If your business is web-enabled in some way or form, it would be in your best interests to understand what the geeks are droning on about.

We’ve created a simple guide to Cloud Computing for those who are wanting to gain a basic understanding of the topic – a concise guide for the uninitiated.

Read it online here. Or download it and share it with friends in pdf format.

Enjoy.

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Cloud Computing 101

We decided to take the idea one step further and set the challenge to our staff to collect 67 cans (representing the 67 years) of food for donation to Nazareth House, local charity in Cape Town. After the collections were taken, we delivered a total of 90 cans, that were handed over to Sister Margaret of Nazareth House yesterday. Founded in 1881,by the Sisters of Nazareth, Nazareth House is a haven for sick, weak and vulnerable people. For over 100 years, the Sisters have unwaveringly followed their mission to take care of the most vulnerable members of society, regardless of race or religion – a cause that we are proud to support.

Donations are always needed and received with much gratitude by the Sisters of Nazareth. Should you wish to contribute, either email info@nazhouse.co.za or telephone +27 (0)21 461-1635, alternatively, monetary donations can be made online here.

Nazareth House

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Supporting Mandela Day 2010

Domain extensions are the categories of Internet domain names, and selecting one used to be relatively easy. If you were a business, you’d prefer a .com domain name because it is a highly recognised symbol for having a business presence on the Internet. .co.za is the country code for South Africa, and the .co portion indicates the domain name is for commercial purposes (similar to the .com extension). And if you were a Non-Profit Organisation or a trade association, you’d generally use the .org extension. Simple right?

Well, at RSAWEB we like to give you an abundance of choices, and offer you domain extensions from .net to .tv and so much more! Our extensive list of domain extensions now includes: .co and .fm.

If you’re unsure of which extension would suite your needs best, here’s a breakdown of what we offer, what it means and what it’ll cost you:

Please note: In order to purchase a domain, you need to have it hosted somewhere, which means you need to apply for a hosting package when you purchase a domain.

*Excludes hosting fee of R25.00 per annum

Applying for a domain name is easy through RSAWEB’s advanced domain search. It enables you to check whether a specific domain is available for registration. If it’s available, we’ll guide you through the whole process of owning your own domain, using our online registration system.

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New .co domains now available

The majority of South African businesses and many residential customers are currently connected to a 4Mbps ADSL connection. The bandwidth figure is important, but by no means the only factor in determining the performance of your internet connection. Internet browsing, more commonly known as web traffic, is highly sensitive to Round Trip Times (RTT), or commonly known as ping times.

Consider the analogy of plumbing and the internet, with your ADSL connection being the proverbial pipe from the internet to your office or home. A larger pipe does not mean the water will flow faster, it will just allow more water to flow. The speed of the water flow does not increase, as is the case with the internet, which travels at the speed of light.

As with a water pipe, the more you stretch the length of the pipe, the longer it takes for the traffic to travel from the web server to the computer. If the web traffic’s source is the UK, your ping time is about 250-300 milliseconds. The web server to-and-fro communication will slow the website load time down significantly — no matter how big you make your pipe. With a locally-hosted web server, the pipe becomes dramatically shorter, around 20-50 milliseconds, speeding up your web browsing dramatically.

Companies like Google want you to have the best browsing experience possible. This is one of the major factors for Google putting local content caches into South Africa, and even other African countries like Kenya. It’s all about the user experience, and it’s no coincidence that Google’s websites are fast.

To take advantage of the physical ping time limitations, host your website or web application where the majority of your users are. If they are local, host locally, and the same logic holds true for overseas. Hosting locally lends itself to businesses whose main target market resides in SA. Sites hosted locally load considerably faster – leaving the visitor with a much better user experience. An additional bonus, is that most local ISPs provide excellent customer support, with 24/7 access to support staff via live chat, email or telephonically. Bottom line is the users will get the best experience and love you for it.

The ADSL upgrade from 4Mbps to 10Mbps is a good thing though. It will allow you high speed access to local content at the same time as allowing more concurrent data connections for those offices that 4Mb/s doesn’t cut it for. Only expect a faster browsing experience if your 4Mb/s line was previously congested.

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Does more broadband equal a faster Internet experience?

“You don’t fear for your life in the middle of a storm, you can’t really afford to.”

– Ellen MacArthur

Ellen MacArthur became an icon within the sailing fraternity when she set the record as the youngest woman solo sailor to complete the non-stop circumnavigation of the globe in the 2000/2001 Vendee Globe race. She did not win the race, but her ambition, courage and determination to achieve her goals was the key. The key not only to succeed, but rather to make a difference!

Her success started at an early age (17) when she obtained her first record in single-handedly sailing the circumnavigation of Great Britain, and continued with many other achievements including, Mini Transat solo race (placed 17^th), and the Route de Rhum (placed 1^st, and in record time, in her second attempt in 2002). Ellen also captained a round-the-world record attempt for a crewed yacht (this attempt was cancelled when the yacht’s mast broke), and in June 2004 she set a new world record for a transatlantic crossing by a woman (Ambrose Light, lower New York Bay, USA to Lizard Point in Cornwall, UK), beating the previous crewed and single-handed records. Her crowning year though was in 2005 when she beat Francis Joyon’s single-handed, non-stop, round-the-world record.

Ellen also received a number of awards, including “British Young Sailor of the Year” (1995), “Yachtsman of the Year” (1998), “Sailing’s Young Hope” (1998), and she also won second place (runner up to David Beckham) in the “BBC Sports Personality of the Year” (2001), a great achievement considering this award is usually dominated by more mainstream sports. In 2005, Ellen was made a “Dame Commander” of the Order of the British Empire in recognition for her achievements, and honorary Lieutenant Commander of the Royal Naval Reserve. A more recent award was in 2008 when she was awarded the French Légion d’Honneu Knight by Nicolas Sarkozy.

Skipper Ellen MacArthur sets a new sailing record by completing the round-the-world circumnavigation, sailing 27,354 nautical miles (50,660km) in 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds at an average speed of 15.9 knots. Photo: Liot Vapillion

In late 2009, Ellen announced her retirement from competitive sailing in order to become an eco-warrior focusing on environmental campaigning and stopping mankind from destroying the environment.   She does not regard her greatest achievements amongst her race conquests, but rather what she discovered whilst visiting South Georgia in the South Atlantic. Whilst camping on the island for 2 months to highlight the plight of the Albatross which is under threat from the hooks used in long-line fishing, Ellen had an epiphany. Her view towards life altered and she realised that we, the human race, take our resources for granted. To some, our resources are so accessible that we simply take what we want, when we want it, and how much of it we want… even if we do not need it!

When preparing for a record attempt, Ellen may only take the bare essentials. She manages what she has, down to the very last drop of fuel or water, simply because if she were to run out of something, there is no way of obtaining more. The consequences of wastage are very serious! Money has no value at sea – it’s the resources that count.

This is an important message to entrepreneurs in a business context. As a start-up, you learn to work with the bare minimum, the resources you have are exactly that – all you have… if you don’t have the finances to purchase something, you don’t…. you learn to work with what is available to you!

But what happens when these entrepreneurs reach a level where money is no longer an issue? Have they learnt the necessary lessons from when they were a simple start-up? Now that the finances are available, are resources purchased freely? Are entrepreneurs setting the correct example for their employees in this regard?

I’m not necessarily talking about bio-degradable toilet paper here. I’m talking about the resources that are needed within the business / office environment – the resources that cost you money – the seemingly small things like cash flow, supplier costs and staff costs.

The lesson to be learnt from Ellen is to stop, and absorb your surroundings. Are you, and all those within your company managing your resources properly?

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What we can learn from Ellen MacArthur

Apart from great organisation, speakers, and coffee, conference delegates generally rate WiFi connectivity as one of the most important needs at a conference. So, while the word spread that the number of registered Net Prophet delegates (Net Prophet is a South African conference we sponsor) was fast approaching the 900 mark, we were meticulously plotting how we were going to provide free WiFi; whilst trying to figure out exactly how many devices would be connected on the day, and at any given time.

From last year’s conference (400 delegates), we learnt that balancing the load across eight 1mb/s connections was simply not going to cut it this time. We needed to find something that would allow 900+ delegates to freely tweet, upload, download, check emails, send emails and chat to their friends who were missing out on the conference.

Some of the challenges that face conference WiFi are:

1. Providing enough back-haul Internet capacity
2. Limiting per user download and upload speed
3. WiFi coverage within the venue
4. Wireless interference
5. Wireless Access Point congestion

Net Prophet takes the form of a one day conference held in a large conference facility. We calculated that we would need an Internet back-haul link total with the capacity of about 20Mb/s down and 10Mb/s up to give the largely tech crowd a great experience. We provisioned this directly from our Data Centre in Cape Town via 2 5.8Ghz point to point wireless links to the roof of the conference venue.

Inside the venue we set up a Linux firewall to provide DHCP along with per protocol queuing to ensure that no single user was able to abuse the service and slow speeds down for others.

Quality of service needed to be assured and our techs set up a few ‘queues’ on the router. The router would evaluate traffic and put it into the relevant queue (email, Web traffic, torrents, and ‘other’), which we monitored throughout the day, allowing us to adjust the queues accordingly should any latency be experienced. We also prioritised bandwidth to websites we knew would be accessed during the day by most users like Twitter, Facebook, Twitpic, Bitly and a few others.

To cover the venue in a WiFi blanket we used technology from Xirrus in the form of 16 access points each, with the radio turned down to 50% and with a sectorized antennae to focus the signal. Due to the constraints of the 2.4Ghz technology it is important not to overload individual access points but rather try to spread the load across as many access points as possible.

When conference delegates arrive in the morning there is usually a surge in usage, as everyone turns on their laptops, iPhones and iPads. To manage this and ensure all delegates got a reasonable connection, we rate limited each wireless connection to 2Mb/s. During the morning session, there were on average 132 devices connected and we were downloading approximately 2Mbps – 4Mbps (30% of which was for email). After the first tea break, news obviously spread about the free WiFi connectivity, so we removed the limiting. The number of devices connected immediately increased to 165. Continuous downloading on the link then jumped to between 5 Mbps – 8Mbps (90% being Web traffic) with the maximum being 14.9 Mbps, but as much as 10Mbps for extended 5 minute periods.

Towards the end of the conference, Web traffic decreased to 4Mbps, email traffic virtually disappeared, and ‘other’ traffic increased. Interestingly enough, the lowest traffic – less than 2Mbps – was recorded during Richard Mulholland’s presentation (Social Media: The side effects), just proving that we all “Stopped. Listened and took thing in.”

Of the 900+ delegates in attendance, only 1 person made an attempt at a torrent, but that was only for about 20 minutes before we stopped him (or her). Other than that, it was a very responsible crowd!

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How we provided free WiFi at a tech conference for 900+ delegates

2oceansvibe raked in several awards at the 2009 SA Blog Awards, including SA’s best overall blog, best entertainment and most humorous – to name but a few. It also boasts rather impressive stats like 50,000 unique readers and 200,000 page views per month. Not too bad, considering the guy’s mantra is “work is a sideline, live the holiday.”

Seth decided to move over to us when his previous hosting providers conducted an upgrade to their hosting infrastructure. Unfortunately, their desired results didn’t quite materialise, and instead caused the 2oceansvibe site to go down. Our RSAWEB Geeks quickly worked their magic to fix the site. We took a snapshot of the site (all files and database), pulled a copy of the broken site, and stitched it all together with the backup to re-build the site on our hosting server. All this was done in a matter of 2 days, with minimal interruption and no downtime to the 2oceansvibe site.

Seth thought this was awesome, and then moved all the domains for his site over to us – “RSAWEB did a great job fixing up my site when I needed it most. Thanks for keeping the good vibes flowing!”

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RSAWEB hosts 2oceansvibe – SA’s most popular blog!

We are very proud to announce the launch and immediate availability of True Cloud Servers – a cloud hosting platform that allows users to deploy and provision fully operational servers in just seconds. The first of its kind in South Africa, True Cloud Servers offer benefits previously unavailable to businesses hosting locally.

There are 2 key differences between our True Cloud Servers and currently competing products: (1) The speed at which servers can be deployed and provisioned; and (2) the flexibility and scalability of any given solution. The business benefits of this product explained in further detail on our website.

With True Cloud Servers new servers can be up and running in minutes, and new server resources allocated on-demand to cater for resource hungry applications or sudden website traffic spikes. This is the next evolution in hosting…. Hardware as a Service.

The technology behind True Cloud Servers allows for flexible control of server resources through the use of Cloud Nodes. Users can maintain optimal server conditions by adding resources from Cloud Nodes whenever they lack CPU, memory or other server resources. These resources can also be controlled on a day-to-day basis, as the demands placed on the server change. Users only purchase the resources they need, and only pay for what’s provisioned.

As with traditional server offerings, True Cloud Servers give the user complete control with full administrator access to their server, allowing them to select their choice operating system, applications and configuration.

A key factor for business who may consider using cloud services is the recent increase in available bandwidth and the resulting decrease in the costs thereof. This makes True Cloud Servers a viable option for businesses that need to host locally.

With regards to potential security concerns in the Cloud, users have nothing to fear. We, as the Service Provider, do not have access to any of our customers’ servers; each server is independent of the others in the Cloud. Organisations like Google and the UK Government are already utilising similar hosting platforms with great success.

True Cloud Servers are available in 256MB (@ R256 p/m), 512MB (@ R395 p/m), 1G (@ R695 p/m), 2G (@ R995 p/m) and 4G (@ R1,495 p/m), and setup for all of these options are free. Find out more about our packages here.

Curious about this new product? Try it out risk free with our free trial offer.

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A Cloud Hosting first for SA

The event, which is hosted by the RAMP Foundation, brings together the most innovative / successful / creative / ambitious thinkers and entrepreneurs in the local Internet space, to share their stories, ideas and predictions for the future. The event is not just for people within the tech industry, but is beneficial for anyone who has web-based business interests.

This year’s event is a celebration of digital success in Africa, and also answers burning questions such as: How connected is South Africa and Africa? What are we doing with these online capabilities? Can we teach the world a thing or two about innovation? And what does a company need to do to tap into this opportunity?

The speaker (Prophet) line-up features an interesting mix of big industry names, innovators, international tech commentators and the tech rock stars of tomorrow:

• Stephan Ekbergh – Travelstart
• Arthur Goldstuck – World Wide Worx
• Erik Hersman – Ushahidi, AfriGadget, TED Fellow
• Patrick Kayton – Bright Sparks & Cognician
• Sarah Lacy – TechCrunch.com
• Vinny Lingham – yola, Clicks2Customers, Lingham Capital
• Stefan Magdalinski – moo.com & Mocality
• Richard Mulholland – Missing Link & Thunk!
• Stephen Newton – Google South Africa
• Stuart Ntlathi – Stuart Ntlathi Institute of Science and Technology
• Adii Rockstar – WooThemes

Joining the party is Richard Hardiman from KFM, who will be hosting a panel on ‘International trends and opportunities that local entrepreneurs can tap into’.

Net Prophet 2010 promises to be one of the biggest tech events of the year. We hope to see you there. For more info, please visit www.netprophet.org.za

Delegates of Net Prophet 2009

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RSAWEB supports the tech entrepreneurs of tomorrow

Shaun White began his life with a challenge that most would not begin to comprehend. Born with a congenital heart defect, Shaun endured two open-heart operations before his first birthday. This however, did not discourage him. At 4 years of age, Shaun showed a sense of fearlessness as he raced down mountain slopes, chasing his older brother, Jesse, on skis. In an attempt to slow him down, his mother put him on a snowboard, and instructed him to copy everything his brother did. Her idea of slowing Shaun down did the exact opposite.

Shaun’s career snowballed. He entered and won his first contest, subsequently earned himself a wildcard entry into Nationals, and obtained his first sponsorship all at the age of 7. The 17 year old Shaun soon became the first athlete to qualify for both the winter and summer X Games, where he won 4 consecutive gold medals in one discipline.

Seemingly reaching the peak of his sporting career, Shaun confronted one of his sponsors, Red Bull, with the notion of competing in a single event at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the half pipe, with the goal of taking the gold medal. “You have to keep pushing yourself as an athlete. When you’re at the top of the sport, it means pushing into unknown territory,” says Shaun.

Shaun’s thought behind this was to focus on a single entity of the sport and improve, possibly change snowboarding as we knew it. Through focusing his attention, Shaun was able to put thought into motion. “I’ve had all these tricks in my mind I’ve wanted to try. I just needed a place to figure them out.” With this, Red Bull built a custom half pipe in Colorado, complete with a foam pit, so Shaun could fully execute his new moves, without risking injury.

Prior to his gold medal winning run at the 2006 Winter Olympics, Shaun spoke about the feeling of confidence and certainty in his abilities, and on visualising his goals. This approach is something we can all learn from, not only in our everyday lives, but in our businesses and careers. Through visualising your goals and focusing on you how you are going to achieve it, you will succeed.

Learning to focus on one task is an invaluable asset. By focusing your concentration on one specific task, and eliminating distractions, your mind will be energised to completing the task at hand until completion – and ultimate success.

Ambition is what drives us to succeed. Shaun White didn’t rest on his laurels, instead he chose to push the boundaries and confront a bigger challenge and something that would push him to focus on one task at a time. Mindset goes hand-in-hand with ambition. With ambition you have a goal to work towards. With the correct mindset, you accept what needs to be done in order to achieve your goals – which steps need to be taken, and what sacrifices need to be made.

As an entrepreneur, business person, employee, employer – whichever category you fall into, you need to establish and focus your goals and work towards it. In Shaun White’s case, it was focusing on landing the Double McTwist 1260 and creating 4 other never-seen-before moves that would take snowboarding to another level. You need to ask yourself… what is your Double McTwist 1260 – and how will you direct your focus in order to achieve your success?

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What we can learn from Shaun White