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Challenge

To balance the growth of CanStockPhoto's core business without having to spend time and money managing a rapidly growing IT infrastructure.

Why eMax Hosting

CanStockPhoto needed a partner to provide a cost effective, predictable, fully smart-sourced hosting solution for its growing photographic image database.

Solution

CanStockPhoto engaged Canada Web Hosting (CWH) to help design and deploy a fully managed infrastructure in CWH's Vancouver datacenter. The solution included a cost efficient, highly scalable storage solution.

Key Benefit

• Predictable cost model
• Highly resilient storage solution.
• Scalable infrastructure allowing for future business growth
• CanStockPhoto now focuses on growing its core business knowing that all maintenance, reliability and performance issues related to its core business system are addressed by their technical account team.

Key eMax Components

• Enterprise ITIL trained Technical Account Manager and support Team.
• High Availability (Active/Passive) Linux Firewall Appliances
• High Availability (Active/Passive) Linux Firewall Appliances
• Dedicated, Fully Managed Windows Application Server (Dell PowerEdge 1425)
• Dedicated, Fully Managed PE Dell 2850n direct attached storage solution.
• CommVault Backups to High Performance NAS Storage Device

Case study (pdf):   Download

Based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, CanStockPhoto Inc is a leading image vault. Started in 2004, CanStockPhoto was one of the first companies to tap into the independent photographic image market by allowing amateur and professional photographers to upload their images and sell them online. Now, with several million visitors per year and over a quarter of a million images in their catalog, CanStockPhoto is one of the internet's most popular destinations for online photographic images.

CanStockPhoto came to Canada Web Hosting (CWH) early in 2004, seeking a web host that they could partner with and trust to build their online presence. After engaging with one of Canada Web Hosting (CWH) Business Account Managers, it was decided to start with one of CWH's smaller shared hosting packages. The chosen solution gave CanStockPhoto the flexibility to "pay as you grow". Over the following years,

CanStockPhoto grew to the point where they needed to move to a dedicated environment with a storage solution to handle the massive amount of images that were being uploaded by its clients. CanStockPhoto migrated several times over the years, starting with a small shared hosting web package to a Virtual Private Server to a progressively larger, dedicated, fully managed eMax storage solution.

Pay as You Grow

CanStockPhoto utilizes the power and flexibility of Canada Web Hosting's core infrastructure. It combines the power of eMax dedicated servers with the cost effectiveness of shared firewalls and load balancers.

Protection is provided by Canada Web Hosting's (CWH) shared firewall infrastructure. The shared firewalls provide a highly resilient service, utilizing Virtual Router Redundancy Protocols to eliminate any single point of failure. This ensures that the CanStockPhoto environment is locked down and secured from outside attacks whilst still providing the scalability and redundancy needed to keep the site running 24/7.

Content and application delivery is provided by a fully managed, dedicated dual processor Dell server. When CanStockPhoto's business grows further, servers can be added to this tier to allow the solution to scale out without the need for migrating to larger, more costly server solutions.

Image storage is handled by a dedicated attached storage solution. A Dell PE 2850n gives CanStockPhoto the flexibility of providing 1.5Tb of scalable high performance/resilience storage without the cost of a Network Attached Solution (NAS) or Storage Area Network (SAN). To ensure the integrity of core parts of the system and quick data recovery, CanStockPhoto takes advantage of CWH's shared managed backup network powered by Syncsort's Backup Express enterprise-class backup software to a high performance NAS storage.

Support is handled by a dedicated Technical Account Team at Canada Web Hosting. Led by their ITIL certified Technical Account Manager, this team manages every aspect of CanStockPhoto's hosted environment.

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