Data Foundry Blog - News

Friday night Data Foundry held its annual Take Back Your Internet party and panel along with sister companies Golden Frog and Giganews at the Texas Public Policy Foundation in downtown Austin. Data Foundry and our sister companies are committed to online privacy and an open Internet. We hold this event every year at the start of SXSW to band together with fellow tech entrepreneurs and public policy experts to debate the current state of the Internet and what can be done to make it more open and equal. This year FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn paid a surprise visit and made an introduction before the panel discussion began. In addition to participating in the discussion, attendees enjoyed drinks, hors d’oeuvres and BBQ tacos in true Austin fashion. Our 2018 panelists included:

Data Foundry has been attending AFCOM’s Data Center World for the past six years, and we’re happy the event is just a short drive away for us this year – San Antonio, Texas. Data Center World is always an educational event for anyone who works in IT infrastructure, and the networking opportunities and after-parties are something everyone in the industry looks forward to each year.

For those of you who don’t know, our founders are an adventurous husband and wife duo who grew up in Houston, Texas. They’ve gone from the Peace Corps in Brazil in the 70s to working in communications law, launching one of the first 50 ISPs in the U.S. to building the world-class data center company that Data Foundry is today. This month, they were featured in a local Houston magazine, Voyage Houston, where they tell their story:

The sun made its first appearance in Houston after the storm late Tuesday afternoon. We are relieved that Harvey has moved on, and feel for those in Louisiana that are going to potentially experience some flooding as well. Although the storm has passed and our data centers are dry, Harvey left so many without homes, including some of our own staff and their families.

Unfortunately for those in the Houston area, rain is predicted to continue falling for several days. Tropical Storm Harvey is headed back toward the Gulf, where it may unfortunately gain strength and make landfall again near Houston. Currently, our Houston and Austin data centers are all safe and sound. We have experienced no flooding and no outages at any of our data centers as of this afternoon, and we remain fully staffed at every site. Houston has of course been the hardest hit, and we greatly appreciate the tireless and vigilant work our data center operations and facilities staff have put in over the last few days.

Tropical Storm Harvey is making a comeback and is expected to hit the Texas coast sometime Friday, bringing torrential rains and flooding to the Houston area. CNN announced at 11 am today that this storm is likely to hit the coast as a category 3 hurricane. It is now predicted that Houston will receive up to 20 inches of rainfall. Our Houston 2 data center, built to withstand category 5 winds and located 3 feet above the 500-year flood plain, is always ready with redundant power and cooling, 24×7 storm monitoring, enough fuel to keep generators running continually, and supplies for workers on site.

Take action today! Submit your comments to the FCC here: https://www.battleforthenet.com/

Only six weeks after WannaCry, a similar type of ransomware has hit organizations and spread globally. Petya has mostly affected companies in Ukraine, but has also struck organizations in 64 other countries, including major companies in the U.S., such as Merck & Co and Mars, Inc. Experts are still working to understand Petya and its mechanisms of action, and no kill switch has been discovered yet. However, there are a few basic precautions announced by our partner Radware that your company or organization should take at a minimum to stop the spread of ransomware and other viruses.

As a long-time supporter of an open Internet, Data Foundry will join forces with many other technology companies on the local and national levels to stop the FCC from doing away with the current Open Internet Order. The official Battle for the Net day of protest is July 12. However, Data Foundry is taking many additional courses of action to see to it that major cable companies don’t limit our choices more than they are already limited. Yesterday we signed a letter to the FCC to show our support of smaller Internet Service Providers in their ongoing struggle with cable giants.

The first tropical storm to hit the U.S. this season has arrived. Cindy made landfall this morning near the Texas/Louisiana border, bringing torrential rains and strong winds. Flooding is predicted to be most severe further north and east of where the storm made landfall, with flood warnings expected to continue in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.