What Went Down in 2018

Despite whatever bad news you read in this article, we encourage you to remain positive. It’s just human nature to have a curious interest in the calamities of others. So if that’s what gives you your kicks, feel free to enjoy our 2nd annual dispatch on some of the most interesting outages of the past […]

Increase Availability with Ticket Excellence

Everybody has troubles — especially IT professionals. But for obvious reasons, they don’t have the luxury to ignore them, run from them, put them off, or pass them on to somebody else. Doing so would undermine availability. Perhaps the availability of a server or a desktop, or even a workforce. No, in the world of […]

Is Tier IV Certification Worth It?

In a previous article about Uptime Institute, we talked about the different types of certification a company can obtain. Achieving tier certification from Uptime Institute can cost a lot of time and money, but it can be pretty important. According to Colocation America Corporation, “If you’re in the data center business and not familiar with […]

Data Center Power Reliability

In some respects, a load bank test of a data center is much like a road test of an automobile. Suppose you are in the market for a car, and you meet with a dealer or a private party to check out what they have to offer. You start it up, look under the hood, […]

Physical Access Control is Essential to Uptime

If you’ve ever made an in-person visit to your well-protected server or other device in a colocation facility or data center, then you know firsthand about security. The hand scanners, the thumbprint readers, the man-traps, the security guards, the metal cages — all the security features that make data centers feel like a secure prison. […]

Increase Uptime with the Right Code Deployment Strategy

Faster is not necessarily better. The push to launch new applications and services as quickly as possibly can cost you in the long run. A 2013 Gartner study predicted that ineffective software release management would cause 80% of production environment incidents in large organizations in the next few years. If keeping your network or applications […]

How to Combat Ransomware to Stay Online

Recently we discussed the heavy cost of ransomware, both in the form astronomical ransoms that have been paid recently as well as the cost of dealing with the aftermath of an attack.  When it comes to most serious cyberattacks, a pound of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  The truth is that in most […]

Major CenturyLink Network Outage to Close 2018

We end the year with a major CenturyLink outage that started early Thursday morning for many and spread across the country, according to reports on Reddit, GeekWire and Newsweek affecting Internet, 911 services and other internet-dependent services like waves and VoIP. The outage also affected other providers who lease long haul connectivity from them, such […]

Those Vulnerable 3rd-Party Web Services

Just when you think things are getting safer on the web, somebody comes up with a startling claim and spoils your party: “Our analysis paints a somewhat bleak situation on the state of modern web ecosystem.” That’s the conclusion of a 2016 study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University. The full title is worth noting: Oh, […]

Global Internet Tracking Sites

As much as we like data, it’s very easy to become lost in it. But what if you could see the whole picture? That’s the idea behind internet tracking dashboards. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are used only to demonstrate the global reach of internet security services, while others can provide useful, […]