Notes on shipping, speed and staying up

Windows Server 2016 reaches end of support in January 2027: plan your move now

Extended support for Windows Server 2016 ends on 12 January 2027. After that date there are no free security updates. Here is how to plan the upgrade.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Post-quantum cryptography is standardised. What businesses should do now

NIST published its first post-quantum encryption standards in August 2024. The threat is years away, but data stolen today can be decrypted later.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook now enforce sender authentication. Is your domain ready?

Since February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo require SPF, DKIM and DMARC from bulk senders, and Outlook followed in 2025. Unauthenticated mail is rejected or sent to spam.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

PHP 8.1 is out of support. Which PHP version should your site run in 2026?

Security support for PHP 8.1 ended on 31 December 2025 and PHP 8.2 follows at the end of 2026. Here is the support calendar and how to upgrade safely.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is here. Which Ubuntu release should your servers run?

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS arrived in April 2026 and Ubuntu 20.04 left standard support in 2025. Here is how to choose between the supported releases.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

PCI DSS 4.0 and your hosting: a practical checklist for businesses that take card payments

PCI DSS 4.0 is now the only active version of the card industry's security standard, and its future-dated requirements took effect in March 2025. Here is what it means for the servers behind your payments.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Life after CentOS 7: choosing an enterprise Linux for your servers

CentOS Linux 7 reached end of life on 30 June 2024. AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, RHEL and CentOS Stream are the main successors. Here is how they differ.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Zero trust without the buzzwords: a practical starting point for growing businesses

Zero trust means no user, device or network is trusted by default. You do not need a large budget to start; you need a few disciplined changes.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

IPv4 ran out in 2011. Why IPv6 matters for your business now

The global IPv4 pool was exhausted in February 2011 and the regional registries have since run dry. IPv4 is now a scarce, priced asset, and IPv6 is the long-term answer.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Multi-factor authentication: the single control that stops most account takeovers

Stolen and reused passwords are behind a large share of breaches. MFA makes a stolen password far less useful. Here is which kinds to use and where.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Let's Encrypt has shut down OCSP. What changed for certificate revocation

In 2025 Let's Encrypt stopped including OCSP in its certificates and turned off its OCSP responders, relying on certificate revocation lists instead. Most sites need do nothing, but some configurations do.

Oct 19, 2026 · 1 min read

Hardening a new Linux server: the first hour checklist

A freshly installed server is exposed to automated scans within minutes. These are the steps to take before you deploy anything on it.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

HTTP/3 and QUIC: the protocol upgrade that makes websites faster on real networks

HTTP/3 was standardised in 2022 and is supported by all major browsers. It runs over QUIC instead of TCP, which helps most on mobile and unreliable connections.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

NOC vs SOC: what each team does, and why serious infrastructure needs both

A network operations centre keeps systems running; a security operations centre keeps attackers out. They watch different signals, but the best results come when they work together.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Incident response: what to do in the first hours of a security incident

The first hours of an incident decide how much damage it does. A short, rehearsed plan beats a long document nobody has read.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Patch management that actually happens: a routine for servers and applications

Most successful attacks use vulnerabilities that already have a fix. The gap is not knowledge; it is routine. Here is a patching process small teams can sustain.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

The 3-2-1 backup rule, and why modern threats added a 1 and a 0

Three copies, two kinds of media, one off-site. The rule has protected data for decades. Ransomware and silent failures have extended it to 3-2-1-1-0.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

DDoS protection for businesses: what attacks look like and how to stay online

Distributed denial-of-service attacks are cheap to launch and can take any unprotected service offline. Protection works in layers, from the network to the application.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

RPO and RTO explained: the two numbers that define your disaster recovery

How much data can you afford to lose, and how long can you be down? Agreeing on these two numbers turns disaster recovery from a vague worry into a design you can budget for.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Ransomware resilience: why your backups must be the one thing attackers cannot touch

Modern ransomware groups look for your backups before they encrypt anything. Immutable, separated backups and a tested restore turn a crisis into an inconvenience.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Writing a disaster recovery plan people can actually follow

A disaster recovery plan is read under pressure, often at night, by whoever is available. It should be short, specific and tested.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Encryption in transit and at rest: what to encrypt, where, and who holds the keys

Encryption is expected by customers, regulators and auditors. Doing it well means covering every path data travels and every place it rests, and managing keys carefully.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Object, block or file storage? Choosing the right kind for each workload

Databases, shared folders and millions of images need different kinds of storage. Understanding the three models saves money and avoids performance surprises.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Seven practical uses for S3-compatible object storage

S3 has become the common language of storage. Because so many tools speak it, an S3-compatible bucket can replace a surprising number of disks, file servers and ad-hoc archives.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

RAID 0, 1, 5, 6 and 10 explained, and why RAID is not a backup

RAID protects a server from a failed disk. Choosing the right level is a trade-off between capacity, speed and how many drives can fail. It does not protect against deletion, corruption or ransomware.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

HDD, SSD or NVMe: choosing drives for your server

Spinning disks, SATA SSDs and NVMe drives differ by an order of magnitude in speed and cost per terabyte. Matching drive type to workload is one of the cheapest ways to make a server faster.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Shared hosting, VPS or dedicated server: how to choose, and when to move up

Each step up gives you more control, more isolation and more responsibility. The right choice depends on your traffic, your software and who will run the server.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

A shared drive for your team: moving files off laptops and email attachments

When company files live on personal laptops and in email threads, they get lost, duplicated and leaked. A shared drive gives every file one home that the whole team can reach from any device.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

AMD EPYC, Intel Xeon or desktop-class chips? Choosing a processor for a dedicated server

Core count, clock speed, memory channels and platform features all matter, and the best choice depends on what your software actually does.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

How long should you keep logs? Retention, storage and what to collect

Logs are the first thing investigators ask for after an incident, and too often they have already been deleted. A retention policy decides what you keep, where, and for how long.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

ECC memory: why servers that matter should use it

Memory errors are rare per module but common across a fleet. ECC memory detects and corrects them before they become crashes or silently corrupted data.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Untested backups are not backups: how to run restore drills

Backup jobs report success every night until the day you need them. A simple, regular restore drill is the only way to know your data can actually come back.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Managed or unmanaged servers: what you are really paying for

An unmanaged server is cheaper on the invoice. A managed one moves patching, monitoring, security and the 2 a.m. phone call to someone else. The right choice depends on your team.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Capacity planning: sizing servers for today and the next twelve months

Oversized servers waste money; undersized ones fail at the worst moment. Measuring what you use and planning for known events gets you close to right.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Port speed vs monthly traffic: reading the network line on a server offer

A 1 Gbps port and 30 TB of monthly traffic describe two different limits. Knowing the difference helps you choose the right plan and avoid overage surprises.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Choosing where your servers live: latency, law and resilience

The location of a server affects how fast it feels to your users, which laws apply to your data, and what happens if a region has a bad day.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Egypt

Keeping data in Egypt: what businesses should consider when choosing where to host

Egypt's Personal Data Protection Law, sector regulators and customer expectations all shape where data should live. Hosting in Egypt can simplify compliance and bring services closer to users.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

What 99.9%, 99.95% and 99.99% uptime really mean

Each extra nine cuts allowed downtime by a factor of ten, and multiplies the cost of achieving it. Here is how to read an SLA and decide what you need.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Guides

Moving your website to a new host without downtime

A careful migration copies everything, tests it on the new server, then switches DNS with a short TTL. Customers should never notice.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Server monitoring that helps: what to measure and what deserves an alert

Too few alerts and you hear about problems from customers; too many and people stop reading them. Good monitoring alerts on symptoms users feel and records everything else.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Performance

Time to first byte: why your server's first response sets the pace for the whole page

Before a browser can download images or run scripts, it waits for the HTML. Server-side caching, a fast stack and a nearby server cut that wait.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Hosting Odoo Community Edition: how to size and run it well

Odoo runs sales, inventory, accounting and more for a growing business. Its performance depends on workers, memory and the database far more than on raw server size.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Performance

Do you need a CDN? When a content delivery network helps, and when it does not

A CDN copies static content to servers around the world and adds a layer of protection. It helps most when your audience is spread out and your pages are heavy.

Oct 19, 2026 · 1 min read

WordPress security essentials: protecting the platform behind so many business sites

WordPress itself is well maintained. Most compromises come through outdated plugins, weak admin passwords and abandoned sites. A short routine prevents most of them.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Guides

DNS for business owners: the records that keep your website and email working

DNS translates your domain into the addresses of the services behind it. A handful of record types control your website, your email and your security. Here is what each one does.

Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read