SharpSchool hosting is provided at SharpSchool's Tier 1 data center.

SharpSchool provides security and redundancy at network connectivity, firewall, power, server configuration, web server, and database server levels.

Network Connectivity

Our facilities are redundantly connected via at least three different major network providers.  Each of these carriers provides 100 Mbps connectivity to our facility. These vendors connect to our facility through diverse central offices and enter the building through diverse entrances 12 feet underground in conduit encased in 12 inches of concrete.

All of our providers have extensive transit relationships in the United States, Canada and around the world, thus providing the lowest latencies possible for our customers to deliver the best possible online experience for their end-users.

We currently have the ability to expand up to 320 Gbps of capacity so we have plenty of room to grow beyond our current 300 Mbps of connectivity.

Firewall

SharpSchool’s firewalls are designed to restrict the type of traffic and originating IP addresses that can access the customer’s servers.

Power

SharpSchool provides redundancy in four different levels of the overall hosting configuration.  These include redundancy at the incoming power supply, uninterruptable power supply, standby power generators, rack power, web server, and database server levels.

Incoming Electrical Supply

SharpSchool provides redundant twin incoming 13,800 volt feeders at 4,000 amps which are underground concrete-encased.  Multiple feeds are provided for redundancy.

Uninterruptible Power Supplies

If power were to fail SharpSchool provides two redundant UPS systems, which operate much like batteries, which will immediately provide power to the entire facility until the Standby Power Generators are able to be activated.  The power is "phased-switched" between the two UPS systems to eliminate spikes in the event of a fail-over.

Standby Power Generators

If the Incoming Electrical Supply were to fail, SharpSchool would activate standby power generators to provide sustainable power.  Standby generation can provide power for a runtime of 72 hours without refuelling.

Web Server

Each web-server is redundant in power, CPU, and storage functions.  Power can be provided through redundant power supplies, CPU fail-over is provided through redundant CPUs, and storage fail-over is provided through a redundant four drive (three active and one standby) RAID configuration.

Data Protection

SharpSchool’s Managed Backup service performs an internal tape backup to prevent loss of data due to accident, hardware failure, or disaster.  Customers receive one full backup plus five incremental backups each week based on SharpSchool’s backup schedule.

SharpSchool will perform tape validation and maintain an activity log for each backup to ensure successful completion.  Our system design automatically detects problems at any stage of backup ensuring a very high level of data security and availability.

Monitoring ensures that the customer’s data is safe and always secure.  Backup reports, deliver a variety of logged statistics that include the backup cycle, success or failure, the amount of data backed up.