Funny Posts

HostingCon 2011 in San Diego may have been a huge success for SoftLayer, but I walked away with a different experience following my intense pursuit of building the PHIL’s DC brand. Apparently, the hosting industry wants to see my data center succeed before they believe it, and I think it’s really just fear rearing its ugly head. People are afraid of what they don’t understand, so the uninitiated would probably be terrified as they try to learn what I’m doing.

In an effort to help some of the bigger names in the hosting industry get in on the ground floor of PHIL’s DC, I took a stroll down the HostingCon aisles. Vendors like Parallels and cPanel were obvious choices to discuss business partnerships, and I was sure TheWHIR wanted the scoop on the next big thing in hosting, so I made sure to give them all a chance to speak with me. The documentary film team I hired (the guy I met outside the San Diego Convention Center who said he’d follow me with a camera for $3.50/hour) recorded our interactions for posterity’s sake:

I’d like send shouts out to thank Candice Rodriguez from TheWHIR, Aaron Phillips from cPanel and John McCarrick from Parallels for agreeing to let us film our organic interactions. They’ve further inspired me to build a data center that will make these apparent “snubs” and “rejections” a thing of the past. To Summer and Natalie at the SoftLayer booth: Please stop making fun of my Server Challenge attempt every time you see me at the office … I think I had something in my eye when I was competing, so it wasn’t a fair measure of my skillz.

Oh, and if you didn’t get a chance to attend our “Geeks Gone Wild” party at HostingCon, you’d probably be interested in seeing video from The Dan Band’s performance of “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” cPanel posted it here: http://www.vimeo.com/28160105 (NSFW language, The Dan Band take artistic license with profanity)

-PHIL

Once in a blue moon, a SoftLayer customer has to cancel a server. Sometimes their business is growing and they’re moving up to more powerful hardware, sometimes they need to consolidate their equipment to cut their costs, and sometimes their reason can’t really be categorized. In this case, a happy customer with a few dozen servers decided he needed to shut one down, and the explanation he gave would clearly fall into the third category:

Initial Ticket

Customer

I would like to cancel this server on August 20th, 2011, but not before that date. Anytime on this date will be okay.

We no longer have a need for this server and would like to cancel it before our next billing period. Thank you for your help in this matter. Please send me an email when this server has been canceled on August 20th, 2011.

She’s been with us for a long time, but things just aren’t working out … She’s become a gold digger. It’s her, not me. Please let her down easy. I don’t like punking out and having someone do my dirty work, but I’m afraid she might be violent. Diamond rings hurt when you get hit with them.

SoftLayer

I’m sorry to hear things did not work out for the two of you. While your safety is important to us, I must ask that you end this relationship via official channels.

Please submit an official cancellation request by going to Sales –> Cancel Server and proceeding through the cancellation steps. The server will be reclaimed at the end of your billing cycle on August 22nd.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Customer

She always tried to make it hard for me to break up with her. Done!
 

SoftLayer

Glad to hear things went smoothly. Things don’t always do, but we knew you could pull through it.
 

Official Cancellation Request

Let this be a lesson to all of you: Get out your seat and jump around.

-@khazard

In the second episode of my self-made documentary series about the birth of a revolution in hosting, I explained how Lance and I mutually decided that a better course of action would be to build a data center for the future’s future, and I sketched out the basics of effective data centering. Lance sent the keys to the new non-traditional facility, and I jumped at the chance to give a tour of the amazing digs.

Because I wanted to make sure to document as much of the process as I could for this documentary film (I’m coming for you, The Social Network), you’re experiencing the tour as I explore the space for the first time, so I hope you find it as magical as I did. Note: I took the liberty of acquiring suitable transportation to give you the most professional “tour” experience.

You’ll note that the facility features several important characteristics of the best data center environments:

• Heightened Exterior Security
• Data Center Operations Area
• Weather Tracking Station
• Tech Support Center
• CEO Suite
• Redundant Bandwidth Providers
• Multi-phase Power
• Power Generator
• Built-in Cooling
• Crash Cart Station
• Vaulted Ceilings (for warm air circulation)

Now that I’ve got the lay of the land, it’s just a matter of drawing up some plans for server racks, plugging in some servers and getting some customers to experience the newest wave of hosting innovation!

-PHIL

Skinson’s 1634AR15 Competency Controlled Certification of Compliance
New Compliance structure makes a compliance officer’s life much easier.

Dallas — In a world where auditor to auditor reports are out of control and we have a mountain of complex compliances to worry about, one competent compliancy controlled certification of compliance finally comes forth (and not a minute too soon).

“This new groundbreaking idea will change the lives of many competing auditing firms, law firms, accounting firms and so on,” says Steve Kinman. “I spend countless hours reading controls for one report and different controls for another report, and the only difference is the verbiage and format.”

The new Skinson 1634AR15 Certification combines your SAS70, SSAE16, ROC, VOC, SOC, NIST, SARBOX, PCI, OMB, ACART, CFDA, HIPAA and SAFE HARBOR compliance into a single report using a set framework that automorphs based upon which auditor is touching the report or viewing it in the state of the art Skinson Portal.

“The Skinson portal is mind-blowing,” says Val Stinson. “The automorph feature is something straight out of the movies. It knows who is reading and can change the wording on the fly. This keeps auditors from scratching their heads when the words in the report don’t match the words their instruction book.”

The introductory price for full Skinson 1634AR15 Compliance Certification is $1,000,000 USD. This is all-inclusive and will sufficiently cover all of your compliance needs.

Contact:
Steve Kinman
skinman@softlayer.com

About Skinson
Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Skinson is a fictional company that likes to poke fun at the difficult job of compliance in the world. While we find that it can be overwhelming at times, we understand that compliance is a necessary evil. We would like to note that something like we dream about above would be very nice and would save the world a ton of work and cut down on our carbon footprint considerably. If you are in a position of control and can make the above happen please help us!!

On a side note, SoftLayer will do everything we can to help you with any compliance you need. Just ask your local sales team for help, and they will find the right person and get you in contact.

-@skinman454

P.S. The actual reason for this blog post is that we just announced that the control procedures and compliance for our 11 data centers have been verified in a Service Organization Control Report (SOC 1) prepared under the terms of the Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements No. 16 (SSAE 16) by independent auditing firm Weaver.

Last weekend I went to an outdoor concert where I saw a pretty decent Beatles tribute band that hails from the great state of Texas and goes by the name Me and My Monkey. The entire excursion from home to the venue and back again lasted just about six hours. I was pulling into my driveway engaged in a phone conversation with a friend about which fake Beatle was her favorite when my Android gave a strangled beep, cut us off and powered down.

At first I thought it was a glitch, but a quick attempt to turn it back on showed me otherwise. I was out of juice. My battery was drained beyond the point of no return — or at least no return without access to an electrical outlet. I wondered if I had forgotten to charge the phone the previous night. After all, I was outside with friends, food, and music all evening. My phone was snug in my pocket on standby … Or was it?

I was the first to arrive to the venue, so I made a call to let the my freinds know I had staked us out a shady spot. After that, I fired up go sms to coordinate getting the right number of chairs, and I used it again while searching the parking lot for my friend’s car to help her carry those chairs. During the Sgt. Pepper set in an attempt to settle an argument, I “Googled” which year the Beatles officially broke up (turns out it was 1970 but the break-up dragged out until 1975). Sometime between Strawberry Fields and Hello, Goodbye I got an email from the office, so I logged into my handy SoftLayer App to check on a support ticket.

During the intermission, a local radio station was piped through the sound system and someone asked me to Shazam what turned out to be a Florence and the Machine cover of a track off Abbey Road. Since my phone was at the ready, I was the point person to find out whether the chorus to I Am the Walrus really said goo goo g’joob. I didn’t have a lighter on me, but my Virtual Zippo did the trick nicely during Hey Jude. And did I mention I don’t wear a watch because if I just hit the power button on my spiffy smart phone … ta-da, I get the time!

It’s a funny feeling when you realize how something that didn’t really exist five years ago has managed to ingrain itself so deeply into your everyday life. That’s what I found myself thinking as I was drifting off to sleep Saturday night, me in my bed and my Android recharging on the night stand … Well, that and who are the eggmen? Goo goo g’joob.

-William

When Lance opened the floor for SoftLayer employees to present their ideas for “innovative” approaches to the Internet, I put together a pretty ambitious proposal. As it turns out, the idea wasn’t as fully baked as I may have wanted it to be, but I came to the decision to change gears a little and take a different approach.

Completely unrelated to that personal decision to adjust the direction of the project, I had a nice little chat with Lance on the phone. We decided that the world was underready for a revolution and that a more traditional nontraditional approach was in order:

The Internet needs data centers to hold all of your pictures. SoftLayer does a great job at being a data center, but I feel like there’s still an opportunity for a revolution in data center design. I have a few ideas about how the world of web hosting can be completely redefined, and with the unique resources Lance has put at my disposal, I’m fairly confident that I’ll be able to create a stellar hosting platform with an unbeatable discount price structure. PHIL’s DC is the future of web hosting.

- PHIL

This SoftLayer Blog entry actually comes to us from Kate Moseley (Age 10), daughter of VP of Network Engineering Ric Moseley.

I think it is cool that my dad is a computer guy that works for SoftLayer because he is always able to fix our computers, TVs, and anything electronic. His job is to order and fix computer networks. He also likes messing with anything technical at home including iPods, iPhones, computers, TVs, etc.

My dad is always working so hard to earn money for our family. Sometimes he’s so busy emailing people at work that when you ask him a question, it’s like he can’t even hear you. I also think that it’s cool that he gets to travel to a different state almost every month it seems like. I love going to my dad’s office because I get to see what it’s like working in an office with so many people in such a busy place.

My dad goes to many meetings with his boss, Lance, and the rest of the staff. When he’s not at his office, he’s still working really hard at home! Sometimes he stays up till 4 o’clock in the morning to help fix things at his work. One time he got a call while we were on vacation saying that a router was down at the data center and he needed to come back ASAP! So he packed up his bags and headed back to Dallas! Sometimes we don’t even get to sit down and have an actual meal as a family because he always misses dinner and sometimes he’s on a conference call for more than 2 hours at a time.

My dad used to work at The Planet. He and 9 other people came up with the company called “SoftLayer.” SoftLayer recently merged with The Planet, and now they are one big company. His company is always getting bigger, so almost every year they have to move offices to a different location. My dad loves his job because he gets to interact with one of his favorite things: Technology. SoftLayer has given my family an opportunity to do many things in life that we would not ever have had the chance to do.

Someday I hope to be a part of SoftLayer just like my dad is today.

- Kate Moseley

If you share Kate’s hope to one day be a part of the SoftLayer team, visit the SoftLayer Careers page. We have more than 50 positions available in Dallas, Houston, Washington, D.C., Seattle, San Francisco and Amsterdam. As Kate explained, SoftLayer is growing like crazy, so whether your background is in Finance, Technical Support, Facilities, Human Resources, IT, Marketing, Sales or Development, we want you to join us!

Some of the best ideas come from people who think “outside of the box.” SoftLayer was born in a living room six years ago when we decided to look at the staid hosting industry from a new perspective. We said, “We don’t want to build a company to meet customers’ current needs. We want to build a company to meet the needs our customers don’t even know they have yet,” and that’s one of the biggest reasons the SoftLayer platform has IPv6, KVM over IP, private network, out-of-band management and standardized pod-based data centers.

Only people with a certain level of “crazy” can recognize opportunities for innovation, and because SoftLayer’s motto is “Innovate or Die,” to incubate innovation, we have to create an environment that enables employees to take their “crazy” and run with it. Speaking of “crazy,” meet Phil.

Phil plays guitar, tests software in non-standard ways, and has a bobble-head of himself. Some would say he marches to the beat of a different drummer – a drummer that may or may not be overdosing on caffeine.

Phil was tasked with a 12-week project: If SoftLayer is built for what our customers are going to need tomorrow, figure out what customers will need after “tomorrow.” He’d have access to people and resources up and down the organization to build his idea, and the experiment is set up to incubate his innovation:

1. Because there are no bad ideas in brainstorming, anyone helping Phil should do so without questioning the logic or “sanity” of what he asking for help with.
2. Phil can spend up to 20% of his work hours building his idea.
3. Anyone who helps Phil can spend up to 10% of his/her work hours to build his idea.
4. Phil can have space in H2 to build his idea.
5. Regardless of apparent success or failure, the project will conclude at the end of 12 weeks. From there, we’ll evaluate the “good” and “not as good” ideas from the experiment.

It’d be impossible to guarantee the success of any kind of project like this because it’s a little like catching lightning in a bottle, but I was interested to see what kinds of operational changes he came up with over the course of the three months. We might see the evolution of the next brilliant idea in hosting, or we’d see a lot of hilariously terrible ideas.

Then I saw his first installment:

By the time I got to “circumstantiate,” I had the phone in my hand to call off the project. What I didn’t expect was Phil’s tearful pleading to take the idea down a different path. They say you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, and despite the fact that this first impression was pretty awful, I decided to give him another shot (with a much more limited scope):

1. Apparently there are bad ideas in brainstorming, but anyone who helps Phil on his “new path” should try to be supportive.
2. Phil can spend up to 5% of his work hours building his idea.
3. Phil can’t take anyone else from SoftLayer away from their jobs during work hours.
4. Phil can have space in the Houston office to build his idea.
5. The project is scheduled to run for 12 weeks. There’s no guarantee that it’ll make it through next week.

If you have ideas for Phil, feel free to contribute. He’d probably appreciate the help.

-@lavosby

Last week, Thomas talked about his summertime passion, and it immediately got me thinking of mine. There are two things I know in this world: Hosting and Barbeque. They may be on the opposite ends of the spectrum, but both integral parts of the SoftLayer culture.

Being Texas born and bred, I hear stories that my first baby bed was actually a refinished barrel pit, and at the tender age of 4, I started my first fire right where I used to lay my head. By the age of 7, I graduated from grilling to smoking, and by age 10, I was expected to have mastered the art of mixing fire, smoke and the perfect rub to deliver a baby back rib so tender that you have no choice but to ‘slap yo mama!’

I have to admit that I am not an official member of the 3 Bars Barbeque team, but my ribs and steaks have been taken on the road to multiple parts of Texas, and they’ve won contests in Memphis for their fall-off-the-bone tender texture and their “mmm mmm good” flavor. I can’t really divulge my award winning recipe, but I can share my cooking method used to achieve that fall off the bone rib.

You’ve got to understand that smoking takes time. I generally allow one hour per pound on a nice rack of baby back ribs. In SoltLayer operations terms, for a 6lb rack of ribs, that means you’d have time to register a new domain name, provision a RHEL 5 Cloud Compute Instance, provision 2 dedicated database servers (1 in Dallas and 1 in San Jose), configure the CCI as a Web server, clone the CCI once in Dallas and once in San Jose, order eVault and add a second vault for redundancy, add local load balancing to both sites, use the previously registered domain name and set up Global Load balancing between the IPs of both local load balancers, setup rsync between web servers for one website and configure MySQL replication between your two new database servers (and you’d still have just enough time to configure the eVault backup that you ordered about 5.5 hours previously).

What were we talking about again? Oh yeah, I promised a “cooking method” lesson:

1. Get Your Ribs
Everyone dresses their meat differently … Some prefer to marinate, some don’t. I find that it doesn’t make much of a difference, so I usually will remove my ribs from the fridge and rinse the before setting them aside to allow them to warm to room temperature. While that’s happening, I continue the rest of the process.

2. Prepare the Pit
I like to use a smoker pit grill … You know, something this:

I like to use split wood logs instead of flavored charcoal & wood chips. The wood you use is up to you; I usually do either hickory or mesquite and occasionally a log or two of apple (Beware that Mesquite burns very hot and is harder to stabilize at a consistent temperature when adding more wood to the fire later). Stack and light your fuel of choice in the smoker’s firebox – the only place where you will have a fire … The only thing that belongs in the pit is the meat and the smoke generated by the firebox.

Once you get your fire started, let it burn for a while so it can stabilize. You want the pit area to stay at a constant 225F ~ 250F. If you have enough prep time, you can also soak your wood logs for a couple of hours before you start your fire. This will cause the wood to burn slower and produce a slightly stronger smoke flavor in the ribs. This will also cut down on the amount of wood you “burn” through.

3. Prepare Your Ribs
While your fire is doing its thing and creating some good smoke, you can trim and season your ribs. Trim the membrane from the underside of the rack and season the meat with a dry rub (since it’s better suited for longer cook times).

4. Start Cooking
Once your pit has stabilized at the perfect temperate, it’s time to add the ribs. I use a rib rack just so I don’t have to flip the ribs while they’re in the pit, but if you don’t have a rib rack, place your ribs on the opposite side of the pit from the firebox bone side down (you have to ensure that the fire doesn’t reach your precious rack of ribs. If you are not using a rib rack, you will want to flip them about an hour and a half into cooking.

5. Keep Cooking
I use the 3–2–1 method when smoking: 3 hours on grill, remove the ribs, wrap them in foil, 2 hours on the grill in foil, remove the foil, and one more hour on the grill. By the time you get to that last hour, you’ll already find it difficult to flip the ribs as the meat will start falling off the bone. If your seasoning is top notch, you won’t need sauce, but the last hour is the time to baste if you want a different flavor in the mix. The 3–2–1 time frame is a loose guide to follow … You’ll need to keep an eye on the ribs to make sure they are not cooking too fast and that you’re keeping the flame away from the meat, and you may need to adjust times if your temperature exceeds 250F.

6. Remove the Ribs
Remove your ribs from the pit and allow them to rest for about 15 minutes before your cut them. This break will allow the juices to redistribute throughout the meat.

7. Enjoy!
No instructions necessary.

Following these rules, you’ll have a great rack of ribs, and if you took time while the ribs were cooking to order and provision that solution I talked about at the top of the post, you’ll have an amazing high-availability two-tier hosting solution by the time you take your first bite!

-Harold

Remember this? Your car does.

Now that Memorial Day officially marks the beginning of summer and the temperature is creeping back up, it’s time to take care of that neglected car that battled the cold winter and the spring rains. Outside of work, a lot of fellow SLayers are into cars … Some show them off, others focus on making them faster. And given the fact that we are professionally obsessive about keeping our data centers clean and tidy, that obsessiveness is pretty evident in how hard we work to keep our cars clean.

Since today is a holiday in the US, I want to take a break from the down-and-dirty server stuff to give you a quick glimpse at what many SLayers are doing today: Cleaning their rides. Like a lot of the technical troubleshooting we do, it’s best to stick to a particular flow of steps to cover all the bases and get the best outcome. The following steps are the ones I take to bring back the showroom-floor shine. Since the typical car detail can run anywhere from $50-$300 this is a great way to save money every month … so you can order another server or upgrade the hardware on an existing one.

What You’ll Need

• Bucket
• Soap
• Sponge or Microfiber or Sheepskin Glove
• Clay Bar
• Wax and Foam Wax Applicator
• Quik Detailer
• Glass Cleaner
• Tire Shine – Optional
• Microfiber Towels – The more the merrier
• Beer (or beverage of choice) – Optional … also the more the merrier
• Bonus: Swirl Remover – If you’re using a rotary buffer
• Bonus: Finishing Polish

Note: In all steps where washing is involved, rinse first to get any loose dirt off then gently scrub and rinse off. Car should be parked in the shade to avoid water spots. All steps after clay barring MUST be done in the shade.

Step 1: Washing the Wheels
Make sure your brake rotors have cooled before hitting them with cold water, otherwise you could risk warping them. Because of the dirt and grime wheels get, I recommend using a separate bucket and sponge for this step.

Step 2: Washing the Rest of the Car / Drying
Always work from the top of the car to the bottom, and the best practice is to do one panel at a time.
Frequently rinse your sponge or glove to release the dirt it picks up.
When scrubbing the side panels, it’s better to go up and down instead of side to side or in circles.
Drying panels as soon as you’ve rinsed them helps prevent water spots.

Step 2.1: Tire Shine (Optional)
Try to keep Tire Shine on the tires only. If you get it on the wheel, it’ll just allow dirt and/or brake dust to attach to the wheel.
Don’t overdo this or it will just splash back onto your car when you start driving.

Step 3: Clay Bar
Spray Quik Detailer onto surface and gently rub the clay bar from side to side.
Fold the clay bar between sprays. This keeps the clay bar surface clean.
Dry leftover Quik Detailer with a microfiber towel.

Step 3.1: Swirl Remover then Finishing Polish (optional)
Best when used with a rotary buffer at high speed.
If doing by hand, using pressure, apply in small circular motions.
Remove with a microfiber towel.

Step 4: Wax
Using either a foam wax applicator or rotary buffer on low speed, apply wax as thinly as possible, otherwise it will be harder to remove.
When the surface looks hazy, remove with a microfiber towel.

Step 5: Quik Detailer & Glass Cleaner
Use Glass Cleaner on windows and mirrors.
Quik Detail the whole car again.
These steps clear off any leftover dust from waxing as well as remove any water spots from water that may have crept out after waxing.

Step 6: That’s All!
Crack open a beer and gaze at your beautiful car … *wipe drool off of face*.

The process can take as long as several hours to complete depending on how bad your car needs a cleaning. If this process has been completed recently, you can skip Steps 3 and 4, as clay barring is only needed ~2-3 times a year and waxing every 2-3 months.

If you’re like us and you love showing off your car, after it gets all dolled up, post a link to a picture of it here in the comments!

-Tommy