What is hosting framework?

Our hosting company SoftLayer is not a normal dedicated server hosting company. Rather than providing servers, they provide an automated infrastructure. Most of the jobs in hosting can be done by a robot. SoftLayer has just about perfected their use of robots to run their business. If load on a server hits a big spike, I can have another server automatically provisioned and ready to go in a couple hours. Not only that but this new server is connected to my others as if they were sitting next to each other. I can automatically put any Ooperating system on the new server and/or switch operating systems at will, all without the help of a person. With this, SoftLayer becomes the most scalable, flexible hosting provider I’ve worked with.

What happens when there’s problems?

Whereas with other hosting companies, if I have a serious problem that I could fix, I still need to find someone at the hosting company to help. Those rare, serious problems often require someone onsite at the data center to go in front of the server and help you out. Not with so with SoftLayer. Through their unique infrastructure, they can basically offer me direct access to “stand in front of the server” all the time. This is done through redirecting the keyboard, screen and mouse right to my office through a secure, back channel. Since often times I know how to fix a problem, I can get most things fixed before I could even explain what’s wrong to another hosting company. But if I’m on vacation, the SL folks are very knowledgeable to help out others in the company. I really like how they set the expectation up front of paying 3 bucks per incident. Paying 3 dollars to get a problem solved takes the load off of the SL tech support in dealing with much of the mundane stuff most hosts have to. And still it’s a very reasonable change if you have a real need.

How’s the reliability?

I started off in this industry in the late 90’s hosting with RackSpace. They’ve been widely known as the best in the business. I know that the only people with more Redhat Linux engineers than RackSpace is Redhat itself. In the past couple of years I’ve been with SL though, I’ve seen more major infrastructure problems at RackSpace than there have been at SoftLayer.

Pick One Thing to Say

Write down one sentence that defines the one thing you want to accomplish on the page and write to that goal. If you have more than one goal, you have two pages.

Be Authentic

Readers know when you’re lying. Be a voice that either gives back or gets out of the way. Both are equally valid. If you’ve got something your readers would find useful, share it. When you’ve run out of useful stuff to say, stop talking.

Know Who You’re Talking To

Think carefully about who you want to listen to your message and write to that person. No matter who that person is, you can assume it’s one person sitting in front of a computer. They’re not an audience. They’re not captive.

Make Everything Simple

• Use simple words and sentences.
• Be careful with acronyms and adjectives.
• Being cute is a plague.

Repeat all these rules in your head, then let them go and start talking. You can always clean up your content later. If you try to have each sentence come out simple right away, you’ll sound like a robot.

Make Your Point in 3 Seconds

Your reader will decide in 3 seconds or less if they want to keep reading. You should have page titles and paragraph headings that are concise summaries of what you’re saying. These titles and headings are the most important thing you can write. It may help to write out all your paragraphs first. Now summarize each paragraph then summarize the page as a whole. If you have paragraphs with a redundant summary, maybe the whole paragraph should go.