New ICP Regulation

History of ICP

Double ICP Needed

ICP Application Procedure and Specifications

With new regulations enforced by MIIT, Internet Service Providers are obliged to conform to the current ICP application procedure.  Specifications are as follows:

1.    The procedure

For new record registration, please log on http://beian.95881.com and choose “ICP record management system”. Wait for the on-site verification email after the required record information is submitted.  The website administrator will then be asked to be at the hosting providers office with related documents and also for a photo shoot.

2.    For Beijing clients only

For businesses, materials include:

• Business Licence (photocopy) with business seal

• Contact people personal ID (photocopy)

• Domain certificate with business seal

• Original verification forms filled out on site

• Information security agreement with business seal

• Website Administrator’s ID and photo shoot on site

For individuals, materials include:

• Personal ID (photocopy)

• Domain certificate

• Original verification form filled out on site

• Information security agreement

• Website Administrator’s ID and photo shoot onsite

3.    Notes

• Website Administrator must bring original personal ID and have the photo shoot on site

• Institutions, governmental agencies and social organisations with no business license are to submit with Organisation Code Certificate

• Websites with contents to be verified must provide with the department’s approval

• The document required above can be submitted or emailed to beian@95881.com

http://drupal.org/node/357715

- Grid Computing

- China wide redundant “Storage Fabric”

- China Optimised International and Local Routing

- Geographic IP and IDC Failover

- More thin client goodness

BTW – never use Windows Server 2008. It sucks. It has “VISTA” written all over it….literally in all the help files and what not. It is a true dog of an OS…but the Terminal Services support is WAAAAAY better. Not that W2K3 was bad – this is just even more fluid – especially under virtualisation.

Will update soon.

Well it is not until you actually start to UNDERSTAND it – that you get to appreciate it. All too often the pundits of tech in society (as nice as they are), like twit.tv, cnet.com and zdnet.com – have a great habit of talking about tech and service – but never having actually done it themselves or can appreciate it at a deeper and more sophisticated level.

Case in point, is the fact that many people go on about “I want a real app, not some web app”. Or, I need to have connectivity while I am in a cross country flight, etc. To me it just seems that some people can’t get with the times from either a tech standpoint, or even from another perspective, say costs.

I am using software as a service to highlight the missed nuances of many a lay person or tech pundits analysis of such situations and trends.

I look at all the effort that goes into running email infrastructure, the costs of running servers and IDC’s. And it is quite common now for people to expect email to work like a light switch (major oversimplification) or to be a single small cost in the case of hosting.

Why is it, that software then and other technologies like thin clients, that seek to change the usage and costing of hardware and software from a disparate and ad-hoc, per person/cpu based exercise to a usage and deployment style that is more akin to hosting and email services, that one encounters so much resistance?

Resistance to change from clients and resistance to change from vendors. Why do people still see computing and laptops and applications as objects that can be traded and bought and sold like shells and clams?

I know I asked the question, but I can’t answer it. I simply can’t understand it.

Where we must give some props to in this regard is Amazon, Google and Microsoft, for somewhat seeing the light and being industry leaders. Amazon, offer pay as you need it grid computing power, Google offers online applications and now Microsoft is also offering online applications.

To be fair though, Microsoft has had licensing schemes in place like the SPLA model for a while. Allowing people to just pay a monthly fee to use all the software that they need. Never having to worry about upgrade costs or “upgrade insurance” as some snake oil salesmen like to push.

Allow me to further expand my thoughts on this, with respect to some recent dealings of mine and in China and some questions that I can answer! I will do this as a little Q+A session with myself.

Richard The Interviewer:

“Richard, why would you not want to own your own software and hardware and put it inside your office or in your lap on a laptop?”

Me:

“Thank you for the thoughtful question Richard, allow me to answer on the issue of hardware first. You see Richard, the problem with hardware is that, well it is expensive! And tis fact is made even worse by the fact that it is outdated and superseded so quickly.

Richard The Interviewer:

“But surely even if something loses it’s value it is still useful? I have seen many an old car drive around leaving a trail of rust behind it?”

Me:

“Yes, to a point. The problem is that software gets more complicated and our needs get more demanding as we become more used to and comfortable with our technology. A better way to look at it, is like hand-me-down clothes. Servers and infrastructure to a degree can just be demoted down the line with new beasts coming in at the top for critical systems and then older ones being eventually upgraded – or converted into a VPS as they come up for expiry.”

“But to answer your question more accurately, it has to do with technologies like Virtualisation, economies of scale, operational costs and idle capacity. If you look at your infrastructure like a time share holiday house or corporate jet, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to handle, both on cash flow and on your exposure to depreciation, so there really becomes very little in the way of real world value propositions to hold on to that old junk – this is even without going into the issue of power usage!”

“For many years people liked to finance their equipment. That is a great way to do it, as it lets you amortise the costs over the actual useful life of the system and then throw it out and get a new one. That way, you can look at the leasing fee as a perpetual subscription model. Just make a payment every month and the system is always online, up to date and fault free.”

“Plus it does wonders for your tax exposure when you claim all those leasing payments back against your tax. Much better than doing it the Chinese way with a 5 year depreciation curve!”

Richard The Interviewer:

“OK, I get it. Why own it and pay for the depreciation of it – that will take longer to remove a residual book value than it does to remove any operational value. And just pay one fee once, per month for life and always have the tech taken care of.”

“But it seems that if I do this, I am still having to manage the equipment and run an IT dept, even though I am leasing the hardware?”

Me:

“Yes, so why manage it then if you have already outsourced the ownership to your financing company? That is the strange thing that happens. It is like financing a truck and then paying for a driver. Why not just use DHL or FedEx instead. They offer economies of scale and are better at it.”

Richard The Interviewer:

“But I need control!!! I am worried about privacy!”

Me:

“Control = expense. Digital technology and servers = no privacy. Your needs to control and keep data secure are very valid. But to be truthful, simply having equipment on site or in your control does not make it any more secure or better. These are separate issues. And companies never really think about them any further than just that. I have it, so it is safe. I can touch it, so it is safe. This is really an illusion of security and control.”

Richard The Interviewer:

“Ok, so what about software then?  Software as a service….?”

Me:

“Well software is no different. Take all that I mentioned above and change hardware to software. The one exception being that software in most countries does not have any depreciation allowance. In China for example, software is always booked in as a single transaction once into your overhead. That is the tax law. Even if the software cost 1,000,000,000,000 USD and you intend to use it over 20 years, you can’t book the expense in and match it over many accounting periods. So you are much better off in China at least operationally by renting or using an ASP service.”

Richard The Interviewer:

“So in a single paragraph, what is your main issue then with these old dinosaurs who want to own, control, touch and carry their technology around with them all the time?”

Me:

“Do I have to be polite? Well, I would simply say, “What are you thinking?!” Get rid of the big software investments and yearly upgrades and all that hassle. Just hand over a list of needs to an ASP, get a copy of their SLA (service level agreement) and be done with it. Problem solved – for life!”

“As to hardware, well, the beauty of an ASP, is that you don’t need any!”

Richard The Interviewer:

“Well thanks for that Richard. I think I will go and study the intricacies of ASP’s, ISP’s, ESP’s, the tax code, our cash flow, the tech road maps of the various companies out there some more.  And work out just why it is, that I feel so compelled to continue handing over cash by the fist full to continue in this rat race of upgrade cycles, repair windows and deployment plans.”

“IT that is like watching a TV or renting a movie online…..hmm, that would be useful and stress free…..seems tomorrow has been here for a few years already!”

Me:

“Maybe next time we can touch on issues like data security, data retention, corporate governance compliance, audit trails, business continuity, capacity budgeting, staff retention, staff acquisition, staff training, staff vetting, staff knowledge pooling and on demand resources?”

Richard The Interviewer:

“That would be good. Is that a whole load of hassle too?”

Me:

“Well it used to be, but it is all par for the course when dealing with a good ASP, ESP, ISP or any xSP really. Even more value!”

I hate to bitch. And I hate to appear as if I am drumming up business or trying to screw other businesses. I am just trying to call it as I see it as a public service.

We get maybe 3-4 clients a week transfer to us from a very prominent and large Chinese domain registrar and hoster, I won’t say the name. But your guess is probably correct.

Apart from the issues mentioned above, the latest fiasco involves again transferring domain names AND DNS.

Issue One:

Anyone who has worked in IT for a while and manages IT, or at least has half a brain, can understand the confusion that a lower case “L” and the numeral “One” and and upper case “I” can cause. l1I in some fonts.

I have had a domain transfer request reject THREE TIMES because no matter how clear I write down the authorisation codes, that are issued by said registrar – when they eventually get the transfer request from my new registrar they reject the very same code! :-\

C’mon already, think people! Or at the very least set your random number generator to exclude those characters. God knows when I get a password failure, I take 2 mins and check for things like the above or even a six “6″ and a lower case B “b” too, before I go back whinging that the code “didn’t work…”

It reminds me of people that when you call a wrong number, just say, sorry wrong number and hang up! Thus requiring me to call them back AGAIN to see if it was indeed the wrong number (as given to me) or if I just dialled it wrong. How hard is it to get the logic of checking what number the wrong caller was trying to call before hanging up??

Issue Two:

DNS server re-delegation. I won’t go into the details here. If you are in the business, you will get the subtleties of it. The dance that involves old and new mail servers, old and new DNS servers, propagation times, TTL values, client usage, abandoned/orphaned email, etc..

Point is, you need to plan it right.

We do.

So after the usual 500 pages of chopped and stamped paper that has gone through the usual 500 people of whom no one can take responsibility to make a decision, they (aforementioned very large and famous Chinese registrar and hoster) agree to a 9PM Friday night change.

So what do they do come 9PM Friday night?

Nothing.

Then to make it worse – hey at least we could have rescheduled. They just assumed it would be OK to go ahead and change it anyway on Monday morning.  More likely they would not want to admit to an error so as to not “lose face” and in the process lose much more face by turning things into a dog’s breakfast.   FUBAR!

The lesson to be learned? One of the very largest and most famous Chinese registrars and hosters, does not even know themselves the intricacies of their products and services and the importance of the correct and attendant management of them.

As I mentioned before, don’t risk you company’s DNS or domain name by letting them manage it. If someone can’t take DNS and registration seriously – then they are a serious risk to your business continuity.