Monday, February 25, 2008

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New Data Center - Update

I had the pleasure of taking a tour of the new data center where NextComp will be living starting on March 1st.

It's truly state-of-the-art. There's a huge (seriously, it's big) generator near the back entrance to the building. The building and the server room are both physically secured. NextComp will have it's own "rack" which is basically a cabinet to hold the servers. The cabinet is locked and access to the front panels of the server machines are all physically locked as well.

NextComp has always been protected by a firewall and this will continue to be the case after the move.

Here's a photo of the front corner of the building:

IMG_2643

Here are some stats on the data center:

Power:
* UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply): Powerware 9315-80kVA 40 battery support cabinent
* 250 KW Synergy Standby Generator Model #207492

Fire:
* Pre-action and FM-200 Gas Suppression System w/ FIKES DACT Control

2 CRAC Units:
What is a CRAC unit? I didn't know either.
I guess it's like a very specialized air conditioning unit.

What does all this mean?

NextComp will be more reliable, faster, more secure and have few, if any, periods of downtime after the move on Saturday. Good news all around!

Please let me know if you have any questions at all about his move.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

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Service Update

I'm happy to announce that we are moving to a new service provider next week. We experienced a service outage yesterday and part of today with our existing provider. I believe that the issue was actually with the T1 line coming into the building, but the end result was that NextComp was not accessible. This outage is the main reason for the switch to a new provider.

Our new service provider will be Isomedia. The data center is in nearby Bellevue, Washington. Our servers will reside in their datacenter. They provide a secure physical space with redundant connections to the Internet and backup power to the datacenter.

NextComp will be unavailable starting on Saturday March 1st and will be back up and running on Sunday March 2nd.

As always please feel free to drop us a line with any questions or concerns that you may have regarding this downtime.

Friday, February 01, 2008

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WorldatWork Conference Update and Photo Friday

I received an e-mail from WorldatWork today with the following sentence...

"There are just 114 days, 14 hours and 10 minutes until the WorldatWork Total Rewards conference and exhibition 2008."

They do a great job of keeping the exhibitors informed. I find the countdown gives me a bit of a jolt each time I see it. A little bit of adrenaline kicks in as I'm reminded that the show is coming up, even though it's still months away.

With that in mind, we are working on several updates to NextComp. I'll be posting on weekly basis for the next few months to keep you up-to-date on our plans.


And of course I'll be continuing with the "photo Friday" theme.

Shed, Bird, Mountain and Snow

This is a beautiful time of year near my house, although the local mountain pass has been closed for days due to six feet of new snow in six days and continued avalanche danger.

Have a great weekend!

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