Until now the dream of powerful data processing in space has been limited mostly to the science fiction of Star Trek and Star Wars, but a combination of declining satellite launch costs and emerging computing technology is about to make colocation data centers above the clouds a reality.

“As the cost of building and launching satellites continues to drop, melding IT concepts with satellite operations to bring data center services into Earth orbit and beyond is emerging as the next big thing,” wrote Editor in Chief of Space IT Bridge, Doug Mohney, in Data Center Frontier last summer.

2020 was not kind to American small businesses as the COVID-19 pandemic punished Main Street. According to tracktherecovery.org, “as of December 30, 2020, the number of small businesses open decreased by 29.7 percent compared to January 2020.” Yelp estimated at the end of August 2020 that nearly 100,000 small businesses had closed for good since the start of the pandemic.

Those small businesses that persevered into 2021, utilized technology and E-commerce solutions to stay afloat as lockdowns and COVID-19 social distancing instantly shifted a chunk of the economy online.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the economic world, hosted phone systems were on the rise as businesses embraced cloud-based and unified communications solutions. These virtual or cloud-based PBX, which replace traditional on-premises PBX, are projected by Technavio to grow by almost $24 billion by 2024.

“Factors such as high operational flexibility of cloud-based PBX, and the convergence of VoIP, PBX, and UC (Unified Communications) for effective communication will have a significant impact on the growth of the cloud-based PBX market value during the forecast period,” said a senior analyst at Technavio.

In a year in which the unthinkable happened -- a worldwide pandemic -- it might be a good idea to revisit your company’s disaster recovery plan. The key word here is “disaster”.

This is not a back-up plan or response to a glitch or temporary hiccup in operations, but a recovery plan for a catastrophic event such as a hurricane, earthquake, wildfire, flooding, and even civil disobedience. Your disaster recovery plan is a playbook for what to do when the facility where your critical infrastructure is hosted is no longer operational.

When it comes to choosing between the cloud, colocation, and on-premises infrastructure to host your businesses data, the best answer might be all three. This best-of-all-worlds solution is the “hybrid data center” and is currently used by one in five companies. That number, according to Gartner, will rapidly rise in the next five years as businesses embrace the hybrid data center approach.

“By 2025, 85 percent of infrastructure strategies will integrate on-premises, colocation, cloud, and edge delivery options, compared to 20 percent in 2020,” said David Cappuccio and Henrique Cecci, authors of the Gartner Research Report released in September 2020, “Your Data Center May Not Be Dead, but It’s Morphing”.

The high-speed Internet of tomorrow, built on fiber optic networks and 5G technology, will be put to the test by a growing demand for video applications. Cisco projected in a 2019 white paper that by 2022, video will account for 82 percent of global IP traffic.

Technology infrastructure and connectivity within schools is a trending topic as Independent School Districts (ISDs) attempt to balance offering their students the best learning experience, while also giving their teachers the necessary tools to get the job done. With the unplanned and rapid move to online learning, Houston based PS Lightwave's experience with numerous ISDs helps them to cost effectively increase bandwidth and connectivity to meet ISD needs.

When it comes to the colorful history of the Internet there have been plenty of metaphors from the “Information Superhighway” to “everything is in the cloud”.

While much of the imagery has an ethereal feel to it, when it comes to how information actually moves, look not to the skies, but the seas as today’s high-speed, fiber Internet is based on a vast network of underwater cables.

For the second straight year, and fourth time in six years, PS LIGHTWAVE has been named a Top Workplace by the Houston Chronicle.

The 2020 Top Workplace awards, handed out by the Houston Chronicle and independent research company Energage, were based on feedback from more than 37,000 Houston-area employees.

“Top Workplaces seeks to recognize employers who acknowledge their best assets – their employees,” said Maria Reeve, Managing Editor of theHouston Chronicle. “Employers are ranked based solely on scores generated by employee responses measuring engagement, organizational health and satisfaction.”

Increasing demand for seamless connectivity with low-latency to cloud computing and bandwidth-intensive applications are shining a light on the benefits of Dark Fiber networks.

Dark Fiber, which ominously sounds like something you buy late at night in a dark Internet alley, has a more benign meaning.