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Adhost is now a Seattle SAS 70 Data Center
Posted in Company News, SecurityWe are pleased to announce Adhost successfully passed a SAS 70 Type I audit on July 18, 2008. An independent service auditor examined the policies, procedures and business processes in place at Adhost during a week-long on-site visit. The following controls related to the colocation services provided in our Seattle data centers were audited:
- Control Environment: discipline and structure are a key component of the organization and influence the control consciousness of its personnel.
- Physical Security: business premises and information systems are protected from unauthorized access, damage and interference.
- Environmental security: critical information technology infrastructure is protected from certain environmental threats.
- Availability: colocation facility is available and accessible to its customers
- Operations: Operations department identifies and resolves problems affecting the colocation facility or customers in a timely manner.
Our success in passing the SAS 70 audit validates Adhost’s commitment to provide exceptional colocation and web hosting service to our clients. To learn more about SAS 70 and the details of the audit, visit our SAS 70 page.
posted by Mike Smith 11:41 am August 25, 2008permalink | digg this | technorati
Seattle Internet Events in September
Posted in Seattle Internet EventsFall is a great time to attend networking events. Here are a couple that could also benefit your Web site:
- Sept. 10 Seattle Direct Marketing Association Dinner Event: Search Advertising – It’s What’s for Dinner
- Sept. 25: WTIA Technology in Focus Series: Cashing In On Web Services
permalink | digg this | technorati
SANS Training Program for the CISSP Certification Exam Class
Posted in Company News, SecurityMichael K. Smith, CISSP and GISP, as well as Adhost’s CTO, will be teaching the SANS® +S™ Training Program for the CISSP® Certification Exam Class beginning on October 23, 2008. This is the Mentor-led class that meets every Thursday* from 6:00 to 8:00 PM for 10 sessions. The classes will be held at Adhost’s Fisher Plaza Facility. If you are planning on taking the CISSP exam, then this class will give you study materials and guidance that will help you pass the exam the first time!
To sign up for the class, please visit www.sans.org/info/30959 and put “Mentor Recruit” in the Registration Notes Section.
* No class on November 27th, December 25th and January 1st. The 10 sessions accommodates these dates.
***US Department of Defense employees and contractors*** The CISSP(R) Certification is one of the certifications required by the DoD Directive 8570, www.sans.org/info/30969.
Why Choose the Mentor Program?
The Mentor Program, www.sans.org/info/30964, consists of small, local run, 10 week classes utilizing the same great SANS coursework presented at the larger conferences. Mentors and students report several major advantages to the Mentor format: Cost savings, time to digest the material, convenient evening classes, and community networking.
COST SAVINGS: Is the slowing economy resulting in reduced training budgets? With the SANS Mentor program, you save 25% off the regular SANS tuition fee with the ability to save even more with group discounts (see below). No need to spend money on travel and living expenses or spend a week away from the family.
PACED STUDY: Take 10 weeks not 6 days to work through and understand the material. Past students report that the slower pace allows them to absorb and apply the information. Each session provides you the opportunity to apply the materials the next day when you return to the office!
EVENING CLASSES: The Mentor program provides a method for learning the SANS materials and working towards a GIAC certification without taking time off from work.
COMMUNITY NETWORKING: The Mentor program allows you to work with local security professionals in an open discussion format. This community networking has been identified by students as a major benefit of the Mentor program.
One recent Mentor student commented, “I thought that the class was great. I would consider taking another SANS Mentor Program class. It was much more convenient than traveling and I had the ability to review material at my own pace.”
posted by Mike Smith 12:07 pm August 7, 2008permalink | digg this | technorati
Adhost Partners with EarthLab
Posted in Company NewsAdhost is proud to be the official hosting partner for EarthLab.com. EarthLab.com is a leading climate crisis community that provides a practical guide to green living through community interaction, exclusive environmental news, advice from experts and key analysis. Check out EarthLab’s personalized Carbon Calculator, the first Carbon and Lifestyle Calculator of its kind - a unique three-minute survey that generates a carbon footprint score (ECP Score), which you can then save, work to reduce and track your success over time.
posted by Amy R 1:39 pm July 10, 2008permalink | digg this | technorati
Search Engine Marketing Training in Seattle
Posted in Seattle Internet EventsSearch Engine Strategies is hosting two Search Engine Marketing (SEM) workshops in Seattle on July 17. These full-day workshops will provide you with the practices, applications, and hands-on exposure you need to become (and remain!) a top performer in your field. In the end, you will not only walk away with the knowledge and skills you need to be a successful search engine marketer, you will also jump-start your career and enhance your professional know-how. This in-depth training in a small class setting means that your instructor is readily accessible for informal one-on-one or small group discussions. Whether you are a consultant, site designer, website owner, or in-house marketing professional, you cannot afford to miss this opportunity to experience firsthand the latest developments in search engine strategy. No matter where you are in the SEO & SEM process, you will leave these intensive workshops with the necessary skills and tools to improve your business results and take your search engine marketing to another level.
Workshops include:
Event details:
SES Search Engine Marketing (SEM/SEO) Training
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Renaissance Seattle Hotel
515 Madison Street
Seattle, WA 98104
Compliments of Larry Sivitz of SearchWrite, Adhost will receive a 10% discount using this code: TR10SE. Learn more and register today.
posted by Amy R 3:44 pm July 2, 2008permalink | digg this | technorati
Adhost's 4th of July Schedule
Posted in Company NewsThe Adhost business office will be closed on Friday, July 4 for the Independence Day Holiday; however, our technical services office will be on our regular 24 hour schedule. You can reach technical support by phone at 206-404-9500 or 1-888-234-6781 or by email at support@adhost.com. Happy 4th of July!
posted by Mark K 2:40 pmpermalink | digg this | technorati
Unix Web Farm Hosting
Posted in Company News- Complete redundancy of all critical systems, including file storage and configuration, with automatic failover
- Load balanced Web servers ensuring high Web site availability and response
- Integrated PHP and Perl/CGI scripting capability
We are currently planning to migrate all existing Unix hosting plan customers from their current servers to the new Unix hosting cluster in the near future. This relocation will give our customers the availability, reliability and redundancy they’ve come to expect from Adhost.
posted by Mike Sweetser 1:47 pm June 30, 2008permalink | digg this | technorati
ColdFusion 8 Hosting
Posted in Company NewsAdhost is now supporting ColdFusion 8 and PHP 5.2.6 on our server farm. Here are some of the new ColdFusion 8 features:
- PDF features: dynamically generate and interact with PDF documents
- Ajax features: provide data to existing Ajax applications
- .Net integration: specify any .NET object for your ColdFusion applications
- Interactive debugger: make it easier to debug application code
See a full list of ColdFusion 8 features and learn more about our hosting plans.
posted by Mike Graves 1:15 pm June 27, 2008permalink | digg this | technorati
Plaza East UPS Event Update
Posted in Company NewsAt approximately 4:35 AM (PDT) on Saturday Morning, June 21, 2008, an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) that provides service to approximately 20% of the servers in our Plaza East Data center experienced a significant failure. This UPS unit is in a suite which is dedicated to this purpose and is separate from the Adhost Plaza East Data Center. Very early indications suggest that the underlying nature of this failure was a significant drop in amperage from the battery strings which might have caused, for an as yet unknown reason, the unit to go into an uncontrolled over-voltage situation to compensate. Full analysis of this event will likely take at least several weeks. In any case, the end result was significant heat and smoke damage to the UPS unit.
The heroes at the Seattle Fire department were dispatched based on a smoke alarm, and, with assistance of on-site engineers, were able to get the electrical service to this UPS and the one next to it shut down without injury or other damage to the facility. This caused the “A & B” circuits that are fed from these two UPSs, and which serve the above mentioned portion of our Plaza East Data Center, to go dark at approximately 4:52 AM PDT. No other UPS systems on the floor or anywhere else in Plaza East were affected by this shutdown (including the UPS systems located within the Adhost Plaza East Data Center and other UPS systems owned and operated by Fisher Plaza on the floor).
Adhost and the Fisher Plaza engineering team were able to restore bypass power to the affected circuits in the Adhost Plaza East Data Center (and to other portions of Fisher Plaza East) by approximately 6:15 AM PDT. Adhost personnel then began the process of powering systems back up and working with affected customers to get their systems back to full operation.
Why did both UPSs get shut down? These two units are in close proximity in a suite dedicated to this function. The second, originally unaffected UPS drew in a significant amount of smoke and other possible foreign material through its intake/cooling fans during the event. It was also probably subject to significant heat which may have compromised the components in the device. At this point, the engineers and the manufacturer are unwilling to certify its operation.
In our initial release to customers, we termed this as a fire, as that is what we initially had to work with. Although there was significant heat and smoke, there were no actual flames and, aside from the two UPSs, there appears to be no long term damage that is not easily redressed. The building has had a restoration company in the building around the clock to address the issue of the smoke and odor which resulted from this event. We are also going through not only our data center in this building, but also our offices which are located on this floor and we find little or no remaining evidence of damage, with the obvious exception of the power status.
So, where are we now? The loads that are affected are currently only backed up by generator power. This means that, in the event of interruption of service from Seattle City Light, the load will drop for 30-60 seconds until power is restored by the generators. Our engineers have been in close contact with Seattle City Light and they are well aware of our situation and have agreed to do whatever they can to minimize or eliminate any work on their power distribution plant that might have an adverse impact on our service. Our thanks go out to them for their understanding and cooperation.
Now, there is some good news. Normally, replacing UPS units like these is a question of several weeks or months. However, two new UPS units were recently installed on the floor which are available for us to use. We are working with the building and our vendors to map out a plan for getting the load moved onto these UPSs as quickly as possible. We do not have an exact timeframe for this because there are several components that are currently hard to predict (exact availability of materials, permitting and inspections, etc.) but we are pushing this process as fast as it is safe (and legal) to do so. We’re hoping to set a target date of this weekend. We will make a formal announcement to the affected customers when we have that exact timing. We will, of course, work with our customers to minimize any impact that this transfer may have on their service.
We apologize for any impact this event may have caused to our customers or to their customers. We thank our customers for their understanding as we work through this situation. We also would like to thank the multitude of players for true excellence during this trying time including, the Fisher Communications engineering team, the Egis engineering team, the Adhost engineering and systems administration teams, Prime Electric, the Seattle Fire Department and Seattle City Light. With their collective effort and knowledge, this potentially very bad situation was made considerably better.
We also are very thankful that no one was injured during this event.
posted by Will R 9:50 pm June 24, 2008permalink | digg this | technorati
Seattle Internet Events in May and June
Posted in Seattle Internet EventsIf you want to expand your knowledge about a variety of Internet topics and get some networking in before summer is here, Adhost recommends the following Seattle Internet events:
- May 28: WTIA Technology in Focus Series: Web 2.0 & Beyond! – Unmasking the Future
- June 3-4: Search Marketing Expo Advanced: SMX Advanced is for experienced search marketers. Register today - it’s almost sold out.
- June 4-5: AOTA Summit 2008: Authentication and Online Trust Alliance Summit
- June 4: MIT Enterprise Dinner Forum: The Business of Personal and Public Data: Creating Value and Protecting Privacy
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