TurnKey Internet’s New York data center is on what we like to call a carbon diet. When we constructed the facility, minimizing our impact on the environment by using clean, renewable energy and ultra-efficient design was the initial goal.  Last week, we announced that our New York data center is now at the “zero carbon footprint” status–powered by 100% renewable resources with our on-site solar system and the NYS Government’s Recharge New York hydroelectric power feed.

So what does carbon footprint mean, and what exactly is so important about a zero carbon foot print?

A carbon footprint is the measure given to the amount of green house gases produced by burning fossil fuels, measured in units of carbon dioxide. Traditional data centers and cloud services companies consume massive amounts of electricity that is produced by fossil fuels–in the U.S., that is primarily done with coal. Those green house gas emissions given off by converting coal to electricity are what cause global warming and negative global climate change. Therefore,  every device that consumes electricity (such as a computer server in your office, or a web hosting server on the Internet) is contributing to the problem.

Data centers in the U.S. and across the globe house thousands of computer servers in a central location and consume enormous amounts of electricity. Data centers consume even more electricity to keep those computer servers cool, due to the massive quantity of heat they (the computer servers) produce. The best and most recently constructed data centers utilize efficient cooling and energy distribution designs to minimize the amount of electricity they must consume. However, if they consume their electricity from coal or other fossil fuels, then the data center is still an immense source of pollution. Data centers are expected to pollute more than the airline industry by 2020, according to this 2008 article in The New York Times.

Some companies such as Yahoo and Apple have been building data centers with ultra-efficient designs, and powering their facilities with clean, renewable energy.  Many companies, data centers, and cloud service providers are seeing colossal increases in energy costs. Making the massive investments for data centers that utilize clean, renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, hydro and geothermal is finally becoming a reality.

So why should this matter to you?  Let’s say you have a computer server in your office, and finally make the transition to the cloud. You place that server–or rent a new, highly-efficient one–in a data center. You can now choose a facility that is using renewable energy, so that your computer server will no longer be powered by fossil fuels, and thus, will no longer generate CO2, which damages the environment. It’s hard to imagine that the computer server in your office is hurting the environment as it stands today, isn’t it? Moving it to the cloud is not only a wise choice for reliability, security, and redundancy, but also for the environment.

The next time you select a cloud services provider or data center to work with, make sure the data center is on a carbon diet. Your waistline may not be impacted by this diet, but the rest of the world certainly will!

Remember when I told you that April is Earth Month at TurnKey Internet? Well, I’m back with some very exciting Earth Month news. Two different pieces of Earth Month news, actually–both green; both awesome.

First of all, we are now part of NYS Gov. Cuomo’s ReCharge New York program. Do you know what this means? DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?! This means that TurnKey Internet is now powered by 100% renewable resources! Being awarded this system means a lot to us, and it should mean a lot to you too, because being nice to the Earth should mean a lot to everybody. This hydroelectric power system draws energy directly from Niagara Falls, and extends the portion of our power that we were already drawing from renewable sources to a full 100%.

We were selected for the ReCharge New York installation in recognition of the jobs we are creating in New York State as TurnKey Internet expands. Here’s a fun fact: We have more than doubled our staff in the past two years. Isn’t that crazy? Crazy in the best way possible, of course.

Do you know what else this ReCharge New York system means for us? I told you there were two pieces of Earth Month news, didn’t I? Get ready, I saved the best for last… If you haven’t yet heard, or are impartial to reading titles and/or press releases, our Latham, NY data center now has a zero carbon footprint! This accomplishment is all but unheard of in our industry, so we’re more than a little proud and excited. We feel, and hope you agree, that this accomplishment really sets us apart from the other guys.

If you’re interested in a little more light reading, you can find the press release in our Company News section.

Pssst… Between you and me, we are  running an OUTRAGEOUS sale right now. If you’re interested–and I would recommend being interested–jump on Live Sales Chat. Our Sales Department will tell you what’s up. *cough–HUGE DISCOUNT–cough* …excuse me.

Why move to the cloud? Here is April’s cloud tip:

A disaster recovery plan helps to restore data quickly…

For your cloud network to be as successful as it can be, a pre-configured disaster recovery plan is must. Cloud disaster recovery plans work automatically, at the time your server or data crashes. This helps in restoring at the earliest time possible. Incorporating such back-up and recovery applications makes the cloud an efficient platform for competitively managing IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.

As you know, we’re big on making sure that you’re all happy as clams with the service you’re receiving from us. How happy is a clam, you ask? I don’t know. I don’t even know where that expression came from, and that’s not important right now.

Anyway, I feel it is important to give you blog readers a heads up on a crazy, world-wide WordPress attack that might be affecting your service, just in case you haven’t stopped by the TurnKey Helpdesk recently. I just had a chat with our Operations Manager, Brian, and since he basically sleeps in our cold containment pods, what you’re about to read is fresh from the kitchen. Watch your hands—the plate is hot…

There is currently a world-wide attack affecting all WordPress sites at all hosts. This is an attack of unprecedented nature, from a botnet operating on 90,000+ IP addresses.

Due to the nature of the attack, memory consumption on targeted servers has increased. In some cases, this has resulted in degradation of performance and unresponsive servers. This is due to a high volume of ‘http’ requests, which can cause some servers to start swapping memory to disk, and possibly run out of memory. We’ve put measures in place at the firewall and at server level to off-load a lot of the attack, however, there isn’t much more we can do at this time. We have disabled all access to wp-login.php to ensure none of our customers are at risk. For those customers needing to log into their WordPress sites, please open a ticket with our support team, and we can provide access to your sites.

We are working closely with our security and channel partners to further address the issue as it becomes possible.

Again, we feel it’s important to stress that this is not a TurnKey-specific issue. Brian and I took a peek around, and it seems like everyone, everywhere is fighting the same, annoying battle.

We’re super grateful for your understanding and patience while the attack runs its course. If you would like further assistance, or have any additional questions, feel free to contact us by phone or email, Live Chat, Facebook or Twitter—however you would like. Owl? Sea plane? Regardless, we’ll be listening. Sit tight, and we will iron this out as soon as possible.

First things first, I do not consider myself a “car guy” whatsoever. I don’t know if Porsche is really pronounced “porsh” or “porsh-a”, I have no idea where Lexuses are manufactured, and I couldn’t tell you what’s under the hood of my dear Subaru that I named “Seabiscuit.” In fact, now that I think about it, I may even be overdue for an oil change…

However, here at TurnKey Internet, we are all about speed and keeping things green and sustainable. That is why I’d like to share some electric cars that are not only stylish, but easy on the environment, crazy-fast, and make me think that the future has arrived!

Now, let’s start with something basic…

The Chevy Volt was officially released in 2011. It may not be the coolest-looking in this bunch, but it’s probably the most affordable. The first one was placed in the General Motors Heritage Center for display, but the second one was auctioned off for $250,000. This money went to help fund math and science programs for Detroit public schools, which is absolutely worth mentioning and very stylish in its own way! The 2013 model will be out this August, and priced at around $40,000.

This next one is pretty darn cool-looking, but probably not the most efficient… and you won’t be able to get your hands on one until 2014. Feast your eyes on the Infiniti Emerg-E Concept—0-60 MPH in 4 seconds, but after 30 miles, be ready to pull over for another charge.

Next, we have the Fisker! While, style-wise, it might be one of my favorites, word has it that they have been cutting some jobs lately, and are supposedly close to going bankrupt. Regardless, here is the Fisker Karma. I wonder what could have brought them to bankruptcy!

A prime competitor of Fisker (if they survive) is a company by the name of Tesla. After ending the Roadster’s production in 2012, Tesla released the Model S. This car can get you 180 miles to 300 miles per charge, depending on the battery. The starting price for one of these bad boys is right around $95,000, and can easily exceed $100,000—but, hey… it costs around $650 to charge it for an entire year!

While I like the old Roadster better, the Model S has a weird, generic car “look”. It’s kind of like a Nissan Altima, if it got with Aston Martin and made a 4-wheeled love-child. In other words, it’s definitely classy-looking, but I’m not quite convinced I like it yet. Don’t get me wrong, if someone wants to buy me one, I’ll drive it.

Check out the Tesla Model S:

I will admit that I enjoy some fairly odd styles. I like paisley ties, and shirts like this. I’d probably even wear them together!

That being said, the electric car at the top of my list is the Mercedes- Benz SLS AMG E-Cell. As far as I could find, it is still in its final stages, and doesn’t have a set release date yet. It can make it to almost 100 miles per charge, and will cost you a couple-hundred-thousand bucks to purchase, but I can just imagine riding alongside 2 Chainz, and “pullin’ up to the scene with”… the majority of the “ceiling missin’”, in this:

Now, like I said, I am not a car kind of dude, so let me know if you think of anything else I can add to my wish-list before I send it off to Santa this year!

Remember, Earth Day is coming up quickly, so please stay green, and, of course, stay classy!

Well, everyone, we are officially one week into April. A business week, anyway. But still, can you believe it? 2013 is flying for us at TurnKey Internet, and it shows no signs of slowing down any time soon, if at all.

Did you survive April Fool’s Day? Surprisingly, it didn’t get too out of hand here. I say “surprisingly”, since, although the TurnKey team may appear to be comprised of seriously awesome, talented, amazing, incredible, terrific, extraordinary, fabulous, additional adjective meaning “great” (because, why not?), super-charged IT heroes—that’s what we appear to be comprised of, right? RIGHT?! Right.—we’re all just a bunch of goofballs and jokesters at heart. Did anyone get you good (or bad) with an April Fool’s Day prank? Did you get anyone? If so, feel free to share… I need some ammunition for next year.

April Fool’s Day is fun, but we love April for dozens of reasons. Aside from a day devoted to being silly, there are, let’s see, blooming flowers… warmer weather—Hey! A girl from Upstate NY can hope, can’t she? My fingers are crossed, yours should be too, and I refuse to acknowledge the fact that it snowed twice this week.

Anyway, there is also Earth Day in the month of April. When you’re green IT fanatics like we are, April’s Earth Day morphs into a month-long celebration of sustainability and the environment. April, for TurnKey Internet and our community, has become Earth Month, if you will. And you will, because we’re devoting the entire month to showing you how cool it is to be green.

If you’re unfamiliar with the TurnKey Internet green initiative, we can’t imagine how, because we love to talk about it. Regardless—and since we love to talk about it—you can read our press release about it all right here.

Check in from time to time this month for green news, stories, announcements, and more, from here, there, and everywhere. We have lots to share!

Are you planning to celebrate Earth Day this month? How do you do your part for the environment? It’s so, incredibly important to take care of the planet. We LIVE here. All of us.

Happy Earth Month!