Posted by David Krider on April 11, 2013 · Leave a Comment
Everyone has probably encountered the pervasive error message about a video being removed due to copyright violations on YouTube by now. Of course, there are lots of stories about over-reaching, and being powerless in front of the faceless, corporate behemoth to plead your case. Here’s the latest one I saw:
You Can’t Stop Universal From Removing Your YouTube Videos.
Last week, he learned that agreements between the Google-owned site and Universal Music Group may have destroyed any chance of reinstating his video on YouTube, no matter how legitimate his case may be.
The thing is, 7 years ago, one of the first dot-com billionaires — who made his money dealing with streaming copyrighted mediea — warned the world that YouTube had a “copyright” problem. I watched and waited (because of a story for another time). There was very little in the way of legal wrangling as YouTube grew, and what little there actually was got put to bed when they were bought by Google.
We can see what happened in hindsight: Google offered both YouTube and the copyright holding companies the ability to programmatically determine if videos were similar — audibly or visibly — to copyrighted works. The technology has been around for a long time to “fingerprint” audio and video. The resources it must take to crawl the astronomical amount of content being posted every day must be staggering, but I digress.
Google rightly proved that they could be one of the very few outlets for free video viewing — assuming incredible bandwidth expenditures — and controlling eyeballs. In return for allowing some copyright violations to occur, they police the egregious offenders — the ones who get tens of millions of hits. It’s an interesting dichotomy of getting people in one door, and then slamming other doors in their faces, all while pushing people into “official” copyright channels like Vevo with their search results.
Rather than need an army of lawyers, like Cuban feared, Google has alleviated that need — not just for YouTube — but also for the copyright clearing houses of both the record companies and movie studios. It’s a win-win.
Posted by Brittany Lutke on April 9, 2013 · Leave a Comment
Congratulations! You’ve been given the task of researching and finding a data center for your company’s IT equipment. Where do you even start?
Many of the people I talk to feel like Goldilocks. Don’t remember the story? Goldilocks breaks into the Bears’ house and tries different beds, chairs, and porridge. Two of the three were too… something. Hard or soft. Big or small. Hot or cold. She struggled until she found the bed (or chair or porridge) that was just right.
Location makes many IT decision makers feel like Goldilocks. This data center is too close, and my equipment is at risk. This data center is too far, and it will be tough to maintain my equipment. What is the location that is just right?
When making a location decision, ask yourself the following questions. Your answers will help you select an appropriate location and to determine your distance threshold.
- Will the equipment in the data center be focused on production or disaster recovery?
- Does your equipment require heavy management?
If your equipment is for disaster recovery, choose a data center at least 50 miles from your production site. I talk to many CIOs, network administrators, and IT professionals who struggle with this. It’s tough to imagine your babies (your equipment) so far from you and your attentive care, but I urge you not to be what some call a “server hugger.” If you need disaster recovery, it’s best to have geographic redundancy. By nature, disaster recovery is intended to protect you should your first set of equipment were to meet with unforeseen circumstances. If your data center is too close, your equipment will be at risk, and you’ll have defeated the purpose of having a disaster recovery site.
If your equipment is for production, choose a data center that is accessible for regular maintenance and meets your quality standards. For production servers, location is a less important criteria. It is more important to focus on choosing the highest quality data center that meets your needs.
If your equipment requires heavy management, you may believe that a close location is just right. But with options like remote hands and managed service providers, companies can reap the benefits of geographic redundancy for their high maintenance equipment. Using additional support for server maintenance allows your organization flexibility and the option to focus on other high priority items.
Selecting a data center location is not an easy task. Hopefully, after asking yourself these questions, you’ll have selected the geographic location that is just right for your data center.
Still looking for more guidance on how to choose a data center? Check out the following resources, or feel free to contact me at brittany@thedatacave.com.
Posted by Kara Manon on April 4, 2013 · Leave a Comment
Our last data center dictionary entry covered Disaster Recovery. We discussed what disaster recovery is, how to reduce various threats, and how to begin your own disaster recovery plan. Next, we move to Colocation.
What is colocation?
Simply stated, colocation is the practice through which a business locates its servers and IT equipment in an offsite data center. These facilities are often designed provide rich connectivity options, which would be otherwise unavailable to a business or organization. In application, colocation allows a business to locate its servers and other IT equipment securely in a data center. As opposed to dedicated server hosting, colocation allows businesses to own and manage their servers in an environment designed to support and enhance server activity.
Why do businesses practice colocation?
Colocation provides businesses with several advantages, including:
- Improved facility and network security
- High uptime and availability
- Increased connectivity options
- Cooling, electrical and networking redundancy
- Scalability for future growth
- Cost-effective bandwidth
- Outage protection
Who should consider colocation?
While colocation can be a great resource for all businesses, medium and large-sized organizations should consider colocation. Industries that regularly handle highly sensitive information, such as financial services and healthcare, benefit from colocation because data centers have exceptional security measures in place.
Why should a financial service company consider colocation?
Today’s financial environment has given the advantage to the quick, connected, and agile. Colocation allows companies the speed, availability, and compliance adherence necessary for success. The boom in electronic trading allows companies to make transactions almost instantly but has also created an environment in which speed directly affects success. The most successful companies in this industry obtain and analyze market information to make quick and accurate decisions, and each second matters.
Colocation also prevents companies from suffering at a loss of latency. With 100% availability and uptime, a financial organization can be certain they will not miss an opportunity which might lead to a costly loss. Finally, because these companies handle sensitive data regularly, they must adhere to stringent compliance regulations. For more information about compliance, financial services, and colocation, we recommend reading our white paper, A Guide to Financial Services Regulations.
Healthcare and Colocation
In today’s healthcare environment, the IT infrastructure may be as important as the care itself. A new study published in the January/February Annals of Family Medicine estimates that 70% of family physicians are using Electronic Health Records (EHR) and by the conclusion of the year over 80% will use EHRs. Healthcare providers at all levels—from hospitals to family care practices—are relying heavily upon EHR and other technology. Today technology in medicine is no longer just for operational efficiency but also for effective patient care. Because the role of technology in healthcare has evolved as a critical component in any healthcare organization, these organizations should consider colocation. It ensures effective operation and excellent patient care as well as HIPAA and HITECH compliance.
Ultimately, colocation is a way that businesses can protect themselves and outsource its IT infrastructure. For more information on colocation and Data Cave’s colocation services, please contact us.
Posted by Kara Manon on April 2, 2013 · Leave a Comment
Sunday marked one of the most important days of the year (for us, anyways). March 31, 2013 was World Backup Day 2013. This campaign was recently founded to remind computer users around the globe about the importance of backing up data. What would you do if you lost everything on your computer tomorrow? What would your business do if it were to suffer a natural disaster or power failure?
Did you know…
- More than 60 million computers will fail worldwide in 2013.
- Companies that aren’t able to resume their operations within 10 days after a disaster are not likely to survive.
- 90% of small companies spend less than 8 hours planning/managing their continuity plans.
- Between 60-70% of problems that hurt business are due to internal malfunctions of hardware or software.
- 80% of businesses that suffer a major disaster go out of business within one year.
- Over 50% of businesses experienced an unforeseen interruption. The majority of the interruptions caused the business to be closed one or more days.
- Only 1 in 4 people backup their information regularly.
- 113 cell phones are lost or stolen every minute in the U.S. alone.
Companies can choose from several options, when evaluating backup options. One option is to use comprehensive offsite backup services. These services are designed to run continuously in the background of your computer or server and provide your company with real-time data replication to a secure server within the data center. Another option to consider is colocation, which houses your IT infrastructure at a data center to maximize reliability and uptime. Colocation is maintained at Data Cave, our fully redundant Indiana data center, with on-site technicians who can manage any of your unforeseen crises.
In the spirit of World Backup Day 2013, we have put together some questions for you to consider while examining your own backup routine.
- Are you backing up every database that is important to you?
- Do you double check that your backups are working? Check your backed up data periodically to ensure the backup is complete and successful.
- Do you have multiple copies of your data? If you backup your data (photos, files, etc) and then remove them from your primary computer, you may want to consider redundant backups.
We challenge you to take the pledge to back up your files in celebration of World Backup Day.
Posted by Brittany Lutke on March 28, 2013 · Leave a Comment
Earlier this month, the world celebrated Women’s Day. The day acted as a reminder to reflect on the progress women have made across many fields, industries, and professions. As a woman-owned Minority Business Enterprise, we were thrilled to honor and recognize women and their progress.
In case you don’t actively follow us on Twitter (which you should, click here to follow!), Angie May was named to Colocation America’s Top Women in the Data Center Industry list. We are proud of our CEO but are not surprised by this acheivement.
Angie serves as a role model for women in technology and has pioneered her own path. She provides strategic leadership to Data Cave and serves as the President and CEO of our affiliated company, Analytical Engineering, Inc., both located in Columbus, Indiana. A strong analytical thinker, she has earned her MS in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Tri-State University. A fixture in the Columbus community and a contributor to the area’s business growth, she provides guidance to several local advisory boards including the Bartholomew County School Corporation committee focused on secondary education and is a member of the Board of Directors for Salin Bank.
Not only is Angie disciplined in work but for over a year now she’s been participating in Crossfit, a strength and conditioning program, at 812Crossfit in Columbus. The intensity and determination Crossfit requires speaks volumes of her character and has begun rubbing off on others around her (four new people have joined the gym after talking to Angie!). She has two daughters with husband, David, and enjoys water sports in the summer like wake boarding and water skiing. Angie also enjoys playing piano, reading and snow skiing. Much of her time outside of Data Cave and AEI is spent watching her girls participate in extracurricular activities, as they are heavily involved in gymnastics.
Unfortunately, there are not many female role models in the technology sphere, and we couldn’t be happier to have Angie around to inspire and lead. Her high standards and leadership ability have allowed our company to grow. Women have progressed greatly in the field of technology (just read about 18 major technology contributions from women), and Angie May is one of these innovative and driven women. Congrats Angie!
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YouTube: “Big Copyright’s” Best Friend
Goldilocks and the Data Center: Which Location is Just Right?
Data Center Dictionary: Colocation