It has been widely agreed upon that email is the most important tool for business communication. A King Research survey confirms this, as 96% of their survey of mid-market IT professionals, that deal with their company’s messaging systems, believe that email is important or extremely important to a company. When it is not available, this loss of communication has a significant impact on business operations. Osterman Research shows that one in five businesses believe that a single email outage can cause up to $500,000 in revenue loss. This is confirmed by the claim from Eagle Rock Alliance that a staggering 40% of companies would go out of business if they lost access to their data for 24 hours or more.

Given these statistics, it is not surprising when IT professionals, according to the 2006 Skillsoft survey, report daily stress from user complaints, managers and deadlines. IT professionals are a luxury that smaller businesses do not and usually can not afford to have. Small and medium sized businesses, those with 500 employees or less, are lucky to have even a small in-house IT team. These individuals have many responsibilities such as keep the email up and running, Web and network administration, joining security, databases, and much much more. Managing Microsoft Exchange takes up an IT manager’s time that could better be used in running the business’s core applications and having a more strategic role in IT planning.

For companies that have a strained IT team, or none at all, Microsoft Exchange can be a very smart, cost-efficient option. Gartner thinks that the market for hosted email relative to email seats will grow from its current 1% up to 20% by 2012, which represents 40 million hosted mailboxes within the next couple years.

While the hosted email market is growing fast, there are still some misconceptions that are present that stop companies from considering it as a viable option for an in-house solution. This article will talk about these misconceptions and show why hosted Exchange is the best option for smaller businesses.

Misconception #1: Downtime is less of a risk while using an in-house Exchange solution

TRUTH: Most in-house solutions do not have the resources or the budget to obtain and manage the same precautions as hosted solutions. These in-house solutions are usually in very basic environments with no backup systems, little or no redundancy to the internet and no disaster recovery solution in place. Since these businesses are small and do not have the means, they do not even try for these features. According to Gartner, this results in the average business running an in-house messaging solution to experience 40 hours of unexpected outages a year, on top of the 2 hours of planned outages for maintenance a month. The majority of email outages are caused by unplanned technological failures, Osterman Research states and according to www.DisasterResource.com, 29% of outages last for 4 to 24 hours. When looking at these statistics and comparing them to the above facts, in-house businesses are looking at a huge amount of risk.

The best hosted Exchange providers, however, give their customers their own world-class Exchange infrastructures and provide back up systems, redundancy and disaster recovery. These precautions protect small businesses with no IT team from unplanned downtime which can, as it was explained above, negatively impact the company’s revenue greatly, negatively affect the company’s relationships with its customers and partners, and harm its reputation. A service-level agreement is now in effect where 99.9% up time as the standard for hosted Exchange providers.

Misconception #2: In-house Exchange servers are more secure than hosted solutions

TRUTH: If the business using an in-house solution does not have an in-house IT professional to oversee the security of the network, then the in-house Exchange solutions have less physical security, digital security and backup security than a hosted one. Every month Microsoft releases around 25 patches and updates a month, or more. With all of these patches, it means that someone has to be around to download them, install them, and make sure that they are running smoothly to fix the identified security vulnerabilities. Along with the needed expertise to ensure that these updates are done properly, the server usually needs downtime for the installations. This in itself is a problem for businesses using an in-house solution with no backup plan.

Another issue is n preventing security breaches from email data that falls into the wrong hands. Many people believe that the biggest problem lies in outside people procuring data, but in reality many security breaches occur from within an organization. In-house solutions more easily enable curious employees to read confidential emails of their superiors, something that would not be able to happen with a hosted solution.

Misconception #3: In-house solutions offer more control than hosted solutions

TRUTH: With hosted Exchange today, non-technical administrators can control distribution lists and mobile device connections, add and remove users, keep up with email compliance regulations, and have control over any other functionality of Microsoft Exchange, all in real-time.

Exchange Servers are, in general, very complex with proper maintenance requiring at least one full-time IT professional. This is very expensive, with their services costing around six figures in an annual salary and including their benefits. With small companies, having a full-time IT professional is not economically feasible; this is where a hosted solution can help. As companies get larger, more and more IT resources and staff are needed to handle outages, vacations and off-hour support issues.

Misconception #4: In-house solutions offer more functionality than hosted solutions

TRUTH: Hosted Exchange does not offer the complex and expensive third party customization that is usually implemented for large companies by consultants or in-house developers. The reality is, however, that small businesses do not need or even want any more functionality than the Exchange box offers. For businesses that do want more functionality, some hosted Exchange solutions do offer an easy integration with an wide range of Microsoft products such as mobility, document management, encryption, anti-spam/anti-virus, backup and recovery, archiving, and others.

An example of this is the Office Communications Server (OCS) which allows office workers to communicate with each other using a whole variety of methods, like instant messaging, video chat and more, in real time. It also unifies communication and is easy to use as it is fully integrated into Microsoft Exchange and Outlook in a secure environment. These features boost employee collaboration and raise productivity, as a result.

Installing and configuring OCS is very complex, and integrating it is long and nerve-wracking for anyone who does not have the technical expertise to do it right. Hosted Exchange providers can enable non-technical administrators to do all this with just a click from a mouse.

Misconception #5: Hosted models are too expensive

TRUTH: Hosted Exchange models today cost about $12 per month per user with start-up fees of about the same amount. An in-house Exchange can cost thousands to hundreds of thousands depending on the type of deployment, and the number of users. As an example, look at Exchange 2010, in addition to five new server roles plus x64-bit hardware the license fees would cost around $60 per user. The Exchange would also need constant tweaking and changes to the various settings. On top of that, there are the system reboots and the corresponding services that need to be started and restarted. As mentioned in misconception #3, this requires IT professionals and would drive up salary costs to more than the monthly cost of a monthly subscription to a hosted solution.

Despite all of the misconceptions out there, the reality today is that hosted Exchange solutions give smaller businesses the same infrastructure, support and functionality as the larger enterprises out there at a price that they can afford. Since no company can keep running without a reliable email, hosted Exchange is the best option in keeping email up and running for businesses that do not have the resources or the budget needed to have a complicated in-house Exchange solution.

In the May 2010 survey the results are from 206,026,787 sites.

Four of the five major web servers gained hostnames since last month. Google lost for the second month in a row with a drop of 1.4M hostnames, predominantly caused by expired sites in its blogging system.

Although Microsoft served 780K more hostnames this month, it actually lost 235K active sites. As with Google, this was due to a significant loss of blogging sites.

The biggest change this month was a 1.9M increase in hostnames served using Apache. The largest contributor to this was a growth of 561K sites by Next Dimension Inc, but the majority of this consisted of parked sites on a single IP address.

Rackspace recently reported that cloud computing sales were predicted to hit £8.5 billion ($12.6 bn) by 2014. Netcraft has seen significant growth in this sector. The number of sites hosted on Amazon EC2 increased for the eighth month in a row. There were 365K Amazon cloud sites in this month’s survey, a growth of 33% since December 2009.

One of the busiest sites hosted on Amazon EC2 as determined by visits from the Netcraft Toolbar is www.farmville.com. With over 75 million users, Farmville is a game available through Facebook in which players can grow crops and raise livestock.

Total Sites Across All Domains
August 1995 - May 2010

Market Share for Top Servers Across All Domains
August 1995 - May 2010

:

Developer	April 2010	Percent	May 2010	Percent	Change
Apache	110,752,854	53.93%	112,663,533	54.68%	0.75
Microsoft	51,284,570	24.97%	52,062,154	25.27%	0.30
nginx	12,977,486	6.32%	13,490,726	6.55%	0.23
Google	13,749,829	6.70%	12,357,212	6.00%	-0.70
lighttpd	1,078,403	0.53%	1,869,658	0.91%	0.38

Totals for Active Servers Across All Domains
June 2000 - May 2010

Developer	April 2010	Percent	May 2010	Percent	Change
Apache	44,965,707	53.38%	46,608,654	55.36%	1.98
Microsoft	15,211,533	18.06%	14,977,560	17.79%	-0.27
Google	11,544,903	13.71%	10,064,872	11.95%	-1.75
nginx	7,293,935	8.66%	7,387,460	8.77%	0.11
lighttpd	330,506	0.39%	339,862	0.40%	0.01

Market Share for Top Servers Across the Million Busiest Sites
September 2008 - May 2010

Developer	April 2010	Percent	May 2010	Percent	Change
Apache	664,232	66.82%	664,186	66.82%	-0.00
Microsoft	168,829	16.98%	167,740	16.87%	-0.11
nginx	46,698	4.70%	48,598	4.89%	0.19
Google	20,913	2.10%	19,367	1.95%	-0.16

Rebel Networks has opened a new data center in Dallas and this news was featured today  in The Web Host Industry Review News.

Click on the following link to read the article at thewhir.com

http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/062310_Rebel_Networks_Opens_Data_Center_in_Dallas

The Problem of Outbound Spam

Key Takeaways

• outbound spam is a serious issue and it is getting worse

• a number of sources generate outbound spam including compromised accounts, zombies and malicious users

• resolving this issue can help service providers to retain customers

Outbound Spam is a Serious Problem

Today spam is ~80% of all emails, but this does not show the increasing absolute volume of spam, which doubles roughly every 12-18 months. Outbound spam is the content sent from Web hosting companies, SaaS email providers, Internet access service providers, free email service providers, and on site email managed service providers. This creates problems on a number of levels.

The Source of the Problem

There are 3 primary sources of outbound spam:

• Zombies

A zombie is an individual home- or business- based computer that has been infected with malware and controlled by a third party. Service providers report that 11.2% of their users’ accounts are currently part of a botnet that is being used for sending out spam and 86% of service providers are fighting zombies on their networks.

• Compromised accounts

These accounts have in some way been compromised by means other than malware. Service providers reported that 12.6% of their users have had their credentials stolen for the purpose of sending outbound spam.

• Malicious use of email accounts

Spammers create accounts specifically for the purpose of sending unwanted content. One in eight user’s accounts are sending out spam and/or malware.

Spammers make efforts to stay concealed by sending hundreds of emails a day or “testing” before sending large volumes. Among the service providers surveyed, 69% consider dealing with outbound spam to be a priority over the next 12 months.

Current Solutions Are Not Effective

• Use of standard inbound spam technologies in reverse

This approach has shown, through practice, that it can result in high levels of false positives and would result in blocking large amounts of valid outbound email. This happens because these emails are identified as spam.

• Blocking of Port 25 for outbound email

Blocking Port 25 results in the blockage of valid emails as well, along with the outbound spam, resulting in high levels of false positives.

• Blocking entire ranges of IP addresses

Some service providers will block a range of IP addresses that may be used by the offending sender, and this results in email for legitimate senders being blocked.

• Manual handling by the abuse team

Manual handling by the abuse team can be slow and ineffective in dealing with outbound spam, given the large amount of compromised accounts hosted by service providers.

The result of these practices are high levels of false positives and unsatisfied customers. Research has found that 70% of service providers are not completely satisfied with their current solutions in stopping outbound spam.

The Consequences of Outbound Spam

• Significantly higher costs of providing service

Outbound spam can increase the costs by incurring an unnecessarily large number of calls to technical support to address false positives, switching customers to new IP addresses, and additional IT staff time to identify and resolve outbound spam issues. Some companies spend from $100,000 to over $250,000 a year on outbound spam-related expenses.

• Corporate reputation can be damaged

• Blacklisted IPs create problems

Abuse staff must spend time working with blacklist operators convincing them that they are not spammers, in addition to spending time resolving problems related to their placement on the blacklist. Service providers must also deal with dissatisfied customers who may switch to other providers.

• Remediation efforts are poor, resulting in unhappy customers

Blockage of Port 25 or of a range of IP addresses will irritate many customers, hindering the acquisition of new customers and incurring the loss of current customers.

• Increases the amount of network traffic

Outbound spam increases the amount of network traffic, which call for the provider to add more capacity and drive up their cost of doing business.

The Benefits of Dealing Effectively with Outbound Spam

The benefits of dealing effectively with outbound spam are the opposite of the consequences described above: costs with supporting customers is reduced, less effort is required to manage users, corporate reputation is maintained, customers are happier, and network traffic is minimized. Service providers believe that an important reason to apply outbound spam solutions are to provide better customer service and would provide a competitive differentiation for their company.

What Features are Important in a Solution?

Among the many features used to remedy outbound spam, there are 3 that are critical:

• Low false positives

False positives should fall well below 1% and as close to 0% as possible.

• Identifying senders of spam

In identifying individual senders, service providers can block the individual offenders and/or remediation efforts can be directed in a highly granular fashion instead of blocking entire IP addresses.

• Adjusting filtering thresholds

A good outbound spam solution will also let service providers adjust filtering thresholds whenever it is needed in response to changing conditions, new zombie outbreaks, recently discovered intelligence on new malware threats, and other conditions.

Possible Solutions

• Multiple layers of defence- perimeter defence, content filters and protocol filters

  • perimeter defence blocks spam from obvious senders, multiple connections at one time from a single IP address, enables reverse DNS so that emails arriving at your server are from legitimate domains

  • protocol filters can limit the amount of recipients for incoming mail so that spammers can only send to a small number at once

  • content filters scan incoming mail, can block specific extension types and encrypted files

• The placement of gates between the firewall and the mail server can be used to process incoming mail and authenticate users. While passing through the gate, mail undergoes security checks and the content is scanned

• Administrator setting can also be optimized to reduce spam-related problems

  • frequent engine updates can get you the most recent ant-virus software and ensure that your spam engines are up to date and automatically maintain with the newest updates

  • with delegation methods, you can differentiate different settings at both the domain and user setting to have system-wide setting to ensure that the proper configurations are in place

  • by doing these things, more time is freed up to enable administrators to work on more important matters. Users can rapidly do through their blocked messages, report discrepancies and commit senders to either a blocked or trusted list

Rebel Networks Outbound Spam Solutions and Services

Our managed email security service offers comprehensive protection against a wide range of email threats using a combination of proven spam filters, leading anti-virus engines, fraud protection, content filtering, and email attack protection:

• MX Logic® Email Defence Service

• MX LogicSM Web Defence Service - Our easy-to-use Web security solution effectively blocks quickly-evolving Web threats, including spyware, viruses and phishing attacks, while enabling greater control over unauthorized Web surfing by employees

With Rebel Networks spam protection, users are better able to:

• decrease IT costs and maximize services
• decrease network and storage costs
• increase employee productivity
• reduce corporate liability

Unlike appliances and enterprise software solutions that require integration, migration and a significant amount of ongoing maintenance, the MX Logic Email Defence Service is effortless and highly effective. Our solution requires no upfront capital or integration, is flexible and easy to administer, and offers rapid activation. The service includes:

• Advanced Spam Blocking

• Virus and Worm Scanning

• Content and Attachment Filtering

• Fraud Protection

• Email Attack Protection

• Outbound Message Filtering

• Sophisticated Quarantine Management

• Around-the-clock Monitoring and Protection

• MX Logic® Fail Safe Disaster Recovery Service

For added security, the MX Logic Email Defence Service supports SMTP over TLS, providing email delivery encryption which allows customers to easily send and receive email over a secure, end-to-end encrypted tunnel. And, our flexible, easy-to-use Group policies management feature enables customer administrators to create user groups, and subscribe each user group to a particular set of filtering policies.

In using the MX Logic Web Defence Service, SMBs can create a more secure network environment and integrate greater control over employee Internet usage. Ours is a fully-managed Web security solution that delivers effective protection against quickly-evolving Web threats like spyware, viruses and phishing attacks and incorporates technology to prevent unauthorized Internet activity.
The MX Logic Web Defence Service:

• Blocks access to inappropriate websites

• Blocks malicious Web threats

• Provides visibility to Web usage through detailed reports

• Enforces different Internet usage policies for different groups of users

• Delivers continual updates which protect your users from the latest threats and inappropriate content

• Protects users on the entire corporate network, including remote users

• Provides powerful security, easy administration and use

Summary

Our basic conclusions are that outbound spam is a serious issue and is getting worse. Conventional solutions are not adequate to fully solve the problem. Therefore, new technologies and approaches are necessary to ensure that outbound spam is minimized. Many customers will use service providers that address outbound spam in a granular way.

About the Author

Domenic is Founder of www.RebelNetworks.com Rebel Networks is a leading provider of outsourced Internet infrastructure and related managed web solutions. Rebel Networks was voted the 3rd fastest growing hosting company in the world in October 2007 by Hostingreview. Domenic is an expert in web and internet technology and has numerous positions in senior management. He is a market leader and knows how to build sales and marketing plans with little budget.

How Much Is Hosting Costing You?

The Benefits of Fully- and Semi- Managed Hosting

What Is It?

Managed hosting is a new approach to hosting where hosts offer features such as load balancing, application and database management, and high availability services. Companies that do not have the in-house resources to maintain their server administration will find managed hosting very useful. Depending on the features of the hosts and the cost-savings, companies can either take advantage of semi- or fully- managed hosting. Most managed plans followed a tiered schedule according to the supporting configurations, network and hardware involved.

Benefits:

Managed services offer enhanced support and maintenance to companies to keep their servers working at their best. For some companies, managed hosting can free up time and resources by not using a lot of time to maintain full control over the system and its applications. Managed hosting does cost more that un-managed, but when you look at the costs of security monitoring, personally performing updates, and other tasks, managed (fully- or semi-) service could cost less.

With managed hosting, there are many benefits for a company. For instance, companies can focus on business and not as much on IT. Hosts provide bandwidth and connectivity to the Internet as well as allow SMBs to focus more of their energy on running core processes instead of IT management. Managed hosting also has a more efficient use of resources by freeing IT staff so that they can be deployed in tasks that are more valuable to companies besides troubleshooting and other such routine tasks. Managed hosting can reduce their costs by improving their server efficiency.

Managed services can predict the costs of messaging and hosting more accurately. Managed hosting lets users have a greater amount of flexibility in deploying services, which can help in spam filtering, bandwidth, and other features. This lets the company use the hosting provider’s staff and resources to do these changes instead of hiring their own staff.

Managed hosting has all the high standards of physical security as well as relying on data centres that detect intrusion, redundant power systems, monitoring tools, and tracking tools. With managed hosting, the newest technology upgrades will be available for a monthly fee, there is no need to install high-speed connectivity, invest in an upfront OS, etc. Service providers can access the IT industry’s best practices and obtain the best members for their staff and get the update their hardware, software and network capabilities regularly. Recovery and continuity services for companies usually have an additional charge.

Key Features:
Some of the primary elements of managed hosting are managed email and messaging, DNS hosting, managed security, managed data backup, server and services monitoring, software updating and OS patching, and other optional services. Managed email is built so that there are measures to keep a high availability and redundancy so that it can lessen server loads, decrease spam and reduce the need for in-house IT administration and churn. With managed email, some features you get are spam filtration, calender functionality, groupware/collaboration productivity, and high availability and redundancy.

With DNS hosting, companies get domain name management, DNS-based buffer overflow attack protection, round robin DNS and “heartbeat” DNS, and simplified configuration. All these features helps to create proper DNS records that optimize mail exchange and help with the load distribution and basic fail over functionality.

Managed security will help with unwanted intruders that may cause damage with security audits, third party audits, customized firewalls and updating, monitoring check sums of binaries and removal of known vulnerabilities, and log reviews to block internet traffic.

Managed data backups secure and protect the websites, servers, and data. Features that are included are validating backup and restoration, data encryption within the backup environment, incremental backups of content, and reliable and fast restore processes.

Monitoring includes services like intervention of requested daemons and services, service reports, showing monthly loads, events, trends and results with recommended courses of action in case of service failure of expansion requirements, and monitoring of the network connectivity with troubleshooting and rebooting.

Managed software updates and OS patching is built so that it can maintain repositories of data and allows for stable and controlled software updates. Features included are verifying and correcting updates, minimizing vulnerabilities by closing security gaps, re-visioning and application of security and software patches, and repositories for the operating systems that are maintained by the host.

Other services that can be added are of a list of optional and extended services and could include load balancing, enterprise storage solutions, managed hardware firewalls, custom software and application installs and more.

What You Should Know Before You Buy

Before buying managed hosting services, there are five things that all companies should consider:

The company’s technical expertise, which abilities and skill sets are available in the in-house IT staff to manage the server and hosting needs. In-house staff usually do not have as much experience with server management as managed server providers who are always responding to hosting-related problems. Web hosts usually have expert system administrators and specialists for these areas.

Time constraints should also be considered when allocating in-house server management and all associated tasks and finding out how much time this takes away from the internal network, application updates and installs, and other critical aspects of running the company. Set up time constraints must also be considered when buying managed hosting.

Also take into account the costs of managed service. Semi-or fully managed service cost different sums, depending on the level of support and expertise required for each task. Costs will also vary from provider to provider. Potential costs of improperly managed servers are also important. Consider the time and costs of managing or even learning how to manage web hosting servers versus outsourcing these tasks.

Selecting the right provider and plan is also critical when considering managed service. This requires a careful assessment of the business’s server management needs and which providers best meet these needs. Areas like the hosting and security tasks the need to be managed, what the ongoing costs will be, the initial setup costs (in-office server vs. Co-location), what tech support is required, which tasks need regular attention, and if the servers can be customized further should be well thought out.

The next thing to consider would be the site hosting requirements. Evaluate the technical and infrastructure of the your websites and the host. This help to give parameters for server management that is quick and effective. It is useful to think about the connectivity, the network security, physical security, data backups, and the network and software basics that are needed.

Conclusion

Managed hosting can be beneficial for SMBs who need the technology and expertise that are not usually economically practical for smaller businesses to have. Fully- and semi- managed hosting can make your business improved scalability, deployment and scalability. For the right SMBs managed hosting can prove to be one of the best investments, saving money and adding experience to your company.

About the Author

Domenic is Founder of www.RebelNetworks.com Rebel Networks is a leading provider of outsourced Internet infrastructure and related managed web solutions. Rebel Networks was voted the 3rd fastest growing hosting company in the world in October 2007 by Hostingreview. Domenic is an expert in web and internet technology and has numerous positions in senior management. He is a market leader and knows how to build sales and marketing plans with little budget.

Google today unveiled more details of Chrome OS, a lightweight, browser-based operating system for netbooks.

With a strong focus on speed, the Chrome OS promises nearly instant boot times of about 7 seconds for users to login to their computers.

“We want Google Chrome OS to be blazingly fast … to boot up like a TV,” said Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management for Google.

The first Chrome OS netbooks will be available in late 2010, Pichai said. It will not be available as a download to run and install. Instead, Chrome OS is only shipping on specific hardware from manufacturers Google has partnered with. That means if you want Chrome OS, you’ll have to purchase a Chrome OS device.

Google is currently working with unnamed computer manufacturers to define specifications for these computers, which Pichai said will include larger netbook-style computers with full-size keyboards, large trackpads and large displays.

Chrome OS netbooks will not have traditional hard disk drives — they will rely on non-volatile flash memory and Internet-based storage for saving all of your data.

All the applications will be web-based, meaning users won’t have to install apps, manage updates or even backup their data. All data will be stored in the cloud, and users won’t even have to bother with anti-virus software: Google claims it will monitor code to prevent malicious activity in Chrome OS web apps.

“Chrome OS is a totally rethought computer that will let you focus on the Internet, so you can stop worrying about your computer,” according to a Google promotional video shown at the event, held at the Google campus in Mountain View, California.

As part of its announcement today, Pichai said that Google would be releasing all of the operating system’s code and design documents to the public.

Introduced in July, Chrome OS is a Linux-based, open-source operating system centered on Google’s Chrome browser. Applications will run exclusively inside the browser, Google said Thursday.

“As of today, the code will be fully open, which means Google developers will be working on the same tree as open developers,” said Pichai.

The OS’s focus on design is consistent with the company’s stance that the future is in the web. In July, Vic Gundotra, Google’s engineering vice president and developer evangelist, spoke on a panel about app stores, in which he said native apps (such as those available for the iPhone) would be obsolete in the future, and that the Web will “become the platform that matters.”

“Every capability you want today, in the future it will be written as a web application,” Pichai said Thursday.

Netbooks — lightweight, low-powered sub-notebooks — were the surprise hit of 2008 and 2009. However, with the growth of netbook sales slowing — and the prices of some full-powered notebooks dropping below $400 — the continued viability of the netbook sector is an open question.

Though netbook shipments are falling below manufacturers’ expectations, the inexpensive, low-powered devices appear to still be selling well. Pichai cited research figures from ABI research indicating that 35 million netbooks shipped in 2009, more than twice the number sold in 2008.

Manufacturers have yet to announce pricing on netbooks shipping with Chrome OS, but Google expects the cost to be about the same as current netbooks. On average, netbooks cost between $300 and $500.

Videos demonstrating Chrome OS’s user interface, security, fast boot and other features are below the jump.

Full Article:  @   http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/20/google.os/index.html