Cloud What is thin provisioning? We previously wrote about the methods of data deduplication [https://www.fasthosts.co.uk/blog/data-deduplication/] and file compression [https://www.fasthosts.co.uk/blog/linux-compression-all-about-compromise/] for optimising storage space.... read more
Servers Data deduplication When it comes to computer, storage space is a hot commodity. More often than not, many of us tend to find that we need far more storage space than we... read more
Servers Phusion Passenger: a new web app server With its anime robot-inspired logo and feature rich design, Phusion Passenger is clearly keen to present itself as the newest sleek and innovative tool for web hosting and development. But... read more
Servers Config management: Puppet or Chef? For any organisation bigger than a bedroom start-up, the days of running a couple of servers in a cupboard are long gone. In the era of multi-server, decentralised cloud infrastructures,... read more
Servers What is blockchain? You’ve likely come across the term blockchain in discussions about cryptocurrency, digital finance, or emerging technology. But beyond the buzzwords, what does it actually mean – and why is it... read more
Websites What is GraphQL? Originally developed by Facebook, GraphQL is a powerful query language for APIs that lets developers request exactly the data they need – nothing more, nothing less. In this guide, we’ll... read more
Websites Moving to a microservices architecture Alongside containerisation, ‘microservices’ is very much a software development buzzword. But just like with containers, the innovative and far-reaching technology behind the buzzword makes the microservices concept far more than... read more
Digital Continuous integration tools: Jenkins vs Travis CI Software development can be complicated, especially when things go wrong. Say two developers are working on a project. They are each coding on separate branches of the master code in... read more
Cloud Nagios server monitoring Managing a server is a 24/7 job. Traffic can spike, systems and applications can go offline, updates need to be installed, and RAM needs to be managed around the... read more
Digital Server configuration management with Puppet If you’ve ever had to set up and maintain a server, the list of tasks can seem endless. You’ve got storage configuration, user account creation, and setup of... read more
Servers A guide to XAMPP An important part of web development is in testing. A developer could code what they think is a beautiful and functional web application, but once it gets handed over for... read more
Servers Linux compression: all about compromise Linux compression is an incredibly useful tool for file storage, archiving, and transferring information within your computer. It reduces the amount of storage space required, improves bandwidth, and can even... read more
Servers REST vs SOAP web services When it comes to building APIs and web services there are two main contenders: * REST - Representational State Transfer * SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol What is REST web service?... read more
