Data Foundry Blog - Insights

So, your company is considering colocation as a viable IT infrastructure strategy. How do you convince your CFO that it’s the right move? Convincing your CFO revolves around risk aversion and cost management. To help your CFO see the benefits of your decision, address the opportunity cost of the other options you’ve evaluated, discuss capital expenditure (CapEx) versus operational expenditure (OpEx), and address how colocation minimizes risk and cost to your organization.

Predictions for IT trends in 2018 are in, and results from forward-looking industry studies from IDC, Gartner, 451 Research and others are centered around the demands of digital business. Consumers demand speed, flexibility and a straightforward user experience that yields immediate results, or else. The competition is just a few clicks away. Consumer demands have led to the rise of the cloud, and now the edge. “The continuing digital business evolution exploits new digital models to align more closely the physical and digital worlds for employees, partners and customers,” says David Cearley, a fellow and vice president at Gartner. Here’s what these demands mean for IT in 2018:

If you are a Millennial (born between approximately 1980 and 2000), or if you have children who are Millennials and younger, you know that a vote between the Internet, running water and electricity would be no contest. According to the Huffington Post, young people would choose an Internet connection over daylight and hot water. The authors of Gen Z @ Work found that 40% of young people in this age group would choose Wi-Fi over working bathrooms. In addition to being the utility of choice, the Internet is quickly becoming the primary communication medium during and after natural disasters. Of course, we understand we couldn’t access the Internet without power, but this shift is something to think about when data center operators consider the meaning of “mission critical” for future generations.

Many companies decide to keep quiet about their IT infrastructure decisions. Every now and then a company will announce a move to AWS, Azure or Google Cloud, or mention a data center move, but companies rarely talk about the reasons behind these decisions. This makes it difficult for other companies who are looking for advice and guidance from experienced sources when it comes to their own cloud decisions. While an all-cloud approach can be great for helping new companies get their feet off the ground, many companies end up opting for a hybrid approach to their infrastructure, or owning all their own infrastructure once they have grown. Here are four helpful case studies of tech companies who didn’t keep quiet about their transitions out of the cloud and why they did it.

Cyber Security Awareness Month is here, and there’s no time like the present to assess the state of your network and your company’s cybersecurity culture. Although most people are aware of viruses, malware and cybercrime in general, they continue doing careless things like clicking links they shouldn’t click, using weak passwords or none at all, and using public Wi-Fi without encryption. That’s why instilling a company culture that is cyber-aware is so important in addition to physically and virtually securing your network. Here are 9 tips for keeping your business network secure:

We attended Data Center Dynamic’s Colo + Cloud conference in Dallas this week, and we heard a variety of viewpoints on what the edge means and what drives its growth. The panel discussion, Digital Infrastructure: Future State at the Edge, confirmed what we wrote back in July in our blog post, 5 Ways to Define Edge Data Centers. There are many ways to define the edge, and the definition depends upon the use case. However, something the panelists were able to agree on is what’s driving growth at the edge: Our adoption of ephemeral lifestyles and the desire to be omni-everything.

A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about 6 Differences between Cloud Security & Data Center Security. One of the main differences between the two is shared equipment. Companies in the public cloud often share hypervisors with other entities. A logical barrier is created using virtualization to separate one company’s data and systems from another. In this article, we take a deeper dive into sharing resources in the cloud and the implications for security.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining in general has gone from being an arcane hobby to the bread and butter of currency mining startups that are now evolving to be major blockchain technology solutions providers, such as PeerNova. Some individuals and companies that have tried bitcoin mining on the side have come forward to say that it hasn’t been worth the effort or the cost. We wondered why some have been successful while others have not, and could cryptocurrency mining be a profitable endeavor for companies on the side? The answer: It depends.

Are you considering moving to the cloud? You aren’t alone. All the hype would have you believe that companies are moving assets to the cloud in droves and shutting down their data center operations. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The Uptime Institute’s 2016 Data Center Industry Survey found that 71% of companies maintain assets in enterprise-owned data centers, 20% maintain assets in colocation facilities and just 9% keep assets in the cloud. While there is an increase in the adoption of cloud services year over year, this growth appears to be conservative.

Cloud security has improved over the years with cloud providers working hard to minimize risk and a variety of third party vendors launching comprehensive cloud security tools, such as Alert Logic’s Cloud Defender and Trend Micro’s Deep Security. So, is the cloud now just as secure as running your own infrastructure in a data center? Here are some significant differences between cloud security and data center security.