Three months ago we launched our traditional Hurricane Season Web Performance Report. During this time we continuously monitored five of the key websites which provide real-time forecasts, details, emergency information and donation opportunities when disaster strikes.

Now it is time to officially announce its end and summarize the results. Here's what happened this year:

Which is the most reliable server hardware and operating system? Well, it turns out that the most reliable piece of hardware out there is the IBM Power 7 system, running AIX, scores at least 99.99% server uptime. This translates to 15 minutes of downtime per year. This is quite amazing. Imagine this was your web hosting provider. It is not surprising that IBM are rock solid amongst other alternatives. IBM, or International Business Machines, has nearly 100 years of history behind their backs. Some think that to succeed you need to be the first company on the market, or the best one. It seems that IBM benefits from both.

There is a lot of buzz around green computing and green data centers. We even mentioned those a couple of times. But what does “Green” mean? If environmental friendly computing translates to efficiency and workload optimization, then there you have it. There are two ways to help the environment while meeting the ever increasing demand for faster performance - make your it equipment run on green energy or make it as efficient as possible. In a perfect world you would have both, but in the most common case scenario we are still firmly attached to the power company and making the most out of the electricity you use, can really pay off. While most servers use 10% of their capacity most of the time, the Power7 series utilize up to 90% of the capacity thanks to their new virtualization capabilities.

The Uptime Project is the arena for the hardcore enthusiasts to compete against each other by comparing their ... uptime. It is as simple as it sounds. The site holds records for different machines and, of course, their uptime.

The site has been running for over 3 years now. It hosts the uptime of over 2000 machines, but only 500 are online for most of the time. Their goal is to find the machine with the most uptime and the contest is opened to everyone. What you need to enter is simply one of their tools, which can be found on their website. Multiple platforms are supported, including various Linux distribution, Windows, Mac, Sun and I even saw an Android device in the rankings.

Nowadays you can expect to find data centers in the most peculiar places. Cargo containers, old bunkers, at the bottom of a coal mine, even six miles off the coast of Suffolk. One place I would never have thought of is under a cathedral!

Finland did it again. Currently there is an operational data centre beneath the Uspensky Cathedral, in Helsinki. The server rooms are located in a former World War II bomb shelter. Why - one would ask. Well, for a couple of reasons.

Here, in WebSitePulse, our Customer Service representatives have heard one question over and over again:

“Why can’t my site/server be accessed from China?”