Going back to the ability to recover quickly from a failure, let’s look at the tried and trusted method of recovering from the failure of a dedicated server. Let me preface this by saying that dedicated servers have proven to be an excellent platform for hosting sites both large and small. They give you complete control, you have 100% of the resources of the server available to you and you are completely isolated from other websites. However in the event of a failure, the restoration process can be tedious at best. In a perfect world your dedicated server would have a raid configuration and if you lost a hard drive, the system would automatically fail-over to the 2nd drive and notify you that the other drive had failed and needs replacement. This provides the opportunity to swap the drive in a very controlled manner and during a maintenance window. The restore process is fairly straightforward and has been done thousands upon thousands of times by various providers with varying degrees of success depending upon conditions. Backup and restore can be a tricky process and often times we are at the mercy of Companies who develop the software and hardware for backup systems.

Initially the problem must be identified and in this case let’s assume that it is a failed primary hard drive. The server has to be powered down and the failed hard drive has to be swapped. This can take go quickly or slowly depending on various circumstances and conditions. Then the server has to be brought online and the restore process from the backup systems is initiated. This step is relatively quick and provided there are no errors along the way the restore process should begin without incident. This is where it gets tricky though because depending on how much data you have, the restore and can either finish quickly or take a very long time. If you have a simple Linux server with a few gigs of data, that should restore very quickly. However if you have for example a Windows server running SQL Server and you have several terabytes of data to be restored, that might take a while. The real problem with this is that your server is down during the restore process and will be unavailable for your clients to access until it’s completed and the server has gone through a final reboot and system check. This is where cloud computing kills the dedicated server in my opinion.

Now let me outline the restore process for cloud computing. We refer to the backups in cloud computing as snapshots. The reason for this is that a normal backup typically does either a file by file or block by block backup of the entire hard drive or drives. Not only does this take a while but the format of those files which are more than likely highly compressed, are specific to your backup system and are in the format that your system requires to perform a successful restore. A snapshot on the other hand is literally just that, it’s like a photograph was taken of your hard drive in its current state and moved to a storage device. That snapshot is not a highly compressed and highly modified version of your data and operating system, it is a fully functioning duplicate that in the event of a primary failure, can simply be booted up. So the restore process is reduced from a series of steps that require lots of manual intervention and maybe even a technician to pull your server and do physical work on the server, to you simply clicking a button that says  “restore this snapshot”. Let me make sure that you understand this because even though this is an incredibly simple concept, people often times still don’t get it. So the system takes a snapshot of your cloud computing environment and instantly stores that snapshot on a storage device. When the system fails for whatever reason whether it is hacked beyond recognition, an angry ex employee went in and deleted all of your content or whatever the case may be,  you instruct the system to restore whichever snapshot you want and all it does his boot up that snapshot and your environment is restored. How cool is that.!

The other benefits of cloud computing are very obvious but the ability to recover quickly and completely from any type of failure is what really jumps out at me. Cloud Computing is still in its infancy but the writing is on the wall, the upside is crystal clear and I predict that eventually everyone will hop on the cloud.

~ Till next time

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If you are on internet searching for a hosting provider you have probably come across a provider offering  free web hosting.  These providers offering free web hosting, place their emphasis on price not features.

Almost all the free hosting providers will offer you limited amount of storage room and bandwidth.  In fact, most of these companies will not even allow you to upload videos or music  - or even pictures.  There is also no guarantee of uptime on your site.  Meaning your site can be down for extended periods of time.

If free web hosting companies don’t charge any money, how do they stay in business?  Simple - Advertisements.

Agreeing to their terms you give them the right to place advertisements on your site.  These advertisements are usually not related to the topic of your site, more importantly though, you have no control of who can advertise on your site.

While free hosting sounds like a good deal it has many annoying drawbacks.  If you you are interested in blogging why not check out free blogging providers such as wordpress.org and blogger.com where you can control your advertisements and you also get a free domain name (at their domain).  However, if you are interested in starting your own website there are many hosting providers for plans starting around $5/month that provide adequate space, bandwidth and features.

Remember, nothing is free in this world.

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Charcoal vs. Briquettes vs. Gas Grill

According to the Virtual Weber Bullet: The general consensus is that lump tends to burn hotter than briquettes, but not as long or as consistently. Some lack of consistency is to be expected, given that the content and piece size varies within an individual bag and between bags.

Personally, I’m a briquettes kind of guy. The time waiting for the grill to heat up can be spent socializing, drinking your cold beverage, and munching on snacks. For the after-work grilled dinner, a quick and easy propane blast can save a couple hours for crucial rest time before tackling the next work day.

The Tools
Grilling tool set. Get one.

Food Preparation
Clean your grill. A metal brush does wonders to clean that extra “flavor” left over from your last session. In a pinch, wad up some aluminum foil and scrub away. When all else fails, send the grill into the oven and bake that stubborn stickiness off.

Timing is Everything
BBQ Chicken – oil the grill, cook the chicken off direct heat and don’t add sauce til the end!

Burgerlicious – Let meat come to room temperature. Don’t press on the grill and a little seasoning never hurt.

Steaks and Mistakes -  Salting your steak an hour before cooking will break down many of the tough proteins and hold flavor much better.

Sit back and relax – the food will need to sit for a few to soak up all those juices. Don’t cut it open immediately!

Cooking Temperatures and Time
Kalamazoo put together a little food temperature chart for your different cuts and preferences.

The Secret Ingredient
Have fun! Food disasters and missing condiments are nothing compared to good quality time with fun and friends. Get out there and fire up those grills.

Have a great Memorial Day!

1-800-HOSTING

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Their idea, which has been a dream of mine for quite some time, is to merge the web with traditional television.  With services like Hulu and Netflix gaining undeniable traction, it’s hard to foresee standard cable making the cut when budgets are tightened in households across America. Google TV, aims to streamline your interactive experience with open source development, mobile control support, and their highly reputable partners, Sony & Intel.

Those of you who have been xbox hacking or dual monitoring your setup at home are already on the right track. Google TV essentially makes it easy for the masses to grab what they want, versus surfing the tube for hours on end for potential interests.

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Are you a fan of 1-800-Hosting Inc. on Facebook yet? If not, you’re missing out! We just launched a photo contest! Here’s the deal: Submit a photo depicting ‘Dedicated’. It’s simple: Become a fan of 1-800-Hosting Inc., post to our fan photo album, we’ll pick a winner and mail the winner an Avatar – 2 Disc (Blu-ray & DVD) set.

How to Submit Photos:
• Login into your Facebook account
• Search for 1-800-HOSTING Inc.,
• Become a fan
• Click on ‘Photo’ tab

• Click on ‘Fan Photos’


• Click ‘See All Photos’


• Click ‘Add Photos’


• Upload your photo

Done!

The Rules
1. Submissions need to be your own.
2. Photos need to be created within the giveaway period.
3. Each contestant cannot submit more than 2 photos.
4. Cannot violate the terms and conditions of Facebook.
5. Contestants must be legal resident of the fifty (50) United States (including the District of Columbia) and are 18 years of age or older. Employees of 1-800-HOSTING Inc. are not eligible.
6. Submissions must be posted to our fan photo album by Monday, May 31st, 2010 at 11PM Eastern.
8. The winner will be announced via Facebook and the 1-800-HOSTING blog on Tuesday, June 1st, 2010. The winner will be contacted via Facebook messaging and wall posting.
9. The winner has 30 days to respond with their mailing address to claim the prize. If the winner does not claim the prize within the time frame, the runner-up will be awarded.
10. After acceptance, we will ship the item using UPS standard shipping. Please allow ten (10) business days for shipment.
11. By submitting photos, you allow 1-8000-HOSTING full use your facebook name and photo for advertising or similar promotions regarding this giveaway. 1-800-HOSTING will also post the name/photo on our site as the winner of our giveaway without further compensation.
12. Winner agrees to release 1-800-HOSTING Inc. of any injuries, losses or damages of any kind resulting from acceptance, use, misuse, possession, or loss of the prize.

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“Ideal for personal homepages, lifestreaming, splash and microsites, celebrity fan pages, commercial promotion, brand marketing – and everything in between.” Flavors.me, a brainchild of parent company, HiiDef Inc., offers more customization while still maintaining wicked style. Their three minute intro video below shows just how many custom flavors you can use to add spice to your mini site.

Flavors.me offers easy-to-configure connections with the most popular social networks out there, making it easy for visitors to find your online presence tastefully.

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This location will service as a secondary location and DR (Disaster Recovery) site to our customers wishing to have geographic disparity of their data, for those who wish to maintain off site backups, and for customers interested in moving content closer to users in the Northeast for increased performance. I’ll be in Chicago a few times over the next few weeks for both personal and work reasons, and look forward to getting to know the city and their local cuisine.

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