Are you prepared if disaster strikes your company? Along the East Coast and Gulf Coast, we’re in the middle of hurricane season. Before the next big storm, now is time to prepare your business with an IT Disaster Recovery Plan. It seems every season, mother nature is always throwing a curve ball when you least […]
Data Canopy to provide cloud, connectivity, storage, and data center colocation with Howard County-based data center to Innovation Center residents. November 13, 2018 – COLUMBIA, MD –The Howard County Economic Development Authority announced the selection of Data Canopy as the hybrid infrastructure provider for its Innovation Center, a business support facility set to open in […]
Tier III enhanced facilities in Chicago, New York/New Jersey, and Phoenix now part of the Data Canopy data center portfolio. July 24, 2018 – ASHBURN, VA –Data Canopy, a hosted services integrator bringing colocation, cloud, connectivity, storage, and security under one roof, has announced its expansion into three new markets: Chicago, IL; New York/New Jersey; […]
I recently went to visit a friend of mine in his new offices. He proudly showed me the well-stocked kitchen, collaborative work spaces, and his bright new office. Wrapping up the tour, and because he knows my line of business, he showed me their in-house data center. The cooling fans were whirring and lights were […]
Workload migration is the current buzzword for physical to virtual (P2V) or virtual to virtual (V2V) data transfer. It’s the act of moving data from one location to another. Whatever you call it, if done right it can add great benefit to the business by helping to save costs and provide much needed protection for […]
As an MSP, the obligation to pick a proper data center for one’s clients is paramount. In most situation an MSP is monitoring, patching, and taking care of their clients’ critical infrastructure and making sure that is up and running well to keep their businesses running well. However, it is also important for MSPs to […]
It’s common knowledge that maintaining revenue levels is what keeps a business afloat. Growing your business though can be a challenge, especially for managed service providers who must juggle client demand and overhead. How do you increase your profits while remaining competitive? How do you maximize billable time and add new clients without burning out […]
If you think that your infrastructure is fully optimized and operating at peak efficiency, you might want to check again. A recent research study conducted by Stanford University and Anthesis Group researchers has found that 30% of virtual servers (all of them) and one-quarter of physical servers are zombies having had no activity in the preceding […]
It’s an interesting and transformative time for healthcare and other highly regulated industries. CIOs and other technical leaders in these organizations are recognizing the value of the cloud and ultimately, the security that can be achieved there. A recent article in TechTarget features CIOs from such esteemed healthcare institutions as University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Dignity Health, […]
The rise of DevOps is coinciding with the rise of hybrid cloud. Are you surprised? In a recent Right Scale 2017 State of the Cloud Report, DevOps adoption rose to a staggering 84% in the enterprise. Hybrid cloud use was reported to be on a steady increase with 67% of respondents having implemented it, and […]
Fidelity & Guaranty Life operates a lean organization that competes in the market with companies that have many more employees as well as additional overhead. In order to relieve their overburdened IT infrastructure team from the tedious and costly efforts required to build and maintain their primary and redundant data center facilities, FGL turned to […]
In a recent survey of more than 1500 IT managers worldwide, 451 Research found that more than 70% of organizations plan to use multiple cloud service providers over the next two years. The push to cloud for some, but not all, applications and workloads has resulted in the hybrid cloud being the norm for enterprises. […]
Recently we’ve been talking about the innovations and trends within the data center world. One of the great innovations that isn’t necessarily ‘new’, but is becoming more and more prevalent in the construction and infrastructure of state-of-the-art data centers is utilizing air-handlers as opposed to air conditioners. The acronyms CRAH (pronounced “kraw”) and CRAC (pronounced […]
One of the key trends to be aware of in the data center space is that of vertical vs horizontal growth. Even 5 years ago, multi-tenant facilities had a hard (read: expensive) time cooling even 10kW per cabinet, but we’ve come a long way since then. Now, Tier III enhanced facilities can maintain 22+ kW […]
Recently, Ron Vokoun wrote a piece for Data Center Dynamics where in he discussed his predictions for the data center market for 2017. In this article, you might be surprised to learn that he discusses the continued requirements of server huggers. When everyone is talking about the cloud and virtualizing just about everything, those in […]
When discussing security at a data center or in a cloud environment, it’s easy to get lost in the swirling acronyms. SSAE, SOC, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, FISMA, FedRAMP, it’s a lot. When speaking about government infrastructure needs, FedRAMP and FISMA get tossed around like a hot a potato. Throw in FISMA High or Moderate and it can […]
There are many misconceptions when it comes to data centers and the cloud. Some execs think EVERYTHING needs to be in the cloud yesterday. Others have concerns about making the change from a traditional in-house server environment to the data center. Misconceptions can set you up for failure or deter your company from upgrading into […]
The new year is well underway. Maybe you have resolved to exercise more, eat less sugar, or finally finish that travel guide to craft breweries in the Northeast. There are a few myths still live and well in many IT organizations that you should resolve to bust this year. Myth #1: We can build/fix anything […]
As the technology industry, and many others, move toward a ‘pay for what you use’ business model, I still find a constant issue with the over subscription of power. I’m sure it comes as a shock, but the facilities and power company benefit heavily when they contract for power that isn’t being used. When this […]
It’s December and while visions of sugar plums might be dancing along with budgetary headaches, now is the time to consider what is really happening in the data center market and consider what may happen in the year to come. For 2017, we’re seeing a shift in the cloud discussion away from complete public cloud […]
It’s easy to be cavalier about where your hardware is sitting when it is functioning properly and easily accessible. However, there are many challenges facing those who decide to keep their infrastructure in places other than a professional data center. Below are a couple items to think about, and reasons why hosting gear in a […]
Hybrid is a growing trend among highly regulated industries, such as financial services, healthcare, and government, and for good reason – it allows these industries to get the best of all worlds while maintained strict compliance. It’s not a plug-and-play solution though and requires strategic planning to get it right. Like any generalization there are […]
This week, AWS announced that it was investing in a 189 MW wind farm in Ohio to help power three new data centers it is building in the state. Their goal is to get to 40% renewable energy use on AWS global infrastructure by the end of the year and ultimately to make it to […]
Like many businesses this $2B insurance firm’s infrastructure had aged and they were interested in upgrading their technology and colocation solutions so they issued a request for proposal. As part of their due diligence in responding to the RFP, Data Canopy interviewed the stakeholders at the insurance firm to more deeply understand its pains and business goals. What we identified […]
One of the questions I often am asked and think about myself as a business owner and technologist is what trends will affect me from a technology standpoint. This of course is like asking what will the weather be like on a Tuesday in June next year. Seemingly impossible to answer. The key is “seemingly.” […]
Data security is typically the number one reason why organizations don’t virtualize their infrastructure. Whether it’s due to regulatory concerns, connectivity, or speed challenges, oftentimes IT professionals choose to build a data center on site as a solution to their infrastructure needs. The result is that in-house IT resources often spend copious amounts of time […]
You have decided to colocate in Ashburn, now what? You need to find a facility that will not only provide all your needed specifications but offer a true partnership. There are many options for providers so knowing what to look for will help narrow the immense field down to the perfect location. Here are a […]
The average data center client stays with their colocation provider for 5-10 years. If service is great and your needs are met, that’s great! But even so in 5-10 years, heck in 2 years, the market can shift pretty significantly and you might not be getting the best price or service any longer. Pricing fluctuates, […]
You want more security, a stable and scalable environment that provides a huge cost savings: colocation is the answer. Now you just need to pick a data center and buy a rack. Right? Wrong. When deciding on which colocation provider to go with it’s not just about the cost per rack. There are often additional […]
I have had the pleasure of being involved in many seminars, data center tours and conversations about the hosting industry over the course of the last two years. Geographically disperse as well as different tiers and designs, one thing is becoming increasingly clear, the data center is dead. Or that is at least the story. […]
As a healthcare organization looking to save money, but protect your patients as much as possible, the choice of how to host your data is critical. I’ve worked with organizations of all sizes and by far, the overwhelming requirement is to ensure data is secure (especially when it comes to HIPAA and HITECH compliance), and […]
When the word disaster is spoken it conjures up the images of earthquakes, tornadoes, floods. Weather events that happen out in the world to someone else, but not to your business. However, real disasters (and not just those from Mother Nature) impact businesses regularly and often lead to them closing. So how do you protect […]
The standard in data housing used to be an in-house solution. Expensive servers housing invaluable business data were stored in a small, dark, dusty closet or designated space within your office. With the ever-changing field of technology, colocation data centers are becoming the choice for many organizations as a viable option for hosting their equipment. […]
For the business owners and IT managers, data center downtime is the stuff of nightmares. Servers crashing and unresponsive, hours, days, even months of work obliterated, sales calls missed, clients angry, business slowing, it’s enough to make you wake up in a cold sweat. In the hyper-connected world we live in today, downtime is more […]
When choosing the best location for your colocation data center needs, often people look to their backdoors. If your back door is Ashburn, you have found the place. If you are not near Ashburn, VA, you should still consider Ashburn for primary or redundant or backup hosting. It’s one of the fastest growing data center […]
We’ve seen it 1000 times, a company needs to host a few racks off site. They come up with their power requirements and a desired location and the bidding war starts. Just choose the lowest monthly cost and you’re set, right? Well, not really. The typical colocation contract is two years. Since you’re going to […]
You’ve no doubt heard the tales of successful data center consolidations taking an organization from 23 servers to 2 or seen the lofty initiatives put forth by the federal government to save billions of dollars. What many of these stories don’t include though are details on how to successfully tackle a consolidation project. While the […]
Often in business, as in life, we presume that because everyone is talking about how wonderful something is that everyone must be doing it and – we fear – doing it better than we are. This goes for everything from participating in grueling triathlons and flawless family vacations to undertaking a successful IT transformation. In […]
Your IT strategy should not be a Ron Popeil, “set it and forget it” undertaking. What worked for you last year may not work for you next year and simply adjusting the budget to accommodate for new hires and end of life hardware won’t cut it. As you look to 2016, there are several actions […]
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