July 31, 2023

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

The concept of induced demand is a very real one for motor vehicle traffic, but it doesn’t apply to internet traffic quite the same way. You may not be able to build your way out of traffic congestion on the roads, but along the information superhighway it is much more of a doable proposition. And a darn good thing it is, because load speeds for web applications are a make-or-break factor with whether or not people will continue to use it. Patience may be a virtue, but users have little to any of it and that’s not going to change. The interest of maintaining or improving these speeds is the reason that that load balancer exist, and it’s also why they are more in demand than ever before. Researchers at Google have said that a load speed should never be longer than 3 seconds, and having it nearer to 2 is what all should be aiming for. If we’re going to be right honest it is the scalability of any web application that is going to do the most for this interest in the long term, but balancing load does have a whole lot of here-and-now value despite that. All of this is going to be a topic that we’ll take interest in here at 4GoodHosting in the same way it would for any good Canadian web hosting provider. Anything related to web speeds is going to qualify around here, and we know that there will be more than a few here who do have production interests in web applications. Although chances are they’d have heard of load balancers already, but if not we’re going o cover them in greater detail here this week. Smart Distributor A load balancer is a crucial component of any web app’s cloud infrastructure with the way it distributes incoming traffic across multiple servers or resources. The sum of all its functions are to redistribute incoming traffic across multiple servers or resources, ensuring efficient utilization, improved performance, and ensuring web applications are as available as possible at all times. The lack of one may mean that traffic distribution becomes uneven, and this is a standard...

July 24, 2023

Domain Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

It takes a certain type of person to be aware of how the rhetoric with cloud storage has shifted. Whether or not you’d be aware of how the narrative shifted from where the technology would quickly replace the entire need for physical storage to one that now promoted smarter and more capable physical data storage would depend on what you do for work or where your interests lie. We have talked about data center colocation in a number of previous blog entries here, so we don’t need to go on too much more about the role of that in the revamping of cloud data infrastructure. As is the case with everything, budgetary constraints have factored into this as so many businesses and organizations came to terms with just how much it was going to cost to move ALL of their data into the cloud, no matter how reliable or safe the procedure was going to be. This and many other factors were the ones that came together to push advancement and investments into data center colocation, and in truth most people would say that – currently at least – the mix between fully-cloud storage and new and improved physical data centers is just about right. This leads to our look at the newest of these cloud storage technologies that is starting to cement itself in the industry, and we’re talking about hyperscale cloud data centers. It’s naturally a topic of interest for us here at 4GoodHosting in the same way it would be for any good Canadian web hosting provider, and we likely said the same with the entry from last year when we discussed colocation data centers. Shifting Landscape As of now hyperscale cloud data centers now make up a little less than 40% of all data centers around the world. An estimated 900+ of these facilities globally reinforces the major impact cloud computing continues to have on enterprise infrastructure investment. Of this number of hyperscale cloud data centres, about half are owned and operated by data center operators, and colocation sites are where the remainder of them will be located. And as non-hyperscale colocation capacity makes up another...

July 17, 2023

Domain Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

It is getting on to darn near 30 years since humans were ‘untethered’ when it came to being able to access the Internet. Now being able to be entirely unconnected to anything is the norm when it comes to web-browsing devices of any type, and there are even plenty of desktop computer that would laugh at the idea of an Ethernet cable. Wi Fi has been the way, and when Wi-Fi 6 came around a few years back it was definitely a big deal. But what we’re on the verge of here may be the biggest deal with Internet connectivity to come along since the information superhighway was first paved. We’re talking about light-based communication, and the advantages of Wi Fi are about to be undone in a big way by Li-Fi, an emerging wireless technology that relies of infrared light instead of radio waves. To go down every avenue with all the potential advantages for this and how it’s stealing the thunder of Wi-Fi 7 would require a whole lot of typing, but let’s start with the one that everyone will like to hear – speed. They may be fewer and more far between, but some people still do have latency concerns based on what it is they are doing online and whatever hardware they’re doing it with. You want wildly faster internet speeds? Li-Fi is going to be a godsend for you then as the estimates right now are that Li-Fi could offer speeds 100XS faster than what the current Wi-Fi networks are able to provide. No need for any explanation as to why this is going to be noteworthy stuff for any good Canadian web hosting provider, and that’s going to be the case for us here at 4GoodHosting too. So we’re taking this week’s entry to give you a brief overview into Li-Fi, because it may be that Wi-Fi is about to become archaic technology fast. Utilize Light Wi-Fi has made connecting to the internet wirelessly possible by using radio waves, but now it appears there’s a better way. Li-Fi was recently given its own standard - IEEE 802.11bb — and when you see it you’ll...

July 10, 2023

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Strength in number is often enhanced in a big way when those numbers of whatever it is are in close proximity to one another, and there are all sorts of examples of that. There are all sorts of examples of that, and in some of them it’s more about providing shared resources even if the collective aim isn’t the same right across the board. The nature of what people do with Internet connectivity is as varied as the 6-digit number combinations, and it’s only going to keep on growing out from here. Again, much of that is made possible by shared resources, even if those in possession of the resources may not even be aware their sharing them. It may be in more of an indirect way but the herring in the innermost area of the ball are providing a benefit to the fish on the edge of it even though those fish are most clearly at risk of being eaten and thus protecting them. They create a possibility, and that’s what keeps the herring ball in a constant state of flux as the competition continues without stopping. This type of strength in numbers can relate to servers too. With the demand for server speed and reliability increasing, there is the need to implement a reliable server cluster for maximum performance. An integrated cluster of multiple servers working in tandem often provides more resilient, consistent, and uninterrupted performance. Here at 4GoodHosting we are a good Canadian web hosting provider that sees the value in relating what goes into decisions in the industry with regard to how you get better performance from your website and in the bigger picture more traction for you online presence. Better Availability / Lower Costs Server clusters are conducive to better business service availability while controlling costs at the same time. Learn some of the key benefits that come with utilizing a server cluster. That’s the term for when a group of servers all tied to the same IP address, and providing access to files, printers, messages and emails, or database records. Node is the one given to each server on the cluster, and each node...

July 3, 2023

Domain Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

The appeal of removing the need for physical storage was profound and immediate when cloud computing first made its appearance on the scene, and there are other reasons why the advantages of it made it one of most revolutionary developments in computing ever seen to this point. We are like many others in the way we’ve gone on about it at length, and with a focus on how it’s had an equally profound effect on the nature of web hosting. Even the most laymen of people will have had their digital world altered by it, even if they don’t quite understand the significance of how their Microsoft OneDrive works or something similar. Cloud computing has indeed had quite a shine to it for many years. But here we are now at point where perhaps the luster is wearing off, and more than just a little. And this isn’t primarily because the cloud has performance shortcomings. Some might say that it does depending on the nature of what they do related to business or any other type of venture moved online, but the primary reason that cloud computing is not regarded as obvious choice any more is because of the price required to be utilizing it. That is not to say that cloud computing is too expensive, and it really isn’t when you look at it solely from the perspective of storing data in the cloud. But what is increasingly the issue is that traditional data centers are increasingly more affordable and offer cost savings to go along with the greater capacity for data storage themselves. This is going to be a subject of interest for any good Canadian web hosting provider in the same way it is for us at 4GoodHosting, and before we get into the topic in more detail we’ll mention that the core server banks in our Vancouver and Toronto data centers have their server capacity expanded regularly and we’ve had them designed so that they have this ability to grow. For some it definitely may be the most cost-effective choice to go with traditional data storage means via you web hosting provider. Upped Affordability A PPI...

June 26, 2023

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Exclusivity is wonderful, especially when it comes to access to the resources that mean productivity and profitability for your organization. The cost of having that exclusive access is often what tempers the level of enthusiasm and willingness to jump all over opportunities to have it. Emphasizing all the advantages that yours may gain from cloud computing by laying sole claim to resources in the cloud that make that possible will be beneficial for obvious reasons, but can you afford it? That is always going to be the most basic but foremost question when it comes to weighing public cloud computing versus private. Public cloud computing is decidedly affordable, and it will meet the functional needs of the majority of organizations or businesses based on the related needs created by what it is that they do. Ask people where they think the biggest shortcoming will be and they’ll think that it will be with speed and in particular with server requests around data. Not so though, and here at 4GoodHosting we having something of an intermediary interest in this. As a good Canadian web hosting provider we know the direct interest business web hosting customers will have as they may well be weighing their options with cloud computing nowadays too. So this will be the subject for our interest this week – standard considerations for decision makers when it comes to public vs private cloud. Mass Migrations The industry’s expectation is that a minimum of 80% of organizations are expected to migrate to the cloud by the year 2025. But easy access and management of all your data isn’t guaranteed, and so organizational leaders will need to be very judicious about how they make their move. Different types of cloud services are there to choose from, but the vast majority will be option for some variant of either the public and private cloud. There are pros and cons to each, so let’s get right to evaluating all of them. The public cloud provides cloud computing services to the public over the internet, with off-site hosting and managed by a service provider the whole time to have control over infrastructure, back-end architecture,...

June 19, 2023

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Look back across history and you’ll see there has been plenty of empires, but even the longest-lasting of them still eventually came to an end. When we talk about larger businesses operating online and taking advantage of new web-based business technologies no one is going to compare any of them to empires, perhaps with the exception of Google. But to continue on that tangent briefly, there is not better example of an empire failing because it ended being spread to thin quite like the Mongol empire. The reason we mention it as our segue here to this week’s blog topic is because nowadays as businesses expand in the digital space they naturally assume more of a surface, or what you might call the ‘expanse’ of their business in Cyberspace to the extent they’ve wanted / needed to move it there. With all that expansion comes greater risk of cyber-attacks, and that leads us right into discussing attack surface management. So what is that exactly? Let us explain. An attack surface is every asset that an organization has facing the Internet that may be exploited as entry points in a cyber-attack. They could be anything from websites, subdomains, hardware, applications, to clod resources or IP addresses. Social media accounts or even vendor infrastructures can also be a part of the ‘vulnerabilities’ based on the size of your surface. All of which will be of interest to us here at 4GoodHosting as quality Canadian web hosting providers given how web hosting is very much an abutment for these businesses with the way it’s a part of the foundation for their online presence. So let’s dig further into this topic as it relates to cloud security for businesses. Rapid Expansions We only touched on the possibility for an attack surface above. They are rapidly expanding and can now include any IT asset connected to the internet, so we can add IoT devices, Kubernetes clusters, and cloud platforms to the list of potential spots where threat actors could infiltrate and initiate an attack. Having external network vulnerabilities creating an environment that can prompt a potential breach is an issue too. It’s for these reasons...

June 12, 2023

Domain Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Speed has been and always will be the name of the game when it comes to data transmission as part of utilizing web-based technologies. That is true for the smallest of them in the same way it is for the biggest, and it’s not going to come as a surprise that with the advances in those technologies comes a need to handle much more data, and handle the increased volume of it faster at the same time. Add the fact that global network use continues to grow explosively all the time and there’s a lot of gain – both functional and financial – to be had for those who can introduce means of moving data faster. And that’s just what’s happened courtesy of Danish and Swedish researchers who have succeeded in setting a new benchmark fastest speed for optical data transmission. Many of you will be aware of what a Tbps (Terabits-per-second) speed score would indicate with regards to fastness in this context, but if you’ve heard of a Petabit in the same one then consider us impressed. It’s been nearly 3 years since the previous data transmission speed record was set, and you’re entirely excused if you’d only heard of a Terabit back then. The score 178 Tbps set in August 2020 was quite remarkable for the time, but not anymore. And it certainly would have been for us here at 4GoodHosting in the same way it would have been for any good Canadian web hosting provider based on the fact that we have a roundabout way of associating with this based on the parameters of what people do with the sites we may be hosting for them. But enough about that for now, let’s get right to discussing the new data transmission world speed record and what I may mean for all of us. Doubling Current Global Internet Traffic Speeds This mammoth jump in speed capacity is made possible by a novel technique that leverages a single laser and a single, custom-designed optical chip that makes throughputs of 1.8Pbps (Petabits per second) possible. That works out to double today's global internet traffic, and that highlights just how much...

June 5, 2023

Domain Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Anyone who’s a keener with the all the workings of the digital world will be familiar with the acronym IoT and the fact it stands for the Internet of Things. We’ll go ahead and assume you’re one of them if you’re a regular here and reading our blog entries with any degree of regularity. It never takes long for major technological infrastructure developments to branch off into subsets of the original, and that’s exactly with the newfound EoT - Economy of Things – and the way this new level of interconnectivity is set to revolutionize the online business world is quite something. Much of what makes this practical and appealing at the same time is that people will always want to have straightest distance between two points available to them when it comes to completing transactions for services / goods obtained. The IoT certainly has much more of a relation to services than goods, but when you think about all of the services we take advantage of on a regular basis it makes sense that implementing web-based tech to simplify transaction processes is going to be to most people’s liking. And this makes sense to us here at 4GoodHosting in the way it would for any good Canadian web hosting provider too. We are likely to see a lot of inroads made in between the EoT and SaaS and PaaS services / products as well, and we are certainly just seeing the tip of the iceberg with where this is going to go and how far-reaching this is going to be. So we’re going to look at how much inter-device trading is expected over the course of the remainder of this decade here with this blog entry. Intersections for Data and Money The expectation is that by the end of the 2020s, around 3.3 billion Internet-connected devices (IoT devices) will be taking money and data and trading directly between them. The same calculations that came to that are saying that for 2024 the number will be 88 million devices participating in EoT and so it puts into perspective how much this is going to grow explosively over the next 6...