Server Collocation

If you are in the Indianapolis area and want the best service for car rentals in the industry look no further than Ace Rent A Car.    Ace Rent A Car was recently name the tops in the industry for customer satisfaction by J. D. Powers and Associates.   Ace offers rental services in over 200 locations and uses LightBound VoIP PBX Solutions and Server Collocation to provide the IT and Telecommunications systems to support the high level of service for their customers.  Congratulations to Ace on a job well done!

One of the unique abilities of LightBound is to be able to provide and support many different services.  Many clients have multiple locations and are looking for WAN area networks to connect their data and voice. Some look at MPLS, which can be very cost effective for larger companies, however small and medium size customers often feel they are little fish in a very big pond. LightBound provides a MPLS type managed network that allows us to deliver data, internet and voice to a customer bringing all the circuits back to our LightBound Data Center in Indianapolis.  Many customers will get collocation space from us and put their PBX's or LightBounds Hosted PBX service, servers and firewall in rack or take advantage of LightBounds Managed Virtual Services,managed storage or replication. This lets LightBound with our redundant internet, voice and power to be the host site and have the customers sites be the remotes.  This allows LightBound to provide a one stop shop for all of the customers needs and usually for less expense.

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed servers hosting, Shared Storage server, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

LightBound is also expanding. Be on the lookout for our new state of the art 47,000 sq ft. Data Center coming out of the ground and available for occupancy in first or second quarter of 2011.

Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

LightBound is your Fonality Authorized Reseller for trixBox Pro Editions for VoIP PBXsolutions both hosted and premise based IP Based Telephony.



www.lightbound.net

This week we met with a customer that currently has Internet and VoIP services with a CPE based IP PBX phone system. Customer was purchased by another company that is moving and wants to combine all three sites with an IP based Telephone system.  Our solution was to us LightBound Server Collocation services.  LightBound was going to locate customers IP PBX Server in our Data Center and provide T1 to each location to connect with PBX and the Internet. This allows three sites to be connected and share one phone system and gives them the ability to add future sites.

1.) "We can focus on our core business." Smart companies focus on growing their business and don't have time to manage complicated IP PBXs.

2.) "IP PBXs can be hard to manage." Implementing the same phone system hundreds of times has taught hosted vendors  how to avoid pitfalls of deploying VoIP. Companies also save time and resources because hosted providers use proactive and reactive monitoring systems to resolve problems faster than an in-house solution.

3.) "Our phone system is a service, not a product." Hosted providers devesop long-term relationships with clients and have a vested interest in keeping them happy, instead of selling the system once and making more money on fixes or upgrades.

4.) "Our total cost of ownership is lower." The only equipment required for hosted VoIP is a switch, router and user handsets. Companies that buy and install an IP PBX face large upfront capital expenditures, as well as maintenance and upgrade costs.

5.) "Our phone calls are secure for remote employees." While an IP PBX uses unmanaged broadband connections to connect telecommuters to the phone system, hosted providers can leverage facilities and expertise to do this securely.

6.) "We can easily add/manage office locations." Hosted VoIP systems are designed for almost limitless scalability and can treat multiple locations as one office. The benefits of connecting all offices to the same phone system include the ability to share a centralized receptionist and use free four-digit dialing between locations.

7.) "There are fewer vendor headaches." A single point of contact eliminates finger-pointing among service providers. Clients deal with one vendor and one bill.

8.) "We have better insight into monthly telecom spending." Hosted solutions' flat monthly fees eliminate the guesswork of operating expensive IP PBXs, which require spending 10% to 15% above the purchase price for annual maintenance contracts.

9.) "We're guaranteed access to the latest technology." Hosted VoIP providers handle software upgrades at no additional charge. If a company purchases an IP PBX now, in a few years it will be stuck with an outdated phone system.

10.) "Hosted VoIP satisfies our business continuity and disaster-recovery needs." Hosted providers house their equipment in carrier-grade collocation facilities with high levels of resiliency, back-up power and advanced safety features. An IP PBX resides in the client's office where it is susceptible to emergencies such as fires, floods or natural disasters.

Companies looking to implement VoIP have two choices: hosted VoIP or an in-house IP PBX. Hosted VoIP simplifies life for the business executive, making it a better solution, especially for organizations without extensive IT resources.

excerpts from Face-off  By Dan Hoffman, Network World

LightBound overs VoIP across America with SIP, PRI or Analog. LightBound can provide service to over 98% of the populated country.  This is a great option for companies wanting to have virtual numbers in other cities. Connecting multiple offices with a centralized IP PBX phone system.

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed servers hosting, Shared Storage server, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

LightBound is also expanding. Be on the lookout for our new state of the art 47,000 sq ft. Data Center coming out of the ground and available for occupancy in first or second quarter of 2011.

Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

LightBound is your Fonality Authorized Reseller for trixBox Pro Editions for VoIP PBXsolutions both hosted and premise based IP Based Telephony.

Let us take care of technology, so you can take care of business.

This week we met with a customer that currently has Internet and VoIP services with a CPE based IP PBX phone system. Customer was purchased by another company that is moving and wants to combine all three sites with an IP based Telephone system.  Our solution was to us LightBound Server Collocation services.  LightBound was going to locate customers IP PBX Server in our Data Center and provide T1 to each location to connect with PBX and the Internet. This allows three sites to be connected and share one phone system and gives them the ability to add future sites.

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed servers hosting, Shared Storage server, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

LightBound is also expanding. Be on the lookout for our new state of the art 47,000 sq ft. Data Center coming out of the ground and available for occupancy in first or second quarter of 2011.

Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

LightBound is your Fonality Authorized Reseller for trixBox Pro Editions for VoIP PBXsolutions both hosted and premise based IP Based Telephony.

Let us take care of technology, so you can take care of business.

In this day and age where everyone depends so heavily on Technology. Isn't good to have one company that can provide ITManaged Services, Server Collocation, Web Hosting Services, Virtual Storage, Storage as a Services, VoIP PBX Solutions, Hosted VoIP PBX  Solutions, Voice Services and Data Services.

LightBound can provide your Cloud Services, Data Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity to your Voice and Data services including Off Site Data Backup Services.

Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed services, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

Let us take care of technology, so you can take

One of the unique abilities of LightBound is to be able to provide and support many different services.  Many clients have multiple locations and are looking for WAN area networks to connect their data and voice. Some look at MPLS, which can be very cost effective for larger companies, however small and medium size customers often feel they are little fish in a very big pond. LightBound provides a MPLS type managed network that allows us to deliver data, internet and voice to a customer bringing all the circuits back to our LightBound Data Center in Indianapolis.  Many customers will get collocation space from us and put their PBX's or LightBounds Hosted PBX service, servers and firewall in rack or take advantage of LightBounds Managed Virtual Services,managed storage or replication. This lets LightBound with our redundant internet, voice and power to be the host site and have the customers sites be the remotes.  This allows LightBound to provide a one stop shop for all of the customers needs and usually for less expense.

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed servers hosting, Shared Storage server, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

LightBound is also expanding. Be on the lookout for our new state of the art 47,000 sq ft. Data Center coming out of the ground and available for occupancy in first or second quarter of 2011.

Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

LightBound is your Fonality Authorized Reseller for trixBox Pro Editions for VoIP PBXsolutions both hosted and premise based IP Based Telephony.



www.lightbound.net

LightBound offers secure and effective solutions for all of your business continuity needs. By housing all critical servers and network infrastructure at the LightBound data center, your business can rest easy, knowing that it is running with redundant power, cooling, and protected by a SAS70 rated facility.

LightBound - "Service at the speed of light"

- Data center collocation

- Dedicated Internet - Managed & Monitored Voice/Data Circuits Web Hosting

- Business phone service & systems - Virus scanning - SPAM Tagging

- Managed firewall, servers and phone systems

 

LightBound recently broke ground on the new data center located at 650 Kentucky Ave. The data center will be over 45,000 sq. ft. Along with the new data center, LightBound is also expanding its current location at 731 West Henry Street, by adding an additional power feed and redundant generator. Construction on the new data center should be completed by mid 2011. The expansion at the current data center will be done by the end of October.
Please contact LightBound for any of your colocation, storage, Internet, and voice needs.

LightBound - "Service at the speed of light"

- Data center collocation

- Dedicated Internet - Managed & Monitored Voice/Data Circuits Web Hosting

- Business phone service & systems - Virus scanning - SPAM Tagging

- Managed firewall, servers and phone systems.

 

One of the unique abilities of LightBound is to be able to provide and support many different services.  Many clients have multiple locations and are looking for WAN area networks to connect their data and voice. Some look at MPLS, which can be very cost effective for larger companies, however small and medium size customers often feel they are little fish in a very big pond. LightBound provides a MPLS type managed network that allows us to deliver data, internet and voice to a customer bringing all the circuits back to our LightBound Data Center in Indianapolis.  Many customers will get collocation space from us and put their PBX's or LightBounds Hosted PBX service, servers and firewall in rack or take advantage of LightBounds Managed Virtual Services,managed storage or replication. This lets LightBound with our redundant internet, voice and power to be the host site and have the customers sites be the remotes.  This allows LightBound to provide a one stop shop for all of the customers needs and usually for less expense.

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed servers hosting, Shared Storage server, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

LightBound is also expanding. Be on the lookout for our new state of the art 47,000 sq ft. Data Center coming out of the ground and available for occupancy in first or second quarter of 2011.

Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

LightBound is your Fonality Authorized Reseller for trixBox Pro Editions for VoIP PBXsolutions both hosted and premise based IP Based Telephony.



www.lightbound.net

In this day and age where everyone depends so heavily on Technology. Isn't good to have one company that can provide ITManaged Services, Server Collocation, Web Hosting Services, Virtual Storage, Storage as a Services, VoIP PBX Solutions, Hosted VoIP PBX  Solutions, Voice Services and Data Services.

LightBound can provide your Cloud Services, Data Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity to your Voice and Data services including Off Site Data Backup Services.

Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed services, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

Historically, ergo back in the days of physical servers, I often commented that Disaster Recovery in preparation of Business Continuity is much like a dog chasing its tail.  Server Collocation was often employed to have backup servers at a remote location.  Well, congratulations - you've just doubled your workload, not to mention increases your costs, possibly more than two-fold.  So here's where I say welcome virtualization services and cloud services!  Storage Area Network Solutions (SAN's) paved the way for multiple server hosts to be able to easily and seamlessly share storage, and with boot from SAN technology, you can now replicate the data, including OS and App, to another location at the block level. No muss, no fuss.  No more having to manage an entire mirror of your server infrastructure.  No more installing every patch twice, no more having to upgrade your applications to the next version twice. No more having to troubleshoot twice.  No more having to pay for the number of licenses you need- what?  You guessed it...TWICE! Good news.

Go Cloud!

Sam Newberry

When SunPorch, the leading manufacturer of ready-to-assemble sunroom kits, needed call center capabilities it thought outsourcing was the only option. Fonality said no way! Beating bids from Avaya, Cisco and 3Com, Fonality’s PBXtra Call Center and HUD Agent improved SunPorch’s marketing and customer service programs while saving the company 100K in advertising costs. Oh yeah, it saved the day after Hurricane Ike and also paid for itself in three months.

SunPorch is the leading manufacturer of ready-to-assemble sunroom kits. To provide better customer service in its Westport Connecticut-based sales office, SunPorch needed call center capabilities that would allow calls to be routed to the appropriate person or department, and cost-effectively scale as its staff grew. SunPorch selected Fonality’s PBXtra Call Center and HUD Agent software to replace its legacy PBX system.
Outsource? No Way.

“Initially we thought that the only call center solution we could afford was to outsource to a third party,” said James McFarland, IT director at SunPorch. “With PBXtra Call Center we were able to keep our call center operations in house, which meant we could provide higher levels of customer service and maintain better control of our sales and marketing efforts.”

In addition to Fonality, SunPorch also looked at call center systems from Avaya, Cisco and 3Com. According to MacFarland, “the main driving factor for purchasing Fonality over the alternatives was essentially lower costs. PBXtra Call Center paid for itself in the first three months by eliminating the need for expensive consultants to set up and administer the system. Fonality does an awesome job of pre-configuring the system and the phones— all you have to do is plug everything in. I had the whole system up and running in less than one day.”
Saving $100K on Advertising Costs

The Fonality phone system is delivering significant value to SunPorch’s advertising programs. According to Leo Mueller, director of marketing at SunPorch, “because of Fonality, we can be much more nimble and responsive to our market. PBXtra Call Center helps us maximize the return on our advertising expenditures by reducing sales leads not associated with a lead source. We can quickly and easily assign a different phone number to each ad, which allows us to automatically record where a caller learned about SunPorch without having to ask them.”

This simple approach to tracking advertisements has returned some significant returns. SunPorch now clearly understands how specific advertisements are performing and can easily make decisions that directly impact the bottom line. “Thanks to PBXtra Call Center we’ve been able to more accurately target our advertising dollars and have reduced our annual overall expenses by $100,000,” said Mueller.

Additionally, Mueller recognizes that PBXtra Call Center has indirectly improved SunPorch’s sales program. Since the Fonality call center system has been providing the company with better data and management has been able to make more accurate and focused decisions about where to advertise, SunPorch has increased its lead acquisition by 10 percent. “It’s amazing. Even though the downturn in the economy is impacting customer purchasing decisions, we’ve still seen an increase in the number of home owners interested in our product.”
New Revenue and Better Customer Service

PBXtra Call Center has also helped SunPorch define new revenue-generating marketing campaigns, including new offerings to its existing customer base. This previously untapped group was the ideal candidate for product upgrades, but SunPorch couldn’t move forward on this type of campaign without Fonality. With PBXtra Call Center, SunPorch was able to set up specific call queues for current customer marketing programs that rang into five remote phones at its factory and then rolled over to the Connecticut headquarters when calls to the factory could not be answered. These capabilities made it possible for the company to efficiently sell to and support its most important audience.

PBXtra Call Center’s call queues have been a big help in improving SunPorch’s overall customer service. “PBXtra’s call queues and music on hold with sales voice-overs reduce the number of abandoned calls we receive. The queues let callers know how much longer they have to wait, which makes it less likely that they will hang up, and music or sales information on hold helps keep them entertained while they are waiting,” said Mueller. He has also been impressed with Fonality’s reporting matrix, which helps SunPorch monitor call center performance and adjust accordingly to improve the customer experience.
In the Wake of Hurricane Ike

Mueller gained extra appreciation for PBXtra Call Center after Hurricane Ike knocked out power to the company’s Louisville factory.

PBXtra Call Center’s unique hybrid-hosted Anywhere Management feature enabled Mueller to remotely access the call center system and record an emergency greeting in less than 10 minutes without hiring an expensive consultant. PBXtra Call Center allowed SunPorch to quickly implement a professional recording in response to the emergency, which helped maintain customer service levels and ensured calls could be redirected to the company headquarters for handling.

“The remote management of PBXtra Call Center is terrific,” said Mueller. “It gave me so much flexibility to make sure our customers were taken care of, even during a natural disaster.”
PBXtra and HUD - Essential Business Tools

In terms of its technical abilities, McFarland has been equally impressed with Fonality. “There are so many great things about our PBXtra system. The voice prompts, call queues and powerful web-based configuration are all fantastic. HUD helps us to enhance communication within the office, since we know whether someone is on the phone or not. We also like HUD’s drag-and-drop call transferring capabilities and its integration with caller ID on the PC desktop. Also, the PBXtra system easily integrated with the rest of my IT infrastructure, something I couldn’t do if I was working with a proprietary phone system.”

Mueller sums up how SunPorch feels about Fonality. “It’s simple — Fonality enables us to better serve our customers. PBXtra and HUD are essential business tools for our company — I don’t know how we lived without them.”


LightBound utilizes Fonality for both our premise based VoIP PBX solutions and our Hosted VoIP services. Our managed services can be added like Shared Storage Server, Collocation services, Cloud Services and many more that make LightBound a leader in Virtual Network Services in Indiana.


LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed services, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.
 

Learn about the next generation in storage. LightBound has partnered with Scale Computing to offer their complete, end-to-end midmarket storage solution. During this session, you will gain insight into how you can reduce costs while increasing control over your storage systems, as well as making the management of those systems more convenient. Learn more about the Scale 3-C's - COST - CONTROL - CONVENIENCE. Customers are able to build out storage clusters, starting with just 3 useable terabytes up to the multiple petabyte rnage on a single file system using commodity hardware at a shockingly affordable price!

You will also learn about LightBound Storage as a Service and Virtualization Services which are perfect for companies that need highly available and replicated shared storage to remotely backup their on-premise Scale Storage, for servers colocated at LightBound's data center, and for use with LightBound's Managed Server Services.

Go to LightBound's Home page to register for this event.

Infrastructure as a Service is definitely going to become a commodity offering and with economies of scale, virtual network services will be a high volume, low margin product.  Cloud Services providers are already offering Hosted Virtual Server, Storage Area Network Solutions, Off Site Data Backup Services, and even Storage as a Service combined with Server Collocation for pennies on the dollar compared to legacy physical network and server infrastructures.  That being said, the leading contributor to competitive advantage in the Virtualization Services and Cloud Services market is going to be how the service is differentiated from the "commodities".  What are those differentiators?  Depends on the customers your targeting, including their size and type of business, their vertical, and other numerous variables.  In my next blog I'll talk more about how LightBound is setting itself apart with added value beyond the base Infrastructure offering.

Go Cloud!

Sam Newberry

LightBound's goal in offering Cloud Services to its customers is simple.  Maintain the same level of useability and security, while adding the benefits associated with virtualization services such as high availability, scalability and flexibility with strong disaster recovery and business continuity mechanisms.  LightBound is able to offer cloud services including storage as a service, network shared storage, and server virtualization services.  For migration and hybrid solutions we can also bridge our existing server collocation services with all cloud services.

Go Cloud!

I just read a great article about Cloud Services.  Check out this link.   LightBound is a Hosted Virtual Server provider offering custom cloud services.  What do I mean about in reference to custom cloud services.    LightBound's cloud service offering has controls for security to meet government and industry compliance that many others don't offer.  If you are looking for some more details on Virtualization Services that LightBound offers come to our Lunch and Learn on April 14, 2010 to find out more.  You can register at LightBound's web site.  We also offer server collocation if you want to bring in your own equipment.  

Come hear about one of the most exciting stories in the technology industry in Indiana on February 10, 2010 @ 11:30 by attending LightBound's lunch and learn.   Go to www.lightbound.net to register. Scale Computing has been recognized as one of the top 20 technology companies to watch in 2010.   Scale is headquartered out of Indianapolis.  LightBound is a Scale Computing partner having deployed their solution for managed storage services for use with managed servers hosting or server collocation. The Scale solution  is a very cost effective solution for local storage (3 TB for $14K).   LightBound managed storage services can facilitate a data disaster recovery plan through a high speed WAN connection to provide off site data back service to yield a very effective business continuity plan in event of a disaster.  Come learn about what we have to offer!