Cryptocurrency Mining and Blockchain Technology in A Multi-Tenant Data Center
By now everyone has heard of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and most have also heard of the term “blockchain” to describe the underlying technologies. Mainstream financial media has been covering the bitcoin craze for quite some time, and it has already made it in to...
Accounting for Corporate Culture
I used to think talk of corporate culture was mostly nonsense, and just a means to compel employees to do things like community service or 5k charity runs. When I looked at valuing businesses, it was something I almost entirely ignored. Now, it is something that I...
Network Troubleshooting: Creative Problem Solving as applied to BGP Leaks
Recently, a customer opened a ticket with an interesting problem: one of their 3rd party leased ipv4 prefixes could only reach part of the internet. Packets were disappearing into a black hole for many destinations. In particular, a speed test server in Atlanta, GA,...
How Our Data Center Saved $24,000 a Year By Thinking Differently About Water
Running an 80,000 square foot data center is complicated. Using a highly automated PLC controlled 2800 ton chilled water system with water side economization to cool the colocation floor is even more complicated. We use an evaporative cooling method to transfer IT...
Be The Expert, Then Hire The Expert: How Delegation Helps Your Business Grow
Do you find yourself either taking projects away from your subordinates or giving specific step-by-step guidance in order to complete tasks? If so, you might either be a perfectionist or a control-freak. Either is not a character tribute anyone wants. As managers and...
Doing Great Things Isn’t Enough: 3 Ways Managers Can Show Appreciation to Their Employees
It was after 1am in very remote Iraqi Army base in Southern Iraq. I was an Iraqi Army advisor helping the Iraqi Army create a logistics unit. It was not uncommon to spend 16-18 hours a day working directly with my Iraqi counterpart, so I would normally arrive back to...
STULZ: A Valuable Partnership for In-Row Cooling
In 2015, New Continuum Data Centers announced a partnership with mission critical cooling manufacturer STULZ Air Technology Systems Inc. to provide in-row cooling solutions for its high-density data centers. Our partnership with STULZ is a testament to our commitment...
Leadership Running a Data Center: Experience, Perseverance, Flexibility & Effort
At 3am on a rainy Thursday the doors to the barracks doors burst open and my drill sergeant screamed at me and 30 guys I barely knew to get up out of bed, get dressed, and be outside in 5 minutes. 6 minutes later when I was doing push-ups in the cold rain I thought –...
The Importance of Diversifying Your Cloud Footprint
Last week human error with Amazon Web Services (AWS) seemed to bring half the internet grinding to a halt. For people who rely on the many platforms, tools, and digital conveniences afforded by AWS, it became a pretty stressful day. One of the best reads on addressing...
Minimizing the Risk of Battery Failure in Data Centers
A 2010 National survey on data center outages conducted by the Ponemon Institute found that 65% of outages were directly attributed to UPS and battery failure. After working in the critical power industry for 18 years, there is one thing I can tell you for sure. The...