Granot Web Systems is a Florida-based company that has developed online software for the moving industry since 2001. Its web-based applications let moving companies run their systems from anywhere, plan and control all phases of a move, manage sales, track inventory, maintain customer databases and manage employees. Granot also provides customized web design and helps moving companies with quotes, leads and other related services.

Granot Web Systems ran its own T1 server in house. As the company expanded, those resources were no longer equal to the demands of hosting its client database, website and software applications, and the need for a colocation site emerged.

Security was the second concern. The company was relying on a standard firewall and router and wanted stronger protection for computing operations its customers depend on daily. Alongside security, Granot set three objectives for any new arrangement: a dedicated server, increased operation speeds and more reliable performance. It also wanted a professional IT service to ensure its systems kept functioning, rather than relying on its own technology staff.

Any move carried risk. Granot needed a data center able to migrate the existing database without losing information, and a provider it could trust enough to turn its own attention back to customer relations and to improving its moving software applications. Granot began searching online for colocation services, discovered Volico Data Center, met director of operations Gadi Hus and toured the facility a few miles from its Miami headquarters.

Volico Data Center provided Granot with a dedicated server, colocation services, security, faster performance and reliability.

The dedicated server gives Granot full control over the server, operating system and hardware, with no other company sharing it. Volico positions that as a performance and security gain over shared arrangements, and as a more stable email platform. Colocation moved the IT infrastructure off Granot's own site and brought in an independent information technology and security team. It allows Granot to operate 24/7/365, and high redundancy keeps operations running with minimal interruption when disaster strikes. Data center bandwidth is broader, which can reduce costs, and services scale up or down with Granot's hourly needs.

For security, the Volico facility uses biometric access control, which authenticates access on an individual basis, as one of a range of services Volico installs and maintains against internal and external threats to company data, website and applications. Speed comes from servers and networks of higher quality than standard in-house equipment, through increased bandwidth and lower latency.

Reliability was engineered through careful business continuity and disaster planning, so systems could be made operable quickly in an emergency. Volico's power redundancy keeps operations running when part of the IT system needs maintenance after electrical failures, bad weather or power outages, and its cooling system adapts to changes in temperature and humidity in real time.

• Volico migrated the database with no data lost and no concern about exceeding data limits
• Colocation lets Granot operate 24/7/365, with redundancy keeping operations running when disaster strikes
• Dedicated server gave Granot full control of server, operating system and hardware
• Volico provided dedicated support during an unforeseen cyber attack that could have shut the business down
• Miami data center sits close to Granot headquarters, balancing proximity with connectivity
• Granot lists Volico publicly on its own website as a valued third party service provider