Concentric®
One Account. Countless Options.
September/October 2007 Newsletter
- New GroupWare Menu Tab and Additional Quick Tips
- Concentric Helps Customer “Go Green”
- Microsoft® SQL Server™ Beta Test
- Use mod_rewrite to Create More User Friendly URLs
- New PEP Features
- Perimeter Email Protection Featured on World Business Review
- Concentric Helps Customer “Go Green”
GroupWare Menu Tab and Additional Quick Tips
Based on feedback from our customers, we have added a new GroupWare Menu Tab and additional Quick Tips. The GroupWare Menu Tab gives you a quick snapshot of your tasks and meetings on a single page. You can even make this new screen your landing page when you log into the UI. Additional Quick Tips make GroupWare easier to use so you can be more productive.
Collaboration Mode is still free while we continue product development. Master, Domain, or User Administrators can set up users for the Collaboration Mode in the GroupWare Settings page for each user. To enable Collaboration Mode, go to the Concentric Center and under the user tab select Manage | GroupWare Settings.
Future enhancements will include revisions to the appointment/meeting maker, GroupWare Examples Guide, and the GroupWare Connector. With the GroupWare Connector you can synchronize your GroupWare data with your favorite Microsoft® Outlook® program. This connector also offers Exchange®-like features at a much more affordable price.
We will be contacting some of you soon to find out what you like or dislike about GroupWare. This is your chance to help design a new product the way you want to use it! Your feedback is always welcome. Please go to the Help sub-tab in the GroupWare sub-tab and select “Feedback.”
Concentric Helps Customers “Go Green”
Many trees and electrons have been sacrificed lately on the subject of power consumption from network servers and data centers. The combination of large servers with many disk drives running 24×7 in densely-packed racks leads to extensive cooling needs, which requires still further power. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently published a study suggesting that server power consumption is currently 1.5% of total electrical consumption across the US, having doubled in five years, and will double again in another five.*
The same problems apply even to small businesses running their own infrastructure—a router, a firewall, a couple mail servers for redundancy, a local file server, and a Web server add up to a data closet that may well require some dedicated cooling capacity and will easily add up to a couple kilowatts or more in constant consumption. In comparison, my whole house (admittedly after a lot of power tuning) only draws about 550 watts sustained during the summer, including computers.
One way to reduce the overall power footprint of your information services is to outsource parts of the infrastructure. If you’re reading this as a Concentric customer, then you’re probably already doing this to some degree. Service providers can achieve higher energy efficiency by aggregating customers onto larger, more efficient hardware and can similarly run more efficient power and cooling systems in large facilities. And rather than having to double server capacity to support redundancy, this can be achieved in the large scale with n+1-type redundancy: as ‘n’ — the number of discrete units of capacity — increases, the total amount of resources ‘wasted’ in redundancy decreases as a share of the overall resource pool.
Concentric provides further advantages to help reduce power consumption and improve the environmental footprint of our services. Our patented service delivery platform is aggressively clustered and load balanced for greater service efficiency, allowing us to move resources dynamically where needed in a much more effective fashion than traditional application hosting. And since we manage our own facilities, we have invested significant time and money in making our environment as efficient as possible. Right now we’re working closely with the electrical utility to greatly improve the efficiency of our cooling systems, which will drop total power consumption by over 20%, on average.
Another area where we have significant power advantages is in our software. There has been a lot of media attention lately about the changes in processor architecture and the impact on software development—that new CPUs are growing in cores and parallel threads much more aggressively than their clock speeds are increasing. This requires a fundamental change in approach to software development as applications must move towards aggressive parallelism to take advantage of the new hardware. For Intel’s take on this, you might want read the article referenced below.**
At Concentric, we’ve been designing our software to be aggressively multi-threaded (parallel) for almost ten years, and so our servers run extremely efficiently on our newest servers, which sport up to 24 effective CPUs through multi-core and multi-thread hardware, with the power draw of a single CPU system. Because of this, we have a significant efficiency advantage over standard open-source or commercial server software in our platform core. To go a step further, we’ve now started to deploy our new 24-processor Sun boxes with all solid-state drives, removing the last moving parts in the system and further improving the capacity-to-power-consumption ratio. As we deploy more and more of these new servers, we’re retiring (and cleanly recycling) dozens of old servers and consistently shrinking the power footprint while we expand our capacity.
Consequently, the power draw in our extensive server farm is under a single watt—per customer. Compare this to that kilowatt or more for the average set of dedicated servers for small businesses—the mainstay of our customer base—and you’ll see why we’re proud of the grid and environmental impact we can make through our technology.
Interested in what else you can do to improve your computational power footprint? Here are some simple steps you can take around your home or office to make your daily IT tasks more power efficient:
1) Monitor your power usage. You may be surprised at which systems are consuming the most power. Desktop systems can draw an inordinate amount of electricity (and put it all back out as heat); generally, the cutting-edge systems will be the least efficient, often by a huge margin compared to the second tier of performance, so that system that was cutting-edge three years ago may seem much slower now, but it’s still the same drain on your electrical bill.
You can get a rough estimate of your computer’s power draw by looking at the power supply rating. Desktop power supplies tend to range from 75 watts up to a kilowatt for high-end gaming systems and laptops are usually not much more than 100 watts. The latter will have their power rating (in watts) on the transformer brick, whereas desktop units may require disassembly. A better way to measure real power usage, and which works on any device with a plug is to use a P3 International Kill-a-Watt Electricity Usage Monitor (you can find one at Amazon.com), which will measure power draw in real time and also KwH over time. Compare to your power bill and you can significantly cut down on the monthly costs.
2) Right-size your systems. Consider replacing old high-end, and inefficient slow systems with more cost- and power-efficient systems, and don’t buy more computer than you need. High-end video cards are a notable drain on both budget and power, especially compared to onboard video. Consult your hardware vendor for how to select the most power efficient models. And remember to recycle your old equipment in an environmentally friendly fashion (your local waste management authority can tell you about resources in your local area that take electronic equipment.)
As an extreme case of how this can save money, I recently replaced my home server — firewall, vpn, fileserver, etc — which is running 24×7. The old server was an aged workstation, so it was a high-end box from many years past which was drawing sustained 120-150 watts even when idle. My new server draws 30 watts and cost around $100 (based on a VIA chipset for very low power). Sustained over a month, that alone saves about $8/month in power, paying for itself in a year, along with the intangible benefits of quieter and cooler operation.
3) Shut systems down when not in use. It’s easy, and common, to leave office computers on 24×7, but unless they actually have workloads overnight, it wastes power for at least half the day, and most desktop systems do not significantly scale down their power draw when idle.
4) Do the same with peripherals. Printers are especially guilty — some laser printers, even those with ‘powersave’ modes, still draw 30-40W of power while idle.
5) Outsource services wherever possible. Hosting email, Web, or file sharing with a service provider such as Concentric can significantly reduce the servers necessary in your data closet as well as saving time and money. Even if you have to run your own mail servers, consider a product like Concentric’s Perimeter Email Protection to reduce the load and server capacity necessary locally, and let the network and efficient server farms do more of the work for you.
No matter what their positions on climate change and energy sources, most subject matter experts agree that there is no ‘magic bullet’ to solve the growing burden of providing clean energy. Solving present and future challenges requires a combination of multiple conservation and efficiency techniques and new energy sources. Most of us won’t be inventing new power sources, but we can all take simple steps to improve our own power footprint.
David Schairer
Chief Technology Officer
Concentric, an XO Business
*EPA Report
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/prod_development/downloads/EPA_Report_Exec_Summary_Final.pdf
(warning, PDF link)
**Intel Article
http://news.com.com/Intel+Software+needs+to+heed++Moores+Law/2100-1012_3-6186765.html?tag=item
Microsoft® SQL Server™ Beta Test
We are now accepting Beta testers to test Microsoft’s premier database, SQL Server, on our Windows .NET hosting platform.
For MS Access Users - If you are using MS Access for your website, you are eligible to join our Beta program. We can even migrate your database to the Microsoft SQL Server for you. Start taking advantage of Microsoft SQL’s scalability, data integrity, and speed for your application today.
DotNetNuke Now Available – This popular content and community management system is now available for use on our hosting platform using Microsoft SQL Server. To begin using DotNetNuke, sign up as a Beta test user and we will send you details on how to get started.
To become a Beta tester, contact us at mssql_beta@concentric.com and include your name, phone number, business name, and your website URL. We’ll send you information about how to get started. You must be a current Windows hosting customer to participate in the Beta program. If you are not hosting your site with us, you can purchase a Windows hosting plan and then contact us about how to get started with the Microsoft SQL Beta test.
Use mod_rewrite to Create More User Friendly URLs
People use website URLs in many different ways; they send them via email to friends, post them on blogs, write them down, and give them out over the phone. Often, it’s not just a website home page they’re referring to, but a specific page on the website. The easier a URL is to remember the more traffic your site will get. Sometimes called the “Swiss Army Knife” of URL manipulation, Concentric now offers mod_rewrite for website developers who want to make URLs easier to use.
Shorter, descriptive URLs are more user-friendly. Many people remember URLs visually (even if they bookmark them, they’ll recognize simpler URLs more easily). With Concentric’s mod_rewrite, developers can change a URL like this:
http://www.incrediblyeasy.net?category=13245678912
Into something more memorable, like this:
http://www.incrediblyeasy.net/image/editors
More benefits:
- Better search engine optimization. You’ll get better results with fewer parameters in your URLs than longer, more complex ones.
- Tighter security. You can hide the inner workings of your site and decrease the danger of attack to your site.
- More functionality. Create dynamic images on your site with php/perl scripts.
For more information about mod_rewrite, log into the FAQs in the Concentric Center.
Looking for relief from excessive email volumes caused by spam? Perimeter Email Protection (PEP) is a robust, highly affordable perimeter solution that stops spam before it ever reaches your on-premise email server(s). Extend the life of your email infrastructure investment for about $1 per user per month without buying additional software or hardware. Please note that PEP is only for users have their own on-premise email servers.
New PEP features include:
PEP Logging
PEP Logging provides a summary of PEP processing for every inbound message, which you can then use for research or troubleshooting. PEP writes a daily log file you can view via the Concentric Center (or download via FTP). There will be more log entries for customers who enabled PEP with Concentric as Primary MX as opposed to Secondary MX, because for the former, all inbound email is first routed through PEP. Because these log files can become large (like our Web server logging controls), PEP Logging allows administrators to have our system automatically delete older logs. PEP Logging is optional and must be enabled by Account administrators.
PEP Logging provides a summary of PEP processing for every inbound message, which you can then use for research or troubleshooting. PEP writes a daily log file you can view via the Concentric Center (or download via FTP). There will be more log entries for customers who enabled PEP with Concentric as Primary MX as opposed to Secondary MX, because for the former, all inbound email is first routed through PEP. Because these log files can become large (like our Web server logging controls), PEP Logging allows administrators to have our system automatically delete older logs. PEP Logging is optional and must be enabled by Account administrators.
Easily Move Messages from Junk Mail Folder to Primary Server
This feature is for customers who have enabled PEP Filtering and selected the “Junk Mail Folder” as the mail handling option. Previously, if a message was mislabeled as junk mail (a “false positive”) and was quarantined in a user’s Junk folder, there was no easy way for that user to re-direct the message to their company’s on-premise email server so that it would be deposited in their inbox. Now, these users can simply view the message and click the “Mark as Not Junk Mail” link and follow the instructions. This option is available for both Standard and Premium Junk Filter users.
PEP Reporting
Account administrators can now enable automated daily, weekly or monthly email reports that provide concise, easy-to-understand tables and charts on your account’s PEP activity. Reports include:
- Total messages received, bounced, filtered, and passed (by domain name if your account is set up with more than one domain)
- User status (total counts with various PEP settings)
- Detailed pie chart of total message activity and disposition
- Messages per IP source country (top 25 countries by volume)
- Hourly traffic totals for various message types
- Top users in your account by message volume
This is a sample from an actual customer’s daily PEP report. On one day, PEP blocked or filtered 95% of their inbound mail volume.
To generate reports, administrators enter an email address and select daily, weekly, or monthly reports. To enable PEP or any of the above features, go to Menu Map | PEP and follow the instructions.
Perimeter Email Protection Featured on World Business Review
As part of a segment on email security, the World Business Review featured an interview with Nate Gilmore, Director of Sales & Marketing for Concentric, about Perimeter Email Protection. The highly respected news program with broad distribution is anchored by General Norman Schwarzkopf. General Schwarzkopf and Nate discussed how Perimeter Email Protection (PEP) helps reduce the increasing problem of spam and malicious email attacks.
The World Business Review conducted an on-location interview with PEP customer, Dan Winant, CIO, Gristedes. Gristedes is an upscale supermarket and online grocer in New York City. According to Mr. Winant, “Spam was out of control. We were getting 2000 spam messages a minute. It became critical when our email server began to freeze due to the volume loads. Whenever we were down, we lost emails from the outside world. To any business with an outside Internet sales presence, loss of orders or any customer communication is a very costly problem.
“PEP has exceeded all of our expectations. PEP gave us a layered defensive shield to stop spam from ever reaching our email servers. Our servers are back to running fast and efficiently, and we have the added peace of mind that comes from knowing we have email delivery backup.”
Call us at 866-500-9696 today to find out how PEP can help you.
About the World Business Review: The WBR is hosted by Norman Schwarzkopf and directed by Emmy Award winning Alan Levy. The show’s format is a news-magazine style and provides education about current business topics, trends, and issues in a variety of industries. WBR features on-location field footage illustrating business strategies and technology in their application along with commentary from leading corporate executives and industry experts.
® Copyright 2007 XO. All rights reserved. Concentric, Concentric logo, Impossibly Easy, and XO are trademarks of XO Communications, Inc. All other products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
This promotional message is brought to you by XO Communications, Inc., located at 11111 Sunset Hills Road, Reston, VA 20190. If you received this message in error or no longer wish to receive communications from XO about its products and services, you can opt out by logging into the Concentric Center, going to “Manage Users” and “Edit User Profile”. Select “No” for “Receive Newsletter” in the Preferences box.