Server performance for Data Centers
For IT organizations to orchestrate successful and efficient data centers, they must have systems in order to optimize server performance. Organizations must understand what type of traffic they will be expecting. They should strategically select the right server. For instance, servers supporting complex applications require different processing needs than servers executing source code. Also, depending on scale, mainframes can be extremely helpful for some organizations in reducing recurring costs and managing complex programs. Server efficiencies cannot be assumed upon purchase of hardware or software, but instead, must be fostered by active maintenance and understanding key performance indicators. Benchmarking tests are one of the most valuable identifiers. These tests provide transparency into systems and help test environments for workloads before deployment. The direct point of reference that these trials provide allow for accurate measurements. Departments must consider the scope of needs in benchmarking to decide on the appropriate tool for benchmarking testing.
Posted 2017-10-20 20:47:04datacenter servers blog performance
How to do Capacity Planning
Cloud environments have expanded across nearly all industries within the last 10 years. While these changes have provided significant benefits to efficiencies but unforeseen problems. IT departments are having to think about planning for their technology systems in a different manner. For most organizations, predicting the infrastructure that will be necessary to meet future workload demands proves very difficult. In addition, across the industry, it has become very difficult to find effective professionals that are able to make precise predictions. For cloud providers, often users expect and require on-demand access to an array of services. These can be difficult at times to always provide. Capacity planning provides abundant benefits to all organizations. Specifically, it adds a competitive advantage to the provider by being faster and more efficient than the competition. The scalability aspect remains one of the strongest assets to planning, the ability to match load requests and avoid wasted energy on unused resources. Effective capacity planning also provides organizations great ability to prevent bottlenecks and set up large-scale disaster recovery solutions. Both of these things minimize huge costs and mitigate large-scale risks for organizations.
Posted 2017-10-18 23:47:14capacity scalability blog cloud
Protocols
For more devices connecting to the internet every day, modern organizations need to have strong understanding of the storage and the services necessary to maintain systems. The Domain Name System automatically performs a conversion between IP addresses and hostnames for devices on the internet. Additionally, DNS provides a way for large-scale organizations opportunities to manage an internal intranet. The process is a series of requests both sent and received between the client and server. A forward DNS lookup is when the client sends a hostname to be linked to an IP address by the DNS database. Reverse DNS lookups occur when an IP address is sent and the hostname is given as a response. DNS provides other inherent services, it supports caching requests and adds redundancy. DHCP can be used to used to automatically configure DNS settings for the standard ISP. The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is an internet protocol that is used to reference information from a server. Medium to large scale companies often uses it as a central address book. LDAP can be utilized in several ways, contact information, certificates, signal sign on and services.
Posted 2017-10-18 23:47:14Protocols LDAP blog DNS
Disaster recovery
Disaster recovery for is no longer an option for IT organizations, vital business processes must have redundant records stored in the case of a disaster. Business continuity planning seeks to prevent interruptions of critical service and re-establish fully functional services as fast as possible. Disasters are split into four main types, computer and hardware failure, civil attacks and terrorism, power failure, and natural disasters. A key distinction must be made between disaster recovery and business continuity planning. It is easy to consider them interchangeable however they must be considered separate entities for companies to maximize efficiencies. Business continuity planning must be holistic strategies for organizations to function after a disaster. While IT disaster recovery should focus on restarting IT services immediately after the disaster occurs. There are huge benefits for organizations including mitigation of risk, decreasing exposure and disruptions, stability, and regulatory requirements. A tier system has been established summarizing an organizations data loss exposure.
Posted 2017-10-16 00:47:14disaster recovery blog bcp
10 Things to look for in a Data Center
For data centers to be competitive and relevant in today’s emergent economy complex requirements have arisen from an ever-changing information technology landscape. A multitude of threats ranging from power outages to large scale information breaches have prompted facility design and upkeep to be of unparalleled importance. In the TechRepublic’s list, 10 things to look for in a data center Erik Eckel highlights key elements that an organization in the market must consider before committing to a provider. Starting with capacity, providers must have viable transmission speeds and scalability based on demands. Eckel next focuses on redundancy, a successful data center needs redundant supplies of power in case of emergencies or outages. In addition to independent power systems, a backup internet provider is necessary to prepare for vendor disruption to keep uptime optimal. Automatic failover is imperative to ensure processes can continue at the maximum efficiency. Physical security is equally as paramount, centers must have authentication practices in place to extreme safety to sensitive systems and information.
Posted 2017-10-14 18:47:44datacenter Tier blog redundancy