At Internap, we have been hard at work to expand the presence of AgileSERVER, our OpenStack-powered bare-metal IaaS offering. Designed to support high IO and data-intensive workloads, AgileSERVER provides the performance of dedicated servers with the automation and on-demand functionality of cloud.

Expanding the AgileSERVER footprint

During the last two months, we have expanded the AgileSERVER on OpenStack footprint into three new regions. Along with our existing location in Secaucus, NJ, we have added Dallas, Santa Clara and Amsterdam. The two new AgileSERVER locations in the U.S. help cater to the west coast and central regions of the country, while the Amsterdam location expands the presence of AgileSERVER into Europe. We plan to further expand AgileSERVER to additional locations over the course of this year.

Kilo upgrade

As part of our ongoing expansion of AgileSERVER, Internap completed a footprint-wide deployment of Kilo, the latest production release of OpenStack. Kilo brings many new updates to the OpenStack platform, from the latest OpenStack APIv2.1 for Nova to Cinder supporting rolling updates. You can find a detailed list of enhancements and updates in the Kilo release here.

Interoperability testing

AgileSERVER has been interop tested, which means it performs all the functions necessary to meet the OpenStack community’s interoperability requirements. Interop testing helps users evaluate product functionality by providing access to test results and other technical information to make informed decisions and choose the OpenStack products that meet their requirements.

The expansion of Internap’s AgileSERVER footprint, along with the Kilo upgrade and interoperability testing, reinforces our commitment to the growth of the OpenStack cloud platform.

Learn more about bare-metal AgileSERVER powered by OpenStack.

It’s time once again for OpenStack community members to vote for the presentations they want to see at the OpenStack Summit in Austin on April 25-29, 2016. OpenStack voting ends on Feb 17, 2015, so hurry!

Bridging the Gap Between Bare-Metal and Virtual Server Functionalities

Speaker: Boris Deschenes, Cloud Architect, Internap
Now that bare-metal IaaS using Ironic is being delivered around the world, it’s time to add features to make these physical servers as usable as virtual machines. This session will discuss ways to make differences between bare-metal and virtual servers disappear and continue the work towards complete abstraction of machine type by Nova.

Private to Public Products – Service Provider Challenges with OpenStack

Speaker: Boris Deschenes, Cloud Architect, Internap
Taking the OpenStack platform initially designed for private cloud use and making it into a competitive platform for the public cloud market has some significant challenges, including: balancing the differing maturity levels of the various modules without redesigning; managing in-house systems and migrating them to the Openstack standard modules; and choosing a security deployment model that balances customer security and service provider security.

Privatestack: A New Way to Quickly Build and Deploy Stable Code Using Virtualized Production Environments

Speaker: Mathieu Mitchell, Senior Software Developer, Internap
TSharing a common development environment amongst multiple users can become tedious and inefficient for engineers as they work to build and deploy stable code. Particularly when engineering teams discover issues, much of their effort is invested in trying to stabilize the environment rather than developing new features. Our team at Internap decided to build and open source a better development environment, called Privatestack, and we can share what we’ve learned with the community.

Attending the OpenStack Summit in Austin? Stop by the Internap table in the exhibit hall and share your thoughts.

Picture the scene: the surgeon peers over the patient lying sedated, covered on the operating table. Lights shine on the targeted area of the abdomen where the physician intends to operate.

“Scalpel,” the surgeon states confidently, and the razor sharp instrument is placed in her talented hands. She leans in, ready for the procedure to begin.

As the tool touches skin, the patient wakes up, bolts upright with eyes ablaze and stares at the team.

“But what about the security of my personal electronic medical data?!?” he yells.

Didn’t expect that? I bet you weren’t thinking about that one bit, and you aren’t alone. While many companies are entering the healthcare and healthcare tech markets with new tools and applications that enable medical professionals to do their jobs better, focus is often lost on the teeth of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), the HITECH Act.

HIPAA and the HITECH Act

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to promote the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology. Simply put, it gave teeth to the already ratified HIPAA with minimum ($100) and maximum ($250,000) per violation fines along with maximum cumulative fines for violation of the same provision ($1,500,000). The HITECH Act also notably added personal criminal penalties, meaning that individuals convicted of violating these provisions could stand meaningful jail time—up to ten years – and a Civil Monetary Penalty (CMP) of up to $1.5M per provision violated.

Many IT professionals in the healthcare fields generally know about HIPAA, and some may perform a cursory look for some sort of badge promising HIPAA compliancy before signing on with an infrastructure service provider. But choosing a HIPAA-compliant data center has become even more important because the penalties for violations can be severe.

Both the monetary and criminal penalties are determined by a subjective sliding scale based on the nature and extent of the violation and the harm resulting from the violation on a per-record basis. Why is that important when talking about Internet infrastructure?  Because these records don’t tend to travel in ones and twos but rather one and two thousand—or more.

As such, the penalties for violations can quickly escalate at an eyebrow-raising level for healthcare and healthcare tech companies that are either in direct contact with electronic patient health information (ePHI)/Electronic Medical Records (EMR) or indirect contact via Business Associates (BA), who are also subject to the same penalties. Examples include improper encryption when transmitting ePHI over email or not having a sufficient audit trail in place for PHI/EMR systems. Additionally, working with a Business Associate without having the appropriate Business Associate Agreement (BAA) in place can result in hefty fines and possibly jail time.

HIPAA-compliant data centers

Ongoing consolidation in the healthcare industry is creating a need for increased collaboration across healthcare providers, healthcare technologies and plans. But complying with the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rule is exceedingly challenging. This leaves many healthcare and healthcare tech companies scratching their head as to how to strike a balance between establishing an infrastructure that meets business needs while also adhering to HIPAA law requirements. Safe to say that it’s more important than ever for an organization – be it a Covered Entity or a Business Associate – to ensure they’re doing business with a service provider that fully understands HIPAA legislation and the very serious penalties that enforce it through the HITECH act.

Internap is proud to provide HIPAA-compliant colocation, managed hosting and private cloud environments for our customers. What’s more, Internap is one of the few service providers that can offer a HIPAA-compliant hybrid environment allowing healthcare organizations to create a best-fit infrastructure to meet HIPAA-compliant hosting requirements. We have extensive experience migrating healthcare tech customers to our HIPAA-compliant environments.

If you’re with an organization impacted by HIPAA and are interested in focusing on doing what you do best instead of worrying about your healthcare infrastructure, please reach out to us.  While we won’t have the gauze, iodine or scalpel, we will have the colo, managed hosting and private cloud that the doctor ordered.