Author: Technology First
July 2010
As an alternative to costly, time consuming and hard to manage in-house virtualization projects, Profitability.net has launched Appica, an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud that provides on-demand server capacity and SAN storage in their Southwestern Ohio data center. Appica offers businesses the ability to house their applications in either a public (multi-tenant) cloud or in their own dedicated private cloud environment. Aaron Larkins, Founder and CEO of Profitability.net says, “We have engineered Appica as something we can stand behind and guarantee the performance of long term. The underlying redundancy, security, and support Appica provides is far beyond what the average SMB could achieve on their own.”
The advent of virtualization has allowed providers like Appica to help companies remove themselves from physically deploying their own infrastructure. “With our colocation business we always understood the need for some companies to server hug,Appica makes it possible for any business to capitalize the benefits of cloud computing. We designed a highly available solution that has complete redundancy throughout, which provides more protection than what most companies deploy. Whereas midsize companies usually accept several points of failure, Appica is engineered with two or more of everything, so we have reserve capacity if any single computing, storage, or network node is unavailable.”
Appica provides a framework where customers select the size, operating system, quantity of servers, and the amount of storage they require and then allows them to deploy their customized systems as needed. Larkins explains that,“Appica simplifies past practices where companies had to manage a lengthy procurement process, define and fine-tune infrastructure requirements, order servers, accept delivery, physically install the servers and storage, load the operating system and patch– all before they can even start using the system. We eliminate all those steps and the pain points associated with servers and storage. You can nstantly spin up a server within minutes. Now, your IT manager can focus on business needs such as application development and user experience versus procuring and troubleshooting your internal systems.”
A challenge for many small and medium businesses (SMBs) is the large financial investment in infrastructure and personnel required to achieve business continuity and disaster recovery. Prior to offerings like Appica’s, most small companies DR plans didn’t go past throwing a back-up tape in a briefcase and taking it home for the night. Appica is engineered and built for the enterprise, but is priced to be affordable for SMB market. Appica gives SMBs the ability to deliver compliant solutions and institute the best practices for contingency planning, therefore leveling the playing field between SMBs and their enterprise level competition. Appica is currently in beta. “We are inviting Technology First members and our current customers to come in and test their applications on our infrastructure at no cost,” notes Larkins. Profitability.net expects the service to launch to the public in August, but encourages companies interested in participating in the beta t visit Appica.com and sign-up or contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to request a beta account.