The Planet Blog

As an avid reader of The Planet Blog, you’ve probably noticed some consistency in the 164 articles published here since Doug’s inaugural “Welcome to The Planet’s blog… I think?” post on May 14, 2007. We focus on our company culture, support, data centers and network to help you step through the looking glass and get an inside perspective on our business. With a continuous stream of changes and improvements, it’s tough to feature even a fraction of the work our team is doing to improve our service, so we keep an eye out for opportunities to “show” what we’ve “told” you about in the past. This is one of those opportunities.

On September 2, 2008, we announced the results of our lights-out energy efficiency initiative. A few days ago, I was sorting through a batch of data center pictures, and I came across a few great examples of what this news looks like in practice:

This is Phase Two of our H1 data center. With all the posts you see from H2 and D6, you might be curious about what our other data centers look like, so hopefully the picture above doesn’t surprise you. We have extremely high standards for our data centers, and you should expect the same enterprise-level quality across the board.

If you took a guided tour through H1, you’d see it all lit up as it is above. If you walked in during a normal DC shift, you’d probably find it a little different:

When the data center is unoccupied, the lights are switched off to save energy. How much energy? Well, across the board, we estimate the program saves more than 1.4 million kilowatt hours in a given year – or about $140,000 in power bills. It’s no small change.

As you’ve seen in our other posts about data center innovation and operational efficiency, we take a common-sense approach to energy conservation. It’s incredible to see the significant impact such simple changes can make.

It’s also pretty cool to see servers glowing in the dark:

-Kevin

To the tune of The Clash’s classic with the same name:

London calling via Internet routes
The Planet’s connected, and you shouldn’t have doubts
London calling to the hosting world
Come check out our servers, all you boys and girls
London calling, now come look at us
Our new data center is causing a fuss
London calling, and it ain’t just a fling
Our network’s a ring on the international scene

CHORUS
The Planet is coming, yes we’re moving in
A D.C. in England, now watch all Europe grin
A 10-gig connection, so you have no fear
London’s connected – and you have a computer

London calling, but not on the phone
Don’t worry, brother, your site can have a new home
London calling and it speaks like Macbeth
A Queen’s English accent accompanies each breath
London calling – and I don’t wanna shout
But you started reading – and I saw you nodding out
London calling, and this ain’t no guise
So go get the attention of someone who buys (servers)

CHORUS (x2)
The Planet is coming, yes we’re moving in
A D.C. in England, now watch all Europe grin
A ten-gig connection, so you have no fear
London’s connected – and you have a computer

Now get this
London calling, yes, you’ll be there, too
An’ you know what I said? Well, all of it was true!
London calling at the top of the dial
So after all this, won’t you give me a smile?
London calling

We think this is new you’ll like … you’ll like … you’ll like

Yes. The song is true. The Planet just announced a new data center in London. It features up to 20kW of power per rack, backed by N+1 redundancy on generators, transformers and UPS systems. Customers gain access to a 10GB private fiber interconnect to The Planet’s core network through our Ashburn, Va., data center, as well as local connectivity to Tier-1 providers and the major European peering exchanges.

We’ll be offering virtual racks in the space starting in April, and we’ve already begun preleasing servers there! This announcement is made possible by the colocation agreement we made with London-headquartered TelecityGroup, which operates 20 network-independent data centers across seven European countries.

Check out our London Data Center Expansion press release for more details!

-Kevin

P.S. I bet that tune will be stuck in your head for at least an hour.

The Planet’s Network Operations Center, although located in a prominent spot here at our Houston headquarters, is shrouded in a bit of mystery. Not exactly a “whodunit”-type mystery, but enough that when I walk past the blue-lighted, mission control-type room during my daily jaunts around the office I wonder, “Why do the NOC technicians get to watch CNN all day?” (Hint: Not because of Anderson Cooper’s smoldering good looks.) “What’s the purpose of all those monitors at the front of the room, exactly? Can I pull up the same information on my desktop?” (Spoiler alert: I can!) And, “Why is the room blue?”

To provide the answers to all of my burning NOC questions, I asked Vice President of Network Operations Stan Barber to lead me (and by default you, oh faithful blog readers) on a tour of The Planet’s NOC.

Take a look at the video below for the inside scoop on this cerulean wonder, and its role in providing great service to our customers.

The mystery of its blue lighting? Still under investigation.

Over the course of the last several months, we’ve been working with Weaver & Tidwell, L.L.P., a highly-regarded certified public accounting firm out of Fort Worth, to complete an exhaustive Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70 (SAS 70) Type II audit. Developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the widely recognized auditing standard certifies that The Planet has been through a rigorous evaluation of its internal processes and controls through an independent third-party auditor.

Voluntarily undergoing an exhaustive audit by a third-party that takes months to complete.

A SAS 70 Type II audit is certainly a big-time undertaking. Some even think starting the process of a future review is worthy of a dedicated blog post … we just got it done.

In the process of the audit, we checked and evaluated the controls and processes for our network, customer provisioning systems, physical and environmental security, problem management and resolution through our customer portal, human resources department organization and administration, data center operations, and most importantly, our data centers themselves.

Daniel Golding, vice president and research director for Tier1 Research explains the significance of SAS 70 compliance in the context of the hosting industry:

Hosting providers that want to offer meaningful IT services to larger enterprises see SAS 70 as the means of both meeting Sarbanes-Oxley auditing requirements, while reassuring IT decision makers that their processes, facilities and staff are capable of providing true enterprise-grade services.

The Sarbanes-Oxley legislation consists of standards required of every public company and important to any company considering/anticipating an IPO. In searching for additional reference information on the significance of SAS 70 to SOX compliance, I came across a great resource: www.sas70.com. The site has a dedicated Sarbanes-Oxley page, where the significance of a Type 2 audit masterfully described:

Section 404 [of Sarbanes-Oxley] draws attention to the significant processes that feed and comprise the financial reporting process for an organization. In order for management to make its annual assessment on the effectiveness of its internal control, management is required to document and evaluate all controls that are deemed significant to the financial reporting processes. If the organization uses a service provider to process transactions, host data, or other signficant services, management may need to evaluate the design and test the operating effectiveness of the service organization’s controls.


Management will either need to conduct an evaluation of the service organization’s controls, or management may obtain a Type II SAS 70 service auditor’s report from the service organization, if a service auditor has been engaged, to gain an understanding of the service organization’s controls. The relevant audit guidance for SAS 70 already requires that a service auditor’s report contain information on the five components of internal control as it relates to the service organization.

The difference between a Type I audit and Type II audit is pretty significant: Both say “we have well-designed processes, controls and goals,” but the Type II audit must show that the controls and processes have been practiced and they were successful in achieving the initial goals. The proof is in the pudding.

What Does It Mean?

It’s clear that the successful completion of the SAS 70 Type II review is important to all of our customers. It reinforces our commitment to providing the best hosting experience in the industry. Our processes, practices, procedures and controls have been tested and have been proven successful in helping us achieve our operational goals.

-Kevin

Your favorite Web Hosting Evangelist and I just returned from a week in San Francisco at the ad:tech 2008 trade show. We returned older, wiser, and I for one learned many truths:

1. The estimated time for set-up and take-down of one’s booth is always two hours longer than your worst-case scenario
2. Booth babes, whether “babey” or not, major traffic at one’s booth and guarantee drool from sales guys
3. It’s probably in my best interest not to go along with any of Hazard’s ideas … and then let him film it

In what could probably be considered a lapse of judgment (I blame the delirium that settled in on the second day of the show), I actually let Hazard convince me to anchor a mock “World News from The Planet” show from our booth. The idea sounded innocently fun at 9:30 in the morning, before I had my coffee.

I put on my best “serious journalist” face (required: squinty eyes and permanent look of concern) and attempted to imbue the most banal statement with great importance (a combo of long pauses and squinty eyes here do the trick).

Check it out for yourself below as I give an “insightful” report on what you should look for in a data center, with a special bonus interview with The Planet’s Jeff Reinis. Meanwhile, I’ll be huddled in my cube, cringing from embarrassment … while Kevin cackles with evil glee on the other side of the partition.

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

At The Planet, we’re excited about the holiday season. We’ve had a great year, so this is a perfect time to look back on 2007 and store away the memories much like one would store server backups in our data centers. How’s that that for a convenient segue into a discussion about The Planet’s backup solutions?

We currently offer NAS, DiskSync, Dedicated SAN and Dedicated Backup Server options, and as the resident backup and storage guru on the Product Management team, I love sharing backup knowledge with our customers. What question do I get most often? Easy: What is the difference between

What is the difference between NAS, DiskSync and the Dedicated Backup Server?

NAS (Network Attached Storage) is storage space allows you access over FTP. You write or provide the software to create and send backups to your NAS, and it functions as a reliable external disk to protect your data and store information separate from your server. Think of it as a target disc, albeit a pretty small one. You can buy NAS space from The Planet in increments ranging from 20GB to 200GB, and our typical NAS setup accommodates many users on each of our available NAS devices.

Our DiskSync product offers a much more complete SAN (Storage Area Network) infrastructure backup solution with the ability to schedule full backups and perform restores in our managed environment. Rather than having to create the backup software, our DiskSync solution enables you to quickly and easily monitor and track your data backups. On the infrastructure side, we host the large storage network and maintain the integrity of all DiskSync user data. The SAN structure is significantly larger than a NAS device and is much more scalable. It’s able to accommodate a considerably higher number of DiskSync users and any additional space you may want or need. DiskSync backups are available in 10GB increments with unlimited capacity.

With our new Dedicated Backup Server (DBS) solution, you become the admin for the entire system. You get a dedicated server with the R1Soft CDP Server software/license installed, and full root access. You have the ability to manage backups and delegate authority to users and sub-users, and you manage the OS, which allows for true customization for any of your more complex backup needs. We’ve found that many customers want this complete control and the peace of mind that each DBS is individually encrypted for data security since no other users access your DBS. Our most popular Dedicated Backup Servers come equipped with 500GB, 1TB and 1.5TB of data, but we’re always open to a challenge if you need more.

While that’s a quick rundown of our three main backup solutions, it succinctly explains a few of the key differences I like to communicate when asked to run through the options. We feel this array of products can meet the needs of almost any user, so if you have additional questions about backup solution implementation or if you would just like a little more information, visit our Backup page or post a quick comment to let me know.

-Brett