Most days, it seems that technology progresses all too slowly. It is a different feeling when you work with cutting edge technology on a daily basis: deploying the first dual network datacenter infrastructure, being entrenched in solutions for everything from CDN to ISCI to DTS and more, testing the latest enterprise solutions from leading industry vendors long before money could buy them… it never really meant a whole lot to me; it was very much just, “How we roll”, as the gang would say.

But every so often, there is a day when a new technology catches my attention and reminds me why I got involved in the IT industry. Something that reminds me of the days spent tapping out QuickBasic 2.0 applications on my 18MHz 386 and 16 color EGA monitor. Surprisingly, the rise of cloud computing did just that. There was a day some still remember, when the cost of localized hardware was significant enough that terminals ruled the world. Occasionally, you may still see one at a grocery checkout stand or being used in a retail stockroom to check inventory across locations. Early terminals were commonly thin clients lacking a processor, non-volatile user storage, and only possessing enough memory to display what was on the screen at any given time. As the cost of memory declined, fat clients gained some popularity offering locally programmable memory. However, the concept was still the same: one host machine, usually a mainframe, serving applications over a distance to multiple (less capable) client machines.

Terminals were not destined to last though. In a twist of irony one of the innovations that they helped to inspire, the microprocessor, combined with the falling price and increased capacity of memory eventually led the decline of terminals. Left behind, in a cloud of dust, by hardware manufacturer’s race for speed capacity combined with advances in networking technology, the terminal PC became a historical relic looked upon as a necessary stop-gap solution used in the days when hardware was just too-darn-expensive. It was at that time the truly personal computer that we know and love was born and has forever-since reigned supreme. Then came the ARPANET, which gave way to the Information Super Highway, gave way to the World Wide Web, gave way to the internet we know today.

Mainframes gave way to servers. And today, I walk into a datacenter surrounded by servers boasting quad octo-core processors and Cloud Computing Instances, talking to customers who use their smart-phones to remotely access their web hosts, and quietly thinking to myself, “Have things really changed?” How far off is the day, when the benefits of remotely hosted applications outweigh the benefits of localized hardware? When we sit at the start of a new era where CCI’s can be created in minutes, regularly imaged for data security, migrated and restored quickly in the event of hardware failure, accessed from anywhere and from a variety of client hardware and software implementations, how much more would it take for us to return to the days of terminal PC’s. As bandwidth continues to improve, purchase and operational costs per processing core continues to fall, people demand more and more ‘anywhere access’, open source gains popularity and the idea of renting freely upgraded applications becomes accepted outside of the IT community, who knows what the future might hold. In a future where the concept of parallel uplinks may be no more foreign than that of parallel data transfer over CAT6 is to the layman, I wonder if personal computers will be thought of as the necessary stop-gap solution used while we waited for bandwidth to catch up to useable processing power; nothing more than a dinosaur that gave way to the green-movement and our need to be connected everywhere.

While I work on bringing my head out of the clouds, I remember why I am here. I am not here because technology’s past was all that fantastic, or because the present is all that glamorous, but because the future is still wide open. Whether-or-not clouds ever really kill the PC is anyone’s guess and only time will tell. However, one thing is currently known, as companies continue to see the benefit of having their staff conduct business through a web-portal interface, consumers continue trying to figure out what they are going to do with the extra two or three of the four cores they have, and the cost-to-performance ratio associated with remote resources continues to fall, we are steadily moving that way.

So here I am at the new “SoftLayer Global HQ” on Alpha Road in Dallas that we moved into last Monday, July 12th. We had a very warm welcome; our landlords catered bagels, pastries, and fruit for breakfast that day, and they also provided Maggiano’s for lunch (I’m still in need of lasagna detox).

Another thing that was (and still is, and will unfortunately be for a while) warm is the weather outside. Blisteringly hot, actually. Also, our new office space is huge compared to the one we just moved from. Being the only residents in our building, we have lots of room for growth (and we will definitely grow). As a result, most of the departments that were nestled right in next to each other at the “horseshoe” location in Plano are now isolated from each other and separated by light-years of deep space (the ridiculously huge spaces between galaxies) in the name of room for future growth. If I were a scientist, I would probably now make up some cool, true analogy derived from real data for someone to understand how vast deep space is, (you know, like saying the Earth and the Sun’s relative sizes are like a pea and a soccer ball or something like that), but I’m not a scientist; I’m a summer intern who classifies transactions all day, so I’ll just read Wikipedia and then say that it’s just huge and that there’s nothing there except random bits of energy and this theoretical weird stuff called “dark” matter and “dark” energy. Stuff like that is what’s separating the Accounting department from certain amenities such as the front door, the main café…oh, and our CFO and VP. But who cares about them, because it’s not like we work for them or anything.

Trivia question! What is uncomfortable about deep space? It’s really, really, really, incredibly cold. You pretty much don’t want to go there, at all, ever. I don’t care how cold the DC and Seattle guys say it is where they live compared to Dallas; compared to deep space, even Siberia would feel like Death Valley. What’s the temperature? Infinitesimally close to absolute zero. What is absolute zero? It’s the lowest temperature theorized to exist, and while no one has ever measured something with this temperature because it’s nearly impossible to do so, it’s highly likely that this theory is true. What is the scientific definition of temperature? Temperature is just the measurement of the effect of thermal energy (heat) on the movement of matter. Heat gives things kinetic energy (which makes them move), and we measure the average kinetic energy of a set of particles and call that the temperature. Imagine particles of matter as zillions of microscopic foam balls in a large pot. If the pot is held still or nearly still (a low temperature), it appears as a solid. As more heat is present, the pot shakes more and more, and if there were zillions of microscopic balls, at a certain temperature it would appear to you that there was a liquid in the pot rather than a solid because the heat was giving the particles more kinetic energy to the point where they were moving so much they began to flow like a liquid (melting). And if it shook so much that the balls flew out of the pot, it would appear as a gas. Absolute zero is the theoretical temperature where there is a complete absence of thermal energy (a completely still pot). Well, you know about the Celsius scale, right? Water freezes at zero and boils at one hundred degrees Celsius. In 1848 a scientist named William Thomson, however better known as Lord Kelvin, got lazy (or innovative, who knows) and made up a new scale where absolute zero, was, in fact, zero. Absolute zero is located at about negative 273 degrees Celsius, or zero Kelvins. So deep space is cold and dark.

Now that I’m done rambling, what do deep space (which as established above, is cold and dark) and SoftLayer have in common? Both! Apparently the warm temperatures outside were slightly winning in the battle against the air conditioners on Monday (just a simple calibration issue), so a few people in my sector of the galaxy politely requested a slight temperature adjustment to cool down the office just a tiny bit. The result was an Antarctic chill of biblical proportions that plummeted the office temperature close to that of absolute zero. I’m not kidding. I’m now sitting in my cube typing this blog extremely slowly, because as I explained earlier, you can’t exactly move very well at deep space temperatures. I’m dreaming of a pair of astronaut gloves while wearing a sweater I found in my car that I had during the winter. So that’s the cold part. Well, for the dark part, among other slight issues that can be expected upon a new office location that is still not completely finished, we encountered one that prevented Bryan Chamberlain (my boss) from having lights in his office. Apparently the motion sensor that turns them on is not communicating with the power grid, and so a new part has to be ordered and replaced during off-hours. Congratulations, Bryan, you now have two things in common with interstellar space. However the moral of the story is, cold places are great for housing heat-producing servers.

And Wikipedia makes me sound really smart.

All of my life I have been awkward in some way or another; afro in middle school, braces in high school, soccer player in a football loving town, not to mention that I have tripped at least once a day for roughly 11 years now. The most frustrating however, is that from middle school through high school, when clothing actually mattered, I was always too tall and too skinny to make any of the trendy threads fit me. Have you ever been able to find 28X33 jeans, I sure couldn’t. So I settled for 30X32’s and everyone enjoyed the visible cinch in my waist from my belt and a nice view of my sweet white tube socks shining from right below the cuff of my jeans. When I was a kid, I could’ve sworn that we had a magical washing machine, because in the few instances when I actually found a nice small shirt that didn’t make me look like I had a blanket draped over my skinny bones, I went home, washed it like every normal human being does and presto chango, the drying machine would spit out a crop top circa 1980. Unless you are shopping for dress shirts or online, this predicament still haunts young, preteen boys such as my old self.

I’m sure that you can imagine my frustration as I always wished that someone would just offer more customization and options to provide me with a better fit. Instead of satisfying the customer, these companies limited their customer base by expecting the customer to bend and adjust to the options of the provider. But who is the servicer and who is supposed to getting serviced? Fortunately for those out there looking for cloud computing instances equipped with specific and varying RAM, CPU and storage needs, look no further. Softlayer Technologies now offers a revolutionary new service called Build Your Own Cloud (BYOC for short) that allows you to completely customize your cloud service and tailor it to your exact specifications. BYOC is featured in reviews by both Neovise and PCWorld. Neovise praises the new development stating that “This new ability to personalize the size and price of cloud servers can benefit every SoftLayer customer.” The impressive part of this development is that we are the first and only ones offering such a service and once again we are on the cutting edge of technology and leading the way for other hosting services to follow. After all, in the words of Nathan Day, Softlayer’s CTO, “One thing we’ve learned along the way is that one size doesn’t fit all. (PCWorld)” So when considering who can meet your needs the best, just remember that at Softlayer, you can have it your way.

I often get asked “what makes SoftLayer different?” The problem with that simple question is – SoftLayer is so different from all the competition out there that it’s not a simple question to answer. I have my standard version that I run thru – but I’m not sure people really grasp how different SoftLayer really is. After talking to my wife, she recommended doing a Letterman style top 10 reason why SoftLayer is different. I figured I would give it a shot – so here it is..

10. SoftLayer terminates 40Gbps to every single rack!! 20Gbps to the public internet and 20Gbps to the private network.

9. SoftLayer offers three types of VPN services for out-of-band connectivity (SSL, PPTP, IPSEC)

8. SoftLayer manages its own nationwide MPLS network with 10 PoPs and over 1000Gbps of transit and peer connectivity

7. SoftLayer offers free enterprise grade DNS services through our DNS farms located in all 10 PoPs in North America

6. SoftLayer has over 1600 APIs for custom integration, a full service control panel for ease of use and a private label option for resellers

5. Every single server in every datacenter is a rackmount, hotswap, tool-less chassis offering enterprise grade hardware with ultra-fast modifications

4. SoftLayer has downloadable iPhone, Android and Blackberry apps in addition to our mobile phone friendly .mobi site for complete control.

3. Only hybrid solution available – dedicated, virtualized, and cloud instances operating in a single environment and control thru a single interface or API

2. Private Network – connect any server to any other server in any datacenter with a click of a button

1. Fastest service delivery
   a. Over 1000 servers in stock
   b. Dedicated servers – 4 hours or less
   c. Servers with virtualization – 2 hours or less
   d. Cloud instances & storage – 5 to 15 minutes
   e. Firewalls, Load Balancers, SAN Storage – added real time w/ no downtime

The world of IT security is full of partial truths and paranoia – some of which is completely justified. Sometimes, steps are taken that actually are beneficial, but without knowing the reason behind the precautions, many administrators are lulled into a false sense of security. Here are some common misconceptions that I see in action frequently:

Security Myth #1: If I set my password strong enough, my system will be secure.

The Facts: There are many ways to compromise a system. For example: exploitable code on your website, lax filesystem permissions, and publicly accessible services running on your system (such as email or chat). In fact, having a long secure password is often like having a steel security door with retinal scan technology on a grass hut. Don’t get me wrong, having strong passwords is a great thing, but don’t forget to look at the rest of your system!

The Side Effects:

• Longer passwords take longer to type (obviously).
• You are more likely to forget a longer password.
• You are more likely to mistype a longer password (and get locked out).
• If you force this policy on your end users they are more likely to write the password down (bad).

Security Myth #2: If I replace letters with their corresponding l33t speak numbers (e.g. hello -> h3110), it will make my password more secure.

The Facts: Technically, yes it will make your password more secure, but only marginally. Simple character substitution is a common feature among brute force tools. This will slow down the brute force attack, but your system may still eventually be compromised by a hybrid dictionary attack. You might also consider configuring the brute force protection options on your server.

The Side Effects: There are no side effects – in fact, this is a far greater idea than simply using a dictionary word. However, it is best to also add some additional numbers or letters to throw off brute force tools. Many brute forcers also allow for pre-pending or post-pending a string of numbers (e.g. 123hello or hello123). It is better to place random numbers or characters in the middle of your password so that it is not vulnerable to a dictionary attack (e.g. hagen!23daas). Another alternative to a secure and easy to remember password is make an acronym of a famous phrase or quote. For example: “sticks and stones may break my bones” -> “S&smbMb!$”.

Security Myth #3: If I change the port number for RDP/SSH/Plesk or turn off ping response, my server will be safe.

The Facts: This is the myth of “security through obscurity.” Changing your port number or turning off ping will only reduce attacks from computer worms and extremely lazy hackers. Say for example that you run a website on your server. Anyone who knows the URL of the website can easily find your IP address (by ping or nslookup). Then all they have to do is port scan that IP address (using a port scanning tool such as nmap or SuperScan) to see which ports are open. If your passwords are secure enough, you needn’t worry too much about the brute force attacks from the internet. You should only consider this a secondary safeguard just in case the server happens to have a vulnerable service running on it. Your first priority is making sure your system is properly patched and updated.

The Side Effects:

• It is very difficult to track or troubleshoot packet loss on servers that have ICMP blocked.
• Changing ports may confuse your users.
• You will need to remember to include this port information in any technical support request.
• Many automated systems or scripts will require custom configuration.

I was thinking the other day about languages. It came to mind because when The Girl was about 3 ½ or so; she had invented her own language. She would typically use this language when she was “reading” a book in her bed before going to sleep. She would say “words” that had a flow to them, but it was not recognizable as English, or Spanish, or any other language. So one night, The Husband asked The Girl what language she was speaking, and she replied, without hesitating or missing a beat, “Green.” If she got into the flow of her language, you could stop her while she was “reading” and ask her what something meant. My all-time favorite from the language of Green was the word “gronka.” Gronka means mad, angry. (And no, this was not referring to me – she was talking about something in one of her books). Other words that I remember are “shun sho,” which referred to a rash she would get in the winter-time from eczema and “magogle,” which refers to an ogre head (don’t ask). Alas, Green appears to be a dead language like Latin, because as The Girl has gotten older, she has resorted exclusively to English.

And of course, we have our own SLanguage here at SoftLayer (in addition to the official, super secret, street cred, gangsta sign). We have SLackers and SLayers (guess we all know which category our pink-clad CFO falls under). And we have the SLadies, as in “The SLadies are going to happy hour, wanna come?” We can also add: SLimey, SLake, SLeer, SLuper, SLervers, SLales, SLOps, and the SList goes on and on and on….. I’m getting SLeepy, just thinking about it. Additionally, thanks to our international customer base, we have also added vernacular from other cultures to our SLanguage. Another all-time favorite: “Please do the needful.” This is used whenever you need someone to help you out or to get something done, as in, “Sean, I need a fully-executed copy of the lease from our Landlord (SLandlord??), please do the needful.” Great, isn’t it?? The phrase is descriptive on so many levels. Well, I need to go back to SLaving away on some SLegal stuff….. Until later, and let me know some of your favorite SoftLayer sayings!

I recently returned from vacation (go ahead and let out your jealous, exasperated sighs). During our vacation one of our stops was the ancient mayan temples at Chichen Itza. For those who ever get a chance, it’s a must see. The landscape is emerald green, the temples are awe inspiring, and the weather is beautiful. For those who aren’t quite sure about what I’m talking about, here’s a nice image to refer to:

Image from Wikipedia Commons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chichen_Itza_3.jpg

While the temples are cool, even more amazing are the little details the Ancient Mayans put into this that really set it off. Things like the serpent visible only on the spring equinox, the echo when you clap (which sounds like a bird – no kidding!), amongst others.

What’s really interesting here is the story of human engineering, and to see how far it’s come since those ancient times, and even though Its mind-boggling to see how far we’ve come, it’s quite intriguing to see what they did with their own type of technology.

While they used to clap at the temple, we now send facebook or twitter posts. They passed their stories and music verbally over centuries, and we share MP3s and other media across the globe at the speed of light. While SoftLayer sits at the edge of technology with our state of the art datacenters, hardware, and networking topology, it’s pretty hard to compare to the tools used by, and the creations made by the people of this era. Luckily our tour guide re-assured us that we’ll be fine in 2012, despite what the movies say, so we’ll have plenty of time to see some more amazing advances in technology. Who knows that our future generations will say about our ‘rudimentary’ communications and technology some 2500 years from now.

While we’ve discussed how much us techies love, crave, and abuse caffeine what are some questions that may come up on the most abused substance in the world? What side-effects are there? How much caffeine is too much caffeine? Are there any benefits?

Generally, you’d want to stay with around 1-2mg’s of caffeine per pound of body weight. Which, for the most part, a 1-2oz shot of espresso or a cup of coffee all come out to approximately 100mg’s of Caffeine. A lot of this is based on tolerance but the most common side-effects from caffeine “intoxication” can cause things like insomnia, a rapid heartbeat, irritability, muscle twitching and increased urination. Speaking of which, much like after drinking alcohol you must make sure you keep yourself hydrated. You know where this is going, if you plan on mixing caffeine with alcohol via the common Jager Bombs, Cherry Bombs, Vegas Bombs, Bombs, you should be warned that this can lead to bad decision making.

Aside from the obvious benefit of caffeine providing that extra “pep” in the day, it has been shown in many studies that Coffee (the most common source of Caffeine) is extremely high in antioxidants. It has also been found to be a cancer fighter including reducing your chances for cirrhosis and liver cancer which is the #3 cancer killer. The ingredients found in Coffee most definitely synergistically work together and would be the best choice by far if compared to your endless choices of energy drinks. Most energy drinks also contain the same array of ingredients, B-Vitamins, Taurine, Caffeine, Ginseng, and Guarana (pre-cursor to Caffeine). If you are still determined to get an energy drink shoot for one of the coffee drinks unless coffee just isn’t your thing.

Always keep in mind that if you feel like you NEED Caffeine to keep you going day-to-day it’s likely that the Caffeine from the day before kept you from sleeping as well as you could have. I always recommend a Caffeine detox to keep your tolerance down and to avoid getting dependent on it but man those headaches make me want some coffee!

P.S.

If some of this didn’t make sense, I may have rambled on a bit and I confess.. I drank a Venti Starbucks Double Shot on Ice with an extra shot of espressob(6 shots total of espresso)..

For more info on Caffeine Wikipedia is THE place to go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine

Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 4 has had an interestingly polarized reaction. While many have praised the all-new design and unprecedented screen quality, others, who are already happy with another platform, have found it almost completely un-compelling. Beyond the natural tendency for human bias and the obvious contrast in priorities of the two platforms, this difference of opinion still provides some food for thought.

If you had asked me what the iPhone’s strongest advantages over its competitors were before the iPhone 4 announcement, I probably would have cited, among other things, build quality and text rendering. And yet, apparently, those are two of the things Apple has most focused on improving. It could be argued that this is an illogical move on Apple’s part—that Apple should have instead focused on the software features touted by competitors. (I’m not an Android user, but I’m told its notification system, for example, is excellent.)

But I don’t think Apple’s decisions are at all illogical. I think they’ve employed a principle we could all do well to realize and remember: when your company has a best-in-class product or service, it shouldn’t get too distracted with beating its competitors to beat itself. Certainly there are things to be learned from competitors in any industry; but the most important customers are always the ones you already have.

So, why strengthen what’s already strong? Current customers probably chose your company because of its strengths and in spite of its weaknesses. In a way, then, they’ve already identified that what your company does well is extremely important to them. This is, of course, no excuse to ignore weaknesses—doing so could be catastrophic. But it is a charge to never get complacent about what your company does well. One day, someone else will do it better. But no company is in a better position to do so than yours.

SoftLayer was nominated for the Best Places to Work in DFW this year. I have no doubt that SoftLayer will win this!

The commitment and loyalty Management has shown to SoftLayer has reflected to the employees. There is a saying “Treat your employees just like customers or even better.” SoftLayer understands that and therefore one of the biggest assets of the company is the employees. The company offers employee break rooms with refrigerators, microwaves, and a various assortments of drinks and snacks. The satisfaction and motivation encourages employees to do a better job which translates into customers being more satisfied as well.

SoftLayer also honors employees who have done an outstanding job for that year and offers a few fun awards for their hard work.

Since we are growing and doing very well in the industry we feel that supporting the community is a key initiative. We recently donated to the Haiti Relief Fund then engaged the employees to get involved also by offering an additional company match.

As previously noted in a few blogs we are also a firm believer of being “green” and not only in the Data Centers. A recycling bin is put in each break room and the employees are encouraged to use them. Employees are also encouraged to print as little as possible to save paper and if they must print they must recycle the paper rather than throwing it away. Except for that really secure SAS 70 affected top secret stuff that must be shredded.

SoftLayer is growing at a rapid pace and who would not want to work for a company that is growing? I feel privileged to work at SoftLayer and embrace the “challenging but not overwhelming” mantra.