enStratus Extends Enterprise Cloud Management Leadership with New Release

Web Hosting Services – Minneapolis, MN — enStratus announced today the latest release of its cloud management solution that extends its leadership in enterprise cloud management. This new release includes a new configuration management user interface, support for leading configuration management systems and extended on-premises capabilities.

“In comparison to our competitor’s proprietary configuration management systems, enStratus has always supported a variety of configuration management options, including both native Chef and Puppet. With this release, we build upon that support with new capabilities aimed at making it even easier for enterprises to choose which configuration management tools are right for them,” commented James Urquhart, VP of Product Strategy. “This approach, as well as expanded on-premises deployment options, will enable enterprises to better meet their cloud management needs across their private and public clouds.”
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Hosting Provider Webzilla to Receive PCI DSS Data Security Standard

Web Hosting Services – Aventura, FL  – Webzilla is proud to announce they have received the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) data security standard.
Webzilla has successfully undergone an audit and received version 1.2.1 certification. The company confirmed that the hardware, software and business processes fully met the security requirements. Thus, financial institutions, which must comply with PCI DSS, may now choose Webzilla for their hosting needs.
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Hosting.com Expands Server and Application Performance Monitoring Offerings

Web Hosting Services – DENVER – Hosting.com, a leading provider of enterprise-class, cloud-based application availability and recovery solutions, today announced the launch of Application Performance Monitoring. The solution helps drive the availability and performance requirements for mission-critical business applications by giving Hosting.com customers deep visibility of the infrastructure stack allowing a proactive approach to managing applications.

Application Performance Monitoring enhances Hosting.com’s current monitoring solution suite which also includes Port Monitoring, Server Performance Monitoring, and Remote Synthetic Transaction Monitoring. The solution suite provides a comprehensive view of enterprise business systems and gives customers the ability to customize thresholds for system alerts so action can be taken before issues impact business. Customers can then use the historical data and extensive libraries of metrics to make data-driven decisions about their infrastructure.
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Chicago Companies Synchronize Social Media & Cloud Computing

Web Hosting Services - Chicago, IL – Two leading Chicago creative & consulting agencies, Mix Media Solutions LLC and GreenCanyon LLC, have merged to form Kambio Group LLC: a modern combination of social media expertise and business technology solutions. Kambio Group specializes in brand and social media unification, technology strategy, streamlining business architecture and lowering costs of technology infrastructure through cloud computing.

Edward Swiderski, founder of GreenCanyon and former winner of ABC’s reality show “The Bachelorette,” says that the merger fuses traditional technology with disruptive innovation. “We have the business infrastructure to support enterprise customers, while still operating with a culture of entrepreneurialism,” says Swiderski, “Kambio focuses on agility and flexibility rather than pushing paper and red tape—our customers deploy in weeks, not months.”
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HostGator Partners with Website Builder BaseKit

Web Hosting Services – London, UK – BaseKit, the online website builder, has been launched by HostGator; enabling their SMB’s to build and manage their own website with the state of the art technology. The hosting giant, based in Houston, Texas, is offering BaseKit to both new and existing customers.

As one of the fastest growing private companies in America, HostGator is always seeking innovative products and services to enrich its customers’ experiences and surpass their expectations. BaseKit has received international acclaim as an all-in-one website builder that lets SMB’s build a site that “looks as good as most commercial sites” (The Sunday Times, 23 Oct 2011), so it’s therefore no surprise that both companies are working together to make high-quality website creation as easy as possible for small businesses around the world.

According to Brent Oxley (Founder and Chairman at HostGator.com) the decision to offer an advanced but easy to use website builder was based on the company’s regular engagements with its customer-base:

“We have spent a long time researching numerous site builders and talking with our clients about what they needed in a website builder. We received a lot of insight from our community and they asked for an easy to use site builder, with the ability to handle the more advanced aspects such as widgets, popular apps and full css/html control.”

All of HostGator’s 7 Million+ domains will be able to access BaseKit from within the company’s control panel. Brent Oxley continues:

“We needed a site builder that both the most novice and most experienced users could find fit their needs perfectly. We found BaseKit to be exactly what we were looking for. The site builder is extremely easy to use for everyone that wants to build their own website, yet it has the advanced features to cater for our more advanced users and designers.”

The plan to roll out BaseKit to HostGator brands in other countries is still in progress, but can be expected very soon.

BaseKit’s CEO Juan Lobato analyses the partnership from a strategic point of view:

“The timing of the partnership with HostGator was perfect for us. Although we’ve been busy focusing on the BaseKit roll-out in Latin America and EMEA countries, we were always on the lookout for a strong partner in the US too. HostGator gives us customer volume and brand recognition that is an excellent starting point for both future partnerships and our presence in the US. Both teams have done a stellar job on the smooth and quick integration of the BaseKit product onto HostGator’s infrastructure. I am sure that a true partnership like this will result in commercial success.” Read more

SoftLayer Appoints New Chief Financial Officer

Web Hosting Services – DALLAS — SoftLayer Technologies today announced the appointment of Walter Z. Berger as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), effective in March. A seasoned finance and accounting executive, Mr. Berger will help guide and oversee the company’s continued market leadership and financial growth. He brings more than 30 years of experience to SoftLayer, including extensive operational experience as a CFO with several large, publicly held companies.

“Bringing Walter on board amplifies and extends the deep base of experience and expertise of our executive management team,” said Lance Crosby, CEO for SoftLayer. “His proven track record and leadership will be invaluable as we embark on our next phase of growth. We’re delighted to have such a high caliber executive join our team.”

Prior to joining SoftLayer Technologies, Mr. Berger was the CFO and executive vice president of Leap Wireless International Inc. From 2006 to 2008, Mr. Berger served in senior management roles at CBS Corporation, including as executive vice president and chief financial officer for CBS Radio, a division of CBS Corporation. Prior to joining CBS Radio, Mr. Berger served as executive vice president and CFO and a director of Emmis Communications from 1999 to 2005. From 1996 to 1997, Mr. Berger served as executive vice president and CFO of LG&E Energy Corporation and in 1997 was promoted to group president of the Energy Marketing Division, where he served until 1999. Early in his career, Mr. Berger held a number of financial and operating management roles in the manufacturing, service and energy fields. Mr. Berger began his career in audit at Arthur Andersen in 1977. Mr. Berger is a certified public accountant and holds a Bachelor of Arts in business administration from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Read more

Denver-based company Eases Customer Fears of the “Cloud”

Web Hosting Services – DENVER, CO – Many business owners continue to be wary of cloud computing and question its reliability, its benefits, and its true costs. In response, FORETHOUGHT.net has launched SilverLining™, an enterprise-level cloud computing solution with redundant back-up, fault tolerance and disaster recovery services. Scalable to customer needs, the suite of services frees companies to focus on their business, not their technology.

“With our solution, businesses can have the infrastructure of a Fortune 500 corporation without the overhead and costs associated with it,” says Jawaid Bazyar, president of FORETHOUGHT.net. “We developed SilverLining to provide our customers with a full-service voice and data solution that saves them hundreds or thousands of dollars a month. It’s hard enough to run a company without worrying about technology. It is our goal to make complex technology decisions simple.”

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UK2 Completes Server Upgrades Ahead of Schedule

Web Hosting Services – London, England – UK2.net recently unveiled their new range of lightning fast dedicated servers to the hosting market. The updated servers offer improved speed, storage and power across the board and will see them competing to be market leaders in what is already a fiercely competitive industry. The plan was to have the upgrade work finished before the summer but UK2 have completed the upgrade and have already launched their new range.

The top of the range server, the impressive UK2G3200, comes with all the bells and whistles including; 2x Xeon Six Core 2.4 Ghz, 32GB DDR3, 4x 1TB HD SATA in RAID 10 and a 1Gbit connection with 100TB Bandwidth and starts at a reasonable £269 / month. The rest of the server range has also been upgraded and these start from only £49 / month. The full range of dedicated servers can be found here.

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Cogitate Selects Online Tech’s SOC 2 Compliant Michigan Colocation

Web Hosting Services – Ann Arbor, Michigan – Cogitate, Inc., a provider of online backup services including the 9G BACKUP™ solution, has recently partnered with Online Tech for colocation services. Online Tech, the Midwest’s premier data center operator, offers Cogitate a local, cost-effective solution for their online backup services.

As Cogitate was preparing to launch their new 9G BACKUP™ product in October 2011, the company needed to find a local and cost-effective data center. “One of Online Tech’s data centers was located close to our company employees and had a good price point. We decided that Online Tech would be our best choice for our first data center location,” said George Loescher, President of Cogitate, Inc.

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Parallels Announces Finalists for its Third Annual Partner Awards

Web Hosting Services – RENTON, WA — Parallels®, the hosting and cloud services enablement leader, today announced the finalists for its Third Annual Partner Awards. Winners will be officially announced and recognized at Parallels Summit 2012, February 14-16, 2012, at the Gaylord Palms Hotel and Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Anticipation for the event continues to build, as more than 1,500 attendees, from leading hosting companies, communication service providers, independent software vendors (ISVs), value-added resellers (VARs), technology industry analysts and journalists will converge in Orlando for the three-day conference. Parallels Summit 2012 is an unrivaled opportunity to build relationships with the leading players in hosting, while gaining valuable strategies for selling, upselling, reselling, bundling and delivering a wide range of profitable cloud services to Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs), the fastest growing segment in cloud adoption.

The Parallels Partner Awards recognize outstanding yearly achievements by partners who utilize and innovate with Parallels products, solutions, services and ecosystem to increase their revenue, with special attention given to those partners who have excelled in the rapidly-expanding small and medium business (SMB) cloud services market.

“Parallels Partner Awards distinguish the most innovative and successful hosters, service providers and ISVs,” said Jack Zubarev, President of Marketing and Alliances at Parallels. “The nominated organizations have not only positioned themselves well for future growth through their operational strategies, but also demonstrate the advantages of partnering with Parallels and our unmatched combination of expertise, software and ecosystem.”

The award categories and 2011 finalists are:

New Partner of the Year – A partner whose first year in the Parallels Partner Program is highlighted by strong revenue growth and innovative use of Parallels products.

Finalists:
Elabs; Limestone Networks; UPC Broadband

Excellence in Innovation – A partner who has demonstrated innovative use of Parallels technologies in the areas of services, marketing and technical creativity.

Finalists:
Apptix; Otsuka Corporation; Outsourcery

APS ISV/Service of the Year – An Independent Software Vendor (ISV) who has utilized the Application Packaging Standard (APS) to deliver a cloud-based application on the Parallels platform, providing a stellar end-user experience and driving accelerated run-rate growth for Parallels Service Provider Partners.

Finalists:
Ecwid; MXSweep; Symantec

Excellence in Shared Web Hosting Services and Parallels Plesk Panel – A partner that exemplifies a strong commitment to Parallels Plesk Panel technology as demonstrated by: success and creativity in shared web hosting; a strong and growing base of satisfied customers; and deep knowledge and expertise in Parallels products.

Finalists:
Hostalia; MostHost; ViUX Systems

Excellence in Messaging & Collaboration Services and Parallels Automation – A partner that illustrates a strong commitment to Parallels Automation technology through successful and creative deployments of Messaging & Collaboration services, as demonstrated by a strong and growing base of satisfied customers.

Finalists:
KPN; Netstream AG; Ride Co., Ltd

Excellence in Virtualized Infrastructure Services and Virtualization – A partner that has demonstrated commitment to Parallels Virtualization through successful and creative Virtualized Infrastructure Services, resulting in a vibrant and growing base of satisfied customers.

Finalists:
Ipeer AB; KickassVPS.com; ServInt

Emerging Region Partner of the Year – A partner in an emerging market with a strong commitment to Parallels products combined with demonstrated growth and an increased base of satisfied customers.

Finalists:
Kazakhtelecom; MTN Cameroon; PacHosting; UOL Diveo

Cloud Leadership Award – Signifies a partner who has demonstrated leadership in the cloud space, based on their innovative use of Parallels technologies for the delivery of cloud applications and services.

Finalists:
AppRiver; intergenia AG; UberGlobal

President’s Award – A distinguished partner among the Parallels Partner community that has created significant business and market impact; exemplifies high-level commitment to delivering Parallels products and services to customers; and sustains a high level of sales and customer growth, customer satisfaction and innovation.

Finalists:
GMO US; HostEurope; LocaWeb

There’s still time to register Parallels Summit 2012. To register, and for information about the agenda, training and certification sessions, please visit http://www.parallels.com/summit/2012/. Read more

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