Tag Archives: managed hosting

Colocation: Managed or unmanaged?

Constant investments in your IT assets can result in a competitive advantage, increased efficiency, and even in a higher revenue for your company. On the other hand, with the vastly evolving nature of technology, high upfront investments in sophisticated IT infrastructure might be risky. Combining the unsteady nature of IT and the fluctuating, global economy, colocation might be a perfect solution to this dilemma.

Colocation buyers can profit from their provider’s cutting-edge data centre infrastructure including cooling, raised floors, and surveillance, while paying just for the rack space they are using. Moreover, colocation services are easily scalable (read more about the advantages of colocation hosting). However, having decided to colocate your web hosting with an external colocation service provider is only half the battle. There is the other important question of managed versus unmanaged colocation?

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7L Attains New Domain, Updates Branding

SevenL Networks, a leader in managed hosting, dedicated servers, and colocation, has attained the 7L.com domain for their business operations after much negotiation. While their title of incorporation will remain as SevenL Networks for the time being, the company will be updating all future branding under the new 7L label.

Toronto, Ontario, February 09, 2012

Managed web server provider SevenL Networks Inc. has attained the 7L.com domain for an undisclosed amount from a private owner. For years the company attempted to come to an agreement with the previous owner of the domain, but difficulties arose during the many negotiations, most often pertaining to price-point.

The company now plans to brand the organization as 7L, a name that is often already used affectionately by customers to identify the hosting company, and has already begun using the brand in customer communications.

Co-founder Cassius Adams states, “I’m very excited that the process is finally over and that there was a mutual agreement. We now have a website address that’s different enough for people to take notice of the new brand, but not so different that our customers get confused. Plus, having a short, simple, two-letter domain is fantastic. Very cool. Not many online businesses can claim the same.”

The domain offers huge opportunity for the company as it begins catering to increasing demand for managed web hosting solutions from its customers. “Managed hosting clients are generally less caught up in the technical details of their web hosting service” says Adams. “Just keep things simple and make it work is what we usually hear from them. How better to compliment that line of thought than with a ridiculously-simple domain?”

7L will continue to operate internally under its official title of incorporation, SevenL Networks Inc., for the foreseeable future.

About SevenL Networks Inc.
SevenL Networks equips business owners with tailored IT hosting solutions that drive success and secure peace of mind. Their services lineup includes managed and unmanaged dedicated servers, virtual private servers (VPS), cloud hosting, colocation, and other data center services. The company operates out of it’s privately-owned data center in Toronto, Canada.

Why Managed Hosting Matters

As many of you know, first impressions have a lasting impact. Remember the first time you:

had your first kiss
doing your practical driving school examination
installing SVN incorrectly and getting fired because you had a major #FAIL for losing 6 months of code (hopefully not to many ppl had that happen)
Your first beer even?

… You get the picture.

First impressions can also have a lasting impact on your business; especially if you aren’t there to personally speak to your potential customers or clients. The odds are that one of the first interactions your customers will have with your business is through your website. Now design & functionality aside, it’s the backend that will be responsible for providing a smooth & seamless experience for your website’s visitors. They want to get the information they want as efficiently as possible, without being impeded by slow load times or various 500 “wtf” server errors.

Take a new website launch for example. You’ve just launched your new venture to an eagerly awaiting public who’s just itching to explore your site, browse your products and make purchases from you. But suppose you didn’t give enough consideration to the back end hosting requirements. The site goes live, you servers are overloaded, and your visitors can barely load the homepage. Think they’ll be understanding? Doubtful. Take newly launched WIND Mobile, one of Canada’s newest wireless providers. They recently launched this week with much anticipation & as soon as their site went live, it became quite apparent that their hosting back endcouldn’t handle all the traffic. Load times were unbearable and their visitors took note. Just look at some of these comments posted by visitors to the company’s various social media accounts and web forums:

wind1

wind6 wind2 wind3 wind4 wind5

These problems aren’t just limited to new website launches too; backend problems can plague established websites as well. Advertising campaigns, word of mouth, seasonality or just plain exposure can cause your daily traffic to spike. Now this is great, but if your visitors can’t get the information they want & have a pleasant user-experience, then it:

reflects poorly on your brand,
leaves a bad impression in their minds ,
costing you money both in the short & long term

For example, several major online retailers such as Hewlett-Packard, Kohl’s and Staples websites weren’t prepared for Black Friday traffic and their reputations paid the price. A recent article by Internet Retailer found that over the Thanksgiving weekend, HPShopping.com had an average response time over 7.79 seconds, over 3 times slower than the top 50 retailer average of 2.25 seconds. Same goes for Staples.com & Kohls.com; both sites experienced slow response times & site crashes. This means disgruntled visitors & higher bounce rates, leaving customers to go to the competitor’s websites with (what was supposed to be) your money. The effects on your company’s brand & reputation are also far reaching. Just look at these blog and forum postings by disgruntled visitors:

staples kohls

Customer service, website functionality & design aside, these cases could have been prevented.

Hello frustrated, confused client. Meet SevenL Networks Inc.

Having a reliable hosting provider that pro-actively monitors and manages your servers. SevenL’s Managed Hosting packages provide you with hassle-free dedicated hosting, meaning that your company’s website is running smoothly. Period.

Our Relentless Customer Support means that we will be with you at a moment’s notice should a problem arise and we will not stop until the problem is resolved. Plus, our 99.9% guaranteed uptime and advanced firewall & security features further protect your servers, giving you piece of mind. Managed hosting solutions give the opportunity to focus on running your business without having to worry about complex technical details. Our managed server plans start at just $299 a month, and every managed server plan includes:

Still have questions about the benefits of managed hosting or on our managed hosting plans? Feel free to give us a call and we’ll be more than happy to find a solution to your business’s hosting needs.