2017 has been another big year in tech, another big year in hosting and another big year for the Tibus blog. More of you than ever before have been reading our articles - let's look at some of the key blog posts from the year.
Posted on 22 December 2017 -
BY Tibus
One of the key moments in the world of web hosting was the Amazon Web Services outage in February. A technical failure that took out one of the internet’s biggest fish really laid bare just how dependent we are on AWS.
It wasn’t so much the websites affected as the apps and third-party plugins that was the biggest talking point for us. Businesses that don’t use AWS directly as a web host and didn’t even realise they were using its services via a third-party suddenly found they were unable to operate until the problems was fixed.
We analysed some of the key lessons from the AWS outage and also considered how the failure was actually more embarrassing for ‘web hosts’ surreptitiously reselling AWS services than it was for Amazon.
In May, the word “ransomware” entered the public lexicon after the NHS found itself subject to a disruptive cyberwar attack. We looked at how businesses could easily and cost-effectively protect themselves from similar ransomware attacks.
The ongoing investigations into US President Donald Trump over alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential election, plus several other incidents that had seen the worlds of web hosting and politics collide, had us questioning whether web hosting arrangements could now make or break elections.
On the subject of Trump, we had been consistent in our warnings that the battle for net neutrality might not be over - and so it proved in December. Earlier in the year, we had once again set out the case for net neutrality by using an offline comparison.
June saw us tackle the live streaming for the start of talkSPORT’s coverage of the British & Irish Lions’ tour of New Zealand. We gave insight into the work that goes into streaming a live sporting event on that scale.
In October, our shores were battered by Storm Ophelia, the not inconsiderable remnants of a hurricane that rolled in off the Atlantic Ocean. The havoc it wreaked created plenty of work for our clients NIE Networks, which managed the electricity infrastructure in Northern Ireland. They put in some outstanding work in tremendously difficult conditions to conduct repairs and restore power.
We had a small part to play in ensuring the NIE Networks website coped with the digital onslaught created by the storm as customers rushed to get updates and report faults and damage. We documented that in two blog post: one explaining the situation and our preparation work in the build-up to the storm and one after the event to reflect on the impact of the storm on NIE Networks’ digital infrastructure.
We gave you a first glimpse of Tibus’ new offices in November. You can see the photos of the ongoing work in this article. Much more on that in 2018.
