Why Cloud Computing?
The cloud computing space has opened a flexible and financially attractive door for businesses and consumers of all types and sizes. The growth of Software as a Service (SaaS), and Infrastructure and Platform as a Service (IaaS and PaaS, respectively) has expanded the number of cloud solutions available in the public and private sectors. Continuously, more organizations take advantage of the simplicity and high-performance computing that the cloud can offer. These solutions will continue to be deployed and used worldwide to accomplish diverse goals on an unprecedented level. Businesses that want to simplify operations and make it easier for their customers to access services will move more aggressively toward integrating SaaS, IaaS, and/or PaaS into their business processes.
What is “the Cloud”?
Simply put, “the cloud” refers to a network of computers that is grouped together to provide virtual instances of servers that are not physically dependent upon a single server or machine. This helps with increased reliably, speed, and performance. When most customers think about “the cloud”, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure comes to mind. While both cloud providers are leaders in the Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, Adage selected Microsoft Azure as the go-to cloud platform for services deployment for the following reasons: full compatibility with the Microsoft technology stack, competitive pricing when used with other Microsoft products, and available philanthropy donation programs for the nonprofit organizations.
Hosting Your Website in the Cloud
Want to host your website in the cloud, but unsure how to set up, manage, and monitor the environment? Don’t worry, we can help. Adage offers cloud hosting and DevOps services that get your website solution hosted in the cloud and two managed services options to ensure that your cloud environment is secured and managed.
See components of each tier and further explanation below.
Managed Services Explained
Maintenance and Backups Management
Adage manages all file system and database backups in the cloud in addition to rectifying issues and updating any applicable backup software agents. Further details are available upon request.
Infrastructure and Website Monitoring
Adage collects real-time performance metrics of various cloud services while monitoring the web application globally and logs at the application level for debugging purposes. Further details are available upon request.
Infrastructure Security
Adage tests and deploys all security patches for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) deployments and performs quarterly MBSA vulnerability scans in identifying vulnerabilities. Further details are available upon request.
Performance Scaling
The client may provide specific dates of events where performance scalability is needed to handle the additional processing load and Adage will schedule a performance scale-up on the cloud services the night before the event and scale-down the night after the event to only use the additional performance of the cloud when necessary while maintaining low costs.
API Monitoring Dashboard
Adage creates a custom dashboard page within the primary website to monitor back-end API services and sends out alert notification emails when certain API services are unavailable to the website.
Notification Services
The client may provide up to five contacts to receive email and SMS alert notifications from the cloud infrastructure and website monitoring services.
Transaction Monitoring (Optional)
Transaction monitoring is an optional a la carte service that is used to monitor all aspects of the purchase path of a website. It works by employing multiple custom monitoring agents that emulate a real user going through the purchase process by performing the necessary steps to log in to an account, adding a product to a shopping cart, checks out the cart, and log out of the system.
