The Web Hosting News

[The Web Hosting News]

NetApp, a storage and data management solutions provider, yesterday announced the release of StorageGRID 9.0 software, enabling organizations to adapt to data growth, manage big content, cut costs, and better share information.

The company states that StorageGRID software combined with its E-Series storage platform is designed to manage petabyte-scale distributed repositories of images, video, and records for enterprises and service providers. With the release of StorageGRID 9.0, it is the first major storage company to include support for the Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) open standard that specifies a protocol for self-provisioning, administering, and accessing cloud storage. Building on its history of industry partnerships and standards support, the company provides native multiprotocol functionality to support a wide range of protocols, including Network File System (NFS), Common Internet File System (CIFS), RESTful HTTP, and, now, CDMI.

It further states that StorageGRID combined with E-Series is the foundation for the NetApp Distributed Content Repository solution that scales to hundreds of petabytes with billions of records across hundreds of sites in a single name space. NetApp E-Series offers flexible, high-performance, and very dense storage ideal for big data applications. The NetApp Distributed Content Repository solution based on StorageGRID and E-Series supports a single, unified repository for data with enforceable metadata-driven granular retention policies across multiple locations. Enterprises benefit from secure, large-scale, and long-term distributed repositories with predictable and timely access to data.

The company mentions that StorageGRID 9.0 enables the NetApp Distributed Content Repository solution to provide:

• Scalable multivendor repository strategies with support for the SNIA CDMI standard that enables the creation, retrieval, management, and deletion of data in the cloud
• Simplified enterprise data retrieval by storing hundreds of petabytes and billions of datasets in a single logical container
• Reduced data center space requirements with industry-leading storage density
• Lower costs through secure large-scale distributed repositories for unstructured data
• Improved business agility through scalable multisite content repositories

It claims that in today’s era of big data, having access to the right clinical data at the necessary time is one of the challenges facing the healthcare industry. Medical organizations are looking at how to best address the rapid growth of medical images and other digital content, while adhering to privacy rules, providing access to data at remote sites, and maintaining regulatory compliance. Many of these providers turn to Iron Mountain, a Service Provider Partner that uses the company’s technology, to provide their clinicians with long-term and predictable access to data and to consolidate diverse data sources into a unified cloud environment.

“As the amount and types of data grow in this new big data world, technologies like CDMI help our customers manage not only raw growth but also the increasing pressure to leverage data to gain insight across ever more distributed environments,” said Rich Clifton, Senior Vice President, Solutions and Integrations Group, NetApp.

“Our healthcare customers ask us to help them deal with their rising storage volumes, as well as manage the retention and access for their medical imaging data,” said Ken Rubin, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Healthcare, Iron Mountain Incorporated. “In response to this, we offer a managed service that provides the dual benefit of controlling their storage costs while improving their ability to recover from a disaster. Our service, powered by StorageGRID coupled with the E-Series platform, enables us to deliver our customers cost-effective, long-term storage without compromising security or access.”

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Layered Technologies, Inc., a provider of on-demand IT infrastructure, recently announced that it has acquired NEW WORLD APPS, Inc., which specializes in secure private cloud and secure community cloud solutions for federal, state and local governments. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The company articulates that with experience providing secure cloud and hosting services for the U.S. Intelligence Community, U.S. law enforcement, the Department of Defense, and most U.S. federal civilian agencies, NEW WORLD APPS helps secure sensitive government data around the clock. Additionally, NEW WORLD APPS has a strong commercial business, with some of the world’s largest enterprises depending on the company to securely manage and protect their most critical corporate IT solutions on both SaaS and traditional models.

It avers that the federal hosting and cloud market is a high-growth opportunity for the company based on the aggressive federal mandates to reduce IT spending. The Federal Cloud Computing Strategy, written by the U.S. CIO in February 2011, estimated that $20 billion of the federal government’s $80 billion in IT spending has potential to move to the cloud. The Cloud First Policy, instituted as part of this strategy, requires federal agencies to evaluate safe, secure cloud computing options before making any new IT investments. The Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative targets consolidating at least 800 data centers by 2015, which should also drive significant growth in hosting and cloud services.

“The acquisition of NEW WORLD APPS is extremely strategic to Layered Tech because it gives us an immediate and meaningful presence in the federal and public-sector markets, which complements our compliant hosting leadership position in the financial payment card industry, healthcare and SaaS markets,” said Layered Tech Chairman and CEO Jack Finlayson. “NEW WORLD APPS is a highly respected company that is trusted with some of our nation’s most sensitive data. They have outstanding customer credentials, proven FISMA-compliant and secure hosting and cloud capabilities, and many long-standing partnerships with ISVs and SaaS providers that serve both the public and commercial markets.”

“Layered Tech’s expertise in the PCI- and HIPAA-compliant cloud and hosting markets along with NEW WORLD APPS’ federal FISMA hosting experience makes this a perfect combination and will result in a compelling platform to achieve rapid growth,” said John Streeten, President and CEO of NEW WORLD APPS, Inc. “Layered Tech’s scale and investment will broaden our federal offerings and provide the financial strength to help our customers and ISV partners grow successfully.”

“Layered Tech has invested heavily to expand its compliant and secure cloud and hosting capabilities, which has resulted in establishing themselves as the leader in the commercial compliant-hosting market,” said Ben Bisconti, Managing Director of Accel-KKR, an investor in Layered Tech. “We are extremely excited that this acquisition will further expand Layered Tech’s leadership position in compliant hosting by adding FISMA capabilities, and importantly, allow Layered Tech to drive even greater growth by participating in the federal market.”

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DiscountASP.NET, a Windows Hosting provider, today officially announced launching hosted Team Foundation Server (TFS) Proxy servers as a free service for its TFS hosting customers. In addition, the company announced the availability of TFS Proxy servers in two new global locations – USA East Coast and South America. It currently offers hosted TFS Proxy servers in five geographical regions – in the USA West Coast, USA East Coast, Europe, Asia and South America.

The company avers that this free service allows hosted TFS customers with developer team members that are located far from the company’s data centers to improve their productivity. TFS Proxy is a caching proxy server that caches local copies of source control files. By accessing the proxy server located in closer proximity to the developer, productivity can improve from speed enhancements.

“We are committed to helping Microsoft developers be more productive through our hosting solutions,” said Takeshi Eto, VP Marketing and Business Development at DiscountASP.NET. “Globally dispersed development teams are a growing trend and we see this first hand with our TFS hosting service. We received feedback about latency issues from developers located farther away from our data centers and we wanted to help improve these developers experience.”

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Future Hosting, an internet solutions provider serving SMBs and enterprises and developer of Future Engineer, recently announced its expansion into a new Miami data center facility, a move aimed at broadening the company’s global footprint and creating an entry point into the rapidly emerging Latin American market.

The company states that the Miami facility, where it is leasing space for nearly 600 servers, features more than 30,000 square feet of enclosed space, and more than 20,000 square feet of raised floor space. The structure itself is positioned outside of Miami’s 100 year flood zone, and is engineered to withstand a category five hurricane. The facility is equipped with fully redundant N+1 architecture, including in its power, cooling and network infrastructure specifications. The facility also boasts world-class onsite security to prevent unauthorized physical entry.

It further states that the company’s complete portfolio of services, including Virtual Private Servers, Dedicated Servers, Hybrid Servers and Future Engineer, will be immediately available at the new facility. The company’s global services support team, which continuously operates from four separate international time zones, will monitor the new facility’s network operations. In addition to the new Miami facility, it operates out of data centers in Chicago, Dallas, London, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. The company’s unique international footprint gives it a significant competitive edge and allows it to attract multi-national clients who require globally-accessible hosting services. It plans to continue its global expansion in the coming months.

The company articulates that it is the developer of Future Engineer, a technical support automation system designed to automate time consuming server configuration and repair tasks on Virtual Private Servers (VPS). Future Engineer allows clients to receive a greater level of technical support than is available when technicians spend their time performing routine or basic maintenance tasks. With Future Engineer, technicians are free to spend their time offering a level of technical support that is unrivaled and otherwise unaffordable.

“We chose Miami in large part because of its important proximity to our new Latin American clients. Miami itself is the principal landing point for most of the fiber servicing Central and South America. Our new facility offers fast, secure international connectivity at competitive prices that will empower our growth in emerging markets,” said Vik Patel, CEO of Future Hosting.

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Hostway Corporation, a web services provider, recently announced the availability of new compliance upgrades for its hosted Microsoft Exchange service. The optional add-ons to Hostway Hosted Exchange – including archiving and retention, encryption and Active Directory sync – are designed to reduce the risk of email-related data breaches, facilitate audits in the event of company litigation, and protect organizations against email compliance penalties. These upgrade options are available individually or as a complete package, depending on the organization’s needs.

The company articulates that with one in five outgoing email messages containing content that poses a legal, financial or regulatory risk, the new upgrade options for Hostway Hosted Exchange provide critical compliance support for regulations ranging from SOX, GLBA and HIPAA to US SEC Rule 17a and new electronic discovery rules for litigation. The new add-ons for Hostway Hosted Exchange include:

• Compliant email archiving and retention, allowing businesses to safely preserve and find mission-critical emails affected by compliance regulations. Businesses can set various rules dictating timeframes for emails to be archived, deleted or moved.
• Advanced email encryption, which encrypts emails at the desktop to prevent confidential information from being read by anyone other than the intended recipient. The company enforces email encryption based on pre-defined policies; meets or exceeds various industry standards for encryption and digital signatures; and allows encrypted emails to be read on desktop or mobile devices by any authorized recipient.
• Active Directory synchronization, enabling Administrators to centrally modify Exchange mailboxes, user permissions and other personally identifiable employee data and sync the information between on-premise AD servers and the company hosted Exchange Active Directory servers. This feature supports compliance by keeping employee directories, databases and user permissions up to date.

“Companies facing stolen data are looking at considerable costs in terms of fines and customer attrition. Firms that aren’t actively working to meet compliance regulations are setting themselves up for serious problems,” said Aaron Hollobaugh, Vice President of Marketing & Communications for Hostway. “Our Hosted Exchange upgrade provides clients with a new layer of security and functionality that is simple to implement, cost-effective when compared to the potential risks, and capable of boosting operational efficiency by allowing user accounts to be updated and terminated very quickly.”

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CyrusOne, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cincinnati Bell and data center provider, recently announced that it hired Scott Brueggeman as the company’s new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).

The company avers that Brueggeman joins it from CoreLink Data Centers, a colocation provider, where he served as the Vice President of Marketing, Corporate Communications, and Inside Sales. Brueggeman built and optimized the marketing function at the company, taking responsibility for differentiating the brand and leading expansion into new acquisition channels and services.

It says that the company offers best-in-class performance and reliability for high-density and high-availability enterprise requirements for colocation solutions. The facilities’ data center power and redundant cooling architectures use advanced components and are designed with N+1 and 2N parallel redundancies, providing 100 percent uptime with service uninterrupted. The company has customers in 23 colocation facilities across the United States, London, and Singapore.

“Scott’s marketing leadership experience is in strong alignment with where we are taking CyrusOne in the months and years ahead,” said Gary Wojtaszek, CEO of CyrusOne. “By helping our Fortune 1000 enterprise customers better manage the risks associated with global data center operations, we are enabling them to allocate more IT focus and resources on their core business activities. Effectively communicating this value proposition is an integral part of our efforts to develop partnerships with other global businesses and help them optimize the capital and operating costs associated with IT challenges and data center planning.”

“CyrusOne is poised to transform the data center industry as we know it,” said Brueggeman. “The rapidly accelerating trend of enterprise CIO’s outsourcing their data center operations combined with CyrusOne’s superior facilities and strong customer service focus is delivering solid results for the company. After spending a considerable amount of time analyzing the company’s sales strategy, its massively modular approach to facility design, and its interconnection and service plans on the horizon, I am convinced it is well positioned to become a world class brand.”

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Equinix, Inc., a provider of global data center services, yesterday announced that ALOG Data Centers of Brazil S.A., a Platform Equinix Company, plans to build a new International Business Exchange (IBX) data center in Rio de Janeiro. Targeted to open in the first quarter of 2013, the first phase is expected to cost $20 million in expansion capital and will have space for 320 cabinets with a total capacity of 1,170 cabinets once all future phases are completed. The company also announced ALOG will begin construction on phase two of its SP2 data center in Sao Paulo, which is expected to be available in early 2013. SP2 phase two will have space for an additional 350 cabinets and is expected to cost $14 million in expansion capital.

The company mentions that it and Riverwood Capital completed the acquisition of ALOG in April 2011, and the company holds the controlling interest and sits on the board of directors of ALOG. With its investment in ALOG, it offers colocation, interconnection and managed hosting services from its three existing Brazil-based IBX data centers in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The new IBX, RJ2, will be ALOG’s second facility in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area. The company is seeing increased demand from multi-national customers, particularly in the financial services, networking and content industries, who are expanding in the South American market. According to Frost & Sullivan, the Brazilian government expects GDP to grow three to three-and-a-half percent and expects six percent growth in the IT sector in 2012.

“As the seventh largest economy in the world, Brazil is experiencing continued economic and infrastructure expansion, making it an attractive country for multi-national investment,” said Charles Meyers, President of the Americas for Equinix. “With the expansions in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, we are in a strong position to support increasing demand for Platform Equinix from key global customers looking to expand in the region.”

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Ensim Corporation, a provider of user provisioning and change management software, yesterday announced the addition of Kevin Berry as it Chief Financial Officer. Berry brings over twenty years of senior-level experience, having successfully served as CFO for several global start-ups and three publicly traded companies, all in the software and technology sectors. As CFO, Berry will provide the financial direction needed to help manage the company’s growth and profitability.

The company says that in his career, Berry has successfully merged and acquired companies valued at over $400M and raised $50M in equity and debt financing from domestic and international venture investors and strategic partners. At Award Software International, Inc., Berry led the Initial Public Offering which was rated in the top ten by the Wall Street Journal. Most recently as CFO of California Micro Devices Corp., Berry led the company’s merger with ON Semiconductor resulting in a 50% premium for shareholders.

“Throughout his career, Kevin Berry has demonstrated his strength at increasing revenue and cash flow while effectively controlling operating costs,” said David Wippich, Ensim CEO. “We are pleased to add him to our management team and feel his extensive experience in the software industry combined with his proven track record leading business and financial operations makes him the ideal choice to serve as Ensim’s CFO.”

“Ensim is clearly committed to become a leader in the cloud enablement market and I am excited to work with the rest of the management team to ensure that the company continues its rapid growth,” said Berry. “I also look forward to working with our customers and partners as we deliver Ensim’s next generation of industry-leading technology to service providers and enterprises.”

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Akamai Technologies, Inc., a provider of cloud optimization services, yesterday announced the appointment of Jim Ebzery as Senior Vice President and General Manager, Americas. Based in the company’s Cambridge, Mass. headquarters, Ebzery will lead sales, services and marketing operations across the Americas. He reports to Robert Hughes, the company’s Executive Vice President of Global Sales, Services and Marketing.

It articulates that Ebzery brings nearly 30 years of executive leadership experience across various high technology disciplines to his role at the company. Most recently, he ran the Security, Management and Operating Platforms business at Novell, where he led the growth of the security business and expansion of their strategic cloud business. He began his career with IBM Corporation where he held multiple sales, marketing and general management positions during a 17-year career.

“Throughout his career, Jim has demonstrated proven leadership and an ability to effectively grow the businesses for which he was responsible,” said Hughes. “As Akamai looks to take its growth to the next level, it is crucial to have the right leadership team in place. Jim brings a wealth of knowledge and experience, and a track record of results, to his new role at the company. I look forward to working with him closely as we execute our go-to-market strategy in the Americas, including emerging markets across South America.”

“I have had the opportunity to work at global technology leaders as well as startups, and Akamai is one of those rare companies that can effectively combine an entrepreneurial spirit with a stable, billion dollar business,” said Ebzery. “There is a tremendous opportunity ahead as companies of all kinds look to take advantage of the trends driving IT today – cloud, mobile, security and media – which will all serve as catalysts for innovation and transformation. It is an exciting prospect to be at the vanguard of these efforts as a member of Akamai.”

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DiscountASP.NET, a Windows Hosting provider, today announced beta support for node.js on its Windows 2008 hosting platform.

According to the company, Microsoft SQ L Server 2012 is a major update to its enterprise database. Some of the SQL Server 2012 feature enhancements include general performance improvements and contained databases. Node.js is a server-side javaScript implementation that enables developers to write client side as well as server side code in javaScript. As node.js has gained in popularity among developers in recent years, in 2011 Microsoft announced that they were actively working with Joyent to port node.js to Windows, and launched the first stable port in November 2011.

“We offered node.js support in our recent WebMatrix 2.0 beta labs sandbox and have received requests for making node.js generally available in our web hosting service,” said Takeshi Eto, VP Marketing and Business Development at DiscountASP.NET. “In keeping with our mission to empower developers, we are happy to announce node.js support in our Windows hosting environment.”