Deft Blog
Keep up with the latest in colocation, cloud, and disaster recovery services.
VMware trends and what they mean for the enterprise
At the VMworld event there were 17 discreet product and service announcements made from VMware alone. That’s a lot of information and a lot of product development to digest in a very short timeframe. We’ve done some of the work for you.
Hybrid Cloud Adoption – Overcoming Barriers & Future Success
Hybrid cloud adoption can reap immense benefits. Don’t let the barriers toward adoption hinder your future.
4 considerations for picking a data center transit provider
When you're selecting a transit provider for your data center environment, keep in mind that you're picking who brings customers to your doorstep, who controls a portion of your user experience, and of course, who controls a huge part of your uptime. There are many...
Increase Uptime in Your Data Center Network
As networkers, we’re constantly thinking about redundancy and uptime. We’re taught that multiple links and devices means resiliency, which can be true, but complexity in the network can be equally complex to troubleshoot when things go wrong. The classic Layer 1-2...
Hard Drive Destruction
No matter what business you’re in, information and network security are important to every company. So, what do you do about that pile of old hard drives in the office closet? Hand them over to Deft for a secure and documented destruction at our flagship data center...
5 Ways to Get The Most Out of Remote Hands
Part One: Plan for A Fire Drill Responding to trouble tickets manually submitted by our customers is one of the most prevalent and essential tasks that we perform on a daily basis at ServerCentral. Sometimes I take how long I've been sending and replying to trouble...
How to determine your power requirements
One of the hardest concepts when considering data center colocation is determining how much power equipment needs. There are many ways to find out what your power requirements are, but no matter what method you use, all computations involve three electrical concepts:...
Clean up after your cables
Here’s how to make your server cabinet ready to troubleshoot: clean up after your data center cables.
5 Questions for Selecting a DDoS Mitigation Service
The sophistication, size, and frequency of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks continue to increase—with no apparent end in sight. Where 2 Gbps attacks were once the norm, organizations are now routinely taking steps to mitigate 200+ Gbps attacks against not...
Executive buy-in key to cloud success
Behind every successful cloud implementation is an enthusiastic executive team. In fact, actively engaged executive sponsors continue to be the top driver of whether IT projects meet their original goals and business intent (Source: PMI). So ask yourself: How well...
How to Prevent One Employee from Compromising Your Data Security
The former CEO of Equifax appeared before Congress to offer testimony around the data breach which, as of last accounting, compromised the personal details of 145.5 million people. Yet again, an organization with the resources, the budget, and the technical knowledge...
How DRaaS keeps critical applications from going dark
With cyber threats getting more sophisticated and natural disasters becoming more common, it takes the 24/7 focus of DRaaS providers to stay ahead of potential problems. Here’s how we do it.
Why move to the cloud — 3 catalysts and what they mean for your cloud strategy
Identifying why your company wants to use the cloud will help you get everyone on the same page internally, so you can establish a shared language and purpose.
Managing Shadow IT Risks by Building IT Resources for the Future
Shadow is the greatest opportunity for innovation your company has — if the shadow IT risks don’t cut into your business first.
Shadow Technologies Drop Security Risks and Drive Business Value — if You Let Them
Shadow technologies can send a chill down the spine of any IT professional tasked with keeping an organization secure. The security risks of shadow technology are well documented and very real. What they fail to account for, though, are the many benefits shadow tech...
Three Benefits of Shadow IT — And How to Harness Them
What is shadow IT? It helps to first define shadow IT, sometimes known as dark IT. Most would start with a rundown of the network security risks it presents, but a more helpful shadow IT definition would explain it as something that’s already happening in your...
S3 outages and AWS availability vs. durability
Do S3 outages suck? Yep. Will availability vs. durability of AWS continue to be a debate? Inevitably. Is AWS S3 still a good bet? We think so.
High availability and redundancy features in vSphere 6.5
With vSphere 6.5, VMware introduces a new way to bolster uptime for vCenter itself: VCSA High Availability.
What Are Managed Services?
Every company has their own definition of a managed service. This is ServerCentral’s.What do you manage?Any hardware offered by ServerCentral, including the operating system.What don’t you manage?Applications, software, and customer-provided equipment.Are service...
What is next for your cloud project
In Is "Why?" the Most Important Cloud Question?”, I discussed the importance of knowing why you’re moving to the cloud as a critical success factor for your cloud project. One of the questions I received in response to the post was, “Once I know why we're moving to...
12 keys to successful private cloud migration planning
The next step after deciding on moving to a private cloud, is mapping out your strategy for a private cloud migration. Cloud migrations are not easy. Cloud migrations are fraught with points of frustration that, according to a Gartner piece by Thomas...
VMware 101: Virtual network design
Read our take on virtual network design using VMware vSphere.
The 7 biggest data center migration mistakes (and how to avoid them)
Data center migrations aren’t something most people do every day. Here are 7 common migration mistakes people make and how you can avoid them.
5 Key Questions: Disaster Recovery as a Service
In previous posts, we highlighted 5 Key Questions to Ask Your Backup as a Service Provider and 5 Key Questions to Ask Your Replication as as Service Provider. In this final post of our BC/DR series, we’ve compiled a list of 5 key questions you should ask a provider...
5 Reasons You Should Care About Data Center Compliance
Day by day, businesses across the world are moving more of their operations to the cloud, relying heavily on cloud service providers to protect and secure their data from theft and loss. If they haven't dipped their toes in the big pool of cloud, maybe they've hired a...
Cybersecurity facts I thought were cool
Here’s a cool cybersecurity fact taught by experts in the field: hackers exploit weaknesses in people, not software.
How to correctly size power requirements for server racks
Here’s how to correctly size your power requirements for server racks.
Our On-Site Parts Depot
It's a huge pain to go to the data center when hardware fails — especially when you live far away. Servers don't break at convenient times, either. Often it's at 2 AM, rush hour, or the moment you sit down to watch a new episode of Rick & Morty. So not only do you...
Is Low Redundancy Infrastructure Right for You?
Data Center Knowledge’s recent article, As Tenants Get Smarter About Data Center Availability, They Want More Options, discusses how companies can save money by reducing infrastructure redundancy. This concept has been a topic of conversation ever since.After 15+...
Preventing Data Loss with RAID
Learn how to prevent data loss with RAID. For a relatively small investment, RAID provides significant protection against failure.
Bringing sanity to routing over IPsec
With SCTG’s networking background, we’re often asked why we implement routing over IPsec tunnels a certain way. Here’s why we do it the way we do.
IPsec parameter choice rationales
On the previous episode of As The IPsec Tunnel Churns, we discussed how IPsec configurations running in tunnel mode are established. This week, let’s get into the nitty gritty of why those parameters were chosen. So, why did we choose those particular parameters? The...
Optimizing IPsec tunnels
Learn how IPsec configurations running in tunnel mode are established.
Which Cloud Is Right For You?
The cloud is easy when you know what you need.Select how much CPU, memory, storage, and bandwidth you want. Click. Order. Compute. Something like that.If you’re not sure what you need, however, the ease with which you can purchase and get locked into a cloud can...
Ask 10 People What The Cloud Is, Get 11 Answers
I asked a number of people:“What is the cloud?”There were three trends present in all of their responses:Location:The cloud is not confined to my office. It is not confined to my premise.Scaling Up:Gives me more of everything when I need it.Scaling Down:Gives me less...
What Is Object Storage?
Object storage uses inexpensive commodity hardware to provide petabytes of resilient space.To understand object storage, we first need to understand how it differs from traditional block and file storage.Block storage is the base for all storage.This storage can be a...
5 Odd Excuses for Data Center Outages
Here are some of the craziest reasons for data center outages. 1) Squirrels These nut-cheeked, bushy-tailed rodents chew through cables like Willy Wonka's Violet chews through gum. At one point, Level 3 Communications actually attributed 17% of fiber cuts to "squirrel...
Technology Infrastructure Trends
Each year begins with one of our favorite traditions: prediction season. Here are some of the predicted technology trends from 2015: Prediction: Adaptable Cloud Agendas Analysts continue to highlight the fact that rapidly evolving cloud technologies have a real...
What is a dedicated server?
Today, let's talk about something a lot of people wonder, but not a lot of people ask: What's a dedicated server? A dedicated server is exactly that: a bare-metal server dedicated to you and you only. It's allocated specifically for your use. This is in contrast to a...
What Is A Cloud Server?
It's important to know your compute options when you’re looking at hosting an application or website. Is there a difference between a cloud server and a dedicated server? This is a question we’re frequently asked … and the start of a new year feels like a perfect time...
Making An IT Budget Checklist? Check It Twice!
We are at year end and the holiday season is nipping at our noses. For many of us, it’s budget time. Are you making your infrastructure wish list? If so, do you think you’ll get what you asked for?Many times, our customers share with us fantastic ideas about how to...
Why Our Internet Didn’t Go Down
After early August’s widely publicized outage among several Internet providers, a lot of ServerCentral’s customers are curious as to why they didn’t see any impact. The short answer? ServerCentral deploys a modern and scalable routing infrastructure supported by...
4 Signs That Your Startup Is Ready for Dedicated Infrastructure
Whenever we meet with early-stage companies, we get asked the same question: “How will we know when we’re ready to add our own infrastructure to our shared cloud?” While there are many answers to this question, here are four indicators that it’s time to consider...
If I’m looking to add cloud capacity for resiliency and reliability, what should I look for in a provider?
If I'm looking to add cloud capacity for resiliency and reliability, what should I look for in a provider? Look for: Their level of comfort with your technical stack and requirements Level of experience with companies like yours A consultative approach to...
Scalability part 3: You’re ready for cloud
In Scalability 102: Virtualization, we discussed the advantages that virtualization brings to the table when scaling your environment. Here’s a quick recap: There more you can utilize the idle time on most servers, the less you have to worry about scaling via...
Scalability in cloud computing: using virtualization to save money
Scalability in cloud computing can get make your team’s infrastructure more reliable and affordable. By starting with adopting virtualization, you can setup the environment for your company to thrive and grow at an unprecedented scale. First we’ll discuss how to look...
What Is Cloud?
There is a lot of confusion these days as to what is really considered "cloud." Although a number of the technologies that make up cloud computing have been around for many years, only in the last few have they been grouped together under the label “cloud.” Still, the...
Information security for small businesses
If you read the news lately, it seems like every corporate board across the country is adding Chief Information Security Officer to the ranks of their C-suite. The bailiwick of the CIO — Information Security — is now the de facto buzzword of the post-Heartbleed world....
Measuring the cost of downtime
You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken. Despite the business impact, few businesses actually measure how much downtime they rack up in a year. Acknowledging a failure and researching the contributing elements becomes a critical success factor for risk mitigation...
Scalability Part 1: Up And Out
Everyone wants to grow. Whether that's serving more customers, expanding into new markets, or taking care of internal IT for more employees, growth is a measure of the health in business, economies, and nature itself. Growing your IT infrastructure can be...
