Top 10 Reasons to Use CIT Hosting Facilities
You may not be aware of the many different types of hosting and housing services provided by CIT at the NIH Data Center. The main reasons to let CIT do the work of hosting your application are:
10—Physical environment
The NIH Data Center provides a computing environment with controlled humidity and temperature, sufficient power for all installed equipment, an uninterruptible power supply to prevent short power glitches from affecting the equipment, and a standby generator to maintain normal operations during a long-term utility outage.
9 —Security
The NIH Data Center is located on the NIH campus in the building 12 complex, with a 24 x 7 security guard. Once inside the building, access to the computer area is by card-key. Facilities in the Data Center are monitored and recorded 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Applications hosted in the NIH Data Center are protected with general network firewalls as well as application-specific firewalls if you elect this service. Hosted applications can participate in Disaster Recovery tests that are run twice a year. Off-site data storage is available. An annual SAS 70 audit reviews physical security, and operating practices and procedures. Certification and Accreditation of hosting systems is done in full accordance with NIH policies and procedures.
8 —System monitoring
In addition to the 24 x 7 facilities monitoring, there are various levels of monitoring based on the hosting services provided. Monitoring tools watch for hardware problems and operating system performance—including CPU, memory, and disk space utilization.
7 —Connectivity
CIT provides redundant OC-3 network connections for high-speed connectivity to the Internet. Connectivity and the reliability of the network are monitored 24 x 7.
6 —Support
Highly trained, experienced staff install, configure and maintain the hardware and operating system, monitor the systems, and manage disk allocation and backups. CIT database experts handle the system DBA work. Services are coordinated by an "application coordinator" who will be available to answer questions, help tailor services, etc.
5 —Economy of scale
CIT offers shared server hosting for various services so that users can share the cost of the hardware and the software licenses. Shared hosting is set up to ensure the integrity and security of each application. Small applications can take advantage of savings that would otherwise only be possible for large users. Shared server services available include Oracle RDBMS, Oracle Application Server, MS SQL Database, ColdFusion, IIS web hosting, and Google search indexing.
4 —No hardware worries
CIT provides all hardware with a wide range of processing capabilities that will be tailored to your needs. All hardware has silver-level or higher maintenance contracts. Spare parts and even spare computers are maintained onsite. Hardware is periodically refreshed so that customers' applications are running on correctly-sized, up-to-date systems. Disk storage can be provided incrementally as needed using SAN technology.
3 —Flexibility
CIT will work with you to ensure a configuration of hardware and services that meet your needs. If your requirements change, additional services can be added or subtracted. You only pay for what you actually use and need. You do not have large startup expenses for purchase of hardware and software licenses. You do not have to worry about disposing of hardware you no longer need.
2 —Rates are realistic and payment is easy
The customer has no large initial outlay for hardware and licensing costs. CIT purchases the necessary hardware and software licenses, but will amortize the costs over a period of years. The data center functions on a cost-recovery basis; thus, it does not generate a "profit" by charging more than the actual cost of the services provided. The customer establishes a CIT account by identifying an account sponsor and CAN to be used for charges, and then each month the charges are billed to that account.
1 —Many hosting choices
CIT provides many types of application hosting services at the NIH Data Center. In addition to these hosting services, a recently-added co-location service can provide housing for your own equipment either within the data center or off-site. (See co-location services below.)
Summary of Hosting Services
If the summary below does not cover your special hosting needs, please contact CIT to discuss a possible solution we can provide.
• Mainframe "Titan" (z/OS)
Batch and interactive processing
DB2
IMS
• Scientific Computing—Available for NIH scientists
ALW
Helix
• Unix (EOS)
Servers
- platforms include Sun and Hewlett Packard
- dedicated and shared severs
Oracle
- Database and Application server
- dedicated and shared servers
Managed storage (includes backup and recovery)
• Windows
Dedicated servers
Shared server services
- Web server
- file server
- print server
MS SQL
- on dedicated or shared servers
ColdFusion hosting
- on shared and dedicated servers
Content management service
• Other services
Application-specific firewalls and rulesets
Connect:Direct
Disaster Recovery
Google search indexing
NIH Backup and Recovery Service (NBARS)
Co-Location Services
If you already own your own servers for hosting applications but find that you are simply running out of floor space or you lack the resources to house your servers properly, you will find CIT co-location services useful. Customers' own servers are housed in a secure, climate-controlled environment, where they can be accessed by your authorized administrators on a 24 x 7 basis.
There are two CIT co-location sites—one is on the NIH Campus, in the Customer Server Area (CSA) of the NIH Data Center; the other is in Northern Virginia. Information is available on-line about our co-location sites, the policies/procedures and rates.
More Information
You can learn more about these CIT hosting services on the NIH Data Center web site. Our rates are published on-line.
To learn more about the various hosting options, please send e-mail to datacenter@list.nih.gov, and someone on the hosting/co-location staff will contact you.
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