New servers and new datacenter
equals good news for clients!

March 21, 2011

We're excited to announce that we've purchased two brand new Dell PowerEdge R310 servers to replace our existing web server. The new servers sport fast Intel Xeon Dual Core CPUs, 8GB of RAM, 1TB of drive storage and are running the latest Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 operating system (IIS 7.5) and Microsoft SQL 2008 database software.

For the protection of our client data we're backing up the server (files, email, databases) nightly to 2x1TB hard drives. We're also running a dedicated Cisco ASA 5505 hardware firewall which filters internet traffic to and from the server.

The old server where our client web sites ran was more than five years old and was starting to show its age. We also moved from a single server setup to having a dedicated server just for the web sites and then the second server for databases and email hosting. By separating these primary functions it will lighten the load on the CPU and give each system a dedicated job to do, thus improving efficiency and speed.

Along with the hardware and software upgrades we also moved datacenters. We've been running out of a datacenter in Boston and are now at a local datacenter in Franklin, Wisconsin. Being closer to the physical hardware will allow us to perform maintenance and upgrades easier and in a more cost effective manner compared to paying a 3rd party (out of state) to work on the systems. With the datacenter being local and our clients also being local this should improve site responsiveness as well. When data has to move across the country and through many different computer systems to get from point A to point B there's bound to be a certain amount of lag involved. The shorter the distance between the web server and your visitors the better.

We'll slowly migrate all our client web sites, databases, file backups and email accounts to the new servers in the coming months. Depending on the complexity of each site we may communicate the move with clients ahead of time or simply let them know once their site has been moved. Each site will be thoroughly tested to be sure everything is functioning as expected after the migration has been completed.

This is an exciting upgrade for us and all of our clients. Web sites on these new servers should be noticeably faster, provide plenty of room for expansion and handle increased traffic for years to come. Now let's start driving some real traffic to your sites so we can see what the servers can do!

Eric Stoffers
Owner, ProActive Design LLC