In the context of service hosting is one step up from 'standard' shared hosting. Rather than have services based on a single physical machine (with constraints on RAM, processing power, disc size and so on), services run on several machines. These machines don't even have to be in the same location. As long as the interconnections between disparate sites are fast enough (gigabit ethernet is usually considered to be the minimum speed) clouds can be spread over any area. As computing power can be harnessed from several sources, there is a great deal of flexibility available both to the service provider and the end user.

What are PCI data security standards, what is PCI compliance, and how does all this affect my business?

Payment Card Industry data security standards are a framework that should be adhered to by any organisation taking payments by debit or credit card. If your business relies on some form of eCommerce hosting, both you and your data centre services provider need to be PCI compliant.

When considering your business's web hosting needs, it pays to consider the business hosting options available to you, as provided by your Internet Service Provider. Many providers offer virtualised hosting, private hosting (a dedicated server) or shared hosting. This article explores some of the pros of virtualised hosting.

The question of fully managed servers vs. managing your own servers is more often than not, a financial question. It’s about start-up costs and the equation of  capex vs. opex. For sure owning your own servers can offer considerable flexibility at an operational and technical level and may indeed seem like a stable, long-term solution, but for many business decision-makers the costs associated with implementing it can quickly put a company’s budgets into the red.

"As a full digital services agency we choose Macquarie Telecom as they had the agility to propose a solution and deliver on it. We can now focus on our core services and dont have to worry about the data centre services, as we have a partner that delivered zero down time, during our recent online management of the T3 float." - James Rintoul, Group Technical Director