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...
Achieving High Data Center Availability through Fault Avoidance A tier four data center is often described as fault-tolerant. To be fault-tolerant, a data center must have two parallel power and cooling systems with no single point of failure (also known as 2N). Building or co-locating in a tier four center is hardly cost-effective for most companies, and the jump from tier...
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...
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 @...
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...
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...
With companies turning to hybrid infrastructure models with critical business applications running in the cloud, network resilience is more important than ever. During Hurricane Harvey, Houston customers congratulated us on network performance, saying “the network didn’t skip a beat.” Some have asked us what makes a network so resilient, especially during weather events...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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. 1. Get executive buy-in Most companies have invested quite a bit in their legacy...
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...
We had a spirited discussion that covered the cultural, political and technological issues that affect online privacy. We co-sponsored a Take Back Your Internet Privacy Panel and Party with Giganews and Golden Frog on March 9th in Austin, Texas during SXSW. The event honored the global fight for online privacy and an uncensored Internet for all. A big thank you to...