Managed Cloud Services FAQs

Get Questions Answered by the Cloud Infrastructure Experts at Zimcom

Backups are included standard with your Zimcom cloud hosting service. All cloud customers receive nightly snapshot backups by default with a 30-day retention period. If you need us to hold your backups for longer or if you want a copy of your data in a different region, no problem. We can perform these tasks when requested so that you never have to worry about losing your data.

Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) are two important metrics to consider when determining your business continuity and disaster recovery plans. RPO essentially defines how much data you can potentially lose, whereas RTO looks at how long it takes you to recover from an incident and return to normal operations. For more info, check out this article here from our partner Veeam, or contact us to discuss your specific RPO/RTO needs.

With Zimcom’s pay-as-you-go model, you’re only charged for the actual cloud resources that you use. At the beginning of each month you’ll receive an invoice for the prior month’s actual hourly usage of cloud resources (CPU, RAM, Storage, IPs, etc.), meaning you only have to pay for what you need.

Yes, cloud hosting is secure, and in most cases, is more secure than on-premises hosting. Zimcom employs a team of industry experts who specialize in securing our clients’ cloud infrastructure and protecting their data. Our secure cloud hosting services offer:

  • Automatic data protection
  • Greater security from ransomware attacks
  • Disaster recovery solutions
  • More freedom to focus on your business
  • Less time managing in-house IT infrastructure
  • Ongoing support from our cloud experts
  • 50 copies of your data stored at any given time across multiple geographic locations

Managed cloud services refer to outsourcing the responsibility of maintaining and managing cloud-based servers and infrastructure to a third-party provider like Zimcom. With managed cloud services, businesses can trust an organization like Zimcom to:

  • Upgrade and patch their infrastructure to protect against vulnerabilities
  • Configure and manage firewalls
  • Set up VPNs

Managed cloud services providers like Zimcom are responsible for ensuring the uptime, availability and security of our clients’ cloud-based infrastructure. We monitor and manage your servers, networks and applications running on the cloud, provide ongoing support, and handle any issues that may arise.

The greatest benefit of managed cloud services is businesses can free themselves up to focus on their core business activities and not worry about their technology infrastructure.

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There are many reasons why businesses should consider cloud migration:

Financial benefits – While the cloud may not be cheaper than buying physical hardware and running it until it dies, it does offer other financial benefits. Businesses can shift from a capital expense model to an operational expense model. Instead of investing large amounts of money upfront to purchase and maintain hardware, businesses can pay for cloud services on a pay-as-you-go basis. Organizations can also save on the soft costs associated with maintaining internal IT infrastructure, such as power, cooling and physical space.

Scalability – The cloud offers businesses the ability to scale their infrastructure up or down as needed. You can quickly and easily add or remove resources to meet your changing demands without having to invest in new hardware.

Maintenance and supportMigrating to the cloud allows businesses to shed the responsibility of buying and maintaining hardware, as well as dealing with unexpected events and services that may arise. Managed cloud services providers like Zimcom take care of the maintenance and support of your services, allowing you to focus on your operational functions.

Security and compliance – Cloud providers like Zimcom typically have more robust security measures in place than most businesses, helping to protect clients from cyberthreats. Through disciplined assessment and audit processes, our cloud and datacenters have implemented comprehensive practices for SSAE SOC 1 and SOC 2, HIPAA/HITECH, PCI DSS, ISO 27001 and FISMA to help our clients meet regulatory requirements.

Flexibility and mobility – Cloud services are accessible from anywhere with an internet connection, which can increase flexibility and mobility for businesses. This means that employees can work remotely or access applications and data from anywhere, increasing productivity, collaboration and employee satisfaction.

Cloud migration is the process of moving an organization’s data, applications and other business processes from an on-premises to a cloud-based infrastructure. The cloud migration process involves transferring data and applications from local servers to servers hosted in the cloud.

Zimcom has a tried-and-true 5-step process for cloud migration:

Step 1 – Workload Identification

Our first step is to work with you to identify which workloads will be migrated to the cloud and ensure that all of them are accounted for.

Step 2 – Environment Security

We then build a customized and secure cloud environment that aligns with your requirements and budget.

Step 3 – Data Replication

We begin replicating your data to the cloud while ensuring that your business operations remain uninterrupted.

Step 4 – Migration Testing

To ensure a smooth migration process, we test the system thoroughly to ensure that your business can easily and efficiently access the data.

Step 5 – Final Migration

We schedule the final steps of the migration process to minimize disruption to your business, thereby ensuring minimal impact on your productivity.

 

Zimcom has strategically placed our secure data centers in various geographic locations throughout the United States: Cincinnati, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Dallas, Texas, with the ability to expand into over 40 locations worldwide. Our modern data center facilities are designed to be secure and compliant, offering the infrastructure necessary to ensure the safe and dependable operation of your mission-critical data and applications.

AWS and Azure are considered the biggest cloud players on the block, or as we call them, two of the “Big 3” public cloud providers. One thing the “Big 3” public cloud providers are notorious for is including hidden costs on your monthly bill.

One aspect of our cloud offerings that clients especially love is our predictable, transparent and straightforward billing. Overall, our cloud migration and web hosting services are 30-50% more cost-effective than the “Big 3.”

AWS and Azure also don’t offer the level of personalized, accessible support that we do. We provide support for your migration, optimization and ongoing assistance when you host on CloudSurge, something you don’t get with the “Big 3.” Avoid hidden costs and choose a partner that’s transparent about pricing and committed to delivering value. Choose Zimcom.

 

Our data security service features a multi-faceted approach to help protect our clients from the latest security threats and attacks. Clients that work with us can leverage DDoS mitigation, Intrusion Detection & Prevention Services (IDS/IPS), identity management, vulernability scanning, Next-Gen firewalls and End Point Detection & Response (EDR) services to provide multiple layers of security to help increase your security posture and keep your systems safe from the bad guys. Additionally, our air-gapped and immutable backups provide customers with peace of mind that their data is safe and protected from ransomware and file encryption tactics.