Data Foundry Blog

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.

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.

With the ever-increasing adoption of hybrid cloud infrastructure models, application migrations have become a common occurrence. Whether you are migrating an application to your public or private cloud, these 7 tips can help you avoid costly and time-consuming errors in planning and execution.

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.

Anonymous, a notorious international network of hacktivists, launched OpSacred on June 11, 2017. OpSacred is an organized DDoS attack effort on financial institutions around the world. Anonymous is known for its DDoS attacks on government and corporate websites, and they are self-described as having “a decentralized command structure that operates on ideas rather than directives.” OpSacred is the continuation of a larger operation called OpIcarus (Operation Icarus), and OpSacred is expected to continue until June 21.