Practical cloud implementation for SMBs

February 20, 2012 By admin

In 2011, cloud computing was just a buzzword. 2012 is the year cloud becomes not just a trend, but a business plan. As this new technology matures, small and medium sized businesses will start to move their operations to the cloud, and here’s why:

  • There is no need to go offline or schedule maintenance hours
  • Faster implementation of changes
  • Increased scalability of IT
  • Freeing up of resources
  • Overall improved quality of IT

These benefits speak to small and medium sized businesses because they struggle with limited resources. If you’re ready to move forward with these changes, Dell has provided a practical implementation for moving your business to the cloud.

  1. Create an inventory of your current IT, such as number of users and infrastructure.
  2. Replace or re-purpose existing hardware with cloud infrastructure.
  3. Implement cloud infrastructure without interrupting existing services.
  4. Scale and make changes as your business grows.

Filed Under: Cloud, Dell Tagged With: , , ,

Delivering the gold standard

February 2, 2012 By admin

In the past year Enterhost achieved not one but two gold competencies in hosting and desktop through the Microsoft Partner Program. The gold partner status is the highest level of membership in the Microsoft Partner Program, but what did we have to do to get there?

1.          Eight Microsoft Certified IT Professionals had to pass the following exams:

  • Enterprise Messaging Administrator 2010
  • Database Developer 2008
  • Database Administrator 2008
  • Server and Directory
  • Enterprise Desktop Administrator on Windows 7

2.         Two sales and marketing employees were required to pass four online assessments.

3.         Ten customer references were submitted during the application process.

4.         One employee passed a Microsoft Licensing exam.

5.         Enterhost met a rigorous revenue commitment set by Microsoft.

We are telling you this because there are about 650,000 Microsoft partners out there, but the gold competencies are a rare find; only 5 percent of those partners have attained a competency, either silver or gold.

Our long-standing relationship with Microsoft ensures that we have the highest level of technical competency in the hosting industry. At Enterhost we strive to deliver the gold standard that brings peace of mind to our clients.

Filed Under: Development, Microsoft Tagged With: , ,

2011 Journey

December 30, 2011 By admin

The start of a new year presents an opportunity to look at the previous one and its accomplishments. 2011 was a great year for Enterhost, and these are just some of the highlights of this past year…

We launched our new cloud services. Microsoft approached us more than a year ago to build the infrastructure of our cloud servers. With all of the hype around the cloud, we were glad to be ahead of the game with our own product launch. We were proud of this launch, so we created a new website redesign featuring these new products and services.

We were featured in a Dell case study. Dell approached Enterhost to feature our new products and services in a case study. Enterhost emphasizes the quality of the all-Dell infrastructure our cloud is built on and believes the customer should be aware of the hardware their programs are running on. Based on this positioning strategy and the successful launch of our cloud services, Dell extended this opportunity to us.

We exhibited at conferences. We jumped into the conference world by first attending HostingCon in San Diego. That trip warmed us up and prepared us to plan for our exhibit with our own products and services. During the preparation process, we worked with our graphic designer to redesign our logo, create graphics and handouts for the conference. We then hit the road for our first exhibit experience at MSPWorld. Only one month later, we turned around and exhibited in Las Vegas for DevConnections, where our presence was loudly known thanks to our enthusiastic Corporate Magician, David Harris and our giveaway shirts which read “Does this shirt make my code look big?”

We created our own channel program. Along with our first exhibiting experience, we created our own channel program and launched it in conjunction with MSPWorld. A channel program is something that has been in the works for a while and we were proud to announce this new opportunity for anyone looking to resell our products and services.

We pursued our green initiatives. We updated one-third of our AC units to the most energy-efficient data center air condition systems available on the market. We will continue to replace the rest of the units in a three year period.

We were showcased in Dell’s catalogue. Dell’s team hand-picked us to take part in a photo shoot for Dell’s fall catalogue. We spent a day in our data center with photographers, make-up artists, and lighting specialists to complete this photo-shoot. It was definitely a new experience for us!

With everything that took place in 2011, we are already imagining and planning for the potential and growth coming in 2012. This month marks the twelfth year of Enterhost’s existence; not only are we looking forward to the next year, but also to the next decade of anticipating new industry trends and evolving as a leader in the hosting sector.

–Carissa Cotner, Marketing Coordinator

Filed Under: Channel Partner Program, Cloud, Development Tagged With: , , , , ,

Enterhost gets the conversation going at Connections Conference

November 7, 2011 By admin

“Does this shirt make my code look big?”

That was the conversation starter that attracted numbers of attendees to gather around the Enterhost booth at the Connections Conference. Since the event was held in Las Vegas, we figured we could bring some humor to the exhibit floor by creating a standup mannequin resembling a young Bill Gates to model our giveaway shirts.

Everyone did a double take as they walked by our booth. We were glad to see so many people interacting with Bill because it tied in perfectly with our conference promotion. Anyone who emailed a picture to sales@enterhost.com with a picture of themselves wearing our t-shirt or standing next to Bill would receive a coupon code for $100 off their first cloud or dedicated server purchase.

Bill served as a perfect ice breaker – the attendees found Bill so hilarious that they flocked to our booth. From there, we led the conversation to talk about the Enterhost cloud and our unique offerings.

Within the first hour of the exhibit hall opening, we had a line of people snaking around our booth waiting for their t-shirt and picture with Bill. It was crazy!

Enterhost saw the Connections Conference as a perfect match for us since we would be speaking directly to web developers. With Enterhost, they wouldn’t have to handle the worries of a datacenter and could host all of their Windows applications with us. Our cloud solutions include mobile application infrastructure, SQL server, SharePoint, Exchange, Lync, and really any other Windows application that you can throw at us.

We came back the second day of exhibiting just as strong as day one. We flew in David Harris, corporate magician, to perform magic tricks and engage the conference goers.

Attendees gathered around our booth in large numbers. We even started to see repeat visitors of our booth. At one point, the exhibit hall was completely empty except for our booth where a group of about 20 people were watching David’s show. David did a phenomenal job of getting people’s attention and spreading the word about Enterhost’s cloud services.

By the third day of the conference, we saw attendees walking around in the Enterhost gear we were giving out. Aside from the t-shirt, the hats were the most popular!

Thanks to all of the hype around our booth, we brought the cloud conversation out in full force. What we found was that even for the most tenured, tech savvy developers and IT pros, the cloud remains quite fluffy and ambiguous.

The people at the conference were primarily collecting information about new industry trends, asking lot of good questions and some even a little cautious about broaching the cloud topic at all.  The cloud is something that seems far off in the future for many users.

Our goal is to bridge the gap between their current operations and future goals by making the cloud a reality. At the very least, we were highly successful in setting in motion the cloud conversation at Connections Conference 2011.

–Carissa Cotner, Marketing Coordinator

Filed Under: Cloud, Conference, Tradeshow Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Channel Partner Program Launch at MSPWorld

September 19, 2011 By admin

 

Enterhost exhibited at the MSPWorld Conference in Austin, Texas last week (September 13-15, 2011) as a Silver Sponsor. We decided to launch our Channel Partner Program at the conference and in honor of this debut, we offered an incentive for all attendees. Anyone who signed up for the program at the booth or online automatically joined the program with Silver level benefits, rather than registered.

You may be wondering why we waited until this conference to introduce our channel program; we feel that MSPs are a good fit for our offerings and MSPWorld provided the opportunity to speak directly to that audience.

Now more than ever MSPs have the opportunity to provide cloud services as their clients and potential clients look into migrating to the cloud. An article on Channel Insider points out this chance for MSPs to capitalize on this trend in the ever-changing industry.

Building your own infrastructure to provide cloud services is no easy task, which is why Enterhost is offering its existing and established network for MSPs to take advantage of and present to end-users.

Our team headed down to Austin to set up on Monday. Assembling the booth went smoothly with the help of David from Skyline, who was involved with the order of the booth hardware and graphics.

On Tuesday, Enterhost sponsored the refreshment breaks and a workgroup session.

Rob Scott with Scott & Scott LLP spoke about cloud contracting for MSPs. The room was packed by the time the session started but people kept filtering in! Later that evening, the exhibit floor opened with a network reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. where the attendees were introduced to our booth and Channel Program for the first time.

Wednesday was our longest day of exhibiting, from 11:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. The news about our channel program had gone out the day before, and we found out that our program had been featured on the MSPMentor blog. Additionally, our news release was posted to the MSPNews home page, the main distributor of information related to MSPWorld.

At the end of the day, we had a small breather to go out to dinner and experience the Austin evening scene. It was a good opportunity to get to know the employees from our other offices that I don’t see on a day-to-day basis.

The last day of exhibiting also meant that we got to raffle off our giveaways! The first winner of the drawing opted for the Xbox with Kinect, which left the Bose Noise Cancellation headphones to the second raffle winner.

Our team packed up after the exhibit floor closed on Thursday and headed back to Fort Worth. We received so many compliments about the design of our booth and successfully got the word out about our new channel program. We look forward to starting the journey with our new partners, gathering feedback, and becoming a leading Channel Partner in the hosting industry.

–Carissa Cotner, Marketing Coordinator

 

Filed Under: Channel Partner Program, Conference, Tradeshow Tagged With: , , , , , ,
« Older Posts