[The Web Hosting News]

ViaWest, a provider of managed hosting solutions, yesterday announced the addition of a Network Attached Storage (NAS) product, delivered in partnership with NetApp, a storage and data management solutions provider. Addressing the need of its clients for flexible storage options, the company has launched this new NAS product as part of its KINECTed Storage family, which also includes a high-performance Storage Area Network (SAN) offering. It is offering a 60-day free trial of the NAS storage product.

The company mentions that its NAS storage solution will be available as both a stand-alone product and in its KINECTed Cloud. KINECTed Storage NAS will include both a managed dedicated NAS solution, where the NAS device is owned by the customer and managed by the company; and a shared dedicated NAS solution, where the NAS device is owned and managed by the company. Both options deliver cost-effective, flexible storage solutions designed in cooperation with its customers’ requirements.

It articulates that the company has introduced its NAS offering to deliver increasing flexibility and choice for its customers. The NAS solution delivers simplified data and infrastructure management, coupled with improved storage efficiency. For customers who seek a powerful storage solution for basic web applications, file-based interactions and more static data volumes, the KINECTed Storage NAS platform is a flexible, affordable offering that delivers built-in support for Ethernet attached storage to enable file sharing across Windows, Linux and UNIX environments.

“We’re expanding our storage portfolio because efficiency and rapid access to data is critical to help our customers compete in today’s dynamic marketplace,” explained Jason Carolan, Chief Technology Officer for ViaWest. “Our customers need a wide range of storage options along with flexible price points and performance characteristics for today’s growing data. We are proud to offer our new NAS solution with our partner, NetApp, a company offering innovative, best-of-breed storage technology and our shared commitment to putting the customer first.”

“NetApp designed its storage solutions portfolio to enable clients and service providers to optimize their IT architectures to achieve flexible, efficient and highly-available deployments,” stated Chris Morgan, Senior Director, Emerging Channels for NetApp. “ViaWest’s in-house engineering teams designed their KINECTed Storage portfolio using NetApp storage and data management which ensures their clients have a variety of options with which to grow their business.”

[The Web Hosting News]

myLittleTools, a provider of web-based MS SQL Server software, recently announced myLittleAdmin v3.8.

According to the company, myLittleAdmin is a popular MS SQL Server web-based administration tool. It is provided by numerous webhosting companies in the world and is integrated with the best control panels (Parallels Plesk, WSP, HC…). This new release brings several new useful features, including support of MS SQL 2012. Pricing keeps unchanged and existing customers can upgrade for free.

[The Web Hosting News]

VMware, Inc., a cloud infrastructure provider, yesterday announced VMware vFabric Suite 5.1. With new capabilities that automate the deployment and management of complex applications on VMware cloud infrastructure and the introduction of an in-memory distributed SQL database, VMware vFabric Suite 5.1 will provide the core application services required to build, run and manage Java Spring applications whether on-premise or in the cloud.

The company avers that the VMware vFabric Suite seeks to address the complexity and cost of traditional Java platforms, providing a simple, lightweight development and runtime optimized for VMware cloud infrastructure. By combining the market-leading Spring development framework, the latest generation of vFabric application services and a per-VM licensing model, vFabric Suite 5.1 will provide the core application platform for building, deploying and running modern applications.

It says that the VMware vFabric Suite provides a complete set of runtime services to build, run and manage modern applications in distributed, cloud environments. The new capabilities in vFabric Suite 5.1 will allow customers to:

• Automate application deployment for operational efficiency
• Maximize data scalability
• Reduce database total cost of ownership
• Provide enterprise support for popular open source technologies

According to the company, vFabric Suite 5.1 will also be uniquely packaged and licensed to allow enterprises to purchase application infrastructure software based on virtual machines, rather than physical hardware, and to pay only for the average number of licenses in use. This model eliminates the decades-old need for organizations to purchase excess software in anticipation of peak loads, incurring significant costs and allowing software licenses to sit dormant outside of peak periods. It adds that VMware vFabric Suite 5.1 is expected to be available in Q2 2012. It will be licensed per VM with prices starting at $1,500 per VM. VMware vFabric SQLFire is currently available, and is licensed per VM with prices starting at $2,500 per VM, when purchased as part of VMware vFabric Suite Advanced.

“The cloud era is driving a transformation in applications. Today, most are built with open source development frameworks, deployed on lightweight application containers, run on virtual infrastructure and are data intensive,” said Jerry Chen, Vice President, Cloud and Application Services, VMware. “This is driving a real transition in the type of technologies our customers are using to build, run and manage these new applications. Since introducing the vFabric Suite a year ago we have seen remarkable adoption amongst our customers, helping our Cloud Application Platform business to nearly double in year over year growth in 2011.”

“Delivering excellent customer service is a hallmark of Southwest, so it’s important to us that our customers have a seamless shopping, booking, and travel experience. We have a number of strategic initiatives underway at Southwest Airlines, and a core component in supporting these critical operations is ensuring an agile, flexible delivery of technology to all parts of the company,” said Bob Young, Chief Technology Officer, Southwest Airlines. “By partnering with VMware, for example, we were able to streamline the way we deliver and deploy applications across platforms, without compromising our service-centered approach.”

“From the increasing number of programming languages used to the heterogeneous nature of today’s hybrid infrastructures, application development is changing quickly,” said Stephen O’Grady, Principal Analyst with RedMonk. “Faced with such diversity, enterprises are increasingly turning to lightweight application containers to ease the pains of deployment.”

[The Web Hosting News]

Host Color, a provider of Linux VPS Hosting services, recently announced the launch of new Virtual Dedicated Servers (VDS) based on KVM virtualization (Kernel-based Virtual Machine). The new KVM virtual machines in are hosted in the company’s core data center located in South Bend, Indiana, 90 miles from Chicago. With the launch of the new VDS, customers can now get low cost VPS hosting services, while choosing between three virtualization platforms – OpenVZ VPS, KVM, Xen virtual machines. All Virtual Dedicated Servers are manageable with SolusVM VPS automation control panel.

The company articulates that it offers four standard Virtual Private Server (or also VDS) plans:

VPS Start

• 768 MB RAM
• 20 GB space
• 1,000 GB monthly bandwidth
• 2 dedicated IP addresses

VPS Advance

• 1,536 MB RAM
• 40 GB space
• 2,000 GB monthly bandwidth
• 2 dedicated IP addresses
• free SSL certificate with one year contracts

VPS Power

• 2,432 MB RAM
• 60 GB space
• 3,000 GB monthly bandwidth
• free SSL certificate with one year contracts

VPS Custom

• 3,712 MB RAM
• 100 GB space
• 3,000 GB monthly bandwidth
• 5 dedicated IP addresses

It states that among other benefits of its KVM based VPS Hosting plans are:

• An opportunity for the customers to choose custom kernels and custom kernel modules for their VDS
• Set up of a VPN server in (PPTP, OpenVPN, IPSec)
• Use Windows, Linux, BSD, OpenSolaris operating system
• Run a Window manager such as Gnome or KDE and interaction with it using the VNC

The company further states that Kernel-based Virtual Machine, popular with its abbreviation KVM, is a virtualization technique that allows the hypervisor (VMM or Virtual Machine Manager) to be embedded into the OS Kernel. This makes possible for the Kernel-based virtual machines to benefit a lot from excellent disk and network I/O performance. The KVM virtual servers also feature Virtual Network Computing (VNC) that gives the company’s customers full access to the console of the VDS. This means that they can work in a physical-like IT Hosting environment and manage their virtual machines as fully isolated dedicated servers.

It mentions that unlike the OpenVZ based VPS, on the KVM based Virtual Dedicated Servers the server memory (RAM) and hard disk space are not ‘shared’ with other virtual machines on the underlying host server system. This means that the resources allocated on any KVM VPS cannot be assigned to another virtual server and that overselling is not possible. The customers of the new KVM-based VPS/VDS Hosting plans, who use cPanel/WHM hosting automation panel, can also activate by 1-click a free Content Delivery Network (CDN) service info their virtual machines. The company adds that the promotional campaign on 100 Mbps Unmetered bandwidth (Unmetered Dedicated Servers) ports, announced recently by it, is available to users of the new KVM-based Virtual Dedicated Servers. Customers who wants to get a 100 Mbps quality bandwidth should open a support ticket with subject ’100 Mbps Unmetered’ from their accounts.

[The Web Hosting News]

Connectria Hosting, a global complex and managed hosting provider, yesterday announced the availability of its IBM AIX Cloud. The IBM AIX Cloud closely follows the launch of the company’s IBM i Cloud.

According to the company, its IBM AIX Cloud Hosting is designed to run on the reliable IBM Power Systems, leveraging a compelling balance of affordability and performance. An IBM AIX Cloud with Managed Services starts as low as $1245 per month, and can scale upward from 1/10 core with a 3 GHz processor. With the company’s IBM AIX Cloud, customers will be able to purchase the IBM AIX capacity and support they need, when they need it, for as long as they need it – backed by its 24/7 IBM AIX administration and support.

Rich Waidmann, Connectria’s President and CEO, stated, “We’re very pleased to announce the availability of Connectria’s IBM AIX Cloud Hosting. IBM’s Power Systems line and AIX continue to capture market share, and we believe Connectria’s IBM AIX Cloud will be an excellent alternative to purchasing an IBM AIX Server and running it yourself.”

Waidmann further commented, “We realize that cloud computing is not limited to Windows and Linux alone. Connectria’s commitment to provide reliable cloud hosting solutions for a wide range of customers and environments, including IBM i, IBM AIX and Oracle/Sun Solaris sets us apart from the crowd.”

[The Web Hosting News]

SingleHop, Inc., a dedicated and managed web hosting provider, yesterday announced the opening of a data center in Phoenix, AZ. The facility operated by IO, a provider of next-generation modular data center technology and services, is the first Western US expansion for the company. It will now offer its customers the option to choose which data center they want their hardware to reside within.

The company articulates that initially, the modular data center technology will allow it the capacity for 2,500 servers and act as the third location for all of its cloud hosting products. Unlike traditional data center build-outs, modular data centers allow for the deployment of data center capacity in a fraction of the time.

It avers that the Phoenix data center features:

• SSAE 16 Type 2 Certification
• Uptime Institute Tier III Certification for Design Documents
• 10Gbps connectivity to server cabinets
• Public & Private network
• Connectivity to Chicago data centers

The company mentions that the new facility will allow its customers, especially those on the West Coast, to connect with the company’s services with 40ms of latency. Its infrastructure management platform, LEAP3, will continue to use its automation to increase user control throughout the entire modular data center. The facility is completely IPv6 compatible and has a fully redundant private network.

“This year has already been full of great news for our company and that continues today with this announcement. We understand that location does matter a great deal, especially to our international customers and that’s why we made the decision to expand to Phoenix,” said Zak Boca, Chief Executive Officer.

“Customer control is always at the core of our operational developments and that’s why this facility had to have technology that we could easily integrate into our existing infrastructure. All of our customers now have a choice in location, but with the same ease and automation they have come to expect from us,” said Andy Pace, Chief Operating Officer.

[The Web Hosting News]
Go Daddy, a domain name registrar and hosting provider, yesterday announced its newest offering – Go Daddy Cloud Servers. Designed to give users the power they need rapidly, Cloud Servers combines convenient control panels, a strong infrastructure and frequently used features, like firewalls and load balancers – all at a fraction of the cost of other services.

The company articulates that as the Internet expands and websites become more resource-intensive, many businesses are moving from traditional hosting to more advanced, scalable servers with flexible network options. Its Cloud Servers are designed for companies looking to take complete control of their web hosting environment. Setting up a private cloud server network can be a daunting task, but Cloud Servers allows complete setup in three easy steps.

According to it, Cloud Servers gives users the ability to configure server networks, create server snapshots and manage server resources, all in a friendly interface. Cloud Servers, available with either Linux or Windows operating systems and has a friendly, competitive billing model. Cloud Servers are backed by a specialized 24/7 Cloud Servers support team. Cloud Servers are also supported by the company’s 24/7 Network Operations Center and Security Operations Team at no additional expense.

“It has always been Go Daddy’s primary mission to help businesses grow through our cost-effective, reliable, feature-rich products,” said Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman. “Cloud Servers is a Go Daddy innovation that takes the complexity out of a complicated technology, yet gives users a substantial range of sophistication.”

Go Daddy Vice President of Hosting Development Brian Krouse oversaw the development of the technology. “Cloud Servers takes ‘Infrastructure-as-a-Service’ to a whole new level,” Krouse said. “Cloud Servers helps businesses that need both cost effective flexibility and scalability.”

“Go Daddy Cloud Servers offers advanced networking features bundled into an affordable easy-to-use solution,” said IDC Analyst Melanie Posey. “This approach is different from competitors’ cloud models and offers customers a high degree of functionality and support at a reasonable price point.”

[The Web Hosting News]
Infinitely Virtual, a provider of virtual server technology, recently announced that it has added VMWare’s vCloud Director to its hosting platform, giving IT managers more ‘self-service’ options when needing to quickly reconfigure networking resources, move data between different clouds, or change virtual applications. Integrated with the company’s upgrade to VMWare’s vSphere5, VMWare vCloud Director saves IT managers’ time and money by giving them more autonomy and control over important aspects of their virtual infrastructure.

The company states that customers deploying vCloud Director benefit from an user-friendly interface that provides end-users with the tools to foster a self-service networking and creative cloud environment. The product saves IT professionals’ precious time, which they can then devote to other business-critical tasks. Its vCloud Director integration offers these advantages:

• Gives IT professionals the ability to self-manage virtual applications (vApps) without the assistance of the cloud service provider, facilitating quick changes, or changes on short notice due to current business needs
• Allows IT to upload vApps into a catalog which can be used at a later date, without involving the cloud service provider
• Enables greater control in moving and distributing workloads between different clouds
• Cuts network configuration time down to a matter of minutes, using automated features
• Provides the ability to power up or power down at will-without the need to contact the cloud service provider every time
• Manages the end-user’s own firewalls and allows them to change ports without requiring any workload from the cloud service provider
• Facilitates changes in security due to changing department needs – changes that can be made on the fly

“We recognize that IT managers want the scalability and relative low investment cost of employing cloud hosted services,” said Adam Stern, Infinitely Virtual Founder and CEO. “At the same time, we know they sometimes want the ability to make quick changes to applications or to migrate workloads between different clouds without having to go to the cloud service provider.”

“Adding VMWare’s vCloud Director continues Infinitely Virtual’s mission to deliver the most flexible, cost-effective cloud hosting services to our customers,” Stern mentioned. “We host and manage the secure, cloud platform while our IT customers have increased autonomy to make application and networking changes as they wish. It’s a smart division of labor that advances our goal of enabling clients to use their virtual infrastructure as a growth engine.” “Businesses that move resources and retool network configurations on a regular basis will find vCloud Director to be exceptionally well-designed for that purpose,” added Stern.

[The Web Hosting News]

Tenzing Managed IT Services (Tenzing), a provider of hosting solutions for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers and Ecommerce systems integrators, yesterday announced the launch of PCI Assure, a new service that simplifies Payment Card Industry – Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) compliance for e-commerce vendors. Its PCI Assure enables online merchants to capture customer credit card information from any website page while greatly shortening the PCI-DSS compliance process to a few easy steps. PCI Assure has already been integrated into major payment gateways, including Paypal Payflow Pro, Authorize.net, iPay and others.

The company mentions that PCI-DSS is a security standard for organizations that handle cardholder information for major debit, credit, prepaid, ATM and Point of Sale cards. The standard was defined by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council and created to increase controls around cardholder data to reduce credit card fraud. Validation of compliance is done annually by an external Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) for organizations handling large volumes of transactions or by Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) for companies handling smaller volumes.

It articulates that the heart of the PCI Assure system is a unique tokenization solution. The ‘data vault’ allows the company to securely store credit card information. When credit card information is put into the data vault, a token is created to represent the real credit card. The token is then used by the merchant and can be stored freely on any computer system. The token can never be decrypted outside of PCI Assure so even if it ends up in the wrong hands, the number cannot be used to breach real credit card data.

According to the company, PCI Assure uses IFRAME technology that can be easily embedded into any web application. The PCI Assure IFRAME only captures credit card and card verification value or code (CVV) fields, leaving the remainder of the fields on the merchant’s website. Its IFRAME is secure and 100 per cent Level 1 PCI compliant. Since a merchant’s website never sees customer credit card information, their compliance process can be reduced to completing a simplified SAQ Type A.

It avers that PCI Assure was also designed for complete customization. Merchants just drop in the IFRAME and provide the company with a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). It matches the credit card fields to the merchant’s design template, increasing transparency and raising their customer’s comfort level to complete their transactions successfully.

“With highly publicized data breaches on the rise, companies need to take a closer look at credit card security and PCI-DSS compliance,” said Brian Shepard, Founder and CEO of Tenzing. “Whether a retailer is new to e-commerce or simply concerned about their current PCI-DSS compliance status, handling this in-house exposes their organization to significant risk, and requires extensive time and human resources to manage.”

“PCI Assure allows for total flexibility at checkout,” added Shepard. “Merchants know that the checkout process is where the biggest potential losses in conversion can occur, especially if users are redirected to other hosted payment page solutions. With PCI Assure, merchants benefit from fewer abandoned carts.”

[The Web Hosting News]

Hosting Controller, a developer of automation solution for shared and enterprise hosting, recently announced that its cloud hosting automation solution has been validated by Microsoft for Exchange 2010 SP2 and it has also attained Silver ISV and Software Development competencies.

The company states that Hosting Controller is an automation solution that Microsoft has reviewed and found to comply with guidance produced by Microsoft to offer Exchange in a Hosted Multi-tenant cloud based environment. Hosting Controller uses only documented and supported processes and methodologies in its solution. Hosting Controller is a unified control panel and an automation solution for service providers offering Microsoft Enterprise Applications such as Exchange, SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, OCS and Hyper-V in a shared multi-tenant environment and comes with a comprehensive self-serve portal for the end customers.

According to Microsoft, “Using the on-premises version of Exchange to provide a hosted Exchange solution requires some unique considerations and specific configuration changes in order to configure a multi-tenant hosted solution. Microsoft provides guidance for control panel vendors to assist them in developing solutions that are supported. In order for multi-tenant Exchange solution to be considered fully supported, a host must follow all the guidance in published Microsoft documentation. The easiest and quickest route to support for most hosters, though, is likely be through engaging with a hosting automation vendor whose solution adheres to the guidelines.”

“With Microsoft providing direction and technical guidance, we are excited to work closely with Microsoft to deliver a supported solution,” said Babar Zaman, Vice President Business Development at Hosting Controller Inc. “Making our software compatible with Multi-Tenancy and Hosting Guidance for Microsoft Exchange 2010 SP2 not only demonstrates our expertise in developing applications based on Microsoft solutions but also helps us offer our customers compelling benefits, including intuitive user interfaces, sophisticated management features and improved security and reliability.”

“Our ISV community is alive with innovation, and we’re committed to helping our partners drive the next generation of software experiences,” said Ross Brown, Vice President of ISV and Solutions Partners for the Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft. “Adding compatibility for the latest Microsoft technologies helps ISVs to stay ahead of the competition and give their customers access to cutting-edge technologies.”