Our Hosted PBX service offers VoIP-enabled business voice service that provides you with a complete telephone service for your business—without requiring you to install and manage complicated, expensive equipment.

VoIP is the acronym for Voice over Internet Protocol. It is the general term used to describe the technology of transmitting and delivering voice communications over the Internet.

Yes, we offer number porting.

Once you’ve activated your Hosted PBX service, you will be able to request a number port from our porting team. You will need to fill out a letter of authorization form and provide a recent bill from your current provider. We will then submit the port request to your current provider. It’s important that you do not cancel your phone service as this will disrupt the port.

Generally, a number porting can be completed within 7 to 10 business days. The exact length of time will depend on the service provider we are porting the number from and the accuracy of the information that is placed in the port request. We will work with you to complete the necessary paperwork and then submit the request.

Yes. With our Hosted PBX service, you can order new toll-free numbers or port existing toll-free numbers.

We offer a wide range of phones from Polycom. You can order these phones through us and they will be shipped to you preconfigured for each Hosted PBX user on your account. We also support the Cisco cordless IP phone.

Generally, a Hosted PBX VoIP call will use a G729 codec or appx. 30 kilobits per second (kbps) of bandwidth for the duration of the call. If you were to add Hosted PBX for five users, and everyone was on the phone at the same time, it would require 150 kbps of bandwidth during the calls. (For reference: 1,000 kilobits is equal to 1 megabit.) Your exact needs will depend on the call volume and call patterns at your company as well the type of IP phones you are using. You can use your existing Internet connection for Hosted PBX as long as the connection is dedicated (not dial-up) and you feel you have adequate upstream and downstream bandwidth for the number of users you are adding.

No. Hosted PBX can be enabled for as few as one user. It can also be enabled for Active Directory users who don’t have Exchange mailboxes.

Yes. Hosted PBX can either be added to your hosted Exchange service, or you can add Hosted PBX service as a standalone product.

Our Hosted PBX service is available in all 50 United States (Alaska and Hawaii included at no additional cost).

Yes, parking unused phone numbers is possible on our Hosted PBX. A small per-number fee is charged.

Cloud Server is a highly available multitenant platform that’s architected specifically around superior performance, availability and data protection. Cloud Server offers four initial configurations (all of which can be scaled with more storage, RAM, or vCPUs at any time).

Developed by some of the most experienced engineers and architects in the business, everything about Cloud Server’s infrastructure was designed deliberately to create a superior, worry-free platform for running and scaling business applications. This focus on value—instead of economy—propagates across every level of the service:

• The Computing Layer: Dell PowerEdge R810 enterprise-grade servers with component redundancy and built-in HA features. The two-rack-unit systems have four sockets for multicore Intel-based processors.
• The Storage Layer: EMC VNX Fiber Channel arrays combine RAID 5 with high-performance SAS disks to boost performance and redundancy. Agentless Symantec backup reduces the performance overhead of backups and helps protect against data loss.
• The Network Layer: Cisco 10-Gigabit Ethernet switches use multiple high-speed interconnects in a top-tier datacenter for network performance and reliability.
• The Virtualization Layer: VMware vCloud Director and VMware vSphere 5 Enterprise help ensure a highly reliable and scalable virtualized cloud infrastructure. It’s flexible and resource-efficient, with the uptime guarantees and physical security of an experienced application infrastructure provider.
• The Datacenter: Cloud Server is hosted in an SSAE16 SOC 1 Type II compliant, Tier III datacenter with redundant electrical and cooling infrastructure, verified levels of physical security, and redundant power supplies.
• The Providers: We connect our datacenter to the Internet via multiple Tier 1 Internet providers like Level 3, UUNet, Sprint, Qwest, Global Crossing and SAVVIS.

We’ve structured our virtual machine offering to provide initial configurations that match any use case. This helps ensure value by deploying efficiently while retaining the capacity to scale as rapidly as your needs change. Our virtual machines include:

• High-Capacity Cloud Servers. Up to 8 CPU cores, 1 TB of storage and 32 GB of memory.
• Instant Scalability. You can spin up new machines within minutes using your control panel.
• Resource Allocation and Reserved Resources. You don’t have to queue for processing power, memory or storage that’s rightfully yours.
• High Availability. We leverage VMware HA Active-Active clustering and N+1 component redundancy at the server, storage and network layer
• OS Images. Choose among Windows 2008 Enterprise 32 bit, Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise 64 bit, Windows 2012 and Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Cent OS). (You can migrate Windows 2003 SP2 (R2) 32bit/64bit workloads, but new servers running Windows 2003 are not supported.)

Cloud Server balances broad ease-of use with granular control. Our control panel dashboard lets you provision new servers or scale existing ones with just a few clicks. And it simplifies management with server status and health reporting , power management, remote desktop access and server console access for greater administrative control.

At the same time, Cloud Server lets you configure your hosted environment as necessary to suit your specific needs. This gives you on-premise levels of control that include:

• Full admin access and permissions for each Cloud Server
• Rapid provisioning and capacity controls
  • Provision a new server in minutes
  • Upgrade server resources, including CPU, memory and storage
  • Add additional hard disks and/or upgrade existing hard disks as necessary
  • Reduces management overhead: We manage all infrastructure components, nightly backup, and monitoring for each Cloud Server
• Server console access
  • Manage your server as if you were on site
  • Visualize the OS startup screen, diagnose system errors or control the server through its native GUI
  • Access and troubleshoot your server when Terminal Server is not available
  • Access power management capabilities
  • Mount local CD/DVD/ISO to Cloud
  • Please note: IE8+ and Firefox browsers are currently supported by Cloud Server. The Server Console does not work over proxies, so please disable them. This tool requires installation of the VMware Remote Console Plugin (available for download from within the control panel).
• Resource utilization alerts
  • Key resource information lets you predict your needs
  • Resources are averaged over a 24 hour period
  • Yellow and red alerts are provided for CPU, memory or storage usage above 70% and 90% respectively

Our goal is to provide data protection that far exceeds the capabilities of any on-premise SMB server. That’s why we have high standards for our network, our datacenter, our software, and more:

Physical Security

• We offer a consistently more secure environment than on-premise deployments can typically provide
• Highly secure and reliable datacenter facilities
• Internal and external closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance
• Biometric scanners control access control to datacenter floor
• 24×7 on-site security staffing

Network Security

• Fully isolated tenant network for each customer
• Integrated perimeter firewall and site-to-site VPN services
• VPNs facilitate hybrid cloud scenarios between on-premise and cloud-based environments

Logical Security

• Dedicated security staff and employee controls
• Every employee, regardless of their role, undergoes a rigorous background check
• Employee access to electronic credentials is strictly controlled and audited regularly

Compliance

• Cloud Server’s datacenter is SSAE16 SOC 1 Type II compliant

Firewalls

• VMware vShield Edge firewalls are more flexible than hardware firewalls because they’re tightly integrated with VMware HA and vMotion
• Cloud Server offers self-service firewall management
• 5-tuple stateful inspection firewall allows users to control network access using source and destination information, significantly increasing network edge security
• Inbound and outbound connection control with rules based on:
  • IP-address – source/destination IP address
  • Ports – source/destination port
  • Protocol – by type (TCP or UDP)
  • NAT & DHCP support

Cloud Server’s site-to-site VPN lets you establish secure communications between your Cloud Server environment and an on-premise VPN endpoint.

• Enabled by VMware vShield Edge
• IPsec VPN—based on the IKE (Internet Key Exchange) protocol
• Apply firewall rules to VPN traffic
• Site-to-site and client-to-site tunneling

What kind of support backs up Cloud Server?

We pride ourselves on our proactive and reactive vigilance. On the proactive side, we’re ceaselessly monitoring our infrastructure to help keep your Cloud Server experience free of worries. But should you need our assistance with supporting the VPN and firewall, we’ll react with speed and diligence. If you call, we’ll typically answer the phone within sixty seconds; if you email, we’ll respond within an hour. In both cases, we’ll do what it takes to help eliminate your distractions and return your focus to building your business.

Processes built around customer needs

For Cloud Server—like for all our offerings—we’ve organized our support processes around customers, not staff members. There’s no case ownership, so you don’t have to worry about connecting particular team members. Instead, our staff is trained to conclude every support interaction with detailed notes that create a universal body of wisdom around you, your customers, and your specific business needs.

Overnight support that matches our daylight capabilities

While every major provider offers 24/7 support, not every provider empowers their overnight shift to actually solve problems. What makes us different is that our overnight staff is just as experienced and certified as our daylight teams. We maintain an office in St. Petersburg, Russia, that’s staffed by administrators whose tools, resources and expertise match our domestic teams—down to their MCITP certifications. Which means we are just as capable of solving problems at three in the morning as we are at three in the afternoon. Your business never has to wait for the sun to rise.

How does onboarding & migration work?

Our Cloud Concierge™ team is trained to work behind the scenes to migrate servers without interrupting you or your users. They also can assist with the setup and configuration of the VPN, firewall and select popular use cases.

Our team combines industry best practices with tools and extensive experience to assist you if needed. You can stay focused on building your applications and growing your business, knowing that we’re on the job preparing your hosted environment.

Migration: a three-phase, white-glove experience

We’ve built internal processes on our long legacy of migration to eliminate worries for you and your users. We work hard to minimize interruption and ensure data fidelity while proceeding at a pace that you dictate. Your experience includes:

1. Discovery and planning. The Cloud Concierge team will work with you to develop a migration plan that minimizes your involvement and maintains business continuity.
2. Transfer and configuration. To initiate a physical-to-virtual or virtual-to-virtual conversion, we’ll provide you with a procedure that you’ll execute on your legacy server. After transferring the image of your old deployment, we’ll work with you to run a security audit, configure the server and establish RDP access. Then we’ll work behind-the-scenes to configure it along with your firewall rules, any VPN settings and anything else necessary.
3. Cut over. Once we’ve completed our checklists, we make the VM available to you for final testing, QA, and any other follow-up configurations. Your new systems will be ready to power your business applications with the performance, availability and data protection that you expect.

Cloud Server is designed to keep you focused on your applications and your middleware. You don’t have to worry about virtualization, server hardware or datacenter facilities. Our managed service levels include:

• Management of all infrastructure components up to and including the Virtualization layer
• Nightly backup with one week of data retention included
  • We can restore an entire virtual machine or individual files on demand
  • Restoration services are chargeable
  • Ask about the option for longer retention policies
• Uptime and utilization monitoring
• Managed and self-service firewall and VPN setup and support