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Welcome to the September 2009 Edition of the SolutionPro Sys Log Newsletter
Open House Follow-Up
Thanks everyone who showed up at the open house!! It was a pleasure to have you there and to talk about Data Protection, Disaster Recovery, Idaho Data Center Services and all your other IT challenges. The event was a success in that many of our customers got to meet each other and discuss their IT challenges. Events like this always remind us of how diverse our customers' IT needs are. They demonstrate the many ways that exist to deliver and protect precious IT resources across a diverse set of clients, individuals and companies in a dynamic environment. Thanks again for attending and we'll see you next time. Be sure and check out the latest SolutionPro Blog post about the open house.
Facility Update- SolutionPro's UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)
Do you know the truth about Utility Power- no matter where you live? How many times have you come home from work to find your microwave clock needs to be reset? How many times have the lights blinked during a thunderstorm? You know what we're talking about but don't need to keep track. SolutionPro takes ANY threat to its Utility Power supply very seriously and logs and monitors every single departure from normal service. During the months of July and August there were 5 power events on the SolutionPro utility power grid that could have presented a threat to any computer system not protected by a UPS system similar to SolutionPro's. On at least two occasions, severe thunderstorms rocked the Boise Valley during this period. During these storms, SolutionPro started the backup generator as an added safety measure. SolutionPro's UPS system absorbs power spikes, dips, and complete outages. The UPS system is comprised of several components that require a coordinated effort across 3 different vendors to ensure preventative maintenance, testing, and unscheduled maintenance items are always completed. Additionally, SolutionPro stocks critical items such as batteries and other key components for immediate change-out to minimize a wait for parts availability. SolutionPro engineers and a team of vendor engineers are on call 24x7x365 to handle any issues we may experience with our UPS system. Although the months of July and August were anything but uneventful as far as severe weather is concerned, our goal is to make the outcome for our customers uneventful.
Tech/Product Feature- Secondary Mail (MX) Records- An Economical D.R. Plan
For those of you who are hosting and operating a single mail server--This is for you!!
For around $10 per record per month did you know you could guarantee that you wouldn't miss any emails delivered during a sustained mail server outage? It's easy. What happens when your mail server crashes or you sustain a power outage in your office? The answer is... during a sustained outage- there is no place for incoming mail messages to go--(for short outages your senders will get the "mail delivery delayed" message and the messages will eventually be delivered). However, for longer, sustained outages- mail could be returned undeliverable to the sender. Chances are, SolutionPro is responsible for routing all those incoming mail messages to your mail server (this is part of providing DNS services). So- all you need to do is request that a Secondary Mail Record be created. Now what happens in the event of a sustained mail server outage is quite different. During the time your mail server is down, all mail is routed to a mail server at SolutionPro via the secondary records- where it is then held. When your mail server is restored, the emails are automatically sent to your mail server and normal service resumes via the primary mail records. This way you don't lose any of the important incoming emails and the people sending emails to you don't get a "Mail Undeliverable" message. It's important to remember this won't prevent "mail delivery delayed" messages during short outages. Is it a failover plan? No. Failover is only accomplished with redundant mail servers-period. If my mail server crashes will it protect the mail already on it? No. You should have a separate D.R. plan to protect the data already on your mail server. We can help with that too. Is it an economical D.R. plan to ensure mail can still be delivered to me during a sustained outage? You bet. Request more information about Secondary Mail Records, Failover or Data Protection.
Hats-Off to the SolutionPro NOC Staff
We normally feature a customer in this section, however, from time-to-time we'd also like to feature part of the SolutionPro Team. We'd be surprised if you haven't already had some sort of contact with the folks at the SolutionPro Network Operations Center (NOC). They are the support personnel, the engineers and the supervisory team that makes the SolutionPro Data Center run 24x7x365. If you call in, email, or submit a web request for technical support- the NOC team is going to help you. If you have a technical issue at 3am on a holiday, the first person you will reach is someone in the NOC. If you need remote-hands service for a quick server reboot in any of our Colocation areas, a NOC tech is going to help with that. Or if you need to know how to configure your DSL router or email settings- a NOC tech is going to do that too. If there is a threat to our Data Center- it will most-likely be detected by someone in our NOC and handled appropriately. We are proud of the fact that our NOC team is so well-rounded. Many Data Centers employ security guards at their data centers that are merely contract employees working for a temp agency. When you speak with someone on our NOC team- you are speaking to a well-trained SolutionPro employee that knows about your account and is empowered to make the right decision for you!! SolutionPro technical support is just a click away. |
