could work at home. I cranked out a number of budgets on that antique.

Meanwhile, my children were becoming proficient in the use of the computer. Like so many folks, they can’t remember NOT having a computer in their life.

Shortly, two things occurred that changed the way we use computers. The first was the introduction of Windows software. I was never in my life more frustrated. Me, the master of simple DOS commands, sitting in front of a PC with a mouse! I remember banging the mouse on the desk, holding my breath and turning blue, screaming, “I want my keyboard!” Luckily, I got over it.

Of course, the Internet has changed the way everyone in the world does business. At an early seminar, I remember the NutraSweet folks showing off their Web site. It had cool graphics, lots of games, dietary tips and all kinds of bells and whistles. Their attitude was, “we’ll get the customers to look at our site, so that we have name recognition, but darned if we know how to make money from this thing.” We all knew that the Internet was the wave of the future, but how do you use it to increase profits?

Now, of course, the Internet has changed the way we move data, the way we store data, the way we buy things, listen to music, read the newspaper. The list goes on and on.

In thinking about being a “Tech-A-Saurus,” I had to compare myself to Gen Y’ers. What’s the difference? I have an iPod, three e-mail accounts and rely solely on my desktop at work. For Gen Y’ers, they did their homework on a laptop, have always had a cell phone, and know what BRB and OMG means. I have to think that the biggest difference is availability and speed of change. Gen Y grew up with PCs in the classroom. In fact, 40 years ago this month, Texas Instruments introduced the first pocket calculator to add, subtract, multiply and divide.

PCs and software that sometimes seems limited only by the imagination are second nature to folks born in the last quarter of the 20th century. The speed of change is natural to people who are used to and have always relied on the tools that drive that change. The next new thing is just part of the evolution of their tools, be it You Tube, Facebook or accessing the library catalog from the comfort of home.

My learning and experience with computers have almost exclusively been tied to tools that I have been given through job. Because of the availability and growth of functionality, Gen Y has always had these tools available to them.

As a Tech-A-Saurus, thinking about the speed of change in the last 25 years boggles the mind. I really can’t wait for the next iPod or the next big Internet sensation. Of course, Gen Y will probably know about it first!

-John

A couple of months ago when Doug Erwin asked me about going to India to visit with one of our customers, I wasn’t sure he was serious. And here I am in Mumbai (via multiple places - more on that later) about to head back home (via more multiple places) after meeting with not just one, but several of our customers on their home turf.

In this day and age I think that more often than not we discount the power of face to face contact. Indeed, if this trip has done anything for me personally it’s strengthened the belief in the idea that personal contact matters in our business. While this trip has been a bit of a marathon, I’ve really enjoyed meeting and interacting with some of our customers, and I hope that they enjoyed it as well. On to the fun stuff.

My journey began last Saturday. I had to catch a connecting flight from Houston to Memphis to Amsterdam. While the thought of traveling to Amsterdam was personally appealing, I was unfortunately only there for a 4 hour layover on my way to Frankfurt, Germany. I arrived in Frankfurt around 3 pm on Sunday - so it took me about 21 hours to get there. There, I met up with a fellow road warrior from The Planet and we planned out our visit in Germany together before trying to shake off the jetlag.

Monday morning, we decided to walk around downtown Frankfurt prior to our afternoon meeting with our customer.

We were able to see some really great sites.

This picture is of a random building in Frankfurt (downtown near the main train station):

I’m told that the building on the left is the tallest building in Germany:

Tuesday, we jumped on a train and headed to Regensberg - a short 4 hour ride. The train ride was through some of the prettiest countryside you can imagine, and it made the journey seem shorter. Upon arriving, we were greeted by the customer and led to their offices.

Scenic, huh?

For lunch, we were taken down to the city square which was centered around the biggest church I’ve ever seen. I believe I was told that it dated back to the 1400’s - but I might have gotten that wrong.

Needless to say, because of it’s size I was unable to get it into a single shot.

After our meeting wrapped, we jumped on the train back to Frankfurt, and proceeded back to the hotel to prepare for our journey to Mumbai, India.

Wednesday morning, we catch a 7:25 am flight to Paris, and then after a short (3 hour) layover we jump another plane for Mumbai.

I managed to get a picture of the Eiffel tower from the plane - but that’s about as close as I got (If you look really close - it’s there. I promise).

We arrived in Mumbai on Thursday morning (about 1 am local time) and were picked up at the airport and ferried to our hotel. Mumbai is a very interesting city - quite unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Even at night I could tell that this was going to be fun.

Thursday we had a day off, so we decided to do some sightseeing.

I got things rolling with a shot from my hotel room (Juhu Beach).

We went to downtown Mumbai where we were shown the Ghandi museum, which was a treat.

This is the room Ghandi used to stay in.

We finished things up at the Gateway to India.

Friday morning, we met with our customers and had what I believe was a very productive meeting.

From here I travel to Seoul, Korea (at 3:30 am Saturday morning) where I get a day to rest, and then it’s back home to Houston - via Los Angeles - on Sunday afternoon.

So there you go. Forty some odd flight hours and eight or so train hours and I’ve managed to travel entirely around the globe.

Now, back to the title. Why is the number of days up for debate? Well, it appears that upon traveling between Seoul and Los Angeles I will cross the international date line and will actually travel back in time to Sunday. Even though it’s technically Monday according to my watch. Thus, I’ve made the trip around the world in 8 days.

Neat huh?

-Will