August 28, 2012 5:00 AM

As EidoSearch begins to take advantage of its prize winnings from the Alpha Exchange Innovation Campaign this spring, the company has some important decisions to make around technology.

This week, the company’s CEO and co-founder Xiao-Ping (Steven) Zhang met with campaign sponsor HP and technologists from Ryerson Digital Media Zone (DMZ) and Ryerson Computing and Communications Services (CCS) to outline its IT needs and determine the requirements of its new HP enterprise server. The server will shore up EidoSearch’s IT capacity, opening up a number of possibilities and, as such, considerations to be made around location and IT administration.

“For us, we’re certainly now looking at whether it will be better for us to have an in-house data centre or locate the server at a hosting facility,” Zhang said. Each has benefits, he pointed out, adding that for start-ups with limited IT equipment of their own a commercial cloud service would be a good potential third option.

“It depends on what the company wants to deliver,” he said. “If it’s not demanding on data performance, commercial cloud would be pretty straight forward, since it takes less of your time and resources to maintain those servers.”

Of course, about to take possession of a new HP server, the co-founders of EidoSearch must decide between managing it in-house at the Ryerson DMZ or off-site. As the duo are still recruiting IT talent to administer the server, off-site has the advantage of the physical maintenance and some of the administration being handled by the hosting company. On the other hand, building out an in-house data centre would give them deeper control and possibly easier scalability, one of the advantages Zhang saw in the HP server. As well, the company could possibly get assistance from the Ryerson CCS (Computing and Communications Services), who provide shared support for the DMZ, as well as Ryerson University as a whole.

“We need to figure out just how we’re going to use the new capacity,” Zhang said. “We have to look closely at how a host would connect with our in-house systems, and whether it’s good enough to support our development and production needs.”
 
Backbone will follow EidoSearch, the winner of the Alpha Exchange Innovation Campaign, online and in print for one year.

Blogger Profile: Lawrence Cummer

Lawrence Cummer is a freelance writer with over 15 years of experience writing for periodicals, business and communications agencies. He is former senior writer and editor of the technology trade publications Network World Canada and Communications & Networking Journal, respectively. As well, he has been a senior contributor to a variety of publications. A frequent writer for Backbone Magazine, Lawrence currently covers a range of topics, including general business, information technology, telecommunications, physical security, occupational safety, and home construction and general contracting. Lawrence can be reached at lawrence.cummer@hotmail.com.

Posted by Sue Ansell at August 28, 2012 5:00 AM

Categories: Cloud computing Start Up Innovation Campaign

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