In preparation for the OnTime 2007 Web Hosted rollout, we've made a number of upgrades to our data center infrastructure.

A Little About Axosoft Data Center, Limelight Networks

If you don't already know, we lease data center space from Limelight Networks.  Limelight has state of the art facilities in Tempe, AZ, less than 10 miles from Axosoft headquarters.  Their location is great for us as we are able to visit the data center in less than 20 minutes if we need to for an emergency, but besides the location, Limelight has one of the best facilities, network connectivity and redundant networks in all of Arizona. 

Here are some highlights of Limelight Networks that might be of interest to prospective OnTime hosting customers who want to make sure their OnTime installation is in a respectable facility:

• Limelight Networks recently obtained $130 Million in Funding led by Goldman Sachs Capital Partners
• Limelight Network Operations Center proactively monitors Network connectivity 24 hours per day, 7 days per week
• Fully redundant Internet connectivity through multiple back-bone providers gives as much as 750Gb of bandwidth availability!!!
• Fully redundant power connectivity with battery backup and diesel-based power generators to operate the entire data center in case of a blackout
• Fully redundant air conditioning for data center temperature control
• Fire and Smoke Detection System with three separate FM-200 Gas-based (rather than water-based) fire suppressant systems protect the facilities in case of fire
• 24 Hour Physical Security ensures that the wrong people are not able to access the data center's production areas
• Limelight provides content delivery for Amazon's Unbox and Microsoft XBox Live!

I think it's safe to say that Limelight's Tier 1 facility is top notch and something that can be trusted for providing mission critical applications.

A Little About Axosoft's Equipment

Even the best data center in the world can't save an application that's run on old, rusty, no-name hardware.  That's why Axosoft has invested in state of the art Dell servers and in preparation for OnTime 2007 release, we've upgraded the OnTime hosting hardware to use the 9th generation Dell PowerEdge 1950 servers.  Each of these 64-bit, 2 x 3Ghz Dual-Core XEON systems is fully equipped with the latest Intel 5160 processors, a minimum of 4GB of RAM (16GB on SQL Servers), redundant power supplies and redundant disk systems (RAID 1 for system and RAID 5 for data).

For SQL Data storage, we've also made significant upgrades going with an external Dell PowerVault MD1000 disk enclosure.  This system can grow to 45 x 500GB SATA II drives providing as much as 22 Terabytes of raw disk space (before RAID).

All systems are connected internally on dedicated gigabit switches and externally, going through a firewall, they're connected through a 100Mb Internet connection (soon to be upgraded to a gigabit connection) to Limelights's redundant Internet connection.  All this bandwidth provides OnTime users with so much bandwidth that we're utilizing less than 5% of our committed bandwidth as of right now.  But we're planning for growth!

So What Does All This Mean?

The short answer is that Axosoft's OnTime Hosting Infrastructure can be trusted for mission critical applications.  If the hardware and redundancy that I described above is significantly more robust than your internal IT infrastructure and you want to be up and running with OnTime 2007 in less than 60 seconds, then the OnTime hosting service might be right for you.  But of course, as always, we're going to provide installed versions of OnTime for customers who's own IT infrastructure is sufficient for their needs.