Vancouver-based Internet Service Provider SmarttNet has announced new connections to fiber-optic points of presence in Seattle, WA and Vancouver’s Harbour Centre.

This infrastructure expansion will allow SmarttNet to expand their area of serviceability into the United States, a new market for the company that has built a strong presence across Western Canada in its 15 years of operation.

With two direct connections to Seattle, SmarttNet will now be able to provide point-to-point connectivity to business owners across Washington State, as well as greatly reduced transit costs for U.S. businesses operating within Canada.

SmarttNet’s connection to multiple POP locations provides increased data redundancy and a new level of security for fiber customers. If one connection is compromised, service will be unaffected as traffic is routed through the remaining active line.

With more companies offering software as a service (SaaS) and other high-bandwidth business processes, there is an ever growing need for secure, redundant fiber connections. SmarttNet is responding to this market reality with an expanded network designed to serve organizations on the cutting edge of business and technology.

About SmarttNet:

SmarttNet is an Internet Service Provider that has served the business market in British Columbia and Alberta since 1995. In addition to connectivity, SmarttNet provides hosting, data backup and server co-location within the company’s in-house data center.

The SmarttNet Data Center is centrally located in one of Western North America’s largest fiber distribution points, about ten minutes outside of Vancouver, Canada.

In addition to this change in usage, more and more businesses are migrating from their traditional PBX phones systems to customizable and digital Voice over IP (VoIP) systems. In Canada, the adoption rate is over 14% nationally and increasing annually according to AboutVoiP.org. What do all of these fundamental shifts in the industry mean for you?

#1 Change Your Land Line Usage

If you are a business owner or office manager, you should be aware that land lines are still very useful services to have, if you use them properly. For example, you can eliminate the telephone number on your land line and still use the physical copper cable to carry an Internet signal. Dark DSL service provides the same connectivity options as regular DSL services without the added cost of a telephone number being associated with the telephone line. The cost savings are notable especially if you have multiple locations, all with similar DSL connectivity setups.

#2: Segregate Your Services

If you are a company that is looking at adopting VoIP, don’t put all of your proverbial eggs in one basket. Be smart. Divide your voice and data networks into 2 separate networks. In the event that one connection goes down, you will still have partial communication and recovery will be much faster. Also, this will help you ease into the new VoIP system. If the system is stable, you can eventually migrate all of your services unto one connection and further reduce your costs, administrative overheads and reduce the complexity of your network environment.

#3: Reliability and Business Continuity

If cost savings are not of primary concern, then you may use the additional connectivity lines as auto-failover options in the event that your primary connection fails. Modern businesses have no margin for outage – in fact, some industries, certifications and businesses require you to provide a business continuity strategy outline in the event of a major catastrophe. Be prepared. A Dark DSL connection can be a fundamental component of a business continuity strategy.

Your land line is very useful service to retain. Whether it is for cost savings or redundancy, SmarttNet’s Dark DSL can provide benefit to your business.

]]> http://www.smartt.com/dark-dsl-%e2%80%93-reducing-single-line-costs-for-home-and-businesses/feed/ 0 http://www.smartt.com/smarttnet-takes-an-analytical-approach-to-internet-marketing/ http://www.smartt.com/smarttnet-takes-an-analytical-approach-to-internet-marketing/#comments Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:10:01 +0000 imteam http://www.smartt.com/?p=3140

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – December 2, 2009

After 15 years of providing integrated Web solutions to businesses across Western Canada, Vancouver Internet marketing firm SmarttNet is setting out to help small and medium sized enterprises enter the profitable world of Web Analytics.

The recent addition of 4 Google Analytics Qualified Individuals to the company is a major expansion, but also a natural progression for SmarttNet, whose Chief Marketing Officer Martin Wong has always put hard numbers first when it comes to measuring the success of any marketing campaign.

“Web Analytics should be a cornerstone for any web strategy,” says Wong, “Especially with the economic downturn, it is absolutely essential for companies to measure and analyze any marketing activities. Web analytics can help you control your costs and optimize your return on investment by observing how your customers react and behave cross-channels.”

Google Analytics is a free and powerful tool that lets business owners measure website traffic and determine the effectiveness of their online marketing efforts. While it is free to install, small businesses stand to benefit greatly from the training and insights that Google Analytics Qualified Individuals can provide.

“Recent research from Forrester Research has shown that 75% of large enterprises consider Web Analytics technologies to be indispensable,” says Wong, “Through our expert implementation services and training programs, we want to bring the power of analytics to local businesses.”

SmarttNet is a full service Internet marketing firm with a long history of serving Vancouver’s business community. The company has roots as a connectivity provider and has since expanded to include co-location, web design, search engine optimization and social media marketing services.

With 4 Google Analytics Qualified Individuals in house, SmarttNet currently employs nearly ten percent of the 53 certified professionals in Canada.

For more information please contact

Jon Mandell
Writer and Media Specialist
jon.mandell@smartt.com
www.marketingsmartt.com

]]> http://www.smartt.com/smarttnet-takes-an-analytical-approach-to-internet-marketing/feed/ 2 http://www.smartt.com/saas-haas-and%e2%80%a6arista-curbing-it-costs-and-increasing-technology-adoption/ http://www.smartt.com/saas-haas-and%e2%80%a6arista-curbing-it-costs-and-increasing-technology-adoption/#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:20:32 +0000 salehtousi http://www.smartt.com/?p=3099 This article is intended for business owners and corporate executives. For further technical specifications please contact us at support@smartt.com

SaaS and HaaS are no longer buzz acronyms that can be discounted as recent Internet hype words or entrepreneurs’ flights of fancy. Both Software as a Service and Hardware as a Service are business models which have gained industry adoption and implementation by Tech giants such as Amazon and Google. Both SaaS and HaaS use existing infrastructure deployments to service a greater number of services and users. Google provides its office and e-mail suite of products based on the SaaS model while Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) follows the HaaS model and provides a reliable and expandable sanbox for developers to create, deploy and expand their products and service offerings.

That is all wonderful and good – but how can it help you?

First, keep things in perspective. SaaS and HaaS are good tools to have but should be deployed with care and for certain business objectives only. Migrating all services and hardware requirements to a SaaS or HaaS provider puts your IT infrastructure and critical data at risk.

Second, using either Service will require one critical component: a reliable, redundant Internet connection. If your Internet goes down, business stops. Simple.

Thirdly, the point of these models is to reduce initial and continued capital expenditure and provide a means of scaling and updating to new hardware and software without painful migration or interruption to business processes. This advantage is eliminated if your Internet connectivity costs become unmanageable. Any gain in reduced capital costs in hardware may be offset by capital costs in connectivity. It becomes a tricky balancing act.

Helping to balance things is where SmarttNet’s Arista Service comes in.

Arista is based on a reliable, bonded DSL solution backed end-to-end by Cisco hardware. Multiple fail-over DSL lines provide the throughput you need to allow users at your office to properly use the HaaS and SaaS deployments. As Arista is based on multiple connections, the redundancy is built-in. Any single line failures reduce overall bandwidth but connectivity is not compromised.

Along with these benefits, Arista is scalable as your bandwidth requirements increase and costs a fraction of Fiber to deploy and maintain. Standard Arista Services can provide asymmetric service up to 24Mbps of download and 4Mbps upload.

Another major benefit of Arista is its widespread deployment capability. Nearly 99% of business addresses are serviceable and deployment time is measured in days not weeks or months as is the case with some Fiber deployments. This makes Arista a perfect solution for remote office environments.

SaaS and HaaS are realities that will become more and more prevalent in business processes. Adopting these models on a select few business processes will not only help in the overall migration of your business to a more easily managed and upgradable IT environment, but help your employees become accustomed to new business realities. SmarttNet’s Arista Service is the connectivity solution by which these business goals can be achieved.

Traditionally, WAN Data Replication was the domain of point-to-point Fiber connections from one Data Center to another; or at best, from a Data Center to a company headquarters. Due to this high-bandwidth, high capital cost requirement, most businesses and IT managers did not have the luxury to implement such a crucial business process into daily operations. But that has now changed.

The SmarttNet Arista Service is a bonded DSL solution capable of providing the throughput and uptime to replicate data from multiple locations. Not only that, it can be deployed at a fraction of the capital expenditure cost and time delay typically associated in rolling out high bandwidth solutions.

Arista relies on multiple bonded DSL lines connected – end-to-end – on Cisco equipment, and running without proxies, caching, or aggregation. Data generated by various Servers and Devices is sent through a private network or the Internet in real time. Data Replication can now be implemented at multiple locations providing geographic redundancy for IT managers.

Some of the greatest concerns when dealing with DSL based services are the reliability of such a service and its throughput capability. Due to the network architecture and device configuration, Arista is capable of shutting down one or more of its bonded DSL links while repairs are completed on the affected line. The service as a whole can continue operating until the problem is resolved, at which time the faulty line can be reactivated and service may resume as normal.

The throughput capability of Arista also caters to data replication. With an asymmetrical configuration expandable up to 24Mbps/4Mbps, Arista can export over 1 Terabyte of replicatable data to any remote location and import over 5 Terabytes of data.

Various configurations can be created, ranging from Hybrid Fiber-Arista setups to purely Arista Configurations in order to maximize efficiency and reduce cost of deployment.  Deployment can be accomplished in under two weeks and service is available to nearly 99% of business addresses. Data integrity is now manageable among remote sites and temporary sites of operations.

Business continuity using data replication is no longer part of some far off wish list for future implementation, but a reality that is quickly deployable and technologically robust.

The problem stems from several sources:

1. Poorly devised company policy structure outlining the use and management of online profiles.
2. Lack of communication with employees and managers outlining use of such social media tools.
3. Poor or non-existent bandwidth monitoring responsible for auditing the network and the applications used.
4. Non-existent 3rd party auditing of existing network policies.

The solution for the first two will be different for each company and organization. They are internal processes which vary according to industry, business practices, company policy and employee education. The third problem is usually a result of poorly managed firewall and bandwidth management rules resulting in lack of control or knowledge of what is happening on the corporate network.

Worried? Don’t be – SmarttNet can help.

Every time an employee or other network user surfs the Internet, there is a complex interaction between routers, switches and servers which together share data, give permissions for access and allow the user to find the information they are looking for. Within a corporate network environment, the gatekeeper of this data – the device which is responsible for permitting or denying access to certain applications – can be a centrally managed firewall.

With a properly managed set of central firewall policies, access to applications, websites and other sources of information – including social media networks – can be limited, controlled or eliminated altogether. This practice has been in existence for many years – particularly to limit the access to major, well known sites and eliminate dangerous web based viruses and attacks. However, with the ever increasing popularity of Web 2.0 and social media sites, the line between acceptable, sometimes acceptable and never acceptable sites is becoming blurred. And, with the continued increase of Web 2.0 sites, knowing what should be defined under which policy requires expertise and advice.

Managed centralized firewalls now require policies which are managed by experts, provide fluid and audited data and can help decision makers understand what their employees are doing and why they are doing it. Executives and managers want to quantify time spent on various social media sites and the impact it has on their business. How can such emergence of new technology be used as an advantage? Only after this information becomes available can proper company policies be implemented or existing policies changed.

Consider your company’s corporate network and data bandwidth management policies. Are your practices suitable for Web 2.0?

What happened to the North American Broadband Revolution?

While in places such as Japan, Korea and Germany, broadband DSL services continued to thrive, grow and expand, North American markets fell behind and in some cases became technological backwaters.

As Japanese Telecommunication Carriers continued to expand their networks and upgrade their equipment, North American ILEC’s (Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers) decided to ignore their traditional infrastructure and focus on their wireless networks instead. Without any true competition, cable providers began to expand their broadband services but at a fraction of their capabilities – the reason? Why bother when your competition has stopped innovating.

What does all this mean for North American consumers? While Japanese and Korean consumers enjoy broadband connectivity on their DSL networks upwards of 100Mbps, most North American consumers are left gasping for bandwidth with a paltry 6 – 15 Mbps download and paying a significant premium for that privilege. Cable users are no better off with artificial soft caps on an otherwise capable network.

Of course, there is the promise of “Fiber to the Home” – but such a mammoth undertaking of deploying Fiber to all residences and businesses is a non-starter. The high costs of deploying such a network and the large geographic area under consideration would make such an undertaking very difficult and time consuming.

North American telecommunications companies must expand their DSL infrastructures and find innovative ways of using existing networks. If such measures are not taken and sufficient bandwidth for the next generation of content and Internet applications is not available, North America could find itself going from the inventor of the Internet to a laggard in the Information Race and end up chasing their Asian and European counterparts.

To view and print a pdf version of this post, click here: smarttnet-wins-news1130-advertising

Internet company SmarttNet has been named the winner of News1130’s Burnaby Board of Trade (BBOT) draw prize for two weeks of free radio advertising.  Much to their delight, radio listeners will soon be able to hear all about “getting clicked” and the fact that SmarttNet is spelled with two ‘Ts’ in the middle.

After setting up a meeting with News1130, the two companies strategized a radio ad that would tell the story of successful Internet marketing (namely search engine optimization) with SmarttNet.  Many revisions were made and it was finally decided that SmarttNet’s motto, “get clicked” would be emphasized.

“We are really excited to be reaching out through a new medium (radio) and are looking forward to how it’ll help spread our message among businesses,” says Martin Wong, Chief Marketing Officer with SmarttNet.

It is hoped the ad will bring a heightened awareness of SmarttNet as an Internet marketing company – one that is able to bring a return on investment to businesses through their Web sites.

Of course, there was the slightest problem of just how to say the word “smartt.”  It’s not “smart” you see, but rather “smartt” – with two ‘Ts’ at the end, the way the folks at SmarttNet spell it.

However, in order to make it very clear to all audiences who listen to the ad, News1130s creative team came up with a script and voiceover that continuously emphasized the phrase: “SmarttNet – with two ‘Ts’ in the middle.”

Listeners excited for the ad’s launch can expect to hear it on the 1130 AM dial in the coming weeks.

For more information, contact joyce@smartt.com or call 604 630 7579.

To view and print a pdf version of this post, click here: smarttnet-cooks-up-internet-marketing-menu-at-canadian-coffee-and-tea-show

This year’s Canadian Coffee and Tea Show featured the industry’s finest coffee beans, roasters, chocolatiers, shortbread cookie makers and, to top off the effect, a growing IT company called SmarttNet, sampling their ‘good taste’ Web site designs and Internet marketing tools.

“We realized that going to the Coffee and Tea Show was one of the best decisions we could make,” says Joyce, a marketer with SmarttNet.  “There is a huge untapped market for good marketing techniques to help boost coffee sales, and we were happy to create a product for this niche.”

Leading up to the show, SmarttNet’s Internet marketing team produced special coffee-industry-related brochures and marketing kits, designed to give tips to business owners and to show that making the right moves on the Internet can make a huge difference in customer loyalty and return rates.

“We knew we had to capture this audience in a special way, and so we went with the principle that we founded our department on: to give free advice and let our products, and our people, speak for themselves,” explains Martin Wong, Chief Marketing Officer at SmarttNet.

SmarttNet’s team also used the opportunity for intense networking and friend-making.

“We had so much fun meeting all these people in this industry.  They are all so passionate and welcomed our introductions so warmly,” says Joyce.  “Of course, we got to sample lots of goodies too!”

The Canadian Coffee and Tea Show also featured the Canadian Barista Championships, of which a Café Artegiano barista was proven the country’s best barista of the year.

And, there was one ‘bond’ the SmarttNet team felt with the industry:

“We love giving out bags of tea because our name ‘Smartt’ is spelled with two ‘Ts’, so we like to play on that,” remarks Joyce.

For more information, contact joyce@smartt.com or call 604 630 7579.

To view and print a pdf version of this post, click here: smarttnet-goes-red-and-black-at-2009-soho-conference

This year’s Small Office Home Office (SOHO) Conference and Tradeshow featured a fashionably branded team of Internet marketers from SmarttNet – all flaunting their company colours red, black and white.  The effect?  A great receiving audience and momentous company image that is sure to last.

“Originally we wanted to get t-shirts made as a uniform for everyone, but on a last-minute whim we decided to wear black and red as our primary colours.  It turned out that people loved it and noticed us for it, so we were happy about that,” says Joyce, a marketer with SmarttNet.

The conference was attended by a large number of small, and large, business owners looking not only to get educated, but also connected with other business owners.  Ample networking time was provided for mingling and presenting company products.

As an exhibitor, SmarttNet was drawing crowds in the dozens, sometimes overwhelmed with the response to their product offering.

“We had a lot of interested people who saw the value in Internet marketing and SEO,” says Martin Wong, Chief Marketing Officer at SmarttNet.

Visitors to the table not only left with a brochure or two about SmarttNet services, but also actively signed up to receive a free one-on-one e-marketing consultation, valued at $85.  Also being given away in the prize bowl were two free keyword research consultations, valued at $125 each, plus a Google Analytics Action Report, valued at $225.

“We were happy to explain the benefits of e-marketing and SEO to small-businesses because that’s what small businesses need during these tough times” said Wong.

In short, the successfulness of the event was evident to all, and SmarttNet’s team is reaping the rewards of their attendance with plenty of follow up.

For more information, contact joyce@smartt.com or call 604 630 7579.