Gawkwire: Web Hosting and Internet News Resource

Rackspace Web Hosting Garners IDG Computerworld Honors

2009-07-31T09:15:00-04:00

San Antonio, TX (The Hosting News) Managed web hosting and IT services firm, Rackspace Managed Hosting, has been selected by IDG Computerworld as one of the top workplaces for information technology (IT) professionals.

This honor is part of the weekly IT publication’s 16th annual Best Places to Work in IT survey, which was published in the June 15 issue of Computerworld and online at Computerworld.com.

Scot Finnie, Editor in Chief of Computerworld noted, "To be among the Best Places to Work in IT, it's not enough just to seek out and hire the most talented IT people, offer them competitive pay and provide great benefits. The organizations that made this year's Best Places to Work list sustain a dynamic work environment in which IT professionals keep their hands on the latest technologies and work on projects that are business critical. In the months and years ahead, IT is going to become a key accelerator of business growth."
Since 1994, Computerworld’s annual “Best Places to Work in IT” feature has ranked the top 100 work environments for technology professionals, based on a comprehensive questionnaire regarding company offerings in categories such as benefits, diversity, career development, training and retention. This year Computerworld surveyed more than 27,000 IT workers for the list, and their responses factored heavily in determining the rankings.

Lanham Napier, President and CEO of Rackspace remarked, “Fanatical Support has been a cornerstone of Rackspace since the beginning, both internally and externally. Growth opportunities and an extensive open door policy are just a few of the diverse ways that Rackspace ensures its employees have a rewarding workplace. Racker pride and satisfaction has a direct impact on excellent customer service.”

Rackspace’s dedication to being one of the best places to work -- in IT and across the company -- has been a focus since the company’s founding that has only grown over the years. Through Quarterly Open Book and Town Hall meetings to an extensive open door policy where even top executives work from cubicles, Rackspace provides an open and communicative environment that empowers employees, who are known as Rackers. Rackspace conducts regular "engagement" employee surveys to gauge satisfaction levels and gather Racker opinions on subjects such as whether or not they have the ability to do what they are best at every day.

Rackspace Hosting delivers computing-as-a-service, integrating the industry's best technologies into a flexible service offering, making computing more reliable and affordable. A trusted partner to companies of all sizes, Rackspace enables IT departments to be more effective. Rackspace is distinguished by its award-winning Fanatical Support. Rackspace is recognized as one of FORTUNE Magazine's 100 Best companies to work for in the US, ranking number 32 on the 2008 list. Rackspace's portfolio of hosted IT services includes managed hosting, email hosting and cloud hosting.

To learn more about Rackspace Managed Hosting, please visit: www.rackspace.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/rackspace_web_hosting_garners_idg_computerworld_honors.html

The Planet Dedicated Hosting, Bundles Parallels Services

2009-07-17T09:24:00-04:00

Herndon, VA (The Hosting News) Web hosting provider, The Planet, is providing an automation and virtualization special bundled offering that combines Parallels Plesk Panel, together with Parallels Plesk Billing.

The promotion also delivers to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) a free bundled promotion that includes Parallels Panel with 100 domains, in addition to The Planet’s Alpha Monitoring service. The promotion, which launches July 6, 2009, offers the Parallels bundle free of charge, for one-month. It is available on all dedicated servers, and includes 24/7 server and service monitoring.

Urvish Vashi, general manager of The Planet's Dedicated Servers line of business noted, ''The Planet and Parallels are committed to helping resellers increase hosting revenues. Few companies are in a position to offer a promotion of this significance. Combining the power of Parallels Panel and Parallels Billing, with The Planet's enterprise-quality data centers and network, ensures our reseller channel has access to the most competitive and the best technology available today.''

The promotion provides The Planet's reseller channel with a dedicated hosting solution targeted specifically to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Details for the reseller and SMB promotions can be found at: www.theplanet.com/parallels-plesk-offer. The robust solution combines Parallels Plesk Panel - an integrated hosting automation control panel software, with Parallels Plesk Billing. Parallels Panel is the only control panel that gives users direct availability to hundreds of applications via the Application Packaging Standard (APS).Parallels Plesk Billing automates billing operations and is designed specifically for any business that needs recurring billing support - from taking orders, provisioning services, managing invoices and collecting payments.

Each server automation application shares a seamless interface, ensuring end-users can easily navigate and perform tasks quickly. The advanced bundle gives resellers and their customers an intuitive, easy-to-use Web-based managed hosting solution.

Jack Zubarev, President, Service Provider Division, Parallels remarked, ''The Parallels Plesk Panel bundle presents the ideal path to generate IT revenue, particularly in today's difficult economic environment. Parallels and The Planet created the dedicated server promotion to ensure resellers are armed with the best dedicated hosting service, at the best price-point. These applications are designed to allow anyone to setup their system in minutes and begin selling immediately.''

The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 20,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 17.8 million Web sites worldwide. Customers have the power to choose from the broadest range of hosting solutions in the industry, from dedicated servers, Managed Dedicated Servers, Northstar Managed Hosting and data center colocation, all backed by 24x7x365 support. With the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class service, backed by
state-of-the-art data centers and an enterprise-class network, The Planet turns IT into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to grow their businesses.

Parallels is a worldwide leader in virtualization and automation software that optimizes computing for consumers, businesses, and cloud services providers across all major hardware, operating systems, and virtualization platforms. Founded in 1999, Parallels is a fast-growing company with 700 employees in North America, Europe, and Asia.

For more information about Parallels, please visit: www.parallels.com.

To learn more about The Planet, please visit: www.theplanet.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/the_planet_dedicated_hosting_bundles_parallels_services.html

SoftLayer Supports Michael Jackson Memorial Service

2009-07-16T00:29:00-04:00

Plano, TX (The Hosting News) As a trusted partner to support high-quality live streaming of the global event, it is believed that the memorial service's viewership was second only to the inauguration of President Barack Obama, also streamed by SoftLayer and Highwinds.

Ric Moseley, Vice President of Engineering at SoftLayer noted, ''It would be enough of an accomplishment just to handle an event of this scale. But being able to handle it without any interruption to regular operations really proves the robustness of our architecture and network. We are proud to have been a part of such a historic occasion, and that customers like Highwinds keep coming back to us for our expertise.''

SoftLayer provisioned more than 400 servers for the one-day netcast, demonstrating the service providers' massive and dynamic scalability. SoftLayer streamed more than 45Gb of event coverage for the day, leading to a one-day high of 100Gb total traffic between its three data centers, with no reported outages or performance issues.

More and more people are turning to the Internet instead of television as their video source for important live events. After media and social networking sites experienced outages and overloading on the day of Jackson's passing, it was expected his memorial service would generate record levels of attention.

George Antoniou, Vice President of Operations at Highwinds explained, ''We knew from our mutual success streaming the Obama Inauguration that SoftLayer was the ideal partner for this event.''

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/softlayer_dedicated_servers_support_michael_jackson_memorial_ser.html

Web Hosting Company, Superb Internet, Opens Virginia Data Center

2009-07-16T09:22:00-04:00

Honolulu, HI (The Hosting News) Haralds Jass, President and CEO of Superb Internet remarked, ''Our Springfield data center has been designed to Superb's standards of excellence for a world-class data center that is efficient, reliable, and secure. The addition of this new data center will ensure Superb's customers will have plenty of space for future expansion as our customers' business grows with us.''

This new addition, DCA3 compliments its two existing data centers located in McLean, VA and Seattle, WA. Superb's McLean, VA data center, DCA2, is at 90% capacity - due to continued strong demand for businesses to outsource their data center, dedicated server and bandwidth needs, especially in the current economic climate, where partnering with Superb brings not only cost savings, but also added quality of service and reliability for businesses mission-critical online presence. As such, DCA3 is being open just in time for Superb to have capacity to continue growing its dedicated and colocated customer base on the east coast.

Superb Internet invested significant resources to ensure this facility has optimal network connectivity, with direct access to major fibers with fully redundant systems which include 8 parallel UPS units, 2 parallel redundant 1.25MW diesel generators, and over 200 tons of AC cooling, expandable to over 500 tons.

The new facility will accommodate the growing demand for Superb Internet's dedicated server and colocation services, coinciding with the launch of its new professional services division, which offers customers a full spectrum of advanced hosting solutions including: managed back up, proactive monitoring, scalability and capacity planning, disaster recovery, clustering, and high availability solutions. Superb attributes their continued success to the combination of offering high-performance servers with the superior connectivity and unparalleled customer support that it has been well known for since 1996.

As with all Superb data center locations, the Springfield facility is staffed 24x7x365 by experienced, certified systems and network engineers supporting multi-OS server infrastructure solutions, including high-availability configurations and application hosting.

Since 1996, Superb Internet has been consistently rated as one of the very best web hosts by all web host rating agencies, such as Web Hosting Magazine, in all areas, especially customer support and reseller services. Superb Internet provides a complete range of managed web hosting solutions, from virtual shared web hosting, through dedicated and managed services, and up to high-volume, mission-critical, high-availability, geographically-dispersed cluster solutions. Superb's core focus is customer service, and continuous service improvement, as a part of its commitment to staying ''Ahead of the Rest.'' Superb Internet has its own data centers staffed 24x7x365 in McLean, VA, Springfield, VA, and Seattle, WA, and its own coast-to-coast IP backbone. Superb's headquarters is located in Honolulu, HI.

For more information about Superb Internet Corp., please visit www.superb.net.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/web_hosting_company_superb_internet_opens_virginia_data_center.html

FAQ: What the smart grid means to you

2009-07-10T09:40:00-04:00

(cnet) The smart grid follows the footsteps of the Internet and the interstate highway system--they are giant investments in infrastructure. It's not so much a single thing as it is a goal to give the electricity system a digital makeover to make it more efficient and reliable.

Governments and utilities around the world are devoting billions of dollars to lay new transmission lines and make the electricity network operate more like the computer networks we access every day. Big tech vendors and hundreds of start-ups are jockeying for prominence in the smart grid.

The buzz reflects how important reliable, affordable, and cleaner energy is to our modern lifestyle and economy. But what does it mean for individuals? And what technologies make up the smart grid? To give you a clue on what the smart-grid fuss is all about, we offer this FAQ. ...Go to source

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/faq_what_the_smart_grid_means_to_you.html

Web Hosting Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Platform, Astro, at Layered Tech

2009-07-03T09:26:00-04:00

Plano, TX (The Hosting News) In addition to Windows Server 2008, Layered Tech offers the broadest range of high-performance, secure Linux and Unix operating systems in the industry, so customers leveraging the speed and flexibility of Astro can choose the OS that best meets their needs and provision the server almost instantaneously.

Terrance Bush, COO and CIO of Layered Tech remarked, ''By adding Windows Server 2008 to our rapid deployment server offerings, customers can stay current with the latest offerings from Microsoft, explore new features with the .NET product offering and leverage a rich web server environment that is more robust and feature-driven than previous versions of IIS. We continue to evaluate the latest and greatest server technologies to determine what will best meet our customers' needs and support their business goals. We're excited to make Windows Server 2008 available within our rapid deployment service offering, provide our customers a wide variety of robust operating system options, and deliver powerful servers in less than two hours after selection.''

With Windows Server 2008, customers can develop, deliver and manage rich user experiences and applications, provide a highly secure network infrastructure, and increase technological efficiency and value within their organizations. Astro displays server inventory in real-time and enables near instantaneous server provisioning so Layered Tech customers can easily configure their server, complete the purchase and have it available for use within 90 minutes.

The Windows Server 2008 editions currently available via Astro include:

    * Data Center Edition: an enterprise-class platform for deploying business-critical applications on medium and large servers;
    * Standard Edition: the most robust Windows Server operating system to date due to its increased reliability, flexibility and control;
    * Enterprise Edition: an enterprise-class platform for deploying business-critical applications.

Through Astro, customers can quickly customize their rapid deployment servers with a wide range of offerings, including the option to deploy IIS, Plesk Control Panel, Virtual Firewall Solutions and DEFCON bundled managed services. And with Encompass, Layered Tech's centralized client management portal, customers can manage their account, request support, reboot servers and access other critical information such as bandwidth graphs, alerts and notifications.

Layered Tech launched Astro in January 2009 in its DataBank data center located in Dallas and continues to broaden the autonomous platform so customers can take advantage of additional services within minutes, not hours or even days. It plans to expand Astro into its Cedar Falls, Iowa, and Chicago facilities in the near future. Customers can access Astro and buy servers directly through Layered Tech's web site and with an open API created by Layered Tech, partners can display inventory and coordinate sales in real-time from their own Web sites.

Layered Technologies is a leading global provider of managed dedicated hosting, on-demand virtualization/cloud computing and web services. By providing high-quality technology, infrastructure and support, Layered Tech enables customers to eliminate capital expenses and save on operating costs while focusing on core business issues. Layered Tech's scalable infrastructure powers millions of sites and Internet-enabled applications including e-commerce, software as a service (SaaS), content distribution and more. Our clients range from leading-edge Web 2.0 startups, successful mid-sized enterprises and some the world's largest consultancy and integration firms.

For more information about Layered Technologies, please visit: www.LayeredTech.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/web_hosting_microsoft_windows_server_2008_platform_astro_at_laye.html