Windows 8 Consumer Preview – Are You Ready for the Beta Version?

March 19, 2012 By admin

Microsoft recently released the Windows 8 beta available for “Consumer Preview.” A blogger for The Windows Blog describes this new version as a “reimagined Windows” experience. Windows 8 is designed to work on a wide range of devices, from laptops and desktops to tablets. The interface is supposed to minimize the time spent navigating so you can focus on what you actually want to do.

Windows 8 has some new features that you haven’t seen with previous versions. It is touch-enabled, but because the monitor needs to support multi-touch, it requires additional hardware. It also includes a “Snap Apps” feature which allows two running applications to sit side by side on your monitor, but you need a screen resolution of at least 1366 x 768.  Lastly, you can move between Windows 8 PCs meaning you can access your data from anywhere.

But before you install the Consumer Preview, there are a few things you should know:

  • It’s a work in progress – there is still a lot of work to be completed before it’s ready for the final release.
  • There is no official support for the preview, so make sure you’re comfortable with new technology.
  • Carefully review the hardware specifications:
  1. Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster
  2. RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
  3. Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
  4. Graphics card: MicrosoftDirectX 9 graphics device or higher

One last thing – just for giggles. When you download the preview, you will see this background image.

My co-worker asked if I understood what it meant – and I said, “He’s stuck in a bowl?” Immediately after I said my first answer, I corrected myself and said, “OH! It’s a BETA fish!”

You can download the preview here. Enjoy!

-Carissa Cotner, Marketing Coordinator

Filed Under: Microsoft Tagged With: ,

Data center building binge

March 7, 2012 By admin

According to a recent article posted on GigaOm, of the top five U.S. construction projects in 2011, two were data centers.

A data center primarily houses computer systems and storage networks, normally used for redundancy or backups. They became popular during the dot-com boom when companies needed facilities for large-scale operations. With the recent trend in cloud computing, there has been an increased demand for data centers, thus the “building binge” that GigaOm is referring to. But building and hosting a data center is not for the meek. Data centers are scrutinized more than ever to have the highest levels of both security and reliability.

We know a thing or two about these beasts. Enterhost operates in a 20,000 square foot data center below ground level located in Fort Worth, Texas. We have fully redundant power and HVAC with triple power grid feeds, we house a 1.25 MW Generator with ATS and our facility requires over 300 tons cooling. It’s serious business.

In case you didn’t catch it, WHIR mentioned Enterhost  in an article last year about the updates we made to our data center to make our AC units more energy efficient. We also reengineered our space to offer virtualization and cloud computing solutions to reduce the number of physical servers. It’s not easy being green, but it’s worth it.

If you are someone who likes visuals, check out the virtual tour of our data center. Let us know if you are looking for some IT real estate.

 

Filed Under: Datacenter Tagged With: , ,

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: , , , , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »