The problem
Traditional managed hosting provides for managed hardware and not really all that much more. Application installation is included provided you don’t need anything beyond a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL & PHP) stack. Linux support comes in a choice of two colours Red Hat & CentOS.
Performance problems are regularly inefficiently resolved with more hardware. Why? Because a) an understanding or ability to diagnose application does not exist and b) more hardware equals more revenue.
Application support is out of touch with the current day tools being used to construct websites.
The cumulative result of limited support experiences from the hosting industry has successfully established the defacto norm that hosting companies really are just box handlers and systems administration skill and expertise is generally not on offer.
Filling in the gaps
Looking for an expert on Ruby on Rails, Django, Apache, PostgreSQL, Memcached, Unicorn, god, Puppet, Xen, KVM, DRBD, Heatbeat, Pacemaker, nginx, Debian, Bind, Sphinx, MongoDB, RabbitMQ, Resque, Delayed Job, Redis, IPVS, haproxy, nagios, postfix, Solr, thin, daemontools, Plone, Pylons, Subversion, Squid, Git, Varnish…
Anchor has an unparalleled depth of experience in implementation and administration of the tools that keep your applications running in the domestic Australian hosting market.
Developers are not Systems Administrators
The result? Developers unwittingly filled the gap and donned the systems administrators hat, usually the one who drew the shortest straw.
This is a problem. With the utmost respect for developers that create the truly innovative applications from iPhone apps to twitter to the online edition of daily newspaper that invade our daily lives, they’re not Systems Administrators.
Sure they’re all IT guys but they’re not the same. Really. They’re two very different breeds of people. It’s akin to letting your plumber wire up your light switch, I mean, they’re both buiders right? Wrong (and thankfully that’s illegal).
A Developer doing Systems Administration
- Lacks experience – 90% of his time is spent writing code
- Works in isolation, everyone around him is writing code
- Lacks interest – they’re only doing it because they have to
A Systems Administrator doing Systems Administration
- Learns from their more experienced peers that surround them
- Lives and breathes server configuration and application deployments
- Constantly strives to reduce server load and increase performance
- Does everything they can to avoid the 3am wake up call
The Benefits
- Experienced administrators, proactive maintenance and considered design together result in reduced outages and improved stability.
- Most projects can’t justify a full time system administrator let alone a team of them to cover 24 × 7. We become an extension of your team at a fraction of the cost.
- Engaging a specialist systems administrator either at the inception of your project or as part of an infrastructure review will deliver considered configuration customised to meet your requirements.
- Focus on what you do best and let Anchor do what we do best.