Reliability? We've got your reliability right here...

When talking about IT performance and rating "must haves", data center reliability is often right near the top of the list, and for good reason. Performance and scalability, features and  functionality don't matter much unless the application is up and available. We here at F5 tend to hold availability in pretty high regard, and recent info from Netcraft seems to show that this effort has not gone in vain.

Netcraft likes to study and analyze many things, among which is the reliability of different hosting companies. The way they do this is by polling around forty different hosting providers' websites at 15 minute intervals from different locations around the net, then crunching those numbers into something meaningful. Often near the top of the list of the most reliable hosting companies is Rackspace.

I hear what you're asking, "As cool as they are, what does Rackspace have to do with F5, and why are you yammering on about them?". Pictures, as they say, are worth quite a few words, so feast your eyes on this:

Source: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2011/05/02/most-reliable-hosting-company-sites-in-april-2011.html

Still don't see it? Of special interest, to me at least, is the "OS" listed for the Rackspace entry. While F5 BIG-IP might not technically be an OS (it's oh so much more!), it's still wicked fun to see it at the top of a reliability list. So thanks, Rackspace, for maintaining a highly available architecture and using F5 gear to help do it. Keep up the good work.

#Colin