Fully Managed Hosting

All applications require a well-structured, secure and high-performing hosting platform and thats what Z4 delivers. But when your infrastructure is coupled with expert management, your hosting performance is taken to the next level. Fully Managed hosting solutions from Z4 provide database security, monitoring, backup and storage services.

Use the customer portal to get on-demand, up-to-the-minute information about your hosting infrastructure.

Process Overview

Steps	Description
Assess	Business expectations are examined IT implementation based on current and future technology needs
Design	Systems architecture is created (applicable for current and future use) Determination of how well work as an extension of your IT team
Maintain	Proactive management of your account We anticipate and mitigate risks to secure your IT infrastructure
Measure	Benchmarking of data to properly report the status of IT systems Gauge trends that might cause future changes Ongoing reviews via quarterly white board meetings and regular reports

Database Services

A senior (and super experienced) database administrator (DBA) reviews your current database implementation
A custom monitoring and response plan that includes threshold alerting on memory usage, CPU utilization, disk I/O performance and database capacity
Changes to your database environment will follow documented change control procedures for quick reference and user accountability
Optimization of your Microsoft SQL Server or MySQL Server environment
Get detailed performance reports through the customer portal on-the-spot
Monthly follow-up and review by your technical account manager and senior DBA

Security

Think of Z4 as your personal watch dog, we will review your current threat level and collaborate with you on the things that will keep your IT environment secure:

Your dedicated team will build hardened security systems using industry best practices, theyll reference organizations such as The Center for Internet Security (CIS) and Microsoft
A change control process identifies any security updates applied to your hosted infrastructure
Your security posture is kept up-to-date with monthly status checks and reports
Any updates to your security profile are applied to the original security plan for your business

Monitoring

No one can predict the future, but proactive thinking can help weather potential storms. Z4 makes accurate predictions by scalability. Our monitoring strategy starts with an escalation procedure, your dedicated team is the first line of defense if something seems out of sorts:

Monitoring is based on industry-accepted best practices
Information is integrated into a run-book, specific to your business
We identify relationships of monitored systems, define components to monitor and develop proper monitoring thresholds
Custom logs are identified to monitor and develop customized remediation plans
We proactively assess monitored data to predict and prevent system bottlenecks

Storage

Whats a storage engineer to do? At Z4, he or she will recommend and manage the best storage solution for your business. We collaborate with you from the jump to develop the right capacity growth plan that will evolve with your business. The plan is evaluated during monthly reviews to prepare for any required changes.

We collaborate with you to design a high performance and highly available storage infrastructure
Your current storage needs are defined and we will give you options that include high-availability storage, iSCSI vs. Fiber Channel Network, or SATA vs. Fiber Channel Disk Drives
We ensure that performance bottlenecks in your environment are kept at bay
We help anticipate spikes in storage needs and manage growth by preparing migration scenarios for larger storage systems
We monitor your storage utilization and produce Aggregate Storage Usage reports,
Performance metrics such as disk I/O, are reviewed to ensure your storage system is never the bottleneck
Snapshots and data replication are monitored to make sure your data is always available

Backup

Having a backup plan should never be an afterthought, especially when it comes to your IT infrastructure. With Fully Managed hosting, youll get a customized continuity plan can handle ANY disaster and keep you up and running.

Backup strategy is set during the initial consultation
Backup activity is put onto a separate network to isolate traffic and identify impact activities
Your comprehensive backup and recovery plan defines backup retention periods and identification of backup exclusions specific to your business
Backup encryption options and application-specific backup strategies are recommended
Rigorous backup verification procedures are performed to make sure your data is available when you need it
Data integrity is verified for each backup session; Get optional test-recovery strategies and scheduled backups during off-peak hours
Get regular aggregate backup usage reports and alerts that show successful backup sessions, critical trends and impending limits so you can plan for additional capacity