Managed Optimised Servers – detailed information

1. Service overview

Telstra’s Managed Dedicated Server solution is a comprehensive hosting solution, encompassing the full design, implementation, management, monitoring and maintenance of hardware and operating systems.

Individual processing and capacity requirements are accommodated through a choice of products from leading vendors, which are configured by Telstra’s highly skilled technicians. Managed dedicated hosting with Telstra automatically includes patch management, anti-virus management and data back-ups to ensure the ongoing protection of your data security.

The managed dedicated hosting service from Telstra removes infrastructure complications from your IT delivery teams, thereby increasing productivity and shortening project delivery times. Servers are deployed within our secure state-of-the-art UK data centres, which provide redundant power and cooling as well as low latency internet bandwidth.

2. Service features

• Hardware & software
  Best-of-breed HP rack mount and blade servers.
  

• Operating systems
  Choose from Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Windows Server.

• Implementation and installation
  Including: procurement of hardware, configuration of the hardware, preparing it ready for Operating System installation (i.e. standardising firmware levels, physical drive configuration and partitioning), physical installation of hardware, installing and configuring the Operating System to meet your individual requirements, server hardening and testing of hardware.

• Networking
  Telstra will implement the necessary networking components to ensure the server is available from the internet. Redundant (failover) feeds are available as a recommended option.

• Customer access
  You will be provided with full administrative access to the server.

• Out of Band Network and Integrated Lights Out (iLO)
  Telstra operates a secured management network in order to provide management of servers and devices with the minimum effect on your network. All HP servers are also set up on an additional network for iLO to provide Telstra engineers with control of systems at all times.
  

• Management
  Telstra will manage the licensing of the Operating System and Microsoft software, management of the Operating System itself, back-ups and back-up schedule, and changes to Operating System configuration.

• Patch management
  We implement patch management for all Microsoft Windows servers, with centralised reporting of the patch status of servers and susceptibility to known exploits.

• Anti-virus management
  The service includes the installation, update and maintenance for Sophos anti-virus. The system is managed and updated using a centralised infrastructure, an agent on the server and the out of band management network.

• Back-ups
  Every Telstra Managed Dedicated Server includes a standard backup which backs up all closed files on all local drives. (For backups of ‘hot’ - open file - databases, mail servers or other similar open file backups, see Value Added Options). Full back-ups are performed weekly and cumulative incremental back-ups daily. Backups are performed using Symantec Net Backup Enterprise software, the industry’s leading enterprise data protection solution.

• 24x7 monitoring
  The server hardware and health is monitored through Telstra’s automated systems using Management Information Base (MIBs) in conjunction with Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) plus an agent installed on the customer server. The system delivers real time centralised monitoring under the constant scrutiny of a dedicated customer support team. Pre-failure and failure events are immediately identified so preventative or corrective action can be taken. Key applications such as database and web server applications are also monitored along with network availability and back-ups.

• Web server monitoring
  Telstra will monitor HTTP/HTTPS, critical web services, SMTP (if installed), WWW, FTP (if installed) and provide pro-active monitoring of the customer web server environment.

• SQL server monitoring
  We will monitor the critical SQL server processes to ensure they are active and will monitor the event viewer log on the SQL server to search for the expressions “transaction log full” and “backup job fail”. We will provide proactive monitoring of the customer SQL server environment.

• Maintenance
  Including: updating firmware levels, updating anti-virus signatures, updating critical and security patches, replacement of faulty hardware.

3. Added value options

Telstra offers a range of value added options and upgrades for managed dedicated hosting at additional cost, including:

• Additional monitoring
  We can provide an even higher level of service by providing advanced monitoring, including process monitoring, service monitoring, log file monitoring and a large range of internet protocol monitors.

• Managed storage
  Telstra Managed Storage provides flexibility, reliability and performance. It uses a dedicated storage network built on carrier grade infrastructure with redundant paths and easy and rapid scalability. Managed Storage is available on a per GB basis and can be provisioned using SAN (provisioned as iSCSI Logical Units) or NAS Protocols (presented as a CIFS share or a NFS share).
  

• Hardware upgrades
  Upgrades within the constraints of the device are available at any time during the life of the service.
  

• Network fault tolerance
  This provides redundant network connections to a server allowing data to flow over multiple paths and is recommended for solutions requiring a high SLA.
  

• Application management
  Installation and monitoring of applications is included in the Managed Dedicated Server service – however ongoing management of applications is not provided as standard. We can offer application management for SQL, Oracle, Citrix, Sharepoint and Exchange.
  

• Load balancing
  This is typically implemented to load balance multiple web servers in a dedicated web-farm to provide a consistent, fast and reliable user experience. Software Network Load Balancing (available for up to two Windows servers) or Hardware Load Balancing (using industry leading F5 hardware).
  

• ‘Hot’ database back-ups
  Included by default in our Windows SQL Servers offerings, this option backs up data on live databases without the need for the database to be stopped.

4. Service Level Agreements

Telstra can provide a range of SLA options to meet your managed dedicated hosting requirements. Our SLAs take a holistic approach and are dependent on the overall solution rather than simply individual components.

• Solution Level SLAs
  These will be applied to the availability of the solution’s function rather than its individual components. Solution Level SLAs are designed to ensure the availability of complete solutions and thus be more realistic and appropriate to the continued functioning of your business processes.

• Bandwidth SLAs
  Bandwidth is offered with 99.99% availability for high availability feeds and 99.9% for single feeds.

• Device Level SLAs
  Telstra also apply SLAs of up to 99.9% for individual devices, depending on their resilience.
  

• Response Times and Service SLAs
  Tickets will be categorised by level of severity which will determine the target resolution time. The highest priority issues attract a 1st Line Response Time of 15 minutes and a Target Resolution Time of 30 minutes.