Well it has been a VERY busy few months. Over the last few months we have been working to get all of our current clients realigned within our new servers, and set up some new great options for those folks. Now that I don’t have anything or anyone holding me back, I can offer things to clients that we previously wanted to hold back from.

Basically what that means is that I want to offer clients great products for their we solutions, and not hold back on anything, including third-party options. We have some great third-party applications that we can integrate into any client site. From complete eCommerce, Mailing Lists, and Webmail to Comprehensive Statistics, Message Boards, Live Help, and much much more!

I will be unvailing a new website soon, as well as a new location for my Blog(s). There have been some amazing growth and change opportunities over these last couple of months that have allowed me to grow the company and myself, and reach the goals that I had set up.

I want to offer my sincerest thanks to Mike Sansone, Phil Ripperger, Sreenu Raju, Steven Ekanger, Derek Alshouse, and of course the beautiful and enigmatic Jennifer Connett.

I will be launching a new site very soon, and send out an e-mail announcement regarding the launch.

To forward thinking…
Christian Connett

There has been a lot of talk across the web about TypePad having issues with slow service, downtime, etc, etc, etc. We all suffer downtime from time to time. That is why 90% of us providers have a 99.5% guarantee not a 100% uptime guarantee. Things happen, growth, unexpected power or hardware failures, software crashes… In light of this, I have to touch on a company that I have spotlighted over at ReciprocityBlog.com; TeamQuest Corporation; experts in IT Service Optimization and Capacity Planning. They are a software development company located in Clear Lake, Iowa. The specialize in Performance Management and Capacity Planning. The folks that work out there have tremendous knowledge and ability to rival the largest corporate conglomerates. I have seen first hand the quality, professional, and talented people that create the software, model it, and provide the marketing for it. Their sales staff is very friendly and will work with you to create a substantial ROI for your company. TypePad/SixApart would seriously benefit from implementing software solutions from TeamQuest. They would be able to future-cast issues with hardware, bottlenecking, etc. Check out the TeamQuest website…http://www.teamquest.com for more information. Read what IT Jungle had to say about them back in August 2005 http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh080805-story05.html#6 I highly recommend the solutions from TeamQuest Corporation.

I want this Blog to be more than just a forum for me to rant about what I think.  I want to know what you, the reader and client think.

 Leave your comments.  Let’s communicate, let’s conversate and get everything out in the open.

My Blog is your Blog… (almost).

 Christian

Since Hurricane Rita has swept us off our feet, literally, I decided to post some thoughts on Contingency Planning. We had to seriously re-evaluate our hosting and application facilities, and take into consideration that businesses that we support.

We do not have much lead way to have any of our systems down for more than a few hours. Personally, I think that 24 hours is pushing it. But, with the proper contingency planning, that can be more than just a fantasy. We did not have any emergency plan, or contingency if anything happened to our facilities. We took it for granted that the systems never went offline for more than an hour during the last Hurricane. But, did we ever get a wake up call!

I recently met with a great friend, Phil Ripperger about some of our needs and contingency. I have also had conversations with Addison Zugg at DataVision, Inc., and I have also talked with one of our competitors whom I admire… Michael Bird at Spindustry Systems.

Phil and I talked about a few different options, but decided on what we thought would be the best options. Here are a few companies that we discussed for our contingency planning.

TextDrive - Hosting Strongspace - Storage Facilities

Combined with our new Contingency plan, we can have simultaneous back-ups, and mirrored files. Here is the simple breakdown structure for what we are doing:

We continue to develop, host, and manage sites as we have been. We run scripts every fifteen minutes to check that our servers, including database and e-mail, are running properly. If there are any issues, we will be notified within 15 minutes of the issue. Most of the time, the script will seek out and resolve the issues. At the same time, all files, including database but not including e-mails (security policy), will be backed up to TextDrive AND Strongspace. If our normal servers are down for any reason, we simply point our DNS/Sites to TextDrive facilities. We also have a continuous back up at Strongspace. With this double redundant back up structure, we will be able to maintain complete file structure and web presence.

Our 99.5% uptime guarantee may change to 99.9%… Now the bad news… Our cheap, super low priced hosting fees have to go up to compensate for the added contingencies. These fees will simply aid in the hosting process. I am certain that our clients (you) will understand this, and appreciate the added security that your web sites, applications, e-mail, and data will not be lost or offline for more than a few hours at the most. We are working on this Contingency Plan and Emergency Plans, and should have them in place by the end of 2005.