Tag: computing

Information for Technologists Interested in Learning about Artificial Intelligence

These days, artificial intelligence is gaining a lot of attention in mainstream media. This is a topic that I’ve been passionate about for many years, and a number of fellow technologists have asked me where they can learn about AI. I have posted a shared Google Document for people with a background in technology and software engineering… Continue reading Information for Technologists Interested in Learning about Artificial Intelligence

Hosting Large-Scale Web Sites: Contract Review Guide for the CTO

If you host and operate large-scale Web sites, or negotiate contract agreements with vendors that provide such services, you need to understand what should be included in a Web hosting infrastructure. This knowledge will help you in three areas: Providing reliability, scalability & good performance Minimizing risks via security, privacy, regulatory compliance and reduction of… Continue reading Hosting Large-Scale Web Sites: Contract Review Guide for the CTO

Understanding SLA Uptime Percentages

The table below helps illustrate why you should ensure that the “SLA Uptime Measurement Meter Reset Window” is the same duration as your billing cycle or shorter. Availability % Downtime per year Downtime per month (30 days) Downtime per week Downtime per day 90 “one nine” 36.5 days 72 hours 16.8 hours 2.4000 hours 95… Continue reading Understanding SLA Uptime Percentages

How to Avoid Duplicate Search Results when using Apple Mail.app with Gmail

I use Gmail’s IMAP feature with my Apple Mac OS’s built in Mail.app program. Mail.app keeps local copies (on all my personal Macs) of all my email messages that I’ve kept (since 1994). It enables me to: Effectively work offline with all my emails (searching, reading and composing), when my computer is not online. That’s… Continue reading How to Avoid Duplicate Search Results when using Apple Mail.app with Gmail

Checklist for Migration of Web Application from Traditional Hosting to Cloud

In 2010, Cloud Computing is likely to see increasing adoption. Migrating Web applications from one data center to another is a complex project. To assist you in migrating Web applications from your hosting facilities to cloud hosting solutions like Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure or RackSpace’s Cloud offerings, I’ve published a set of checklists for migrating… Continue reading Checklist for Migration of Web Application from Traditional Hosting to Cloud

Benefits of Using IRC or Group Chat & Video Conference During Incident Management

When a team of engineers is dealing with a real-time incident, such as a system outage, troubleshooting a problem or dealing with a malicious hacking attack, having excellent communications is critically important. The appropriate communications tool can make a world of difference in dealing with the issue and learning from it afterwards. As important as… Continue reading Benefits of Using IRC or Group Chat & Video Conference During Incident Management

Save Money On Hosting & CDN By Optimizing Your Architecture & Applications

If you manage technology for a company that has a large Web presence, it is likely that a large percentage of your total technology costs is spent on the Web hosting environment, including the Content Delivery Network (CDN, e.g. Akamai, LimeLight, CDNetworks, Cotendo). In this article, we discuss some ways to manage these costs. Before… Continue reading Save Money On Hosting & CDN By Optimizing Your Architecture & Applications

Save Your Company Money In Monthly Bills Using Browser Caching

Companies that operate heavily trafficked Web sites can save thousands of dollars every month by maximizing their use of browser-side caching. Large Web sites pay for bandwidth at their Web hosting data center and also at their content delivery network (CDN, e.g. Akamai, LimeLight, CDNetworks). Bandwidth costs add up to huge monthly bills. On small-business… Continue reading Save Your Company Money In Monthly Bills Using Browser Caching

Using Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) with an EC2 Instance

One of the differences between Amazon EC2 server instances and normal servers is that the server’s local disk storage state (i.e. changes to data) on EC2 instances does not persist over instance shutdowns and powering on. This was mentioned in my earlier post about hosting my Web site on Amazon EC2 and S3, Therefore, it… Continue reading Using Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) with an EC2 Instance