Web Hosting Interview - Infinitely Virtual September 2010

Web Hosting Interview - Infinitely Virtual September 2010

Adam Stern, CEO of Infinitely Virtual

HostSearch interviewed Adam Stern, CEO of Infinitely Virtual - a rapidly expanding provider of high quality and affordable virtual server technology.

  • HOSTSEARCH: Hello Adam. Thank you for an opportunity to talk with you today. Can you tell us how you started Infinitely Virtual?
    ADAM STERN: In July, 2003 I created what would become Altay Corporation.  As a professional services firm in Los Angeles between 2003 and 2007, we saw firsthand the revolution occurring in virtualization led by VMware.  Our business, which had been focusing on Windows Server networking, security, and storage area networks, soon found that every project related in some way to using virtualization.
    In 2007, before I heard the phrase “cloud computing”, I felt the future of computing was the combination of virtualization and hosting.  Using virtualization and the economies of scale that only a large environment can offer, I was going to sell products based on Virtual Dedicated Servers to my customers directly via e-commerce.  
    With the best engineering staff in Los Angeles, having conceived and executed virtualized infrastructures for firms in Los Angeles, we designed and built our Enterprise Virtualization Environment (E.V.E.).  E.V.E. is a conceptual model of our state-of-the-art virtualization infrastructure.
  • HOSTSEARCH: What products and services does the company offer?
    ADAM STERN: Infinitely Virtual offers a vast array of products.  We have Virtual Dedicated Servers running Linux or Windows.  Customers may choose to use our Windows or Linux templates, they can install their own operating system, or they can upload their own virtual machine files right into E.V.E.
    We offer Virtual Terminal Servers (VTS) to customers who want to share applications like Microsoft Office or Intuit Quickbooks, which is a Windows based Virtual Dedicated Server with remote desktop session host enabled and our managed clustered firewall service.  
    For customers who would like Microsoft Exchange Server hosting, we have our Privately Hosted Exchange(PHE).  PHE is a dedicated exchange hosting service that combines a minimum of three servers, two Active Directory Controllers and an Exchange Server.  Customers have complete access to Active Directory and Exchange Management Console.  
    And for those customers that want the total package, we offer our Virtual Office Network products, which combines all of the capabilities of our Virtual Terminal Server and Privately Hosted Exchange.  With this plan, our customers can host their entire network infrastructure on E.V.E.
  • HOSTSEARCH: What virtual technology are you using? Are you developing the applications in house?
    ADAM STERN: Every product today is hosted on our Enterprise Virtualization Environment, and  VMware vSphere is an important component of E.V.E.  We developed E.V.E. to be the most sophisticated virtualization environment available.  Each of our products is designed, developed, and executed by our staff.
  • HOSTSEARCH: What is the advantage using VMware?
    ADAM STERN: In 2007 VMware was, and today still is, the industry’s most mature server virtualization product.  It was the first to have live migration of servers from one physical server or host to another, and today it is the only product with true live storage migration.  Without these features it is impossible to have a 100% uptime environment.
    Our customers like VMware because it gives them a reliable Virtual Dedicated Server, which in every way performs like a dedicated server, for a tiny fraction of the cost of a dedicated server.
  • HOSTSEARCH: What is your best selling product?
    ADAM STERN: Virtual Terminal Servers are the hottest thing right now.  Businesses are looking for ways to get off the information technology roller coaster.  By purchasing a VTS plan, they can stop the 4 year cycle of purchasing hardware and licensing, and they can finally cut their IT support costs to something reasonable.  With VTS, our customers are perpetually licensed to use the most current Microsoft products, and they never have to worry about hardware upgrades or data backup.
  • HOSTSEARCH: How do you market your services? How did the customers know about Infinitely Virtual?
    ADAM STERN: We have two channels: direct and reseller.  The direct channel is entirely executed online; our reseller programs have grown considerably in the last year.  And about a third of our sales come from referral.  Having the best product with the best price is the best marketing of all.
  • HOSTSEARCH: What group of customers are you targeting?
    ADAM STERN: Infinitely Virtual’s customers range from the individual to medium enterprise.  We have products designed specifically for customers along this continuum.
  • HOSTSEARCH: Are you planning for Cloud?
    ADAM STERN: Wikipedia defines cloud computing as a “consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on the Internet, and it typically involves over-the-Internet provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources.”  We are the cloud!
  • HOSTSEARCH: What can we expect from Infinitely Virtual in 2011?
    ADAM STERN: We are just about to release our new website.  After years of serving our customers, we will be retiring the website that launched Infinitely Virtual.  The new site will feature a far more sophisticated plan customization module, allowing our customers to order and upgrade servers more granularly than anywhere else.  With the website we are launching 15 new products designed to make cloud computing  mainstream.
  • HOSTSEARCH: Thank you for your time today. We look forward to see your success in the coming years.

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