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Inside OpenSRS Video Series: Changes and Plans for OpenSRS

Mou Mukherjee — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:00:33 +0000

In this video, Ken talks about the changes and plans for OpenSRS and some of the product launches and enhancements we’ve made over the past year. He explains some of the changes that are not as visible such as making our services even more reliable, scalable, and the preparatory work being done for future software development. Ken says that since we have become an Agile shop, we’ve been able to do quick iterations and roll out features and enhancements much faster than ever before.

Ken also shares some of the reason why we decided to reclaim OpenSRS as the name for our wholesale services. Ken explains that “reseller friendly” is not just a tag line; It is a value we have believed in for a long time.

What’s your opinion on some of the changes we have made recently? What would you like us to do more, do less, do differently? Also, what projects or products have you launched recently, or are thinking about doing in the future?

Stay tuned for two more videos that complete our series of six videos called Inside OpenSRS.

Inside OpenSRS Video Series: Network Operations at OpenSRS

Mou Mukherjee — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:40:19 +0000

Kevin Rueckert has a long history with OpenSRS. He’s worked here for almost a decade! And as you can see, he’s still passionate about his work. Kevin is our Manager of Network Operations Center (NOC). Kevin and his team monitor our systems 24-hours-a-day to ensure high availability and performance of our services to our resellers. In addition to monitoring, the NOC documents and trouble-shoots any issues, and escalates to other departments if needed. In this video, Kevin describes the major functions of the NOC, best practices used including an ITIL-compliant process, and what happens when issues are serious. His team is proactive by providing data trends and monitoring, and working with engineers and architects to roll fixes. The NOC is the technical information hub at OpenSRS.

We’d like to hear from any of our resellers about their technical and network operations. What are some of the things that keep you up at night? And what do you (and your teams) do to relax when the pressure is off?

This is part of a series of six videos called Inside OpenSRS that features some of the people who work to provide high-quality services for our resellers. Stay tuned as we share the other videos with you over the next few weeks.

Inside OpenSRS Video Series: Agile development process used at OpenSRS

Mou Mukherjee — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:39:33 +0000

You don’t need to spend much time at OpenSRS before you hear the words iterative, sprint, or see a handful of people standing around in a huddle (scrum). That’s because we use the Agile software development model here at OpenSRS. In this video our Principal Engineer, Rick Yazwinski, talks about the basic methods of Agile, why OpenSRS made the transition from Waterfall to Agile methodology, and the positive impact it had on our resellers. Rick emphasizes the human and lightweight characteristics of Agile. He shares examples of how personal communication trumps overly documented specs and requirements. He also talks about some of the other best practices at OpenSRS, such as focusing on simplicity, and using hardware virtualization.

Are you involved in development or project management? What models or best practices have you found to be most effective?

Inside OpenSRS Video Series: How OpenSRS handles messaging abuse

Mou Mukherjee — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:16:17 +0000

Have you ever wondered how much spam is floating around the Internet? The number may surprise you. Garrick Lau certainly knows the answer as he and his team work every day to ensure email deliverability for our resellers.

Garrick is our Manager of Security and Compliance. A good amount of his team’s efforts are spent on messaging abuse such as spam. While controlling spam might be a relatively straight-forward task for corporations, it is a completely different world for ISPs and web hosting companies. In this video, Garrick explains some of the challenges our resellers face, and how OpenSRS handles messaging abuse.

Garrick explains why software is not enough, and that collaboration with other ISPs is critical to ensuring email deliverability. Tucows is a member of Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) and Garrick explains how this plays an important part in establishing best practices, standards, and staying ahead of abuse trends. Garrick wraps up with some future emerging trends such as moving to a behavioral and historical based (reputation) model to track down spammers, and ends with an interesting example of a regular user vs. a spammer profile.

Its a big and increasing complex world of messaging abuse and a challenge to stay one step ahead. If you’re going it alone, or outsourcing, we’d really like to hear from you. What trends are you experiencing? What are your most common messaging abuse complaints?

Meet Six of My Colleagues

OpenSRS Team — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:35:14 +0000

Today, in partnership with the Web Host Industry Review, we released a series of videos featuring six of my colleagues called “Inside OpenSRS”. You’ll hear from people working in Reseller Support, Network Operations, Security and Compliance, Development, and Product Management.

For me, these videos have been a great introduction to some of the brilliant people we have working here, and I hope to bring you more from them and many others like them on the blog in the months to come.

Being humans first, geeks second and business people third is one of our brand promises for OpenSRS. The production and distribution of these videos is a first step in our strategy to help you to see what makes us tick and to show you that we are 100% committed to being “reseller-friendly”.

Watch the videos here