Essentially, cloud computing has revolutionized the way businesses and individuals store, manage, and access their data and applications. Rather then relying on physical hardware to store and run their programs, you are able to access your resources and services over the internet.

In this blog post, we’ll explore the basics of cloud computing and how it can benefit you or your business.

What are Cloud Computing Basics?

Cloud computing is the delivery of resources and services over the internet. This can include storage, servers, databases, software, and more. Instead of buying and maintaining physical hardware, you can access these resources on-demand and pay only for what they use.

Cloud computing is made possible by a network of servers that are owned and managed by service providers. These servers can be located in various data centers around the world that you can access from anywhere with an internet connection.

Types of Cloud Computing

There are three main types of cloud computing: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

IaaS provides you with access to virtualized computing resources such as servers, storage, and networks. Additionally, you can configure and manage these resources to run their applications.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

PaaS provides you with a platform for developing, testing, and deploying their applications. This platform includes the necessary hardware and software to run the application, as well as tools for building and testing the application.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

SaaS provides you with access to software applications that are hosted by the cloud provider. These applications can be accessed through a web browser or an API, and the provider is responsible for maintaining the software and ensuring that it is always up to date.

Benefits of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing offers many benefits for you and your and business. Here are some of the key advantages:

Scalability: Resources can be scaled up or down to meet changing demand. This means that businesses can quickly add or remove resources as needed, without the need to invest in expensive hardware.

Cost Savings: You only pay for the resources you use, rather than investing in and maintaining your own hardware. This can result in significant cost savings for businesses of all sizes.

Flexibility: You are able to access resources and applications from anywhere with an internet connection. This can be particularly beneficial for remote workers or businesses with multiple locations.

Reliability: Cloud service providers typically offer high levels of uptime and reliability, thanks to their redundant infrastructure and multiple data centers.

Security: Cloud service providers often have dedicated security teams and implement strict security protocols to protect user data.

Conclusion

Cloud computing has changed the way we access and manage our data and applications. By providing on-demand access to computing resources and services it has become easier and more cost-effective for businesses to store, manage, and access their data. As technology continues to evolve, cloud computing will likely become even more ubiquitous and essential for businesses of all sizes.

If you would like to learn more about cloud computing to determine if it is the right move for your company, you can contact us today to learn more!

The post Cloud Computing Basics and How it Benefits your Business appeared first on Wowrack Blog.

This migration will allow the business to provide broader access for their customer or their own employee to a certain degree. 

Here, we have compiled a discussion on the general look of “what is a cloud”, the planning and strategies that you could use, and the common challenge that you might face when performing cloud migration. 

General Look of “What is Cloud” 

To understand why you might need to perform cloud migration in the current business environment, you first need to know about the cloud. 

Cloud computing – often being shortened into “cloud” – refers to the pool of computer services that you can access through the connection of the internet. 

The advantage of this pool of computers is its ability to be accessed instantly without the need for the user to set it up themselves. Cloud also allows businesses to move away from on-premise storage. 

Instead, the cloud provider will have dedicated massive data centers around the world to fill all of their clients’ needs. These data centers allow the cloud provider to better maintain and secure the infrastructure. 

Why Move to Cloud? 

You then might ask, why should you perform cloud migration or why even use the cloud at all? So, let us make it clear the two biggest advantages of using the cloud today. 

1. No More On-Premise Server – This means no more dedicated IT specialists. You can focus more on what is your business need, rather than performing maintenance of your IT infrastructure. 

2. Virtually Limitless Computer Resources – You can have as many computer resources as you need. High workloads, add more resources. Not much going on, reduce the resources. That simple. 

If you are still unsure about the feasibility of using the cloud for your business, here are some reports and surveys regarding what the future is like. 

According to Flexera, by the end of 2020, 60% of small and medium businesses moved their workload to clouds and will continue to use the cloud for the foreseeable future. 

Another survey conducted by Venture Beat conclude that 50% of the Fortune 500 companies have undergone a digital transformation in the Q3 of 2021. 

These two surveys should have shown that modern business is putting great attention to the use of the cloud and slowly moving away from an on-premise server to cloud setups. 

Planning What You are Moving 

So, let’s say that you are willing to move your business model from on-premise to cloud, what should you do first in this case. The first thing you need to do is to plan what you are moving into the cloud. 

The fundamental planning when you want to perform cloud migration are the following: 

3. Why you are moving it, 

4. What you are moving, and 

5. How you are going to do it. 

First, evaluate “why” you want to move into the cloud. The business environment often became the biggest reason perform the migration. 

Try to set aggressive goals to drive the migration forward. This includes creating a baseline of your IT performance and cloud migration key performance indicators (KPI). 

Second, find out what you want to move into the cloud. Preferably, workloads or applications that can be moved as they are will be the first ones to be migrated. Meanwhile, with the one that needs a lot of reworking as the last one to be migrated. 

Third, choose how you are going to do perform the migration. The use of tools to simplify migrations and choosing the correct cloud deployment model will be your focus on the last step of planning. We will discuss this more in-depth in the strategies section down below. 

Strategies You Can Use to Perform Cloud Migration 

There are three most common strategies that you can use when performing cloud migration from on-premise storage. Below are the strategies in the order of the quickest and easiest set up to the most difficult one. 

1.    Rehosting (Lift and Shift) 

Rehosting is the quickest and easiest choice you can choose when performing a cloud migration. This strategy is recommended to be used for simple and low-impact workloads. 

As the name implies, this strategy is only moving your data to the cloud. Thus, you might not receive the full benefit when compared to fully going cloud-native. 

2.    Replatforming (Move and Improve) 

The replatforming strategy is used if you are looking to have some of the benefits of what a cloud environment can provide to you. Usually, it involves modernization or updates to the workload or application that will be moved to the cloud. 

This strategy is often preferred when compared to rehosting due to the benefit that businesses could receive from the cloud infrastructure. 

3.    Refactoring (Rip and Replace) 

Refactoring or re-architecting strategy is only preferable for those who wish to fully embrace the cloud. This strategy will force businesses to perform total redesign of workloads or applications to receive the full potential of the cloud infrastructure. 

Common Challenges When Performing Cloud Migration 

There is nothing in the world that can work smoothly without a problem and the same can be said with performing cloud migration. 

Here are some common challenges that you might want to know before performing a cloud migration. 

• Complexity – Different types of cloud require different types of maintenance and can fulfill different types of needs. Understanding your need for the cloud will be the utmost important thing. 
• Dependencies – Workload and application dependencies might bring cloud migration to a grinding halt. 
• Legacy Application – There are times when workload or applications are too complicated and costly to be migrated into the cloud. This is why proper planning is necessary. 
• Databases – While not that big of a challenge, a large amount of data requires time to complete the migration into the cloud. 
• Managing Cost – Proper management of cloud resources can deliver cost-saving. Thus, business needs to consider all of the required cost before and after moving to the cloud. 

Wowrack is Here to Help

Moving to a new environment can be a daunting task for business, especially when we are talking about IT needs. This is why proper survey and analysis are better conducted before making any decision. 

If you are not sure what is the best compute environment for your application, you can always consult us by clicking the link down bellow. We will help you find the best-fit solutions for your needs.

The post What is Cloud Migration and the Benefit to Your Business? appeared first on Wowrack Blog.

Without further ado, here are the biggest cloud trends we intend on seeing this year.

Larger Cloud-Storing Capacity

With more companies moving more of their data onto the cloud, there needs to be the physical space to handle it all. With a higher demand of cloud-storing capacity, there must be more data centers with the necessary equipment. Consumers will be looking for managed service providers that have the kind of space they need available, even if they don’t quite have the need for it yet. Along with this, consumers will be looking for providers that offer more scalable options, in order to make sure their needs can be met in the future.

More Applications Created Solely for Cloud Environments

While we’re still in this period where legacy companies are finally making the transition to the cloud, there are also companies who aren’t wasting time. They are placing their entire network on the cloud from the get-go. So, in order to accommodate this trend, cloud hosting providers will need to have access to the software and tools necessary to make the cloud accessible to absolutely everyone — especially smaller, newer businesses who have no prior systems to move over. This means the acquisition of more applications that are created solely for the cloud, as well as apps that can be used across multi-cloud environments. This will make workloads more user-friendly and portable, allowing consumers to take care of their business needs whenever, wherever.

The Rise of Open-Source Cloud Connectivity

Speaking of multi-cloud environments, another trend you can expect to see this year is the rise of open-source cloud connectivity. With so many data storage and management needs to be met, consumers will likely be reaching out to multiple vendors for their services, unless they can find a provider that can truly manage it all. That being said, the need for open-source technology will change the attitudes that consumers have towards owing their loyalty to just one vendor. It’s no secret then that MSPs who embrace this trend by offering solutions that are accessible over multiple cloud systems, are going to be more desirable.

Wowrack is up to date on the latest trends so that we can meet all your cloud hosting needs. Contact us today to learn more.

Less Patience for Consumers on Internet Speed and Quality

This year, we will be honing in on 5G. Yes, 5G. It will no longer be a matter of “my Internet is too slow” but, instead, “it’s just not fast enough.” Internet speed and quality is absolutely necessary for businesses in 2018, and anything less than amazing simply won’t be tolerated. MSPs need to keep this in mind and be sure all their services can keep up with the Internet speeds that their customers expect.

More Emphasis on SaaS

Last, but certainly not least, 2018 will be the year of Software as a Service, which will be the #1 deployed solution worldwide. With so many great software options out there that businesses rely on, they need a place where it can all be properly hosted. Although IaaS and PaaS will still be used, SaaS will be the simplest and most desirable option this year, and it’s pretty clear why. Companies need flexibility to do things their way, and a provider that will support them throughout their journey.

With so many people relying on a stable and flexible cloud environment, finding the right vendor who acknowledges these trends is critical. 

The post Check Out 2018’s Biggest Cloud Trends appeared first on Wowrack Blog.

Here are the basics when it comes to understanding your hybrid cloud ecosystem.

A Hybrid Cloud Ecosystem

A cloud ecosystem consists of a web of interdependent components that help drive various kinds of cloud computing services. It uses a combination of software and infrastructure along with human supervision to service its third party users. The term “hybrid,” in this case, just means a public or private cloud solution, or a mixture of both. Ultimately, the cloud is a network of servers each dedicated to a different job. And, depending on what kind of business you have, the type of cloud ecosystem you’ll rely on will be unique.

A Multiple Layer Infrastructure

Think of your cloud’s ecosystem as an onion — or anything else that has layers. A cake, a winter wardrobe, a comfy hotel bed…anything like that. A hybrid cloud infrastructure has multiple layers that are customizable. This allows users to create a system that is best for their business. With a hybrid cloud, users can build their own system based on what they need, what they want and what’s familiar.

Wowrack gives users the option to put together their own Hybrid Cloud Ecosystem, with the help of a professional who will guide you to what’s best for your company. Contact us today to learn more.

Understanding the Different Layers

So, we know that there are layers in a hybrid cloud ecosystem, but what do those layers mean? And, how do they all work together?

Beginning from your computer and ending at the cloud, here is what it generally looks like:

1. Operating System (Ex. Windows or Mac)
2. Cloud Provisioning OS (Ex. Cloudstack)
3. IT Automation Software (Ex. Puppet)
4. Hypervisor/Virtual Machine Monitor (Ex. XEN)
5. Infrastructure Monitoring Tools (Ex. Cacti)
6. Backup and Disaster Recovery Planning (Ex. Veeam)

(If you’re not familiar with these examples, don’t worry; they’re just to help explain how the hybrid cloud ecosystem works.)

These different layers of the hybrid cloud come together to formulate an entire ecosystem that connects all the various parts, and thus makes it easy for you to run your company’s network on the cloud. If one part of the ecosystem is missing, it would be very difficult for the rest of the servers to do their job

Even though your managed cloud hosting provider will create your perfect cloud ecosystem, again, remember that it’s necessary for your company’s leaders to understand how it works so you can only pay for the specific systems you want to deploy.

The post How a Hybrid Cloud Ecosystem Works appeared first on Wowrack Blog.

Chris Carlson: Hi, this is Chris Carlson and welcome to episode number seven of the Sound of Business Podcast. My guest today is Ed Kimm. Ed is partner and Chief Revenue Officer of Wowrack. Wowrack is a global cloud service provider offering various hosting solutions including managed hosting solutions, dedicated service solutions, colocation, virtualization, bandwidth delivery, and managed services. Hey Ed, thanks for joining me today!

Ed Kimm: Hey Chris, thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Chris Carlson: Hey Ed, we’re going to take a deep-dive into Wowrack, but before we do, can you give us a brief background of Ed Kimm?

Ed Kimm: Sure. So I was actually probably one of the very few, compared to many of the listeners out there that was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. My folks are actually from overseas. My dad was born in Seoul and my mother was born in Tokyo, Japan so that makes me second generation. I’ve been lucky enough to travel there, but for the most part speak the languages and obviously I’m very fluent in English. In terms of my history in IT and where I am at Wowrack, I’ve been in IT since about 1998. So quite some time. Really started out more in the simple hosting Telecoast space and really evolved from there to more of the enterprise MSP cloud strategy.

Chris Carlson: Tell me a little about Wowrack?

Ed Kimm: Sure. So Wowrack’s been around since 2001 and in short, we really go by the mission that one cloud or hosted technology environment for businesses isn’t for everybody. You know, Wowrack is not the best fit for all organizations and neither is Microsoft Azure or AWS Amazon for that matter. So given that, we actually are a hybrid cloud architect and solutions company where we go in, deep-dive with the technical folks of any given organization and help them architect and strategize the right and proper hybrid cloud strategy based on their specific needs. That could be security needs, regulatory compliances that could be sovereignty in terms of where they are in the globe, that could be budget, but most importantly that should always be based off of a workload application and really what their business drivers are and what their application does and how it serves their users.

“We really go by the mission that one cloud or hosted technology environment for businesses isn’t for everybody.”

Ed Kimm: Once we get there, we architect multiple hybrid cloud solutions under Wowrack’s arm. That could mean community cloud, that could be a public cloud that could mean a private cloud that could also mean a CapEx colo where companies still want to maintain hardware or whether they want to rent hardware from a company like Wowrack on-demand.  And that could still look like, believe it or not, people keeping things on-premise or keeping things off-premise or a combination of each and every one of those things. So, based on all of those requirements, once we actually define which direction companies want to go, architecturally and cloud-speaking, we then help them design and architect and set it up or deploy in our arena and fully manage it either as a fully managed service, co-managed service, or if the customer still wants full access or root access to the systems and manage it themselves, not a problem.

Ed Kimm: So we offer a really flexible and what I feel a very nimble, in the industry, cloud hosted environment where customers can pick and choose what exactly is the best and right fit, given their budget as well as have the opportunity to outsource all the overhead and IT headaches to a company like Wowrack to either fully manage it or do it on an on-demand ad-hoc basis.

Chris Carlson: What was the genesis of Wowrack?

Ed Kimm: Yeah so when the company started back in 2001 it was really started as a simple hosting company, I can’t really give you a fancy answer. Really it’s just as simple as that. We just had a desire to be able to host customers, whether it be in a shared hosted space for five, fifteen, ten dollar-per-month type hosted environments. This included just simple websites, gamers, etcetera. And that really was the premise of it all, but then it really evolved into “Hey do you guys actually own your own data center?” then we moved into our own facility to provide hosted services for people who own their own hardware. And as everyone knows technology changes by the day or minute literally and there was a huge IT bubble and then it burst and then there was a big bubble again and early cloud kind of has evolved through that whole evolution and we went from just a small hosting company to really costs based on customer demand to more of an enterprise MSP.

Ed Kimm: What we’re really providing like I shared earlier of a hybrid cloud strategy, but specifically towards bare metal private virtualized single tenant cloud environments where we manage it, we set up a fully automated disaster recovery solutions so we can help people store and recover and retrieve data on-demand. We also have a huge now, cyber security practice to help organizations pinpoint and prevent any type of ransomware or malware or cyber security breaches, because that as you know is huge in this day and age, no matter what kind of organization, specifically in healthcare and finance sectors. So these are some of the areas that we really have a lot of expertise and breadth of support in.

Chris Carlson: What was the biggest challenge that you had when the company first started?

Ed Kimm: The biggest challenge was probably financing. I have to give—so one of our primary owners/ partners, Jimmy [Pandra], he deserves credit to him and his family because they helped our company in terms of financing a lot of our dreams in making this whole company and cloud strategy a reality. So they helped finance a lot of family equity and private funding and we have some other friends and family who have actually contributed to our growth as well as like any business we’ve differed and often times did not pay ourselves just to be able to grow the company and we worked with a few banks to be able to secure some SPLs and loans.

Chris Carlson: When people think of Wowrack, what comes to mind?

Ed Kimm: That’s a great question! Maybe I can answer that in two ways. One, I think what people think is that we’re just a hosting colo[cation] company. What I would hope they would think when they hear of us is really more of an enterprise hybrid cloud, compute, storage, and managed services provider. I know that’s kind of long-winded but in terms of hosting, there’s a lot of hosting providers in this region and just globally, in fact. Especially in Seattle, we’re the cloud capital of the world with Microsoft and Amazon in our backyard. But really, the only way we can remain competitive and net-profitable and really add certain value of niche products to this cloud and hosted landscape so that’s why I kind of mentioned that earlier is that we’re more of a specific niche provider because we really believe that everyone has specific architectural needs when it comes to their IT pain points and goals. So we actually pinpoint what those goals are and within our skillset and what we’re really good at doing at our core is supporting that hybrid infrastructure and architectural way and designing it, and supporting it moving forward for companies.

Chris Carlson: You mention Seattle being the cloud capital of the world. What is the competitive landscape look like for Wowrack?

Ed Kimm: So depending on who you ask that that could be relative, but if you’re asking me it’s super competitive. Amazon, for example, is the 800-pound gorilla in the world. They’re clearly the best and the biggest in terms of multi-tenant public cloud IaaS (Infrastrucure as a Service) offering that you can get. They’re really great at it, but that’s really all they focus on and that’s all they do. When it comes to companies like Wowrack and how we remain competitive is just providing more value-added management, close hand-held core services, while designing custom ad-hoc cloud architectures really contingent on a given enterprise. For example, Amazon or even Azure and Google, they don’t come to you, Chris Carlson, and say “I’m going to design a cloud strategy, just for Chris Carlson.” They have great packages, but organizations have to take it or leave it. But companies like Wowrack, we actually design, as long as it fits within our sweet spot, a cloud strategy and a specific customized architecture for those given organizations, keeping in mind of their applications, workload needs, and their budget.

“In short, they’re going to Dell.com and building and designing their own laptop right? That’s how granular we get when it comes to the Enterprise.”

Chris Carlson: I love that analogy. Well, is there such a thing as a typical client for Wowrack?

Ed Kimm: Yes, for companies that are looking for huge RPTO or disaster recovery and restore requirements. They need someone like us to be able to help offload some of their backup and storage needs from either if their on-prem, from their current data center or wherever they may be to a Wowrack facility globally. We have seven data centers worldwide today. The other instances that we can provide is securing data for organizations with our SaaS-based (Software as a Solution) cryptographic bit-splitting solution. There is a lot of different services we do offer but specifically DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service), storage. Companies that need a tremendous amount of backup. High availability companies that need a tremendous amount of storage and compute IO and redundancies for their network and for their applications.

Ed Kimm: Companies that need high availability and compute because they have huge processing requirements and those companies actually that have hardware or want to rent hardware in a hybrid solution, so Wowrack is a great fit for companies who want to be able to still use their given hardware, putting it into one of our data center facilities, and also rent to some compliment, their older hardware on-demand. So we’re one of the very few companies that can actually offer a CapEx, you can provide your hardware, with an OpEx, you can call Hardware as a Service model and combine it into one homogeneous environment and manage it for their enterprise whether we own the hardware or not. That’s one of the clear value-adds and differentiators of Wowrack versus like an Amazon or Azure or most other hosting providers.

Chris Carlson: You certainly have lots of offerings. What’s your go-to-market strategy?

Ed Kimm: Go-to-market strategy is another great question, Chris. Number one, we’re trying to increase our hybridization so we can allow customers to freely move workloads on-demand anytime, anywhere, anyplace. We have a lot of confidence and a great resume of customers over the course of over fifteen years that are using our products, but we also want to give customers the ability to prevent vendor lock-in. We even have avenues to use Wowrack in other cloud providers simultaneously. Some of the strategies that we’ve done and we’ve launched earlier this year is have a production-level grade software define network that allows companies to freely move from Wowrack data centers to let’s say an Amazon or Microsoft Azure or Google compute fabric on-demand. All in a pay-per-use utility base model, so we play very well and nicely with those other cloud providers.

Ed Kimm: The other things we do, like most other organizations, are trying to really hit and penetrate specific verticals and industries (i.e. Healthcare). So Healthcare is as many of you know is the most breached vertical in all the industries in the United States. Their average cost per stolen record for those people that are trying to steal that data, is around $90 per record versus one or two dollars for a credit card information. So you can see dollar per minute based on how much time a thief or a cyber-security hacker might want to take to be able to steal data, Healthcare is really where the money’s at. So with Healthcare—there’s a problem, there’s a need. A lot of organizations are looking to migrate their specific workloads to a virtualized cloud environment and our job at Wowrack is to be able to provide and create that solution specifically for Healthcare. We actually have a branded new solution called Wowrack HIPAA Compliant Cloud that allows us to provide this type of service.

Chris Carlson: Tell us a little bit more about that compliant cloud?

Ed Kimm: Sure. So there are a lot of different regulatory, and again these are the organization’s way to adhere to the standards especially with audits and cyber security breaches for that matter. A lot of you guys know about FIPS or DIACAP for Government. There’s HIPAA Healthcare, right? There’s PCI credit card interface and transactions, there’s Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) for public sectors. So there’s so many adherences. When it comes to our specific Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Solution, we actually provide a given architecture that’s completely private cloud-based, so it’s not shared with any type of user and is completely built in a virtualized cloud environment only for a given organization.

Ed Kimm: We also have a huge HIPAA compliance cyber-security practice where we provide HIPAA compliance coaches that then go on-site to healthcare clinics or companies that are using a tremendous amount of healthcare data like Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and patient records and we can help them design their strategy based on what type of HIPAA audit and compliances they need to follow because HIPAA can be very small, it can be very large and quite cumbersome depending on the organization. Once we actually get through that consulting phase, which involves vulnerabilities, risk assessments, remediation planning as well as incident response plans, we then design high available and redundant backup and storage infrastructure in a private cloud model. Manage it for organizations and then we go ahead and provide as another amenity, the SaaS-based encryption software solution so if companies want to have a higher or greater level of security outside of just the standard web, application, firewalls or bare metal firewalls and architecture.

Ed Kimm: We can offer licensing for cryptographic bit-splitting, which allows us to encrypt and safeguard data, whether it be in-route transit between different cloud environments or even stagnant at-the-server level. Even if someone steals the server, the intellectual property on the server device is completely encrypted so it’s completely impossible decrypt and piece together back to where it makes sense for the thief.

Chris Carlson: When I listen to some of the things you’re doing about HIPAA compliance, I think about cyber security. It would just seem to me that the potential for a company like Wowrack is just immense going forward. Is that a fair statement?

Ed Kimm: In terms of our efforts to penetrate this market?

Chris Carlson: Yes.

Ed Kimm: I mean it’s a huge market. The pain-points are there. We want to be able to help the community and help industries solve problems based on our specific skill set and our product offerings, so yes, the need is there but it is still very competitive. There’s a lot of hosting companies that do not offer specific HIPAA compliant cloud offerings, there are many that do. So our value-add is just being able to design and manage it as a managed security service provider, but also add specific ad-hoc amenities like the SaaS-based encryption, like HIPAA coaches, like support services on-demand and providing the ecosystem where we can also meet total cost of ownership. Companies that have hardware that don’t want to rent, whether it be from us or Amazon or anyone else, but wants it to completely be removed on-premise, but they do have a need for hardware on-demand that needs to be managed, we can marry that all into one solution and provide that. So that’s really where, Chris, in the landscape of cloud and HIPAA where we’ve remained super competitive.

Chris Carlson: Well we’re obviously talking about the cloud. What are the trends in terms of on-site servers versus servers in the cloud?

Ed Kimm: So again, it’s going to depend on who you ask. People quite honestly laugh and ask “Why the heck do you still have servers on-premise?” Right? But there are other organizations that it really makes sense because sometimes there are some organizations that have huge transactions per second or TPS that their users need to be able to access this environment and proximity is going to be a piece of that right? If they’re actually in a specific city or building and want to be able to have their on-premise network there because of their low-latency fee, it probably makes sense.

Ed Kimm: If you’re a company like Netflix, who has a majority or at least half of their customers globally outside the United States, then it makes sense to be able to have virtual machines and cloud infrastructures available on-demand ready to scale as needed, close to where those customers are because it’s very content driven network and these are really big media files that aren’t stagnant right so you’ll need high throughput, high internet connectivity and you need it close to where the users are. Now you can even say the same thing about Facebook or the NASDAQ for example when it comes to stock trading. So those are really good strategies when it comes to let’s say an Amazon or public cloud or even a hybrid cloud approach.

Ed Kimm: When it comes to organizations that just want to have their hardware on-site because they want to remain in terms of psychologically speaking, remain close to their gear and just want to have control over it, sometimes you can’t really push someone else to think otherwise. What we try to do is we help people understand the challenges they have if they were to keep those things on-premise. If their applications make sense to move it off-premise. If we actually discuss it with them that they want to keep it then we also then add to that and say well if you want to keep it for example—Sally, “If you want to keep your stuff on-premise why don’t you look at a disaster recovery or backup solution or a storage architecture outside of your office so if something happens, because your office is not a data center, it doesn’t have redundant batteries and UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) or generator backup, or even people on-premise 24/7, then at least you’ll have peace of mind of backing up your data to a data center facility like a Wowrack that is right?”

Ed Kimm: So these are some of the options that we offer as a team to our customers. In terms of hybridization, that’s really where it’s at because now we can offer the best of all worlds. We can offer the support on-premise. We can offer support and host off-premise. We can even get those people to multi-tenant cloud companies like Azure or AWS, but we can also build everything internally and support for organizations really so they can wash their hands clean of CapEx spending on hardware. They can still rent even on a private cloud model and with everything supported by Wowrack internally here at one of data center facilities.

Ed Kimm: So I guess the long-winded—and I apologize for the long-winded answer, the short answer is: it is very competitive but hybridization is really in my viewpoint, with certainty, that wave of the future. Everyone has specific ad-hoc custom demands and it’s even more important for companies, not just us here at Wowrack, but other hosting providers to be able to provide the ability for people to grow and scale. To offer flexibility and also offer people the ability to move in and out because there’s a lot of fear that companies this day and age, with all their IP and all their money and data (customer records) in the cloud, to be able to have vendor lock-in right? Because people don’t want to worry about “well if I’m stuck with one provider what happens if they raise the rates or I can’t get out?” Those are very logical things to consider so in terms of interoperability in our industry, that’s what it’s called, or being able to migrate and move data freely, that’s what Wowrack offers and thats what I feel the industry as a whole needs to be able to give to some of their customers.

Chris Carlson: Well, you guys have been around for fifteen years, what’s the biggest challenge you face at this stage of your evolution?

Ed Kimm: Well, I think that like any other company its net revenue and cash flow right? We want to continue to grow and make money like all companies out there and so part of that is my role is to designing new cloud strategies and augmenting our current offerings, but also building a solid footprint within specific niches. So right now with us, it’s really not a complex or sophisticated answer, it’s really just to grow. So next year in 2017 we’ll want to continue to ramp up and hopefully get some of these deals that we have in our pipeline with Wowrack and then also use that additional cash flow and revenue to continue to hire talented sales representatives, hire people that can actually help us understand some of the cloud strategies outside of what we may or may not already know and to really hire people smarter than us to really increase our value-add and our talent pool.

Chris Carlson: So then what is the future look like for Wowrack going forward?

Ed Kimm:  Geez, if I had a crystal ball to really give you that—real answer is that I’d probably pay you a lot of money for that! But right it’s just to grow, I mean I’m thinking MNAs and being acquired is always in the back of our minds of me and the team. But right now, it’s just to continue to grow. Remain profitable, in the black which we are, which has been a blessing for us and to continue to add on customers. Particularly enterprises within our sweet spot. Grow our core level of expertise and to market internationally too. We have companies that are based out of Southeast Asia and we do have data centers over there as well as a secondary headquarters based out of Indonesia that manages our Hong Kong, Indo[nesia], and Singapore locations so we want to be able to offer solutions overseas across the Pacific, across the Atlantic, and to really spread out our capability, not just to the US territories, but across the world.

Chris Carlson: Well, Ed I know you’ve got a lot of things on your plate and you’re very, very busy. I really appreciate taking time to visit us today.

Ed Kimm:  No, I appreciate the time and giving this chance to share our story and what we offer and hopefully this will be a benefit to not only you but to some of the listeners out there. Thank you guys so much!  

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