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There are tens of different software and services that allows to hold a meeting, a conference or a webinar, however it’s not easy to understand what is the product that fulfills your needs. So we have selected and tried the most interesting and complete software of this sector for you.

The two terms we’ve just used (meetings and webinars) both describe, albeit with little differences, the two main situations where such software are implied. In the first case it’s essentially an easy and handy method to make an online meeting by sharing the screen, files or images. The number of participants is usually limited and interaction is high: for instance, anyone can take control of the presentation and everybody can talk at the same time.
Conversely, in the case of webinars (a portmanteau between the word Web and seminar) the number of participants can be very high, even hundreds, while the level of interaction lowers as usually the speakers are a limited group of people.

The use of these technologies brings advantages in logistical terms and cost-reduction as it can cancel geographical distances with the aim of a computer or a portable device like a smartphone or a tablet.

Types of infrastructures and supported platforms

The vast majority of software we have tried is sold as a service, with a monthly price calculated usually on the number of participants. Only a few software are sold with a license (that is paid once). Some applications like WebEx by Cisco offer an as-a-Service version and an on-premises version, called WebEx meeting Server). The same holds for ScreenConnect by Connectwise, which is a product aimed to remote control but also includes some specific features for online meetings (we have covered it in the previous article on MSP platforms).

VMworld 2016, the biggest and most important event about the VMware world, is going on these days in Las Vegas. This year’s motto is “be_TOMORROW”.

Among the most interesting topics introduced so far there’s the new VMware Cloud Foundation platform, a new architecture for the creation of cloud infrastructures. The new Cross-Cloud Architecture (still in Tech Preview) has been presented with vCloud Availability and vCloud Air Hybrid Cloud Manager. There are news also about a better integration between containers and the vSphere environment.

We have analyzed stats from the main hosting providers and studied the most common solutions to publish a website built with Wordpress Here’s what we’ve discovered.

With this article we want to analyze the actual situation of the worldwide hosting market with a comparison of the big players of this sector. As it often happens in the business world, the firsts are the ones with the biggest share of the market.

The global podium

GoDaddy is the first worldwide Web Hosting Provider, covering 5,8% of the market, followed by Blue Host (2,5%) and Host Gator (2,1) at the the third step of the podium (source: Host Advice). Note how those three providers are from the US. Another important fact is the neat gap between the leading solution and the followers: GoDaddy outperforms the others by more than the double the adoption percentage. This rank also holds on a country level within the US.

The situation in single countries

GoDaddy dominates with 14% of the market, followed by Blue Host (6,5%) and Host Gator (5,4%). GoDaddy, both on a national and on a worldwide level, maintains the dominance with more than twice the percentage of the concurrent in the runner-up position. But despite this first analysis, the market in the US is quite open.
But where does Amazon, with its Web Services, fit in this rank? The Cloud colossus places fifth worldwide with 1,8% of the market, and fourth in the US (3,9%).
We can think about two big names in the Cloud sphere, as well: Microsoft and Google. As their offering are different than the ones we cover in this article, they aren’t kept into account in this rank about Web Hosting.

In the last issue we’ve talked about useful tools for those who want to be Managed Service Providers (MSP) and covered a number of platforms for the management (both technical and administrative) of the clients’ infrastructures. One of them is Comodo One MSP, which the colossus of IT security Comodo makes available for free (with some limitations that can be avoided with the Premium plan).

The free access to the product is the strength point for sure of the Comodo One MSP platform (One onwards), which integrates the three main features every MSP needs: Remote and Security Management, Path Management and Service Desk with Ticketing capabilities. Remote and Security Management and Patch Management belongs to the family of RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management) products that are used to maintain control of the infrastructure and perform maintenance actions for clients. Remote control, resource monitoring, automated notification and management of upgrades are part of it.
Service Desk with ticketing, time tracking and documentation capabilities is more part of the PSA (Professional Service Automation) world.

For those who want more than the basic features, several upgrades are available (some are free, some are paid) allowing higher levels of protection and additional modules. For instance, there’s a better endpoint protection with an advanced firewall and Host Intrusion Prevention, and the package dedicated to network security offers better monitoring and intrusion detection capabilities, and a system for the capture and analysis of in transit packages. Among the upgrade we can also find the Acronis client for Cloud backup (Acronis Cloud Backup).

Other available modules are Antispam Gateway, Dome Shield, Korugan Central Manager (RMM category), Comodo CRM and Comodo Quote Manager (PSA category). Note how some of these additional modules are free (like Quote Manager, the package used to prepare quotes), and other can be installed for free but with a basic configuration (like cWatch Basic, a component for network security). In each case, after accessing to the specs of each one, you can find information about prices.