Multibase hosting environment
Multibase manages its own hosting environment, located at Fujitsu Australia’s Internet Data Centre in North Ryde, NSW.
Reliable hardware
Multibase’s principal server hardware supplier is Dell Computer. Equipment is protected by same day service agreements, and specialist consultants are readily available for technical support.
Security
Multibase’s hosting environment is protected in a fully integrated building management system. This facility is a highly secure, world class centre. Strict access protocols, 24 hour security guards, CCTV and biometric hand readers protect the data centre from unauthorised access. The Multibase environment is locked and is only accessible to senior Multibase staff.
Internet bandwidth
The hosting environment provides a high-speed, guaranteed bandwidth, local area network connection to the Internet. Broadband Internet access is provided by a fully redundant meshed carrier class network and four telecommunications providers. Multibase’s current dedicated upstream Internet connection is 10 megabits, which is underloaded for existing requirements. This can burst to 150 megabits. Customers select the amount of data traffic they require.
Data traffic and storage
Data storage and data traffic allowances are calculated on your web site files only. Mailbox storage and traffic is therefore allowed in addition to web site files. To reduce data traffic surprises, we calculate data traffic and storage on a rolling 12 month average. Reasonable use provisions apply.
Power
The facility provides Multibase with redundant power to its network, with generators, UPS and other power management tools to filter power irregularities. Multibase staff have remote access to remote power monitoring and management, including restarts, for after hours and remote management.
Border security
Multibase manages its own firewall systems, with an industry standard stateful packet inspection firewall and redundancy. Network access rules are restrictive, for example telnet is not allowed to any server and FTP is severely restricted since both these provide significant security risks. A typical specialist hosting package includes a static IP address to allow specific firewall rules for the customer web site e.g. if SMTP is not required, we can institute a rule to drop all attempts to use for mail, or we can log specific events as required.
Monitoring
Servers are monitored using the industry-standard What’s Up? Gold, which is accessible both during business hours and remotely by Multibase staff. Specific customer services can also be added to the monitoring system if required, as can remote notifications by SMS or other means in the case of failure reports. Multibase’s office is located only a few blocks from the data centre, so personal attendance at the data centre by our staff can be organised during business hours. The centre is also accessible to authorised Multibase staff around the clock.
Backup
Specialist servers are added to the backup schedule by default unless they have individual tape drives. Backups are compressed and written to hard disk, then transferred to tape. At any time, we have the previous day’s backups ready to be restored from tape if required. Tapes are cycled daily, and an offsite backup is undertaken weekly and stored in a fireproof safe.
Skilled technical support
Multibase technical staff have wide experience which is readily available. If required, Multibase can support the web site owner’s individual applications or web site under separate service agreements. This is typically the case when we are also the developers for the project. This has speed, reliability and cost advantages, because our technical staff are familiar with all aspects of a complex project and the environment that it requires for smooth operation.
Software environments
The typical Unix environment is Debian Linux base, SSHD, secure FTP (Proftpd) and the web server (Apache). Customers have access to Multibase’s server for mail. Alternatively, we can install a Mail server (Postfix). Other RPM packages are also available e.g. MySQL/PHP, PostgresSQL. A GUI e.g. PHPMyAdmin can be provided for server management, with appropriate security restrictions.
The Windows environment is Windows 2003, IIS5, SQL Server. (Shortly: Windows Server 2003, IIS 6, SQL Server, .NET Framework.
Operating system management
Server operating systems are managed by our specialist consultants on a daily basis. Our consultants monitor both our servers and the available information about the status and security of the operating system software, and apply appropriate patches and upgrades as recommended by vendors.