ServePath Blog

If you answered NO to the question in the title of this article, then you run the risk of not being able to handle traffic loads as well as not have application or server redundancy with your architecture. Believe it or not, your customers DO have a requirement that your site or application be resilient or highly available…they just want it to work whenever they access it. To that end, your infrastructure must scale as well as be redundant, especially should your infrastructure encounter an issue rendering a server as unavailable.

With a properly architected load-balanced network, your site can handle spikes of load more elegantly, minimizing performance issues when the demand peaks. Similarly, if you want to maintain a high-availability website, server outages or issues should be minimized or hidden away from the end user. A correctly set up load-balanced network will automatically route traffic away from hardware that is having issues or not responding, thus preventing your users from seeing sluggishness or down-time.

At ServePath, we recognize the importance of providing solid and robust load balanced architecture offerings, part of the reason why we have chosen f5 to be our load balancing solution of choice.

We have recently revamped the Load Balancing page on the ServePath site in order to better explain the options available to you as well as provide some examples on how load balancing can (and should) be used. Some of the questions we answer are:

• What is a Load Balanced Server Network?
• How does a load balancer work?
• Who needs a Load Balanced Server Network?
• What are some examples of a Load Balanced Server Network?
• Why host your Load Balanced Network with ServePath?

What I like best about this updated section of the site are the different examples of Load Balanced Server Networks:

Simple Load Balanced Network

• F5 Load Balancing
• Web servers distributed across public switches

Load Balanced Network With a Firewall

Hybrid Load Balanced Network

• F5 Load Balancing Across ServePath & GoGrid Servers
• Cloud Connect
• Cloud Storage

Highly Available Load Balanced Network

• F5 Load Balancing
• High Availability Via Redundancy
• Gigabit Private VLAN

Remember, having a Load Balanced Network is only part of a “high availability” hosting solution. Frequently, you need to utilize other services (like backup & recovery, firewalling or replication) to ensure redundancy and resiliency of your server environment. You can even set up hybrid infrastructure environments that use Cloud Computing (with GoGrid) as your Web & Application environment and Managed Dedicated Servers (with ServePath) as your back-end database and high-I/O infrastructure.

We offer a variety of packaged or individual solutions to meet your hosting needs. Just ask one of our Sales Reps and they can definitely help you out.

ServePath has released version 2.3 of the Customer Portal located at https://my.servepath.com with immediate availability to all ServePath customers. While the entire portal continues to get enhancements and fine-tuning, there are a few items that I wanted to highlight that may be of greater importance and interest to ServePath customers. Namely:

• ServePath Backup & Disaster Recovery is now fully available within the Customer Portal
• Support Case creation now allows for “self-help” and “self case closure”
• DNS requests can now be managed directly from the ServePath Portal Dashboard

New My.ServePath.com Portal

The new Customer Portal has many of the often requested services now within the main dashboard page.

Quick Links include:

• Managed Backups – **updated** access the ServePath Backup & Disaster Recovery service (see below)
• Reboot Server – request for a server within your network be rebooted
• DNS Request – request DNS services
• Knowledge Base – view tips, suggestions, hints and other documentation within the Knowledge Base
• Security Scan – initiate a Security Scan on your environment
• Create a Case – **updated** Case creation tool (see below)
• View Existing Cases – view any open Support or Billing Cases
• View Invoices – view your most recent invoices and billing history
• Pro-Services – order a variety of services from the Professional Services & Consulting Division including:
  • OS Reloads
  • Server Duplication
  • LAMP setup
  • VPN configuration
  • Control Panel upgrades
  • Server Hardening
  • MySQL Configuration tuning
  • …and more!
• ServePath Status Blog – direct link to http://www.servepathstatus.com

Within the Dashboard you can also have the ability to see Network Status Updates, to initiate a Live Support Chat, Order Services & Hardware Upgrades and see headlines from the ServePath blog, among other things.

ServePath Backup & Disaster Recovery

ServePath offers a robust managed backup and disaster recovery service which is now accessible from within the ServePath Customer Portal. More details on this offering can be viewed here. Features and benefits include:

• Volume discounts for large storage requirements
• Easy to use web interface
• Server Cloning
• Restore specific files/folders within minutes
• Bare-metal restore and disaster recovery methods
• Thin provisioning – grow your storage allotment on-the-fly
• Disk-based data protection
• Point-in-time recovery
• Windows and Linux support
• Backup busy MySQL Servers without interruptions
• Customizable backup schedule (hourly/daily)

Schedule a backup:

Browse previous backups:

View details of your server:

View history of backups:

Create a Case

When you create a System, Billing, Professional Services or Network Case within the new ServePath Customer Portal, you now have the ability to fully drill down to a much more granular level within the same page. The process is simple: select a Category and subsequent Sub-Category. Then choose the Server(s) affected and the IP addresses of the server(s) in question. Add the additional Contact information (name, email, phone and anyone you want to copy on the case). Then be sure you create a detailed Description. Once you click the “Create Case” button, your case will be submitted to the appropriate division within ServePath. However, you will now also be presented with a list of Knowledge Base articles that may be related to the case you just created. Results are presented based on matching the Category, Sub-Category and Description. If you find a solution within that list, you can opt to close the case based on that suggested article. Note that the Knowledge Base can also be accessed without having to open a case.

We hope that you find this update to be useful and helpful. As always, we encourage feedback on this update and there is a “feedback” link within the top navigation bar of the Customer Portal.

Have you ever simply forgotten your password to your server or had someone change a login without you knowing it? Passwords seem to be the bane of my existence. I seem to have passwords of varying levels of complexity, based on the sites or machines that I am managing and my brain is not growing any younger. I simply cannot remember them all. So, if you are in that situation, we can now help (assuming you are a ServePath customer, that is).

The Professional Services Team at ServePath has been hard at work trying to better your experience as a customer (or potential customer). Professional Services can help with a wide variety of challenges, including:

• Web Server Configurations
• Custom Backup/Recovery Solutions
• Emergency Data Recovery for Downed or Compromised Servers
• Consultative Services

One of these items is that of Password Recovery. In the past, this type of Professional Services request incurred a minimum charge (typically starting around $150 and billed hourly thereafter). Now it is being offered for FREE! But before you try getting “unlocks” on all of your servers, here is some important information about this service:

• You MUST open a standard Support Case or Professional Services Case to start the process — this should be done through your My.ServePath.com Customer Portal
• Previously $150/hr, the INITIAL attempt using a variety of tools and procedures, is now considered a “value-added” service and is FREE — this initial attempt works without “undue complexity or time being spent”
• Should the initial attempt fail or have additional complexities, you can still proceed down a recovery path. However, this process is considered “paid consultation” and will incur hourly charges from Professional Services.
  • If successful, you are billed the amount of time spent to recover your password
  • If unsuccessful, you are only billed the minimum 1 hour charge of $150

The Professional Services Team’s toolsets and experience now allow for password recovery or resets on just about any Operating System that ServePath offers, and typically within minutes of attempting. Just be sure that you initiate the process with a Support or Professional Services Case in order to authorize the procedure.

So don’t fret…let ServePath’s Professional Services Team save the day!