Deft Blog
Keep up with the latest insights in colocation, cloud, and disaster recovery services
Practicing safe DevOps
Safe DevOps means that all changes to the environment should be made through the configuration and change management system. Here are some examples.
Methods for achieving a DevOps culture
There are many ways to implement a DevOps culture, but some methods work better than others. Here are a few that stand out.
The birth of DevOps
The birth of DevOps changed everything. It hugely impacts legacy code deployment strategies by combining Dev, QA and Ops, removing the walls and barriers, and softening the distinction between these teams. Here’s why it matters.
From backups to replication to disaster recovery: what’s right for you?
In our experience, a good disaster recovery plan completely depends on the revenue and operational implications of downtime. The technology comes after.
5 key questions: backup as a service
Check out this list of five key questions you should ask before investing in your next backup as a service (BaaS) or managed backup solution.
ServerCentral joins the AWS Partner Network with Turing Group acquisition
CHICAGO – December, 2018 – By the end of 2019, over 69 percent of enterprises will operate in multi-cloud or hybrid IT environments as a first step in the transformation of their businesses. To address the demand for hybrid cloud solutions, ServerCentral, a leading...
What I learned at an IoT conference that you can apply to your business today
Grandiose claims surrounding technology innovation is nothing new. Many incessantly-hyped “advancements” have failed to reach their potential, while others have indeed led to significant changes in how people live their lives. One of today’s most buzzed-about...
I want to talk about the AWS Transit Gateway
I want to talk about the AWS Transit Gateway announced at re:Invent — in more than 10 words. This is really exciting for anybody that's dealing with large, complex AWS environments, or has a sizable networking environment that they manage on-premise today. There's...
How best to prepare for adoption of a cloud-based EMR
This post originally appeared on EHRIntelligence.com. It has been updated and condensed for clarity.Many hospitals and healthcare centers remain skeptical about cloud-based electronic medical record (EMR) solutions. But the truth is this: The cloud offers a robust,...
The benefits of cloud computing in healthcare start with migration
At this point, one thing is clear: The longer you wait to migrate off physical servers, the longer you miss out on the benefits of cloud computing in healthcare. While the disadvantages of cloud computing in healthcare may loom large — they’re nothing compared to the...
Major AWS re:Invent 2018 announcements described in 10 words and under
AWS Global Accelerator — route traffic across regions more easily Wayne Geils, Solutions Architect Manager at ServerCentral: Fail between regions in <1 minute. Brendan Caulfield, COO at Turing Group: Pay per accelerator plus Data Transfer Premium. Josh Quint,...
How to make the most of AWS re:Invent 2018
If you’re going to AWS re:Invent 2018, winging it is a sure-fire way to walk away with nothing useful for you or the company you’re representing. Here are our top tips for getting the most out of the conference: Understand how your company uses AWS. This will be...
Tips for building a cloud migration plan
Deft has done innumerable cloud migration plans for clients. The biggest element that we see causing issues for organizations is not computing issues, but not preparing a meticulous plan for execution. Planning is the biggest step for the migration to cloud computing....
Northeastern Illinois University modernizes IT infrastructure
Chicago, IL — NEIU CIO Sam Kann recently moved the university's on-premise infrastructure to a hybrid cloud solution architected and managed by ServerCentral Turing Group (SCTG). The modernized infrastructure provides NEIU with the tech credibility it needs to attract...
Why Chicago colocation beats everywhere else for speed and safety
Whether you’re looking for the fastest speed coast-to-coast, the security of a stable environment, or access to all types of services, hosting in Chicago is almost always a smart move.
Recent Linux vulnerabilities and the importance of patching
The importance of keeping system patches current to ensure security cannot be overstressed, as recent vulnerabilities identified in the Linux world have shown. Word recently broke of two serious vulnerabilities affecting Linux kernels that can cause complete loss of...
ServerCentral’s SOC 2 Type II audit report now available
Our customers, and your customers, demand assurances that the data we process on their behalf is protected. It's a top-of-mind priority for every business leader nowadays, especially as the existential threat of data breaches becomes more and more prevalent in buying...
Cloud’s growing importance to higher education
While working with several public and private colleges and universities to help them make the shift from IT-centric to user-centric computing, I have found very similar outcomes. Removing the day-to-day firefighting off their hands had these effects: Allowed the IT...
A service provider’s view of serverless
As a fairly new technology, serverless is ripe for intrigue. We spoke with early adopters to understand the hype and learn when serverless is a good idea.
ServerCentral Announces PCI DSS 3.2.1 Compliance
Customers can now better protect payment data ServerCentral, a leading provider of managed IT infrastructure solutions, today announced its VMware-powered Enterprise Cloud has received compliance certification with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI...
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.
ServerCentral, Turing Group and Equinix Collaborate to Deliver Managed Solutions for Amazon Web Services
ServerCentral, Turing Group and Equinix Collaborate to Deliver Managed Solutions for Amazon Web Services The expanded collaboration delivers a comprehensive managed solution to address the increasing need for the integration of Amazon Web Services with existing...
The Benefits of a Connectivity-Centric Cloud
In June 2018, Comcast suffered a major outage that impacted their Xfinity service nationwide. As one commentator said: “For a minute there, it looked like the whole internet was down." That’s a big deal, especially if you rely on cloud services to power IT at your...
Alternatives to VMware Cloud on AWS
We're often asked this question: What are the alternatives to VMware Cloud on AWS for small or mid-sized companies? Let’s start at the beginning. Defining VMware Cloud on AWS VMware Cloud on AWS is an on-demand service that enables you to run applications across...
Data Center Modernization with VMware
Data center modernization is a never-ending goal, even when the decision is to transition to cloud-first or cloud-native environments. Unfortunately, the cloud isn’t a finish line. It isn’t a finite destination. In reality, the cloud is a (seemingly never-ending) set...
Hybrid Cloud Adoption – Overcoming Barriers & Future Success
By 2020, hybrid cloud adoption will be the default change in the cloud computing environment for small, mid-size and enterprise organizations. Cloud adoption by industry may happen at different rates, but no matter the study you look at — Gartner, IDC or 451 Research...
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 ServerCentral for a secure and documented destruction at our flagship data...
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...
ServerCentral Security Update II re: x86 Architecture CPU Issues
The past few days have proven to be quite eventful, as you can imagine. During this time we have: Deployed the initial VMware patch across our Enterprise Cloud and Private Cloud customer deployments and supported these customers in their update of Guest OSs and Guest...
ServerCentral Security Update re: x86 Architecture CPU Issues
I’m sure everyone is now aware of the Intel CPU bugs and exploits that have been publicized over the last 36 hours.For those of you who aren’t fully aware of the situation yet, I’ll note a number of resources below for you that are helpful in detailing the situation...
AWS re:Invent announcements visualized
We mapped out AWS re:Invent announcements to visualize what’s new with Amazon’s Cloud.
AWS re:Invent 2017 – Day 4
While we're still digesting everything that was announced on Day 3, we did take special note of one announcement on Thursday, Day 4: IoT Analytics. Why is this of interest, you may ask? Take a look at the work Turing Group did with Florence Corporation (PDF) to learn...
AWS re:Invent 2017 – Day 3
Myriad announcements make deciphering Day 3 of re:Invent a bit difficult. From bare metal to containers (via Fargate and Kubernetes) to machine learning to IoT, if you have any interest in infrastructure or application development, you were probably covered.What stood...
ServerCentral named top Cloud Consultant and Managed Service Provider
Clutch, an independent ratings and reviews firm based in Washington DC, just released their Global Leaders list of the 475+ most highly reviewed companies around the world. We ranked #1 among the top cloud consultants and #2 for managed service providers. Cloud...
AWS re:Invent 2017 – Day 2
Day 2 came to a close after a seemingly endless string of new service announcements. The transition of AWS from the traditional perception as a compute and storage "cloud" to that of an advanced development platform is in full swing.AWS PrivateLink - VPC Endpoints for...
AWS re:Invent – Day 1
AWS re:Invent is a whirlwind event. From Nov. 27th through Dec 1st, it's nonstop sessions, meetings and learnings all set against the never-stop Las Vegas background.This year we will be providing a few quick insights on the thoughts and concepts that stood out the...
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...
SOC 2 Report Now Available with Privacy Section
I'm proud to announce that ServerCentral's 2016–2017 AT-101 SOC 2 Type II report is now available to download in our customer portal. All customers with access to compliance reports can view the report for any of our US-based data centers. If you are a customer and...
OS X High Sierra Zero-Day Announced
Normally, passwords stored in a Mac Keychain vault require a master password for access. Now, attackers can steal Keychain passwords without it. Just hours after the launch of Mac OS X High Sierra, a security researcher has identified and released a zero-day exploit...
First Impressions of VMworld from a Service Provider’s Perspective
In addition to the record-setting Vegas heat at VMworld 2017, this was a show chock full of surprises. The ServerCentral Managed Services team was able to sneak away from supporting our amazing customers to attend the show this year. We even found time to play a few...
Vulnerability Alert: BlueBorne
Security company Armis has identified eight exploits utilizing the Bluetooth Network Encapsulation Protocol (BNEP) service of mobile devices. Collectively called BlueBorne, the vulnerabilities can allow an attacker access to your phone without ever touching it. Here's...
SOC 2 Report Progress
We expect and rely on information security experts and engineers to keep up-to-date with the latest exploits or attacks, just as we expect compliance experts to maintain a high level of certainty in their controls and tests. It’s part of how we’re able to address the...
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.
451 Research Report: ServerCentral extends to AWS managed services with Turing Group investment
"With the combined experience of cloud infrastructure and application transformation, ServerCentral and Turing Group are well positioned to develop solutions that offer companies an easier and more manageable path into the cloud." -Dan Thompson, Senior Analyst at 451...
