Data Centre Facilities

The Data Centre at GOSS is a state-of-the-art facility that allows GOSS Managed Services to provide services at the highest level to all our clients. It is within our own secure facilities and directly under the control of our highly qualified staff, who monitor the facilities 24/7.

At GOSS we have been hosting mission-critical transactional websites and intranets for over five years. We are a unique hosting partner by virtue that we also provide full application support for our own range of content management products and solutions.

Security

With an enormous amount of products and services now available online, security measures are crucial to prevent any accidental or malicious attacks. To ensure the security of our clients sites, we implement the following:

Firewall Protection
All servers within the GOSS network have firewall protection to eliminate external breaches and attacks.

Passwords
All systems are secured with passwords that are based around the operating system. Granular security enables you to choose who has what rights, providing complete control over user access.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
This is an Internet Protocol, which means that data is transmitted securely over an encrypted channel.

Monitoring
Monitoring is constant across all major security bulletins and ensures that our engineers are immediately notified should a problem arise.

Virus Protection
Provides protection against any unwanted processes that may be of an malicious nature.

Reporting & Analysis

Using Log Analyser software and iCM functionality, GOSS Managed Services offers a powerful reporting system, which enables you to utilise the service to achieve usable statistics. In addition, GOSS Managed Services offers reporting and analysis tools relating to security logging, server performance and site tuning.

Server Performance
By using analysis tools, each individual server and service can be carefully calibrated to achieve optimum efficiency.

Site Tuning
The logging and analysis capability allows the GOSS Managed Services team to advise you how best to set up services in order to attract the most users to the desired areas.

Enterprise Server Capability

GOSS Managed Services supports two of the largest and most popular enterprise databases currently available: Microsoft SQL and Oracle. Our expertise in dealing with these products allows us to optimise our web services to deliver pages quickly and efficiently.

Operating Systems

Our highly skilled engineers are experienced in a range of operating systems from Microsoft Windows NT / 200x to Sun Solaris and various Unix clones. If the services that you implement rely on platform dependent software, we will ensure that it operates on that particular system. Additionally, we understand that clients may have preferred systems, which they wish to use; with this in mind, we can accommodate requests for preferred hardware or software.

Reliability & Robustness

Safety features such as fire suppression, security access and backup power generation are already in place and maintained on a regular basis. Due to the importance of a reliable system, we also have the following measures in place:

• RAID Arrays on all servers
• Dual power supplies on all servers
• Dual processor web servers for a faster service
• Servers sourced from industry leaders (Dell, Compaq & Sun)
• Daily backups are taken and stored in a secure location
• Fully switched gigabit back-end network
• Peering with LINX and tier-1 providers
• Direct fibre connection to the Internet Service Provider
• Backup generator
• Fire suppression

Backups

Each server is backed up on a daily basis. Weekly backup tapes are stored offsite in a fireproof data safe. In the event of a complete server failure, we would expect to achieve a restore time within our primary service level agreement.

GOSS Managed Services maintains two independent DNS servers to enables us to offer DNS record hosting as part of the service. The DNS servers are independent from the main servers and are situated in different locations.

Secured FTP access is standard with any hosting arrangement and multiple accounts with varying access abilities can be applied.

We also offer password protection on site directories specific usernames and passwords can be requested. However, advised duplicate usernames will be issued where shared servers are in use.

Disaster Recovery

We understand the seriousness of disaster recovery, should a major incident occur, our disaster recovery strategy and facilities will be utilised.

Details of the disaster recovery strategy and facilities cannot be disclosed for security reasons.

Uptime

GOSS Managed Services offers a comprehensive and complete Service Level Agreement.

Bandwidth

Growing expectations of users means that any hosting service must respond by providing high-speed access. Achieving optimum speed of service encourages customer retention, and as a result increases revenue. As your business develops, so can your sites through increases bandwidth and server access, allowing you to structure change and maintain competitive edge.

The principal factor in slowing down a services is bandwidth contention, where more than one service is competing for the bandwidth over a connection. GOSS Managed Services can provide bandwidth appropriate to your needs, allowing services to run at their optimum level.

Service demands are constantly monitored in order to ensure that the required bandwidth is provided. GOSS will recommend upgrading the bandwidth and/or moving to a higher specification server should the service be suffering.

High Availability

In order to ensure availability of sites, we have the following systems in place:

Monitoring
Our data centre is monitored around the clock by fully independent systems, which also monitor one another. Both systems have independent power with UPS (uninterruptible power supply) backup. In the event that urgent assistance is required, and engineer will be immediately notified.

Port Polling
All services are queried regularly to ensure that the full application can be processed timely and accurately. A poll can be considered as 'successful' if the correct content returns with certain time parameters.

Engineer Support
GOSS have a dedicated out-of-hours help line, connecting directly to an on-call engineer, who can, in the event of a problem, be notified immediately.

UPS
All cabinets and servers have local UPS power, which is further supported by an onsite backup generator.

Upgrades & Patches

GOSS Managed Services engineers monitor reliable security bulletins and mailing lists on a daily basis. New patches released by Microsoft, Macromedia or other vendors are tested on a matching development platform before being deployed to live servers. Patches are deployed as soon as possible after testing, depended on the severity level defined by the vendor. Clients are normally only notified if the patch must be installed during normal working hours.