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PCI Compliance and Ecommerce Sites
Posted in Security,Web developmentOnline and other merchants are now required to comply with Visa / Mastercard Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards [PCI-DSS]. You can learn more about that online at the Visa and Mastercard sites or a host of other sites as well. Just type ‘PCI DSS compliance’ into Google.
Wikipedia has a useful overview: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Card_Industry_Data_Security_Standard
and we have a brief description on our site as well: PCI Compliancy.
For online businesses that need to 1) adjust final order amounts after the original transaction or 2) perform subsequent charges or credits against the original card, storage of the card locally is no longer a realistic option without substantial outlays for hardware, software and programming [servers, firewalls, anti-virus programs and encryption coding].
This can be mitigated by employing a Credit Card Gateway that supports what is frequently called a ‘Tokenization’ solution that stores the credit card for you on their PCI compliant servers and allows you to perform later transactions against the stored card by way of a ‘token’ provided at the time of the original transaction.
We have researched several options for our ecommerce clients. Contact your sales representative for more information at 206-404-9000 or 1-888-234-6781.
permalink | digg this | technoratiMITEF Dinner Forum in September: Social Media
Posted in Seattle Internet EventsThe topic of the September 16th MIT Enterprise Forum of the Northwest Dinner Forum is Social Media: Real Business Strategies for Success. Here’s the description:
How are some businesses harnessing the power of social media to differentiate and manifest their brand, scale their organization, and succeed where others fail? Our panel of experts share real-life examples that highlight successful social media strategies and executions. They’ll answer questions from the audience, and provide a glimpse into the future of how social media will dramatically change how we do business and lead our lives. Our panelists include:
• Murtaza Hussain – Co-founder and President of Peanut Labs
• Eric Picard – Advertising Technology Advisor to the Advertising Platform Engineering team at Microsoft
• Ben Straley – Co-founder and CEO of Meteor Solutions
• Jim Watson – Senior Vice President, Managing Director of Razorfish Northwest
• Mike Weaver – VP of New Business Development and Mobile Discipline Lead for MRM Worldwide – Seattle
The event will be moderated by Ethan Yarbrough, Co-founder and President of Allyis Inc. Learn more and register on the MITEF Web site.
permalink | digg this | technoratiSeptember PSAMA Luncheon: Twitterphoria
Posted in Seattle Internet EventsSave Wednesday, September 9 for the September Puget Sound American Marketing Association (PSAMA) Luncheon. The topic is Twitterphoria: Adding Twitter Power to Your Marketing Mix Today. Join Jennifer Gehrt, Co-Founder of Communiqué PR, to learn about current trends in social media.
Here’s part of the description: You’ll discover how you can integrate Twitter with your marketing plans to achieve your most pressing business objectives and you’ll walk away with ready-to-execute tactics to promote your company’s product/service on Twitter and other key social media platforms. Learn more and register at the PSAMA site.
And remember that you can follow Adhost on Twitter and twitter.com/adhost.
permalink | digg this | technoratiPlaza East Power Maintenance
Posted in Company NewsStart of Work: 10:00 PM PDT, August 22nd 2009
End of Work: 8:00 AM PDT, August 23rd 2009
Impact to Customers: None Anticipated
Description
————
Fisher Plaza will be performing maintenance on the power risers that feed Adhost’s East Data Center. During the maintenance window, power will be transferred to the generators while utility power is restored to the North and South Risers in Plaza East. We do not anticipate any interruption in power delivery to the data center during the maintenance event. Adhost’s Plaza West facility is not affected by this maintenance.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Adhost Support at (206) 404-9500 or support_at_adhost.com.
Regards,
Michael Smith
–
Michael K. Smith – CISSP, GISP
Chief Technical Officer – Adhost Internet LLC mksmith@adhost.com
w: +1 (206) 404-9500 f: +1 (206) 404-9050
PGP: B49A DDF5 8611 27F3 08B9 84BB E61E 38C0 (Key ID: 0x9A96777D)
Adhost East Data Center Update from Adhost CEO
Posted in Company NewsDear Adhost Clients:
I am writing to you to update you on the status of the power infrastructure supporting the Adhost East Data Center located in Fisher Plaza East. Adhost is committed to providing a fault-tolerant, highly available environment to support our data center operations. We are working closely with Fisher Plaza, other tenants and vendor engineers and electricians to get our data center operations back onto that footing as fast as possible. This letter is meant to provide a synopsis of both the actions taken to date as well as a synopsis of short and long-term steps that Adhost and Fisher Plaza are taking to achieve our commitment.
As many of you know, on July 2nd, 2009 there was a significant event in the main electrical switchgear room located in the parking garage. While we are still awaiting final forensic analysis of this event, at this point we know that two 5000 amp bus ducts were severely damaged and that enough heat was generated to activate the pre-action sprinkler system in this room. Of course, the introduction of water into a live electrical switchgear room had predictable results – namely that all of the gear in that room became inoperable. Unfortunately this room was where the automatic election is made between utility and generator power. The loss of this room resulted in a loss of power to the Adhost East Data Center for approximately 27 hours.
The Adhost West Data Center was unaffected during this event and remains in its standard operating configuration of utility power backed by N+1 generator plant.
For approximately one month following the event, our East Data Center was powered by generators as its primary source. We announced several maintenance windows to upgrade the reliability of that generator power including moving from the single-riser/single generator configuration that we initially brought the building back up on to an N+1 generator plant that allowed for continuous operation and accommodated a regular maintenance schedule for the individual generators.
On August 1st and 2nd, we announced and successfully completed another maintenance window to switch-over to a temporary configuration that features utility power as the primary electrical source backed by the N+1 generator plant for emergency backup.
Meanwhile, we are working to develop a long-term permanent solution that will take this event into consideration and which will allow Adhost to operate continuously through a similar loss. This solution entails the following components:
- Diversifying the Adhost East critical equipment loads across the two switchgear rooms that service (or will service) Fisher Plaza East.
- Working with Fisher Plaza to ensure that catastrophic loss of one room will not inhibit our ability to operate.
- Working with the various regulatory agencies to put into place non-water-based fire suppression systems in all critical electrical areas.
These solutions take time to engineer and they also take time to source and install the appropriate equipment. Right now we are working to have the permanent solution in place by the end of October. As we get progress down this path, we will have better timelines which we will make available to our customers.
One other lesson that we have learned and which we are addressing is to implement a better emergency communications plan (ECP). Our previous ECP was shown as inadequate during this event and we already have implemented parts of this plan. Highlights of the plan include:
- An off-site (completely outside of the Adhost network and facility) maintenance mailing list server which is automatically synchronized with our main maintenance mailing list. We will also be introducing three primary lists over the coming months:
- East Data Center Operations
- West Data Center Operations
- Shared Hosting Operations
Once in place, we will announce to all lists events that impact the entire infrastructure such as power, cooling, network, DNS, and email. We will also announce major events that primarily impact one of these subgroups to all three lists with follow-up details being posted to the affected lists.
- Adhost is committed to using Twitter as a quick, off-site communications tool to announce not only information on major events, but also other Adhost news. You can follow our tweets at http://www.twitter.com/adhost
- An off-site Web server which will act in several capacities:
- Allow customers to get status messages on our major services.
- Provide a chat-style interface for customers with status questions and support needs.
- An off-site phone number that will give status updates to callers.
- Moving our phone systems to a more fault-tolerant system that will allow us to communicate via phone with customers during significant events.
Once again, we apologize for the extent of this event. We want to assure you that we are integrating the lessons that we learned from this event into our on-going operations and policies and procedures.
We appreciate your business, patience and understanding as we work to improve our services. If you have any questions or suggestions, please email support@adhost.com.
Will Riffle
President and CEO
Adhost Internet
Adhost CEO Participates in DatacenterDynamics Seattle 2009
Posted in Company News,IndustryAdhost CEO Will Riffle will be participating in a panel discussion at the DatacenterDynamics Seattle 2009 Conference on Thursday, August 6. The topic for the panel discussion is “Case Study: Data Center Disaster Response and Recovery – An Engineering and Operational Review of the July 2009 Fisher Plaza Fire.” The moderator for the panel will be Ed Doyne, Director of Technology Services – Fisher Plaza – Egis Real Estate.
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