Today, Objectivity, a leader in distributed, scalable data management technology, delivered a press release about InfiniteGraph, a new distributed graph database product which is now available on GoGrid.

About Objectivity & InfiniteGraph

Objectivity, Inc., the leader in distributed, scalable data management technology, formed the InfiniteGraph business unit in 2010. The team was tasked with creating a product to meet a global need to obtain real-time answers from deep analysis of very large volumes of complex data.

The InfiniteGraph team has developed a solution that gives organizations significant technical cost savings and time-to-market advantages, in developing advanced and large-scale social networking, business intelligence, scientific research and national security systems across highly distributed environments. InfiniteGraph is unique among other products in the marketplace, providing a high-performance, distributed graph database with virtually unlimited scalability.

The InfiniteGraph graph database leverages enterprise-proven technology that supports the highest graph computing requirements, helping partners and customers to find and utilize the valuable connections and multi-dimensional relationships that exist within their data.

InfiniteGraph on the GoGrid Exchange

InfiniteGraph is the Distributed Graph Database for the Cloud. It supports the advanced requirements of web-scale systems and beyond, due to its unique distributed architecture and virtually unlimited scalability. InfiniteGraph’s massively parallel processing capabilities also help applications achieve near linear performance gains with every compute node. These features make InfiniteGraph the ideal solution for handling big data and graph requirements in highly connected but distributed platforms, enterprise and government infrastructures. For more information, please visit: http://www.infinitegraph.com/product/

Currently InfiniteGraph is available within GoGrid as 4 images, specifically:

• RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.4 (32-bit)
• RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.4 (64-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 (32-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 (64-bit)

Also, Objectivity announced a new program called “The InfiniteGraph Startup Program” which is free for qualified startups (see here for more details). Apart from the standard GoGrid hosting costs, qualified startups can use InfiniteGraph for FREE.

Objectivity & InfiniteGraph Press Release

The following Press Release was sent out today by Objectivity and is available online as well:

InfiniteGraph and GoGrid to Enable Large-Scale Graph Data Processing and Discovery, Free for Qualified Startups The program will allow developers to build complex data analytics systems on virtually unlimited infrastructure, at no extra cost.

Sunnyvale, CA (Vocus) July 26, 2010

InfiniteGraph, a new, distributed graph database product that enables large-scale graph processing, data analytics and discovery, is being made available through GoGrid, a leading Cloud Infrastructure Hosting provider. The InfiniteGraph business unit of Objectivity, Inc. is working with GoGrid to offer the technology for free to developers and solution providers seeking to leverage cloud infrastructures. InfiniteGraph is the only solution of its kind to be made available on GoGrid or any cloud computing platform.

The InfiniteGraph Startup Program, free for qualified startups, will allow developers to build highly scalable and distributed systems and services around social networking, business intelligence, scientific research and more, at no cost beyond GoGrid’s standard platform usage rates. The InfiniteGraph distributed graph database product is currently in beta, and version 1.0 will be generally available at the end of July; the InfiniteGraph Startup Program on GoGrid will be launched shortly thereafter. Developers already have access to the beta software, and can get more information by visiting www.InfiniteGraph.com/GoGrid.

About GoGrid

GoGrid is a Global Leader in Cloud & Hybrid Infrastructure hosting. GoGrid enables sysadmins, developers, and IT professionals to create, deploy, and control free f5 load balanced cloud infrastructures and complex hosted virtual server networks with full root access/administrative server control. GoGrid physical and virtual server instances maintain industry standard specifications with no requirement to learn proprietary standards. Deploying GoGrid infrastructure takes minutes via a web control panel or GoGrid’s API. GoGrid gives users the control of a familiar datacenter environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud. For more information, please visit: http://www.GoGrid.com.

About InfiniteGraph

InfiniteGraph’s uniquely distributed graph database solution enables commercial, enterprise, government and other organizations to discover complex relationships in their vast and highly distributed data, with significant time-to-market advantages and technical cost savings.

About Objectivity, Inc.

Objectivity, Inc. is the leader in distributed, scalable data management technology. The company’s patented distributed data engine and persistent object store is the enabling technology within many markets, powering some of the most complex applications and mission critical systems used in commercial, enterprise, government and research organizations today. Objectivity, Inc. is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, USA. Please contact them online or call (408) 992-7100 for more information.

Objectivity, Objectivity, Inc., Objectivity/DB and InfiniteGraph are trademarks of Objectivity, Inc.. All other company, organization, product or alliance names mentioned herein remain the property of their respective owners.

###

Please be sure to visit the GoGrid Exchange for other solutions that include: Software & Applications, Development & Testing, Disaster Recovery & Backup, Cloud Management, and Security Monitoring & Reporting.

With the launch of the new GoGrid website and GoGrid 3.0, we also spent some time on a new calculator to help you estimate your costs of running your infrastructure on GoGrid. The calculator, just like GoGrid, is extremely easy to use and can definitely help you plan out your infrastructure in the GoGrid cloud.

Features of the calculator include:

• The ability to add numerous configurations of Cloud Servers (RAM/Hours Deployed/# of servers with that configuration)
• Add Load Balancing
• Add Cloud Storage
• Configure Inbound and Outbound monthly transfer
• Plan recommendations based on your configuration
• Estimated total monthly cost

So, for example, below is the following configuration:

• 2 – 2GB servers running for 30 days (720 hours)
• 2 – 4GB servers running for 30 days (720 hours)
• Load balancer –> it’s FREE
• 24 GB of Cloud Storage –> first 10 GBs are free so the charge is for 14 GB/Month @ $0.15/GB/mo
• 20 GB/mo Outbound Data Transfer ($0.29/GB/mo)
• Inbound data transfer –> it’s FREE

Note how a different Memory Plan is suggested based on my configuration:

If you add more Outbound Data Transfer to your account, the calculator will suggest a plan there as well. For example, changed the amount of Outbound data transfer to 6600 GB/mo, the calculator suggests the “Transfer 3.6 TB” pre-paid plan as a better alternative:

It’s pretty easy to play with different scenarios to help you project your GoGrid Infrastructure costs. Again, the GoGrid Pricing Calculator is located here: http://www.gogrid.com/cloud-hosting/cloud-hosting-pricing-calculator.php

What do you think? Is it helpful? Let us know any comments or suggestions on how to improve on it.

Yesterday, Cranium Solutions, a GoGrid Partner announced the launch of an automated cloud-based security assessment tool within the GoGrid Exchange.

About Cranium Solutions

Cranium Solutions’ flagship product, ASAP™ (Automated Security Assessment Program), is the first fully automated end-to-end network security testing solution that runs as a Cloud Based Service.  Businesses can perform simple and automated Vulnerability Assessments and Penetration Tests of any systems they have deployed on the GoGrid Cloud. Furthermore, the Cranium Solutions ASAP Service is a GSI based service that can be setup in minutes and requires no configuration by the customer unless they are performing assessments of servers that do not have external IP addresses.

Cranium Solutions on the GoGrid Exchange

There is currently 1 image live on the GoGrid Exchange for Cranium Solutions. It is on a CentOS 5.3 (64 bit) image:

Pricing

The ASAP Service is sold on a prepaid, per-use system, which means customers only have to pay for what they need or expect to use.  To get set up, just click on the “New User” link on the login page once you launch the Image. You will receive a confirmation email after creating your account that allows you to log back in and finish setting things up. On creation you are given 2 free IP credits. You then simply purchase more scan credits using the PayPal button on the login page.

Single device assessment credits are sold through an integrated PayPal system for $15 each, with purchase of credit required prior to the assessment. Blocks of assessment credits are sold at increasing discounts and purchased credits are recorded in the user’s account without expiration or requirement for immediate use. All GoGrid customers that sign up for the ASAP service will be given two free assessment credits after registration for use on two single IP devices.

Cranium Solutions Press Release

The following Press Release was delivered by Cranium Solutions yesterday and is available online as well:

Cranium Solutions Launches Automated Cloud-Based Security Assessment Service on GoGrid

Cranium Solutions ASAP Provides Automated Vulnerability Assessments and Penetration Tests of Cloud Deployments

CONCORD, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Cranium Solutions, Inc, the creator of ASAP (Automated Security Assessment Program) and a leader in end-to-end automated Security Assessment solutions, today announced the release of its cloud-based Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Test services to GoGrid customers, based on its unique virtual portal delivery technology. The Cranium Solutions ASAP service is now available through the GoGrid Cloud in the form of a Partner GoGrid Server Image, enabling GoGrid customers to instantly deploy the portal and begin running complex security testing of their systems in the GoGrid cloud, including systems on a private internal network. As part of the launch, Cranium Solutions will provide each new GoGrid ASAP customer with 2 free IP assessments.

The Cranium Solutions ASAP service enables customers to quickly and easily identify vulnerabilities on their GoGrid servers, public facing or internal. Once found, vulnerabilities can be validated by performing the integrated Penetration Test to determine if they are truly exploitable or false positives. This comprehensive end-to-end assessment process creates highly accurate technical and executive summary reports, which contain recommended remediation steps. The Cranium Solutions ASAP infrastructure is fully hosted in the GoGrid Cloud, assuring that GoGrid customers will always have the latest updates and features without having to ever load a new version of the Virtual Portal Partner GSI.

“The deployment of the Cranium Solutions Virtual Portal on GoGrid enables GoGrid customers to easily assess and protect their systems, in a way that no other cloud provider can match,” said Mark King, CEO of Cranium Solutions. “Cranium’s Cloud based architecture and delivery system leverage the benefits of cloud computing, allowing us to offer a more comprehensive solution without requiring long-term subscriptions or licenses.”

About GoGrid

GoGrid is a Global Leader in Cloud & Hybrid Infrastructure hosting. GoGrid gives users the control of a familiar datacenter environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud. For more information, please visit: http://www.GoGrid.com.

About Cranium Solutions

Cranium is privately owned and headquartered in Concord, California. For more information about ASAP and Cranium Solutions, visit: http://www.cranium-solutions.com.

Please be sure to visit the GoGrid Exchange for other solutions that include: Software & Applications, Development & Testing, Disaster Recovery & Backup, Cloud Management, and Security Monitoring & Reporting.

Yesterday, I posted an article about a webinar we held that was targeted at current GoGrid users. To round out the mix, we held another webinar geared towards users who might be new to Cloud Computing and GoGrid itself. This second webinar, titled “Complex Infrastructure Made Easy – Learn How You Can Leverage the GoGrid Cloud” was recorded on 6/29/10.

Similar to its predecessor, this webinar covered many aspects of the GoGrid 3.0 release. Presenters were Jeff Samuels, Michael Sheehan and Kole Hicks of GoGrid. The topics we discussed included:

• Overview: Complex Infrastructure Made Easy
• Landscape & GoGrid 3.0: What is the Cloud, GoGrid 3.0 new features
• Partner Ecosystem: Solutions from the GoGrid Exchange
• GoGrid’s Unique Value Proposition: Direction of the GoGrid Cloud

If you were unable to attend this webinar, the full recording is available below as well as on our Vimeo channel:

GoGrid 3.0 Webinar: Learn How You Can Leverage the GoGrid Cloud from GoGrid on Vimeo.

The presentation deck is also embedded below and is similarly available on our SlideShare channel:

GoGrid Webinar: Complex Infrastructure Made Easy – Learn How You Can Leverage the GoGrid Cloud

View more presentations from GoGrid Cloud Hosting.

We realize that it is very difficult to cover all of the features and services available to GoGrid customers. This webinar obviously only touches upon a few key items. We encourage you to explore the newly redesigned GoGrid website and be sure to contact a Sales Representative should you have any additional questions.

If there are other topics you would like to see covered in future webinars (or blog posts), please leave a comment and let me know.

With the release of GoGrid 3.0 a few weeks ago, we held a webinar titled “Complex Infrastructure Made Easy – Learn About the GoGrid 3.0 Release & Our New East Coast Datacenter“. This webinar was primarily geared towards current GoGrid customers. We also did a webinar the next day that was targeted at people who are new to Cloud Computing and GoGrid. I will be posting that webinar shortly as well.

This webinar was recorded on June 28, 2010, the day of the official release of GoGrid 3.0. Presenters were Mario Olivarez & Justin Kitagawa of GoGrid and Ryan Holland of TrendMicro. The topics included:

• Overview: Complex Infrastructure Made Easy – GoGrid’s unique value proposition
• GoGrid 3.0: The latest version of the GoGrid platform – East Coast demo
• GoGrid Security: New services from Cisco, Fortinet, TrendMicro & Sentrigo
• PCI Compliance: PCI compliance in the GoGrid Cloud – Demo with TrendMicro
• Questions & Answers

I realize that not all GoGrid customers were able to attend this webinar, so I have provided the full recording below (it is also available on our Vimeo channel):

GoGrid 3.0 Webinar: Learn About the GoGrid 3.0 Release & New Datacenter from GoGrid on Vimeo.

Also, for those interested in seeing just the presentation slide deck, that too is available for viewing below (as well as online in our SlideShare channel):

GoGrid 3.0 Webinar: Complex Infrastructure Made Easy – Learn About the GoGrid 3.0 Release & New Datacenter

View more presentations from GoGrid Cloud Hosting.

If you have any questions about the content that was covered within this webinar, please leave a comment on this post and I will be sure that it is answered. Also be sure to check the “Webinar” category on the GoGrid blog for past webinars that have been delivered.

Are there any topics you would like covered in future webinars? Please let me know.

GoGrid continues to build out our Executive Team with the announcement that Mark Worsey has joined GoGrid as Chief Information Officer.

The following Press Release was distributed today:

GoGrid Names Mark Worsey Chief Information Officer
Infrastructure and Internet Veteran Joins Cloud Hosting leader

San Francisco, CA – July 21, 2010 – GoGrid, a leading Cloud Infrastructure and Hybrid Hosting Provider, today announced that it has appointed Mark Worsey as Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President of Technology. Worsey brings to the GoGrid team expansive industry expertise ranging from technology platform development to world-wide network operations. Worsey will be responsible for all technological and architectural advancements as well as managing the operating strategies for GoGrid’s products and services.

We’re proud to have Mark’s leadership driving GoGrid’s innovative engineering, technology and operations departments,” said GoGrid CEO & Co-Founder, John Keagy. “We will look to Mark’s technological vision and expertise to enable GoGrid to continue to surpass the expectations of our thousands of customers every day.”

Throughout his career, Worsey has successfully scaled and led numerous technology organizations. Prior to joining GoGrid, he was responsible for worldwide technology operations, customer service and product development as CIO and VP of Technology at a Safeway subsidiary Blackhawk Network, a leading prepaid and gift card payments processing company. Worsey spent 14 years at Anderson Consulting as a leader in its Advanced Technology Group.  He has also held senior technology leadership positions at industry-changing firms including Xign Corporation and Netscape Communications. As the VP of Engineering and Operations at Netscape, Worsey successfully managed and delivered a series of pioneering online services to include MyNetscape, Netcenter and the Netscape General Store through the acquisitions of Netscape by AOL and then Time Warner.

As a CIO myself, I deeply appreciate the need for scalable infrastructure – available on demand – delivered in a way that allows me to reduce spend,” said Worsey. “GoGrid nails this ROI value proposition and feature requirements for its customers better than any other provider in the market.  I’m ecstatic to be working with a fantastic team on delivering the most innovative cloud infrastructure solutions available.”

Worsey holds a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science from Purdue University.

More information on GoGrid’s thought-leading Executive Team can be found at: http://www.gogrid.com/about/executive-bios.php

About GoGrid

GoGrid is a Global Leader in Cloud & Hybrid Infrastructure hosting. GoGrid enables sysadmins, developers, and IT professionals to create, deploy, and control free f5 load balanced cloud infrastructures and complex hosted virtual server networks with full root access/administrative server control. GoGrid physical and virtual server instances maintain industry standard specifications with no requirement to learn proprietary standards. Deploying GoGrid infrastructure takes minutes via a web control panel or GoGrid’s API. GoGrid gives users the control of a familiar datacenter environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud. For more information, please visit: http://www.GoGrid.com.

The Press Release is available online on PRWeb as well as on the GoGrid site.

GoGrid was a sponsor and exhibitor at the recent Structure 2010, a Cloud Computing industry event that took place on June 23 & 24 in San Francisco.

The event topics covered a wide range of Cloud subjects, with many industry leaders discussing their views on the subject matter at hand. Topic titles included:

• Dealing with the Data Tsunami: The Big Data Panel
• Cloudonomics: The Value of the Cloud
• Guru Panel: Web Infrastructure for Real Time and Critical
• Hitting Reset: Reinventing Core Internet Technologies
• Analytics and Management Layers
• What Comes After the Blade? Architectures for the Cloud
• Fatter and Faster: Reducing Latency and Increasing Capacity on Broadband

There were several panel sessions as well.

GoGrid’s CEO & Co-Founder, John Keagy, was interviewed by GigaOM Pro’s Derrick Harris. John answered the following questions:

• “GoGrid is a cloud provider, can you explain the GoGrid service?”
• “Cloud computing is a hot topic right now, how is GoGrid’s business?”
• “One of the keys to GoGrid’s success is your strong Partner program. Can you talk a a little bit about your Partner program and why it is important for Cloud providers to have one?”
• “Do you find that a lot of your Partners bring a lot of business to GoGrid?”
• “Another unique thing about GoGrid is your background in managed hosting and dedicated servers. Can you talk about how that enables GoGrid to offer a hybrid cloud option?”

You can also catch up on a variety of other sessions using the GigaOM/Structure widget below:

Watch live streaming video from gigaomtv at livestream.com

Do you have any questions for our CEO? If you do, feel free to leave a comment on this post or you can drop me an email to: michael[at]gogrid.com.

Following the announcement yesterday of the launch of GoGrid 3.0, today we officially announced the opening and availability of a new GoGrid datacenter presence on the East Coast in Ashburn, VA. We have partnered with Equinix (Nasdaq: EQIX), a premier provider of global data center services. GoGrid users now the the ability to provision infrastructure in both the West Coast and East Coast. This was a frequent request from our customers so we are excited to now have this ability within GoGrid.

More information about the new datacenter can be found here.

Below is the Press Release that we sent out about the new datacenter:

GoGrid Continues Expansion with New East Coast Data Center

GoGrid Deploys Into Equinix to Meet Customer Demands

San Francisco, CA – June 30, 2010 – GoGrid, a leading Cloud Infrastructure and Hybrid Hosting Provider, announced today the opening of a new GoGrid data center in Ashburn, Virginia. GoGrid has chosen Equinix, Inc (Nasdaq: EQIX), a leading provider of global data center services as its data center partner as it continues to expand operations.

“We’re pleased to announce that GoGrid cloud computing services are now available from within our Ashburn, Virginia campus,” said Vince DiMemmo, general manager of Cloud and IT Services at Equinix. “Infrastructure on-demand is something our customers expect to be able to buy as they architect and deploy their Web and IT applications with us, and we’re pleased to add GoGrid as a cloud computing partner supplier.”

The new GoGrid facility is a comprehensive end-to-end hosting environment solution, complete with state-of-the-art environmental controls, power and security systems, and access to more than 165 network suppliers. Multiple interconnection options enable GoGrid cloud computing services to be readily accessible by its customers.

“The decision to expand GoGrid was a direct response to our customers and the market,” said GoGrid CEO & Co-Founder, John Keagy. “We are successfully executing our expansion strategy and securing an East Coast presence is critical for us to scale and capture a significant piece of the fast growing cloud market. We are very excited to be partnering with a leader like Equinix and deployed within their customer-rich Ashburn campus to help fuel the continued growth of GoGrid.”

GoGrid customers who deploy GoGrid Cloud (virtual) servers in multiple data centers receive a single invoice allowing for simplified financial insight into multiple infrastructure locations. Usage by data center will appear as line-item details. Also, the GoGrid API has been updated to allow for programmatic control of objects and appliances in multiple data centers.

For more information about the new GoGrid 3.0 features and East Coast Datacenter, please visit: http://www.gogrid.com/software-update/.

About Equinix
Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX) provides global data center services that ensure the vitality of the information-driven world. Global enterprises, content and financial companies, and more than 575 network service providers rely upon Equinix’s insight and expertise to protect and connect their most valued information assets. Equinix operates 87 International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) and partner data centers across 35 metro areas in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Important information about Equinix is routinely posted on the investor relations page of its Web site located at http://www.equinix.com/investors. We encourage you to check Equinix’s website regularly for the most up-to-date information.

About GoGrid
GoGrid makes complex infrastructure easy. GoGrid’s Cloud and Hybrid infrastructure hosting enables sysadmins, developers, and IT professionals to create, deploy, and control free f5 load balanced cloud infrastructures and complex hosted virtual server networks with full root access/administrative server control. GoGrid physical and virtual server instances maintain industry standard specifications with no requirement to learn proprietary standards. Deploying GoGrid infrastructure using a Standard or Partner Server Image takes minutes via a web control panel or GoGrid’s API. GoGrid gives users the control of a familiar datacenter environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud.

For more information:
Product site: http://www.GoGrid.com

# # #

For the Press Release archive, please visit the GoGrid site.

If you are already a GoGrid user, most likely your inbox has a copy of the June 2010 GoGrid Newsletter. But for those of you who are not customers or are simply interested in receiving the latest and greatest information straight from us, below you can find the content of the newsletter. It was definitely an action-packed month for us at GoGrid as you will indubitably see from reading.

Below is the full content of the newsletter:

Hello,

It’s been a busy start to the first half of the year for us at GoGrid. We’re excited to fill you in on all of our important news and how we’ve been working to make your GoGrid cloud even better. From opening a new East Coast data center to our release of GoGrid version 3.0, you’ll find this newsletter full of information on how you can enhance and expand your GoGrid cloud.

Specific topics include:

• New East Coast Data Center
• GoGrid 3.0
• GoGrid’s Leadership Team
• CloudHarmony Benchmarks
• New GoGrid Website
• Partner News
• Events and Other News

NEW EAST COAST DATA CENTER

We’re thrilled to announce our new East Coast (US-East-1) data center in Ashburn, VA. Our expansion to the East Coast has been in development for several months and is available now. All of our GoGrid data center locations are SAS70 Type II certified and Cisco Powered Networks.

Data Center Locations:

• West Coast (US-West-1): San Francisco, CA
• East Coast (US-East-1): Ashburn, VA

Virtual servers with GoGrid base images are available for immediate deployment at the US-East-1 data center; additional features will be launched in subsequent releases. You can use the GoGrid portal or API to provision virtual servers in real time, and in either of our locations; US-West-1 or US-East-1.

GOGRID 3.0

You’ll notice that throughout the newsletter we’ll be talking about making complex infrastructure easy and that’s really the goal of GoGrid version 3.0. In addition to continually enhancing our product offering, we’ve also been listening to you – our customers – and developing features that make creating a complex IT infrastructure in the GoGrid cloud easy.

Some of the new features and system enhancements you’ll recognize from previous newsletters, however, the culmination of all the hardware architecture and feature development make up GoGrid version 3.0. While each of our releases contain many features and improvements, the timeline below represents those that can help you make an immediate impact on how you leverage your GoGrid cloud.

GoGrid 3.0 Timeline: Complex Infrastructure Made Easy

• June 2010 New East Coast Data Center – GoGrid partners with Equinix, Inc (Nasdaq: EQIX) in the expansion to a new data center in Ashburn, VA. The initial rollout enables you to provision cloud servers in real-time and in either location Us-East-1 or US-West-1.
• May 2010 GoGrid Node Hardware and increased CPU allocations – All GoGrid data centers are updated and outfitted with the latest Intel Nehalem chipset architecture which allows for 25-50% more CPU for virtual servers. Cloud Servers also now have greater CPU allocations. See the blog posting.
• April 2010 Hardware Firewalls – Firewall services are introduced allowing you to manage security for your GoGrid VLAN from a single device.
• February 2010 Virtual & Physical Servers – The ability to create a hybrid IT infrastructure with virtual and physical servers within the same environment becomes available.
• November 2009 GoGrid Exchange – GoGrid introduces the GoGrid Exchange with new Partner Server Images (PGSIs). PGSIs provide a variety of software solutions deployed as software server images for common business challenges including: Software & Applications, Development & Testing, Disaster Recovery & Backup, Cloud Management, and Security, Monitoring & Reporting.
• November 2009 Content Delivery Network – GoGrid CDN is rolled out, allowing you to accelerate the delivery of all your web content using our global infrastructure.

GOGRID’S LEADERSHIP TEAM

Not only have we been enhancing our product offering, but, we’ve also been expanding our GoGrid leadership team. With a keen eye to selecting industry pioneers with proven track records, we’d like to introduce you to the newest members of our leadership team and formally introduce you to all of our GoGrid executives.

New Members of the Executive Team

• Jeff Samuels, CMO
• Mark Worsey, CIO and EVP of Technology

Executive Team

• John Keagy, Founder and CEO
• Brett Newsom, CFO
• Jeff Samuels, CMO
• Mark Worsey, CIO and EVP of Technology
• Jack Duffy, EVP of Sales and Business Development
• Paul Lappas, VP of Engineering
• Mario Olivarez, VP of Product Management
• Bobby Brown, VP of Operations and Support

Learn more about each of our executives on the GoGrid website.

CLOUDHARMONY BENCHMARKS

CloudHarmony just announced the results of the first industry wide test of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers. In the recently published Input/Output (I/O) Cloud Performance report, GoGrid Cloud Servers dramatically outperform most other cloud vendors in the marketplace.

GoGrid Benchmark Results:

• GoGrid’s 4 GB RAM cloud server benchmark performed best with input/output performance (IOP) of 161.14. This was over 50% faster than Amazon’s equivalent cloud server which had an IOP of 104.36
• Our 4 GB RAM cloud server was almost twice as fast as RackSpace’s equivalent cloud server which had an IOP of 86.75

Read the GoGrid blog for more details on the methodology and results.

NEW GOGRID WEBSITE

Our GoGrid website has been completely overhauled. Easily navigate to find product information, pricing plans and case studies to help enhance your GoGrid cloud. Explore the new site www.gogrid.com.

PARTNER NEWS

Did you know that a partner image (PGSI) can be provisioned in minutes, drastically reducing the time it takes to get new applications up and running in the cloud? As a GoGrid user, you have full access to any public PGSI within the GoGrid catalog of images. Detailed partner information, as well as descriptions of the available PGSIs can be found on the GoGrid Exchange.

The following images are NEW to the GoGrid Exchange.

• SNORT IDS/IPS – Snort® is an open source network intrusion prevention and detection system (IDS/IPS) developed by Sourcefire. There is an additional charge of $29/month per instance of this deployed. It gets the user access to updated rules via Sourcefire.
• MediaWiki – MediaWiki is a wiki package originally written for Wikipedia. It is now used by several other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and by many other wikis. MediaWiki was designed to be run on a large server farm for a website that gets millions of hits per day.
• JasperServer – JasperServer Community Edition, the open source report server, built by the developers of JasperReports, the leading open source reporting library. It provides a web and web services based environment for reporting and dashboards.
• Spree – The most powerful and flexible E-Commerce platform for the Ruby Enterprise. Spree.
• Coppermine – Coppermine is a multi-purpose, full-featured web picture gallery script written in PHP using GD or ImageMagick as image library with a MySQL backend.
• Rubystack – Ruby on Rails is a full-stack MVC framework for database-backed web applications that is optimized for programmer happiness and sustainable productivity. It lets you write beautiful code by favoring convention over configuration.
• LAPPstack – Includes ready-to-run versions of Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP and phpPgAdmin and required dependencies. LAPPstack
• Librato Silverline – Silverline allows you to process your workload on a smaller number of servers without any impact on the Quality of Service provided by your primary applications.
• Sentrigo Hedgehog – Hedgehog Cloud-Based Database Compliance and Security Suite.

OTHER NEWS AND EVENTS

• Structure 2010 hosted by GigaOm – GoGrid was a sponsor at the annual Structure conference hosted by GigaOm on June 23 and 24.GigaOm/Structure
• GoGrid Named One of The “Hottest Companies in San Francisco” by Lead411Read more on our blog
• GoGrid named “Best Cloud Computing Provider” for May and June 2010 by HostReview.com Read more.
• ASCII Awards GoGrid “Best Channel Incentives.” Find our more on our blog.

As always you can find more information about GoGrid at:

• GoGrid Product Site – www.gogrid.com
• GoGrid Blog – blog.gogrid.com
• GoGrid Wiki – wiki.gogrid.com
• GoGrid Forums – forums.gogrid.com

If you have any questions please contact me directly at Maria[at]gogrid.com.

Thank you,
Maria Gallegos

I told you we were busy! Please don’t forget to follow us on Twitter (@GoGrid) as well as become a fan of us on Facebook. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. We hope you enjoy all of the great news coming from our San Francisco headquarters.

We at GoGrid are excited to introduce you to the latest version of GoGrid! (Perhaps you already saw the “Sneak Peak” article I posted earlier.) After several months of planning, developing, implementing, testing, deploying and wiping the sweat off of our collective brows, we present to you, GoGrid 3.0.

This post will not be about the nitty-gritty details of the release as there will be several other posts that touch on all of the activities going on at GoGrid. To provide some guidance though, here’s what I’m going to briefly cover:

• New GoGrid Product Site
• Webinar for New GoGrid Customers
• High-level Overview of GoGrid 3.0 Features
• Copy of Press Release on GoGrid 3.0

There are many ways to get more information about this release and what it can do for you as someone shopping for Cloud Infrastructure or already using the GoGrid Cloud. One of the best ways is to talk to a GoGrid Sales Representative as they have great ways to choose the right GoGrid infrastructure solution for you. You can call them at: 1.877.946.4743 (US & Canada) or 1.415.869.7444 (Worldwide). Or we typically have 24×5 Live Sales Chat & Contact forms available here.

New GoGrid Site

Before I dive into the items that make up this important feature and service release, I also want to point out that we have completely updated the GoGrid Product site.

We have revamped the look and feel and drastically updated the content and organization. The primary sections of the site are:

• Cloud Hosting – http://www.gogrid.com/cloud-hosting/
• Support – http://www.gogrid.com/support/
• Partners – http://www.gogrid.com/partners/
• About Us – http://www.gogrid.com/about/
• Sign Up - http://www.gogrid.com/signUp/

You will notice that many of the top navigation menus now have content within them.

For example, within the Cloud Hosting section, you will find the following subsections:

• What is GoGrid?
• NEW Case Studies
• Infrastructure Components
• Pricing
• Included Features
• Add-on Features

The Support Section contains Support and other Online Resources to make your GoGrid experience and education thereof even better.

The Partner section discusses the various Partner Programs available as well as shows the numerous GoGrid Exchange solutions that you can use to make your infrastructure within the GoGrid cloud even more robust.

The About section actually pulls in the latest GoGrid Blog posts as well as gives more details about the Company as a whole, upcoming Events/Webinars, Press Coverage and Press Releases and Careers at GoGrid (YES, we are HIRING!).

Lastly, you can Sign Up for GoGrid quickly and easily. All that you need is a Credit Card.

Be sure to take a quick look around the new product site. We are definitely pleased with how it turned out!

Upcoming GoGrid Webinar

Whether you are new to Cloud Computing, the GoGrid Cloud or an existing GoGrid user, we understand that with every release, you have questions. Well we have answers for you! To that end, we have set up a webinar for new GoGrid users.

If you are NEW to GoGrid, I recommend that you register and attend the “Complex Infrastructure Made Easy: Learn How You Can Leverage the GoGrid Cloud“:

• Date: Tuesday, June 29, 2010
• Time: 11:00 am PDT
• Summary:
  • Learn about the enhanced offerings included in the GoGrid 3.0 release and how they can help your business.
  • Understand how GoGrid’s robust partner ecosystem can help you leverage the GoGrid cloud.
  • Discover how GoGrid customers are expanding their cloud environment with our partners and the GoGrid Exchange.
• Details & Registration: http://go.gogrid.com/event_29_june_2010

We definitely hope that you can attend the webinar. If you miss it, don’t worry as we will be posted it and others later. And we do plan on having more webinars in the future.

High-Level Overview of GoGrid 3.0 Features

As I mentioned in my “Sneak Peak” post there are several important items that make up this release, specifically:

• New East Coast Datacenter
• New GoGrid Node hardware
• New CPU and Hard Drive allocations
• Cloud-like Physical Server deployments
• GoGrid Content Delivery Network (CDN)
• More Actionable & Usable List view of GoGrid virtual & physical appliances and networks
• New Pre-Paid and volume-licensing pricing plans
• Robust Partner Ecosystem with the GoGrid Exchange & Partner Server Images (PGSIs)
• Physical & Virtual Hardware Firewalls
• Updated GoGrid API
• Edit Load Balancer API support
• Custom Server Images (MyGSIs)
• Dynamically Scalable Cloud Storage

Critical components of the GoGrid 3.0 launch include:

• New East Coast Datacenter – GoGrid has partnered with Equinix, Inc (Nasdaq: EQIX) in the expansion to a new datacenter in Ashburn, VA which allows for GoGrid to have multiple points of presence in the continental United States. The initial rollout will allow for the provisioning of cloud servers within the new datacenter and with new appliances being rolled out shortly thereafter.

• New GoGrid Node hardware – the new GoGrid East Coast datacenter has been outfitted with the latest Intel Nehalem chipset architecture which allows for 25-50% more CPU for select virtual servers. Cloud Servers now have equal CPU-to-RAM ratios which means better performance across the board.

• Virtual & Physical Server deployments – GoGrid sets the standard for “hybrid hosting” by allowing customers to deploy Cloud Servers and Dedicated Servers within the same infrastructure. The ability to mix and match virtual and physical appliances within the same environment enables never before seen flexibility that maintain cloud characteristics.

• Growing Partner Ecosystem – GoGrid continues to expand its rich and robust Partner ecosystem called the GoGrid Exchange with new and updated Partner Server Images (PGSIs). PGSIs provide a variety of software solutions deployed as software server images for common business challenges including: Software & Applications, Development & Testing, Disaster Recovery & Backup, Cloud Management, and Security, Monitoring & Reporting.

Press Release on GoGrid 3.0

Lastly, below is the GoGrid Press Release that came out today:

GoGrid Unveils Next Generation of Cloud Infrastructure Hosting Service

Market and Customer Demand Drives GoGrid 3.0

San Francisco, CA – June 29, 2010 – GoGrid, a leading Cloud Infrastructure and Hybrid Hosting Provider, today announced the release of GoGrid Version 3.0. GoGrid 3.0 is designed to extend the company’s leadership position as the most flexible, secure, easy-to-use, and feature-rich Cloud Infrastructure Hosting Solution available. The release includes a number of security and management features designed to enable GoGrid customers to create innovative and compelling infrastructure solutions for their business needs.

GoGrid has been on the leading edge of the cloud market helping company’s like Gomez utilize the  power of cloud computing to transform our infrastructure,” said Colin Mason, Reality Load Product Manager of Gomez, the Web Performance Division of Compuware (NASDAQ: CPWR). “GoGrid delivers outstanding performance and flexibility as Cloud Infrastructure provider. With GoGrid 3.0′s features and new datacenter, we can further integrate the cloud into our business processes.”

GoGrid’s suite of features and services provide the Cloud Computing marketplace with a unique blend of compelling infrastructure solutions. The launch of 3.0 is an important step in realizing GoGrid’s vision of making complex infrastructures easier.

There are many features of GoGrid version 3.0 that will put more flexibility, control, and customizable computing power in the hands of customers. Some of these include:
•    a new East Coast datacenter
•    new CPU and hard drive allocations
•    industry-leading  pre-paid and volume licensing pricing plans and,
•    physical and virtual hardware firewalls for enhanced security.

For a full list of new features please visit http://www.gogrid.com/software-update

GoGrid has continually brought to market pioneering services that help businesses of all sizes seize the tremendous opportunity of cloud hosting.” said GoGrid CEO & Co-Founder, John Keagy. “Our latest release is a significant step forward in our efforts to make complex infrastructure extremely easy in the GoGrid Cloud. From the new East Coast Datacenter to our unique hybrid hosting solution, GoGrid 3.0 epitomizes GoGrid’s mission to handle the infrastructure for clients, so they can focus on their business.”

GoGrid will be hosting a webinar for new comers to Cloud Computing and the GoGrid Cloud on June 29th at 11:00am PDT. To sign up for the webinar, please visit: http://go.gogrid.com/event_29_june_2010.

About GoGrid
GoGrid makes complex infrastructure easy. GoGrid’s Cloud and Hybrid infrastructure hosting enables sysadmins, developers, and IT professionals to create, deploy, and control free f5 load balanced cloud infrastructures and complex hosted virtual server networks with full root access/administrative server control. GoGrid physical and virtual server instances maintain industry standard specifications with no requirement to learn proprietary standards. Deploying GoGrid infrastructure using a Standard or Partner Server Image takes minutes via a web control panel or GoGrid’s API. GoGrid gives users the control of a familiar datacenter environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud.

For more information:
Product site: http://www.GoGrid.com

Pretty exciting stuff! If you have any questions about this new GoGrid release, please be sure to leave a comment on this post or contact one of our Sales Representatives.

And lastly, we want to introduce you to our new Unique Value Proposition: “Complex Infrastructure Made Easy™”.

There have recently been a number of Cloud benchmark studies coming out and we wanted to highlight one in particular, that of CloudHarmony. At the beginning of June, CloudHarmony published their “Disk I/O Benchmarking in the Cloud” study and GoGrid‘s performance was right at the top of the list of 19 other Cloud Providers. This is one study in a series that CloudHarmony is producing.

We sent out the following Press Release today announcing the results of this independent, third-party study:

New Cloud Benchmarking Report Shows GoGrid at the Forefront

CloudHarmony’s Benchmarking report grades performance of cloud providers

San Francisco, CA (Vocus/PRWEB ) June 22, 2010 — Performance benchmarking site, CloudHarmony, (www.cloudharmony.com) has just announced the results of the first industry wide test of Cloud Computing providers. In the recently published Input/Output (I/O) Cloud Performance report, GoGrid, a leading Cloud and Hybrid Hosting provider, proved that its Cloud Servers can dramatically outperform most other cloud vendors in the marketplace. Choosing the right cloud provider can be very complicated, and independent measurements of performance can make it easier for customers.

In summary, GoGrid servers delivered substantially more I/O and at a substantially lower cost. Using a methodology that established a performance metric for Input/Output Performance (IOP), and set the baseline average at 100, CloudHarmony then tested 19 cloud and VPS providers to see how they measured up.

GoGrid’s 4 GB RAM virtual server benchmark performed best with IOP of 161.14. This was over 50% faster than Amazon’s equivalent server which had an IOP of 104.36, and it was almost twice as fast as RackSpace’s equivalent virtual server which had an IOP of 86.75. And this performance came at a far lower cost. In fact, the entry level 1GB cloud server offering from GoGrid outperformed all of the Amazon and Rackspace server offerings.

We’re extremely pleased to give cloud computing customers a neutral, third-party, data-driven analysis to make choosing the right provider easier,” said Jason Read, Founder of CloudHarmony. “There are a lot of providers and a lot of claims; our goal is to provide independent, objective and un-biased performance metrics using transparent criteria.”

CloudHarmony’s IOP is calculated using 7 disk I/O performance benchmarks, including Blogbench, Bonnie++, Dbench, Flexible IO Tester, hdparm, IOzone and Threaded I/O Tester. Thereafter, the baseline aggregate scores are used to calculate the IOP.

Three of the four GoGrid server configurations utilized GoGrid’s new Intel Nehalem processor nodes which produced well above the baseline established by CloudHarmony, including the 4GB cloud server which was the #2 performer in the entire test with a benchmark that was 60% better than baseline. However, all four configurations tested performed markedly above the baseline. GoGrid’s pricing is based on the amount of RAM utilized by a Cloud server, with pricing as low as $0.05/GB/hr.

We are pleased cloud infrastructure users can finally get third party benchmarking results” said John Keagy, CEO of GoGrid, “The CloudHarmony benchmarks show some unfortunate variability among vendors and we hope that new users of cloud infrastructure will consult with these benchmarks so that their first experiences are strongly positive.”

About GoGrid
GoGrid makes complex infrastructure easy. GoGrid’s Cloud and Hybrid infrastructure hosting enables sysadmins, developers, and IT professionals to create, deploy, and control free f5 load balanced cloud infrastructures and complex hosted virtual server networks with full root access/administrative server control. GoGrid physical and virtual server instances maintain industry standard specifications with no requirement to learn proprietary standards. Deploying GoGrid infrastructure using a Standard or Partner Server Image takes minutes via a web control panel or GoGrid’s API. GoGrid gives users the control of a familiar datacenter environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud.

As we hear about other benchmarking studies, we will be sure to notify GoGrid users of them. They are an important way to compare various cloud providers side by side. Just remember that sometimes you need to look beyond benchmarks alone and look at features and services as well.

Today, Sentrigo, a GoGrid Partner announced that several new images are now available within the GoGrid Exchange.

About Sentrigo

Sentrigo Hedgehog Enterprise Database Activity Monitoring and Compliance solutions, as well as the Hedgehog vPatch software for virtual patching are now available within the GoGrid Cloud. Hedgehog Enterprise and vPatch provide customers with the highest level of database security for compliance to protect sensitive information in Microsoft, Oracle, Sybase and shortly MySQL databases deployed within their GoGrid Cloud. Hedgehog Enterprise allows customers to monitor and log all database access to meet key compliance requirements, including PCI DSS, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and more.  Hedgehog vPatch protects databases that cannot have vendor patches installed in a timely manner (for example, because applications have not yet been tested), allowing customers to meet their IT governance policies, thus preventing exploits of known vulnerabilities.

Sentrigo on the GoGrid Exchange

There are currently 3 images on the GoGrid Exchange for Sentrigo:

Sentrigo mages are available on Windows 2008 Server and CentOS 5.3 currently.

Sentrigo Press Release

The following Press Release was issued by Sentrigo and is available below as well as online:

Sentrigo Partners with GoGrid to Provide Database Security on Cloud Computing Platform

Hedgehog Enterprise and vPatch compliance solutions available for immediate installation via GoGrid Exchange

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Sentrigo, Inc., the innovator in database security software, today announced that Sentrigo Hedgehog Enterprise and vPatch are now available for installation on GoGrid’s cloud computing infrastructure for database audit, protection and breach prevention. By leveraging Sentrigo’s database compliance and security solutions, organizations can implement cloud computing on GoGrid while addressing concerns regarding protection of sensitive data as well as issues related to compliance audits for key industry regulations.

As a greater number of applications move to cloud computing, organizations that manage their databases in virtual environments increase their risk of exposing highly-sensitive data to a broad base of internal and external attacks. Many organizations find it challenging to ensure compliance and protection when they have full control over the data within their own networks, let alone when deploying it in the cloud. Only Sentrigo’s host-based software approach monitors and audits data access from the inside of each database virtual server, allowing efficient operation in distributed, virtualized environments.

“The appeal of cloud computing is clear – with benefits that include reduced acquisition and operating costs for IT, greater flexibility and scalability of the infrastructure – it is not surprising that cloud technology deployments are increasing at a considerable rate,” said Slavik Markovich, CTO and co-founder of Sentrigo. “Yet, for many organizations, the critical applications that would potentially benefit most from a move to the cloud cannot be deployed without first overcoming a key obstacle – compliance with data privacy and security regulations.”

The combination of Sentrigo Hedgehog and GoGrid enables customers to deploy applications in the cloud environment, including those with sensitive data that may be subject to compliance standards – providing a layer of protection from external threats while also enabling a full audit of privileged insiders. Hedgehog provides canned compliance templates for SOX, PCI-DSS, SAS70, HIPAA, and more, that allow GoGrid users to quickly and easily satisfy regulatory requirements. As part of the combined solution, the monitoring and management console can be hosted either in the GoGrid cloud, or behind the customer’s firewall, where compliance and security events or audit reports can be sent securely over the WAN regardless of the physical location of the virtual infrastructure. By leveraging the pre-built Hedgehog images in the GoGrid Exchange, installation takes only a few minutes, and then Hedgehog begins auditing and protecting databases immediately.

“Sentrigo’s Hedgehog works well in the dynamic, distributed environment of our customer’s cloud computing infrastructure by providing full visibility into database activity regardless of where the data lies,” said John Keagy, GoGrid CEO and Co-Founder. “The combination of the Sentrigo and GoGrid technologies is a natural fit for our respective companies, and more importantly for customers looking to leverage the benefits of cloud computing technology with the assurance their data is protected by the best-in-breed database security solution currently available on the market.”

GoGrid customers can install a 14-day trial of Sentrigo’s Hedgehog Enterprise from the GoGrid Exchange Web site at: http://exchange.gogrid.com/. Hedgehog Enterprise is also available for purchase directly from Sentrigo.

Tweet this: Sentrigo Partners with GoGrid to Provide Best-in-Breed Database Security on Cloud Computing Platform

Follow Sentrigo on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/sentrigo

About GoGrid

GoGrid makes complex infrastructure easy. GoGrid’s Cloud and Hybrid infrastructure hosting enables sysadmins, developers, and IT professionals to create, deploy, and control free f5 load balanced cloud infrastructures and complex hosted virtual server networks with full root access/administrative server control. GoGrid physical and virtual server instances maintain industry standard specifications with no requirement to learn proprietary standards. Deploying GoGrid infrastructure using a Standard or Partner Server Image takes minutes via a web control panel or GoGrid’s API. GoGrid gives users the control of a familiar datacenter environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud. For more information, please visit: http://www.GoGrid.com.

About Sentrigo

Sentrigo is a recognized innovator in database security solutions, offering a full suite of products for vulnerability assessment, virtual patching and database monitoring/auditing. The company’s flagship product, Hedgehog Enterprise, provides Database Activity Monitoring (DAM) and real-time Intrusion Prevention, protecting sensitive data from external threats and misuse by privileged insiders. Hedgehog can be quickly and easily deployed at small and midsize organizations, and scales to handle the largest enterprises, providing full visibility into all database activity and allowing enterprises to enforce security policy and comply with regulatory requirements, such as PCI DSS, Sarbanes-Oxley, and HIPAA. The company has won wide acclaim for its technology leadership from publications such as Network World and SC Magazine, and recently received the 2010 Global Product Excellence Award for Database Security from Info Security Products Guide. For additional information and to download Hedgehog, visit www.sentrigo.com.

# # #

We encourage you to visit the GoGrid Exchange where you can find many other Partner Images available for other GoGrid Infrastructure solutions.

Last night, the GoGrid Engineering and Network teams toiled late into the night preparing for the launch of GoGrid version 3.0. Those of you current GoGrid users may have already noticed the updated login screen:

Well, I wanted to give everyone a small update on this upcoming release, especially those GoGrid users who have logged in and seen some slightly changed interfaces.

Note: below the “Highlights of Changes” section is information on two upcoming WEBINARS for future and current GoGrid users. I encourage you to register for one of those.

First, if you want to read a bit more about some of the features included in GoGrid v3.0, take a look at the GoGrid Software Update page. Most importantly, this update lays the groundwork for the opening of our new East Coast datacenter (US-East-1) in Ashburn, VA. To accommodate this expansion, we’ve made some now-visible changes to the following:

• Billing Widget – easier to read & gives you Memory Usage at a glance
• List View Panel – the network widget has been removed and is now enhanced within the List View, making it much easier to view your public and private IP address across datacenters
• Workflow Changes – see below for details on this change

Highlights of Changes

We’ve added a new “datacenter aware” selector prior to choosing the GoGrid object you wish to deploy. If you’ve logged into the GoGrid Portal since the update last night, you will see some differences when you go to ADD an object:

Unless you are part of the Alpha testing group, objects within the US-East-1 datacenter are grayed-out. If you select the US-East-1 datacenter, you should expect to see the following (until the launch of the new datacenter which is scheduled for June 28, 2010):

Another notable change is the Network Widget which use to appear in the left sidebar has now been removed. In its place is a link that will take you to the new Network section of the List View.

When you click on the link “Your Network Settings“, you’ll immediately be taken to the List View and the Network section therein. Within the Network section, you can view Public and Private IP addresses assigned to your GoGrid account, their Status (Assigned/Unassigned) and the datacenter they are associated with.

Note: All GoGrid users can currently use the Network section as of this update.

Also, we have simplified the Billing Summary widget to give you a snapshot of your Memory and Transfer allotment and usage (including a direct link to view your current invoices):

Learn More About GoGrid v3.0 at Upcoming Webinars

Whenever there is an update, current and future customers always have questions. So, we have put together a series of webinars to help explain these and other significant improvements coming to the GoGrid cloud.

If you are a CURRENT GoGrid customer, you can catch up on the latest and greatest improvements to your GoGrid cloud by attending the “Complex Infrastructure Made Easy: Learn About the GoGrid 3.0 Release and Our New East Coast Data Center“:

• Date: Monday, June 28, 2010
• Time: 11:00 am PDT
• Summary:
  • Learn about our new features and system enhancements included in GoGrid 3.0 and how they can help your business.
  • Understand how to expand the complexity of your cloud with GoGrid’s new east coast data center (US-East-1).
  • See a demonstration of how easy it is to deploy a cloud (virtual) server in GoGrid’s US-East-1 data center.
  • Discover how other companies are using GoGrid to build complex and unique architectures in the GoGrid cloud.
• Details & Registration: http://go.gogrid.com/customer_28_june_2010

If you are NEW to GoGrid, I recommend that you register and attend the “Complex Infrastructure Made Easy: Learn How You Can Leverage the GoGrid Cloud“:

• Date: Tuesday, June 29, 2010
• Time: 11:00 am PDT
• Summary:
  • Learn about the enhanced offerings included in the GoGrid 3.0 release and how they can help your business.
  • Understand how GoGrid’s robust partner ecosystem can help you leverage the GoGrid cloud.
  • Discover how GoGrid customers are expanding their cloud environment with our partners and the GoGrid Exchange.
• Details & Registration: http://go.gogrid.com/event_29_june_2010

If you have any questions prior to the webinars or that you would like answered in the webinars, please leave a comment on this post! We hope you fully take advantage of the new features and services coming to GoGrid in the next few weeks.

GoGrid pushes ahead with new Intel-based technology, specifically, the new Intel Xeon Processor 5600 series, code named “Westmere”.

The following Press Release was distributed today:

GoGrid Announces Cloud Services Powered by New Intel® Xeon® Processor 5600 series
The 32-nm processor provides an incredible 50% savings in power consumption

San Francisco, CA – June 15, 2010 – Today GoGrid, a leading cloud infrastructure hosting provider, announced they will be deploying cloud services based on the powerful new Intel® Xeon® Processor 5600 series, formerly codenamed “Westmere”.

GoGrid cloud services have always provided superior CPU performance, which means faster response times and improved productivity for our customers,” said John Keagy, GoGrid CEO. “With the latest Intel Xeon processor technology, we will be able to deliver an even better experience to our customers at a lower cost.”

Last year, Intel and GoGrid formally began collaborating to optimize platform selection, performance and energy efficiency to meet the emerging needs of their customers. “With the Intel Xeon Processor 5600 series, we get far more performance with significantly less power usage,” said Paul Lappas, GoGrid VP engineering.

The Intel Xeon 5600 processor series will enable a dramatic power savings resulting in about a 50% reduction in energy consumption as compared to previous configuration. In addition, the higher performance of Xeon 5600 processors within the GoGrid node infrastructure allows supporting more customers and thus a 30% reduction in the cost-of-goods of server hardware.

I applaud GoGrid’s rapid deployment of this technology, and believe customers will value the enhanced user experience and the energy savings that the Intel Xeon processor 5600 series enables,” said Jason Waxman, General Manager of High Density Servers at Intel.

New GoGrid nodes running with the new Intel Xeon Processor 5600 series will be implemented in the third quarter of 2010 and will be available to GoGrid customers shortly thereafter.

About GoGrid
GoGrid is a Global Leader in Cloud & Hybrid Infrastructure hosting. GoGrid enables sysadmins, developers, and IT professionals to create, deploy, and control free f5 load balanced cloud infrastructures and complex hosted virtual server networks with full root access/administrative server control. GoGrid physical and virtual server instances maintain industry standard specifications with no requirement to learn proprietary standards. Deploying GoGrid infrastructure using a Standard or Partner Server Image takes minutes via a web control panel or GoGrid’s API. GoGrid gives users the control of a familiar datacenter environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud.

The press release is available online on PRWeb as well as on the GoGrid Product site.

The ASCII Group held their ASCII Reseller Success Summit in Chicago, IL in June 2010 and GoGrid was there to spread the word about the GoGrid Reseller Program we have in place. And at the end of the Summit, GoGrid was awarded the “Best Channel Incentives” award!

The ASCII Success Summit was attended by about 130 IT resellers that sell into the SME market and about 30 vendors. GoGrid announced our Premier channel program that provided the resellers the opportunity to get involved with an IaaS provider that really understands their reselling business. GoGrid offers a program that provides for a true partnership between the reseller and the vendor by helping evolve their business into a cloud services model versus asking them to make wholesale changes to their business strategy as most vendors do. Our lucrative discount strategy, joint marketing incentives and deal registration programs provide the business tools that resellers need in order to make this transition into IaaS business.

The main focus of the show was Cloud Services. Most resellers were highly interested in the space but, confused as to how to go about getting a piece of this growing market segment. The overall message was that up to 30% of their legacy infrastructure and software business was going to go away in place of as a service type business. Resellers wanted to know what role they had in this market and how they were going to make money by participating.

Reid Cooper, Sr. Channel Account Manager at GoGrid, represented GoGrid at the show and helped GoGrid secure the “Best Channel Incentives” award.

The Channel Incentive Award was given to GoGrid because of the consensus of the reseller community that GoGrid had the best overall channel program and sales incentives at the show. Our 50% discount for Premier Partners, joint marketing activities investment and deal registration program combined, provided the best in class and resonated well with the reseller community.

Reid also sat on a advisory panel at the event with three other vendors including Google titled, “Cloud Consulting… The Conversation You Need to Have Now With Your Clients” which was moderated by Gennifer Biggs, Managed Services Editor of Business Solutions.

About The ASCII Group

The ASCII Group, Inc. was founded in 1984 and is the world’s oldest and largest group of independent computer solution providers and integrators. Their members provide products and services to clients ranging from small and medium businesses, to Fortune 500 companies, as well as governments and educational institutions in the United States, Canada, the UK and other countries. The ASCII community members sales are over $9.5 Billion in the U.S. alone!

The ASCII Group’s focus remains the same — providing solution providers with the tools necessary to survive and grow in the competitive technology market. These tools include leveraged purchasing programs both through major computer products distributors and direct with manufacturers; education and training; knowledge sharing amongst peers; sizeable discounts on business services such as errors and omissions/business liability insurance; and a worldwide locator which allows customers to find a local independent solution provider.

GoGrid is pleased to announce a new Cloud Management option using enStratus as a management service for GoGrid. The following Press Release describing the new offering was issued by GoGrid Partner, enStratus. enStratus is a cloud infrastructure management platform that allows for the deployment, operation and management of enterprise-class application in public and private clouds. Its multi-cloud architecture is focused on the security and high-availability of mission-critical web applications.

enStratus enables enterprises to run applications that operate with sensitive data all within a cloud infrastructure environment.

Webinar – June 23rd

enStratus is hosting a webinar on June 23rd titled: Cloud Security Best Practices from 11:30PM to 12:15 PM Central Time where you can learn how enStratus and GoGrid work together to ensure your security policies and procedures are met for your cloud computing infrastructure. Topics include:

• How can I best manage my keys for the cloud?
• Can I encrypt my data?
• If lawyers subpoena my cloud provider, can they get access to my data?
• Can I have users with varying levels of access to my infrastructure?
• Is LDAP or SAML 2.0 supported?
• What auditing is available?

Your can register for the free webinar here.

enStratus Press Release

The following press release was announced yesterday:

enStratus Extends Support for Cloud Management to GoGrid June 23 enStratus/GoGrid webinar to highlight cloud security best practices

MINNEAPOLIS, MN. (June 2, 2010) – enStratus today announced that its cloud management solution now supports GoGrid’s cloud infrastructure. The addition of GoGrid provides customers another option to manage cloud infrastructure from a unified management solution.

“As enterprises continue to adopt cloud computing infrastructures, internal policies and procedures become a larger focus,” said GoGrid CEO & Co-Founder, John Keagy. “GoGrid is excited to be working with enStratus to help meet the cloud infrastructure governance needs of our clients.”

enStratus is a cloud infrastructure management platform for deploying and operating enterprise-class applications in public and private clouds. Customers can now leverage enStratus for managing GoGrid-deployed cloud infrastructures including:

• Cloud security – With enStratus, customers gain encryption, intrusion detection and no credentials in the cloud
• Role-based security - Meet internal security policy requirements by defining custom roles with discreet levels of permissions
• Financial controls – Assign users to billing codes and track cloud resource usage
• Automated scaling, recovery and backups – Full infrastructure automation enables companies to meet service level requirements
• Unified cloud management – Clients can now manage GoGrid cloud infrastructures as well as other major public and private clouds with one unified solution

“It is critical for enStratus to support all the leading cloud infrastructures to provide a complete solution for our customers,” said David Bagley, CEO of enStratus. “Adding GoGrid to our list of supported cloud providers is a major step to meet that goal.”

enStratus is available starting today for GoGrid. For more information, contact enStratus at 612-746-3091 or visit www.enstratus.com. To learn more about cloud security best practices, register for the June 23 enStratus/GoGrid webinar at www.enstratus.com/gogrid.

We encourage you to register for the webinar as well as explore other GoGrid Partner Solutions on the GoGrid Exchange.

At GoGrid, we firmly believe that having a rich and developing Partner ecosystem is critical to not only our success but also our customers. GoGrid Partners bring an incredible amount of value-added tools and services in the form of what we call PGSIs (Partner GoGrid Server Images) and we work with them closely to ensure that our joint offerings provide as much value as possible. If you haven’t explored the GoGrid Exchange, I encourage you to do so as we have a variety of tailored solutions to meet a wide variety of needs.

Categories for PGSIs currently include: Software & Applications, Development & Testing, Disaster Recovery & Backup, Cloud Management, Security, Monitoring & Reporting and more. Also, we are actively looking for new technology-enablers in the form of Partners so if you have a SaaS or PaaS offering that you would like to potentially be included in the GoGrid Exchange, simply fill out this form and we will start you on your way. All of our current partners are listed here.

Have you used a Partner GSI? If so, every Partner Server Image has a rating and comments section so that you can Review any of the images that you use. We hope that you will provide feedback as it helps us and our partners better evaluate the usefulness of their images on GoGrid.

NEW Partner Images

The following images are NEW to the GoGrid Exchange.

• SNORT IDS/IPS  - Snort® is an open source network intrusion prevention and detection system (IDS/IPS) developed by Sourcefire. There is an additional charge of $29/month per instance of this deployed. It gets the user access to updated rules via Sourcefire. [Snort on GoGrid Exchange]
• MediaWiki - MediaWiki is a wiki package originally written for Wikipedia. It is now used by several other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and by many other wikis. MediaWiki was designed to be run on a large server farm for a website that gets millions of hits per day. [MediaWiki via BitNami on GoGrid Exchange]
• JasperServer – JasperServer Community Edition, the open source report server, built by the developers of JasperReports, the leading open source reporting library. It provides a Web and Web services based environment for reporting and dashboards. [JasperServer via BitNami on GoGrid Exchange]
• Spree – The Most Powerful and Flexible E-Commerce Platform for the Ruby Enterprise. [Spree via BitNami on GoGrid Exchange]
• Coppermine – Coppermine is a multi-purpose, full-featured web picture gallery script written in PHP using GD or ImageMagick as image library with a MySQL backend. [Coppermine via BitNami on GoGrid Exchange]
• Rubystack - Ruby on Rails is a full-stack MVC framework for database-backed web applications that is optimized for programmer happiness and sustainable productivity. It lets you write beautiful code by favoring convention over configuration. [Rubystack via BitNami on GoGrid Exchange]
• LAPPstack – It includes ready-to-run versions of Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP and phpPgAdmin and required dependencies [LAPPstack via BitNami on GoGrid Exchange]

UPDATED Partner Images

We have also UPDATED the following images:

• OpenVPN – OpenVPN Access Server is a full featured SSL VPN software solution that accommodates a wide range of configurations, including secure and granular remote access to your internal network and/ or your private cloud network resources and applications with fine-grained access control. [OpenVPN on GoGrid Exchange]
• Appistry CloudIQ – Appistry CloudIQ Platform is a comprehensive platform for delivering highly scalable, extremely reliable, and easily managed applications on private, public and hybrid clouds. [Appistry CloudIQ on GoGrid Exchange]
• SugarCRM – SugarCRM is a flexible customer relationship management solution for companies of all sizes. SugarCRM can easily be customized and integrated with other software to allow companies to build and maintain a more flexible system. [SugarCRM via BitNami on GoGrid Exchange]
• Joomla – Joomla! is an open source Content Management System with a growing and active community of more than 400,000 users. Joomla! creates multiple format sites from simple websites to complex corporate applications and allows users to manage each aspect of their website through a simple, browser-based interface. [Joomla via BitNami on GoGrid Exchange]
• DokuWiki – DokuWiki is a standards compliant, simple to use wiki mainly aimed at creating documentation of any kind. It is targeted at developer teams, workgroups, and small companies. [DokuWiki via BitNami on GoGrid Exchange]
• LAMPstack – It includes ready-to-run versions of Apache, MySQL, PHP and phpMyAdmin and required dependencies [LAMPstack via BitNami on GoGrid Exchange]
• Drupal – Drupal is a content management platform that allows an individual or community of users to easily publish, manage, and organize a wide variety of content on a website. [Drupal via BitNami on GoGrid Exchange]
• WordPress – WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. [WordPress via BitNami on GoGrid Exchange]

What other images would you find useful on the GoGrid Exchange? Leave a comment with some company or service names and we can reach out to them.

Want to see a quick list of the top 10 Cloud Computing players in the space? (And yes, GoGrid is obviously one of those otherwise I wouldn’t be mentioning this article.) Yesterday, Jeff Vance published an article titled “Ten Cloud Computing Leaders” on Datamation where he briefly describes his thoughts on the leaders in the Cloud Computing space.

As Vance writes about each Cloud provider, he breaks down his analysis into answering a few key questions:

1. Why they are a leader today
2. Why the could be on top in years to come
3. Who the Key Executives are
4. Who their Customers are

I have always found that doing comparisons of Cloud-related companies to be quite a difficult task since products and services can vary so dramatically. And, obviously, there are other factors and metrics that simply cannot be listed in these types of “summary” articles, things like hosting experience, feature-to-feature comparisons, breadth & depth of product and services offerings, etc. However, if you are looking for an organized snapshot of the current leaders, you might want to give Vance’s article a good read.

Companies listed in this top ten are:

1. Amazon
2. Salesforce.com
3. Google
4. Microsoft
5. CA
6. Rackspace
7. Eucalyptus Systems
8. Terremark
9. GoGrid
10. Rightscale

Jeff’s description and insightful analysis of GoGrid is as follows:

Why they’re a leader today: GoGrid (formerly ServePath) provides a “multi-tier, cloud computing platform that allows you to manage your cloud hosting infrastructure completely on demand through an intuitive, web interface.” The platform integrates storage, load balancing, hourly billing and a number of other features.

GoGrid is directly positioned against Amazon EC2. It differentiates itself through broader support of various Windows and Linux operating systems, lower pricing and a 100% uptime SLA.

I’m not sure how much of a competitive advantage that extra .01% of uptime is, but as you can probably guess, GoGrid cites its customer service quality and reliability as key differentiators.

Why they could be on top in years to come: Like other hosting companies on this list, GoGrid offers a range of other services – collocation, managed hosting, CDN services – to keep the lights on as its cloud computing services ramp up. The company is pursuing a hybrid cloud strategy, which makes perfect sense in the early days of cloud adoption.

Even more promising, GoGrid has focused on interoperability as a competitive differentiator. With others trying to throw walls around their platforms and sneak vendor-lock in through the cloud, GoGrid’s efforts to integrate with a range of operating systems and its acceptance of tools from vendors that, at first glance, could be considered competitors (RightScale, Tap in Systems) means that when GoGrid mentions “interoperability,” it’s not an empty promise.

Key Executive: John Keagy, CEO and co-founder, previously founded and sold several ISPs.

Customers: GoGrid claims nearly 10,000 customers, including Novell, Macy’s and SAP.

For the most part, the description and analysis is accurate, however I would like to quickly expand on some key differentiators:

• Hybrid Hosting – GoGrid offers the ability to mix and match two different types of hosting scenarios within the same product offering. Cloud (virtual) servers accomplish the horizontal and dynamic, on-demand scalability, complete with personal server images (MyGSIs) and partner server images (PGSIs) through the GoGrid Exchange. And Dedicated (physical) servers allow for cloud-like deployments of physical servers that are dedicated to a customer (helping with compliance concerns) and without costly long-term contracts. Within the same network/IP space, physical and virtual servers and appliances (like load balancers, firewalls & storage) can each be deployed and managed within GoGrid, enabling robust n-tiered infrastructure solutions.
• Service Teams – We pride ourselves on our consultative approach to working with our customers in achieving their success. Each and every GoGrid customer receives a dedicated Service Team comprising of individuals within various departments in our organization. This approach allows us to understand our customers better and help them with infrastructure solutions that truly meet their needs.
• Customer Support – We are available 24x7x365 to assist customers with support related questions. Our Sales Team is available 24×5 as well. And, we do not charge for customer support. However, if you have a particularly complex question or solution need, we do also have a Professional Services to take your infrastructure to the next level.
• Web-based Portal – Our web portal has been recognized as one of the easiest to use in the industry and deploying on-demand infrastructure literally takes only a few clicks of the mouse. If you contact our Sales Team, you can instantly get a $100 new user service credit (or if you actually made it all the way through this article, simply use “GGMS” for the same $100 promotional credit upon signup – new users only).
• Partner Exchange – Having a wide variety of partner solutions is paramount to the success of a Cloud provider and in turn to the end users. The GoGrid Exchange is updated frequently with a variety of Partner Server Images (PGSIs) and subsequent solutions.

These are just a few key points that help people differentiate us from the competition. I encourage you to give us a try and let us know what you think.

GoGrid is pleased to announce the appointment of Jeffrey Samuels as GoGrid’s new Chief Marketing Officer.

The following press release was distributed today:

GoGrid Names Jeffrey Samuels Chief Marketing Officer
Internet Infrastructure Executive to Drive Cloud Hosting Market Adoption

San Francisco, CA – May 20, 2010 – GoGrid, a leading Cloud Infrastructure and Hybrid Hosting Provider, today announced that it has named Jeffrey Samuels as Chief Marketing Officer. Samuels brings a proven executive track record in marketing, sales and product management to GoGrid’s leadership team. In this role, Samuels will be responsible for managing and expanding GoGrid’s cloud hosting businesses and driving market adoption at a global level.

Jeff’s impressive energy, vision, and track record make him a great addition to GoGrid,” said GoGrid CEO & Co-Founder, John Keagy. “His experience is uniquely anchored in scaling cloud-based business-to-business product lines. As GoGrid continues to innovate and increase market share in the cloud infrastructure market, Jeff’s leadership will be vital.”

Samuels has spent the majority of his career in the Internet infrastructure and application arena. Prior to the GoGrid appointment, he served as GM and Vice President at Neustar (NYSE: NSR) where he was responsible for product success and achieving revenue targets in Neustar’s Internet Infrastructure Services Group, one of the fastest growing business units in the company. Samuels came to Neustar through its acquisition of UltraDNS where he was GM and EVP of Marketing – Neustar purchased UltraDNS in 2006 for $61.8M. At UltraDNS he was charged with building, educating and selling the enterprise market on what can now be regarded as one of the first commercially successful cloud-based infrastructure solutions. As a key member of the UltraDNS executive team, Samuels drove the company from pre-launch to become the number one provider of Managed DNS and traffic management solutions to thousands of customers across multiple industry verticals.

I’m very excited to be joining GoGrid,” said Samuels. “GoGrid was instrumental in creating the Cloud Infrastructure market and continues to enable businesses to deploy and manage complex infrastructure easily and securely in the cloud. GoGrid has benefited from over nine years of hosting and colocation leadership and is truly pioneering the migration to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). I look forward to working with the GoGrid team, customers and partners as we scale both this company and the market to new levels.”

Samuels earned a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University. He currently is a key advisor and member of the leadership group of the Learning Center Program, an initiative of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation that fosters parental involvement in low income San Francisco Bay Area school districts.

About GoGrid

GoGrid is a Global Leader in Cloud & Hybrid Infrastructure hosting. GoGrid enables sysadmins, developers, and IT professionals to create, deploy, and control free f5 load balanced cloud infrastructures and complex hosted virtual server networks with full root access/administrative server control. GoGrid physical and virtual server instances maintain industry standard specifications with no requirement to learn proprietary standards. Deploying GoGrid infrastructure takes minutes via a web control panel or GoGrid’s API. GoGrid gives users the control of a familiar datacenter environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud. For more information, please visit: http://www.GoGrid.com.

The press release is available online on PRWeb as well as on the GoGrid product site.

Yesterday, Lead411.com published their list of the fastest growing technology companies in San Francisco and GoGrid was chosen as a winner. Lead411 is a provider of information, news and research about U.S. companies and their executives and they track company news in order to alert customers about venture financing, new hires, hiring plans and other information.

The list of San Francisco companies also receiving the award is impressive, including names such as:

• AdBrite
• BitTorrent
• Clickability
• Cloudmark
• Federated Media Publishing
• Jaspersoft
• Mashable
• Mashery
• Mulesoft
• New Relic
• OpenTable
• Posterous
• Reddit
• Seesmic
• SlideRocket
• SocialMedia Networks
• Stitcher
• Technorati
• GigaOM
• Twitter
• UserVoice
• Yammer
• Yelp
• …and many others

We at GoGrid appreciate the recognition:

More Info about Lead411 & their Selection Process (from their release)

Background

Each day, the Lead411 research team scours through 600+ press releases and business articles including venture capital fundings, company launches, new office openings, customer press releases, etc. This information has given insight to which are the fastest growing companies in the U.S. Their “Hottest Companies” awards have been created to recognize these fast growing companies in different geographic regions. This particular list originally started with over 900 companies and it has been narrowed down to the top 122.

We have been tracking fast companies for our customers for the past 10 years,” said Tom Blue, CEO of Lead411, “and we felt it was important to recognize these growing brands publicly… specifically in the Bay Area.”

How the Winners were Chosen

First, all companies must by in either the Software, Wireless, Internet, or Media industry, have less than $100M in yearly revenues, and be within San Francisco or the East Bay metropolitan area. From there, each company must meet one or more of the following requirements;

• 100% increase in revenues over the past 3 years; OR
• $5M+ in funding in the past 2 years; OR
• 2X traffic gains to their website in the past 12 months AND over 1M unique visitors a month.

Congratulations to all of the other recipients.