Archive

Month: July 2017

The Essence of Uptime

Uptime is a key performance indicator (KPI). Some would say it is the key performance indicator, the sine qua non, of productive computing. If you can’t keep your system operational, you have nothing. None of the many functionalities – the bells and whistles – matter one whit if your customers can’t access your site or service. The expectation in […]

EPO: Emergency Power Off or Extremely Probable Outage?

In 1959 there was a fire in the Pentagon.  It resulted in seven million dollars’ worth of damage, taking out three mainframe computers.  In today’s currency that would be $58.1 million. The National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) was then tasked with creating rules and regulations to manage risks in computer environments.  They came up with […]

Enterprise DNS – Is it really that important?

Quick, name the most important server in your network – Web server? Active Directory server? Mail server?   Those are all important no doubt, but your DNS servers are probably the most critical to your network operations.  Imagine you were traveling within a foreign country you had never visited before and the area was totally […]

Cloud Service Level Agreement Expectations

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are essential in the IT business. IT managers should know what to expect from their service providers. You should fully understand any SLA before signing it – especially when it comes to uptime.  Let’s explore. SLA Overview Everyone who has been around IT support has heard of Service Level Agreements. As […]

Downtime is no Longer Acceptable

If you went to bestbuy.com and the site was unavailable, how long would it take for you to go to amazon.com or elsewhere to find what you wanted?  On average, it’s less than 30 seconds; it used to be much longer, but our society has grown impatient.  If you’re not available when customers are looking […]

What is The Cloud? A Technical Explanation

The Cloud – we hear that phrase thrown around a lot.  It is obviously a special place because nearly every company wants to go there, probably because we hear how wonderful everything works in the cloud.  Those who go there are promised a great deal of cost savings as well.  No wonder everyone is talking […]

What is DNS Tunneling?

DNS tunneling is a misuse of DNS. Domain Name Servers (DNS) have been called the internet’s equivalent of a phone book. Rather than remembering an IP address with up to twelve digits, you just need to know the domain name associated with the IP address. DNS tunneling attempts to hijack the protocol to use it […]

Digital Realty / Telx Atlanta Power Outage

On July 12th a major power event occurred at the prominent carrier hotel at 56 Marietta Street responsible for network interconnections for a significant portion of the southeast including over 60 carriers and over 100 telecom providers. The incident occurred during planned power distribution upgrades and created quite a number of issues for both regional […]

The Need for Increased Availability is Now

The 2nd half of another year is here once again and as usual, it gives us one more moment to reflect on our New Year goals, how far away we are from achieving them and a chance to develop new methods to meet them. But for analysts in the tech industry, this is a time […]