(The Hosting News) – Web hosting provider SingleHop, Inc.  officially released information stating that it will offer free high-performance, disk-to-disk R1Soft CDP backups to all Windows and Linux server clients.

By offering R1Soft’s Continuous Data Protection® (CDP) software for free, SingleHop enhances the customer experience with reliable backups, MySQL table-level restoration, and an overall higher value of service. Customers will also benefit from the convenience of simple backup management provided by R1Soft’s easy-to-use interface.

“We are continually looking for ways to improve the value of our products and services, and offering a world-class backup solution, like R1Soft’s CDP software, to all our dedicated server clients does just that,” commented Dan Salcedo, SingleHop VP of Communications. “Being thoroughly protected against data loss is of the utmost importance in this industry and to our clients, and R1Soft allows us to provide that peace of mind.”

R1Soft’s disk-to-disk CDP software works by reading data at the sector level and only recording data that has changed since the last backup. This type of backup will allow SingleHop clients to backup their data as often as every 15 minutes without seeing a harmful impact on server performance.

“CDP backups offer many convenient and innovative features that will boost the hosting experience for current customers. Adding free premium backups to their hosting services helps distinguish SingleHop as a web hosting company that offers the best of many services at an affordable price,” said David Wartell, vice president of R1Soft, a division of BBS Technologies.

SingleHop Offers Free High-Performance R1Soft CDP Backups for All Clients

(The Hosting News) – Commtouch® (NASDAQ: CTCH) and MXSweep have officially announced that MXSweep has further enhanced its email security as a service (SaaS) platform with the addition of Commtouch’s GlobalView™ Mail Reputation Service and Outbound Spam Protection solutions. This news finally completes MXSweep’s adoption of the full suite of Commtouch email security products, which already includes Commtouch Anti-Spam and Zero-Hour Virus Outbreak Protection.

“We selected Commtouch because its real-time security technologies give us an even greater edge in our market space,” said Edward Grant, CEO of MXSweep. “We tested various messaging security solutions, and Commtouch was by far the most robust. The company is also easy to do business with and provides fantastic marketing support, creating a true partnership.”

MXSweep is using GlobalView Mail Reputation Service and Outbound Spam Protection as integral parts of its managed services for email. MXSweep provides reseller partners with the flexibility to offer their customers full email security protection, based on Commtouch’s complete solution.

With Commtouch, MXSweep’s email protection combines effective anti-spam, anti-virus and anti-phishing coverage with uniquely low false positives while it protects against external email threats.

Together, these services help end-customers achieve a smoothly working IT infrastructure that drives efficiency and productivity. In addition, MXSweep’s vision is built around its SaaS model and the company will continually be enhancing and adding services for its customers.

“We have tested MXSweep for a number of weeks and are very satisfied. The service, enhanced by Commtouch technologies, is exactly what we were looking for – a perfect solution to handle spam and other threats from the Internet,” said Olli Rikala, CEO of Deferon OY, a customer of MXSweep’s.

“We have been working with MXSweep since 2006, and its addition of GlobalView Mail Reputation Service and Outbound Spam Protection to its full email security offering further validates our technology as the ideal solution for service providers looking to strengthen their email protection and reduce operational costs,” stated Ofer Tal, VP, international sales and business development at Commtouch. “With Commtouch’s technology, MXSweep’s customers ensure their end-users are protected against spam, phishing and malware outbreaks.”

MXSweep Reinforces Email Security by Providing Additional Messaging Security Technology

(The Hosting News)- Certificate Authorities firm GlobalSign will meet with security professionals from the San Francisco area at the upcoming 10th annual CSO Council Bay Area Round Table event. CSO Council Bay Area members and invited guests will gather together for a round table event to discuss the merits of electronic signatures versus digital signatures from a legal perspective in the federal court system. As a participant, GlobalSign will provide firsthand insight into the legal validity of digital signatures and participate in the discussion to support the expansion of digital signatures within the legal arena.

As a leading digital certificate provider, GlobalSign supports the expansion of digital signatures into the U.S. court system and will convey the benefits and opportunities of implementing reliable and legally binding digital signatures by demonstrating its digital signature and document signing solution, branded as DocumentSign. Solutions like DocumentSign can provide the federal court system the opportunity to eliminate the use of easily forge-able handwritten judges’ signatures on various juridical orders and implement trusted digital signatures which are highly resistant to tampering and can be verified at any time unlike a traditional handwritten signature.

GlobalSign’s DocumentSign Digital ID solution allows individuals and departmental entities to digitally sign, certify and approve Adobe PDF documents. As an authorized participant in Adobe’s Certified Document Services (CDS) program, GlobalSign must operate under a stringent set of policies and standards developed by Adobe and audited by WebTrust, to allow GlobalSign to issue Adobe recognized CDS Certificates. GlobalSign’s DocumentSign for Adobe PDF offers long-term, legally admissible, easily accepted, and legally compliant digital signatures.

Applying a GlobalSign Digital Signature to an electronic document allows the recipient of the document to know:

- Who signed the document – proving the document has come from a valid source
- That the document has not been tampered with – providing assurance that can be verified at any time
- What time the document was signed – reliably showing when the document was issued.

Providing strong authentication, data integrity, and non repudiation. DocumentSign users can add Certifying and Approval Signatures to PDFs using the free Adobe Reader 6.0+ without installing any new plug-ins, or confusing configurations for a secure and cost-effective solution.

“Since launching DocumentSign for Adobe Secure PDF, GlobalSign has seen various companies and industries implement the solution into their workflow to take advantage of the improved workflow processes, as well as meet various compliance regulations among healthcare, government, and financial industries,” says Lila Kee, Director of Product Marketing, GlobalSign, Inc. “We are delighted to be part of the CSO Council’s round table event to discuss the opportunities available for digital signature solutions in the federal court systems, highlighting the legally equivalent benefits DocumentSign has to offer.”

“This milestone sends a strong message of confidence to judges and most importantly to general counsels and lawyers throughout the United States: it is acceptable — in fact, desirable — to use digital signatures, so long as they are highly reliable and persistently verifiable,” said Jacques Francoeur, Sr. Director, Identity and Information Assurance at SAIC Commercial Business Services, who is credited for orchestrating this event.

The 10th annual CSO Council Bay Area Round Table event will be held March 1 in San Francisco, California at Adobe’s corporate office.

GlobalSign’s Digital Signature Solutions to be Revealed at CSO Council Bay Area Round Table Event

(The Hosting News) – This years’ 2010 New Jersey Technology Council CIO Conference on Cloud Computing will feature Managed Hosting provider Datapipe as a panel speaker. The Conference will be held Friday, February 26th at the Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick, NJ. Following the keynote address by Federal CTO Aneesh Chopra, Datapipe will be part of an expert panel discussing “Transforming IT with Cloud Computing – Where do you start?”.

“For many CIOs the challenge is to take advantage of the efficiencies and economics of cloud computing while maintaining security and compliance,” said Robb Allen, CEO of Datapipe. “We are pleased to be part of a conference that gives decision makers the information necessary to implement an enterprise ready cloud platform,” Allen said.

Datapipe recently launched Stratosphere – a high performance, fully managed, private and secure virtualized platform. Representatives from Datapipe will be available in the exhibit hall throughout the day to interact with conference attendees.

Datapipe Sponsors NJTC Conference on Cloud Computing

(The Hosting News) - ServInt, a pioneering provider of managed web hosting for businesses worldwide, celebrates its 15th anniversary this month. Since its founding in 1995 as one of the world’s original providers of enterprise managed hosting, ServInt has achieved 15 years of growth as a company. During that period, thousands of web-hosting providers have come and gone.

ServInt Founder and Chief Executive Officer Reed Caldwell said ServInt has built a loyal, global customer base by continually introducing innovative, scalable hosting solutions to solve the most complex technological challenges of web-based businesses. Those innovations include industry-leading Virtual Private Server (VPS) and Managed Dedicated Server solutions.

“We’ve been able to prosper for 15 years, which is much longer than most companies in our industry,” Caldwell said. “We have established our impressive track record by maintaining consistently high levels of customer satisfaction. We earn customer loyalty by addressing evolving client needs, and by providing personal support from a Managed Services Team of experienced professionals.”

ServInt’s Commitment to Climate-Positive Hosting

ServInt’s focus on innovation, longevity and sustainability is also reflected in its ongoing commitment to climate-positive hosting. Since 2008, ServInt’s Green Initiative has deployed multiple green methodologies to help customers operate with minimal environmental impact.

Through use of its efficient virtualization and cloud technologies – integrated with Parallels Virtuozzo Containers – ServInt’s hosting solutions feature optimally low per-capita energy consumption. ServInt solutions achieve this industry-leading energy efficiency while making exclusive use of Dell low-wattage server hardware, which provides high-performance while operating with a much smaller carbon footprint.

A recent Parallels study noted that ServInt’s virtualized servers require only 15 percent of the power footprint of a traditional server farm that is not optimized with virtualization and low-wattage technologies.

By implementing efficient technologies and participating in a large-scale reforestation campaign operated by American Forests, ServInt has offset the total carbon footprint of its entire line of VPS hosting solutions by at least 110 percent in each of the past two years. In 2010, ServInt is increasing its commitment to environmental sustainability by offsetting the carbon footprint of its standard product line, as well as its entire cloud infrastructure.

ServInt Chief Operating Officer Christian Dawson said, “The successful ongoing implementation of our Green Initiative has resulted in greater company-wide energy efficiency. By expanding this commitment, and exploring new ways to decrease waste and increase efficiency, we will continue to help our customers operate with minimal environmental impact.”

ServInt Commemorates it’s 15 Anniversary

(The Hosting News) – Parallels CEO Serguei Beloussov outlined the company’s vision for the Cloud in his keynote presentation at Parallels Summit 2010. In his address at the Parallels Summit Beloussov advised more than 1100 service provider, telco, VAR and ISV attendees to recognize the huge opportunity presented by the small business need for Cloud services, a market which he predicted will grow to nearly $19 billion by 2013. To meet this considerable opportunity and “Profit from the Cloud”, Beloussov explained Cloud services providers and ISVs must innovate, optimize and grow to develop full-service offerings. He pledged Parallels’ ongoing and increased support for this through the company’s investment in partnerships and complete realignment to a Cloud services-oriented company structure.

“Considerable growth is predicted in Cloud services for small businesses as they provide a low cost, easy solution for these organizations, who need an increasing range of IT services, but have very little IT knowledge and limited budgets,” said Beloussov. “The complexity of IT requirements can easily become an expensive and time-consuming distraction from the core business. Buying services through the Cloud removes both the significant initial expense of buying in-house IT operations, and simplifies decision-making as small businesses can get a range of business IT services from a single provider at a

“For Cloud services providers, this represents a significant opportunity; however, it is essential for businesses to innovate, optimize and grow if they are going to compete successfully and increase profitability. Innovation is critical in order to keep meeting evolving customer needs: Cloud services providers need to drive better bundled services and develop new “sticky” offerings, while ISVs need to refine their technology. This will help them open new revenue streams and attract new customers,” added Beloussov. “To grow and be successful, Cloud services providers need to offer a complete range of services for small businesses. Improving the quality of existing services and offering customer loyalty programs are critical steps in building customer confidence and growing the loyal customer base,” said Beloussov.

During the keynote, Beloussov announced that Parallels will continue to invest in supporting its partners achieve these goals, providing support for marketing, training, certification and in other areas of the business beyond the technology itself. In addition, the company is realigning its business and engineering functions to focus on the service areas that are important to its partners and customers. The company will focus on four key services areas spanning and encompassing Parallels’ product portfolio: Shared Web Hosting Services; Messaging and Collaboration; Virtualized Infrastructure Services (VPS); and SaaS and Other Applications. Each of these services groups will be led by a senior Parallels’ executive championing the space and working closely with Parallels’ partners to identify and meet their needs.

The Shared Web Hosting Services group will be led by Craig Bartholomew, VP of Panels at Parallels, who brings considerable expertise from over 20 years as a business leader at Microsoft. Craig’s group will be working with partners to help them develop their Shared Web Hosting Services offering, encouraging the innovation and optimization that will enable them to grow and retain their customer base. The service area will be supported by a range of Parallels products, including Parallels Plesk Panel 9.5, Parallels Hosting Panel 10 (to be launched later this year) and Parallels Automation High Efficiency Shared Hosting.

The Messaging and Collaboration group will be led by Oleg Melnikov, one of the founders and VP of Automation at Parallels. As a veteran of the service provider space, he has a strong understanding of the opportunities and challenges that face them and will be working closely with Parallels’ partners and customers to help them take advantage of the trend towards unified communications and increased levels of collaboration so they can grow their service offerings for greater up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. In 2010, this service area will be supported by Parallels Automation developments providing support for Microsoft Hosted Exchange 2010, MS OCS and VOIP services.

The Virtual Infrastructure Services group will be led by Amir Sharif, VP of Virtualization at Parallels, who bring considerable product management experience, most recently from VMware. Amir’s group will be helping Parallels’ partners and customers innovate and grow by offering profitable virtualized services; predicted to be the biggest area of growth in Cloud services in the next five years. This service area will see developments across Parallels’ virtualization products in 2010, including the launch of Parallels Server for Mac Bare Metal Edition at Parallels Summit 2010, an update for Parallels Virtuozzo Containers (version 4.6) and the launch of Cloud Utility Computing later in the year.

The SaaS and Other Applications group will be led by Matt Domo, CTO at Parallels, who brings considerable expertise as a former general manager at Amazon Web Services and Microsoft veteran.  This group will focus on helping new ISVs find new channels to market, enabling Cloud services providers to innovate new bundled services offerings and grow their up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. To support this service area, Parallels is introducing Parallels Partner Marketplace v2 and Application Packaging Standard 1.2 at Parallels Summit 2010.



Parallels Summit 2010 Keynote: The CEO of Parallel Offers Support to Cloud Services Providers

(The Hosting News) – Pokemon.com has announced today that it has chosen INetU Managed Hosting to launch their newly redesigned website using private cloud technology.

To launch their new site, Pokemon knew that they’d need a hosting partner with the technical expertise to accommodate the new site, and the experience and dedication required to see the project through to completion. They turned to INetU.

“To ensure Pokemon.com became the immersive online destination that we envisioned for our fans, we knew we needed a technology partner like INetU to help us achieve our lofty goals,” said J.C. Smith, The Pokemon Company International’s Director of Consumer Marketing. “We would highly recommend INetU to anybody launching a mission-critical web project.”

INetU adopts a customized approach to working with its clients, producing a Tailored Hosting Solution engineered by a certified team of hosting experts. The company assigns each client a Chief Hosting Officer (CHO) who understands the hosting environment’s technical aspects and business goals. INetU’s CHO for the Pokemon.com project, Chad Mowery, describes Pokemon’s server environment as a combination of private cloud and dedicated resources.

“Pokemon has a number of servers running virtualization, producing a flexible cloud resource for the site. This is combined with a dedicated high availability database cluster and redundant network devices to ensure that the site is running at peak performance,” explains Mowery.

Pokemon has successfully launched their redesigned site with their private cloud resource at INetU.

Pokemon.com Formally Launches powered by Private Cloud Hosting at INetU

How do they do it?

Those Olympians. How do they prepare for the Olympics? How do they prepare for the chance of loss?

I enjoy watching the Olympics. The spirit of the athletes is something to behold. I admire those that win their individual challenges, but I’m inspired by those that don’t. When I see athletes giving it their all when they know they have already lost the event, I can’t help but to be proud of the human race and our spirit to achieve.  (Read More…)

• Use Cloud Storage to Lower Costs
• Valuable and free Google tools

Read the entire “How do they do it?” edition of the Web Hosting Talk Insider

(The Hosting News) -  McLean, Va. – ServInt, a pioneering provider of managed web hosting for businesses worldwide, celebrates its 15th anniversary this month. Since its founding in 1995 as one of the world’s original providers of enterprise managed hosting, ServInt has achieved 15 years of growth as a company. During that period, thousands of web-hosting providers have come and gone.

ServInt Founder and Chief Executive Officer Reed Caldwell said ServInt has built a loyal, global customer base by continually introducing innovative, scalable hosting solutions to solve the most complex technological challenges of web-based businesses. Those innovations include industry-leading Virtual Private Server (VPS) and Managed Dedicated Server solutions.

“We’ve been able to prosper for 15 years, which is much longer than most companies in our industry,” Caldwell said. “We have established our impressive track record by maintaining consistently high levels of customer satisfaction. We earn customer loyalty by addressing evolving client needs, and by providing personal support from a Managed Services Team of experienced professionals.”

ServInt’s Commitment to Climate-Positive Hosting

ServInt’s focus on innovation, longevity and sustainability is also reflected in its ongoing commitment to climate-positive hosting. Since 2008, ServInt’s Green Initiative has deployed multiple green methodologies to help customers operate with minimal environmental impact.

Through use of its efficient virtualization and cloud technologies – integrated with Parallels Virtuozzo Containers – ServInt’s hosting solutions feature optimally low per-capita energy consumption. ServInt solutions achieve this industry-leading energy efficiency while making exclusive use of Dell low-wattage server hardware, which provides high-performance while operating with a much smaller carbon footprint.

A recent Parallels study noted that ServInt’s virtualized servers require only 15 percent of the power footprint of a traditional server farm that is not optimized with virtualization and low-wattage technologies.

By implementing efficient technologies and participating in a large-scale reforestation campaign operated by American Forests, ServInt has offset the total carbon footprint of its entire line of VPS hosting solutions by at least 110 percent in each of the past two years. In 2010, ServInt is increasing its commitment to environmental sustainability by offsetting the carbon footprint of its standard product line, as well as its entire cloud infrastructure.

ServInt Chief Operating Officer Christian Dawson said, “The successful ongoing implementation of our Green Initiative has resulted in greater company-wide energy efficiency. By expanding this commitment, and exploring new ways to decrease waste and increase efficiency, we will continue to help our customers operate with minimal environmental impact.”

About ServInt

ServInt is a pioneering provider of high-reliability, managed web hosting for businesses worldwide. ServInt’s commitment to Green IT services is demonstrated by its award-winning Virtual Private Server (VPS) solutions. ServInt was founded in Northern Virginia in 1995 as one of the first web-hosting companies to offer a Managed Dedicated Server solution. From multiple world-class data centers, ServInt now provides its scalable suite of VPS and Managed Enterprise Server packages to thousands of customers in more than 60 countries. For more information, please visit www.servint.net.

Managed web hosting provider ServInt celebrates its 15th anniversary,

(The Hosting News) – Open source collaboration software provider Open-Xchange  and German based e-mail security provider  eleven have agreed on comprehensive technical cooperation to easily add e-mail security to all Open-Xchange products.

Web hosters, ISPs and telcos can combine Open-Xchange Hosting Edition — with more than 10 million users — with eleven’s e-mail security solution eXpurgate. eXpurgate is scalable, easy to integrate, and offers a spam detection rate of more than 99 percent. In addition, eXpurgate will be integrated as a premium option in the Open-Xchange products aimed at companies that want to operate their e-mail server in-house.

“With Open-Xchange and eleven, web hosts can offer their customers not only a cost-effective and professional package, but also an optimally protected e-mail solution,” said Robert Rothe, founder and CEO of eleven.

“Effective spam and virus protection is essential for every e-mail server. eleven products protect Open-Xchange users against viruses, spam and phishing e-mails,” said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange. “Companies that run their Open-Xchange Server themselves benefit from this releationship as well as users that get Open-Xchange as Software-as-a-service from hosting providers, telcos and ISPs.”

For more information, visit Open-Xchange and eleven at the Parallels Summit, 22 to 24 February 2010 in Miami, USA, and at WebhostingDay, 17 to 18 March 2010, in Cologne, Germany.

Open-Xchange and eleven join together to Integrate Anti-Spam Security

(The Hosting News) – The Planet, the global leader in IT hosting, today discussed its results for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2009. The Chairman and CEO of The Planet  Douglas J. Erwin was officially quoted as saying that the company  “ended the fourth quarter and the year with increased revenue and EBITDA beyond 30%, despite the tough economic conditions”. Mr. Erwin went on to say that  “during the quarter, we reorganized our sales and support organizations to best serve our various customer segments, and we declared 2010 the Year of Customer Experience. In that regard, we recently announced certain new offerings, and lowered our prices for bandwidth and various server lines. We also have kicked off numerous training and customer service programs in an effort to deliver the best customer experience in the industry.
“To deliver across the board, operational excellence is critical. While our customer satisfaction rankings remain at all-time record highs, we will continue to make changes to improve our performance and deliver the products and services our customers require for their businesses.”

“We had another record revenue year and a solid quarter,” said Chief Financial Officer Kevin Klausmeyer. “Deal sizes continue to increase, and the managed hosting business is gaining more traction. Our cash flows remain very strong, which has resulted in a powerful balance sheet, with our net debt at its lowest level in the past three years. In 2010, we plan to make significant investments in our customer-facing systems, our network, our Virtual Dedicated Server offering and our data center infrastructure.”

Fourth Quarter Highlights
Complex Infrastructure Growth: The company’s complex infrastructure solutions, which include virtual and private racks, experienced more than 30% growth year-over-year, making them the fastest-growing products in the portfolio.

Partner Program Addition: Ayuda Networks, a highly regarded leader in IT infrastructure connectivity strategy and services, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., joined the company’s Partner Plus program.

Cloud Speaking Engagements: Rob Walters, director of product management, represented The Planet as a panelist at the Cloud Computing Expo and Conference. Todd Mitchell, general manager for the company’s Dedicated Hosting and Global Services business, delivered an address on cloud computing at the fourth annual cPanel customer conference.

New Storage Area Network: The company announced the availability of the Dell PowerVault MD3000i, a high-performance storage area network (SAN) disk array. Ideal for multi-server environments such as virtual and private racks, the company’s fastest-growing solutions, the MD3000i offers a cost-effective and scalable storage solution.

Nehalem Servers: The Xeon 3450, based on the Dell PowerEdge R210 platform and loaded with Intel’s next-generation Nehalem microarchitecture, became the third and most powerful server in the company’s fleet.

Microsoft OS Added to Portfolio: The company added the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 to its product line-up, making it available to all dedicated hosting customers.

Microsoft WebsiteSpark Membership: Supporting its SMB customers, the company joined Microsoft’s WebsiteSpark program, which provides small Web development and design firms with free Microsoft licenses for the latest versions of Windows Server and SQL Server, key tools for building and designing rich Web sites.

Texas IPv6 Conference: At its Houston-based headquarters, The Planet hosted and served as a Gold Sponsor for the Texas IPv6 Task Force, which attracted more than 100 participants. Also participating as Gold Sponsors were NTT America, Global Crossing and ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers).

The Planet Reports Fourth Quarter Results

(The Hosting News)  – Codero (www.codero.com), has now contributed 100 computers from its San Diego data center to the  San Luis Rey Elementary School, located in Oceanside, California. The Board of Education will formally take possession of the donated computers  at its regular board meeting scheduled for March 23, 2010.

“Our students and staff derive great benefit from gifts such as yours, and on their behalf and that of the school board, I am pleased to extend to you our appreciation and gratitude,” stated District Superintendent, Larry Perondi. “Your generosity and thoughtfulness will help us provide the best possible experience and environment for the young people we serve.”

The donation and preparation of the computers was facilitated by Dave Stanford, Director, Data Centers and Provisioning for Codero at its San Diego data center. “At Codero, being a good steward to the communities in which we work and live in is an ongoing focus. By providing technology to the youth of today, we know that we are contributing to the future of our community.”

The computers were exchanged with the Oceanside Unified School District on February 16, 2010. With an estimated value of $20,000, Codero is pleased to assist the School District by means of this technology donation.

Codero Donates Computers to School in Need

(The Hosting News) — Isilon® Systems today announced that SoftLayer has deployed Isilon scale-out NAS to power its enterprise cloud infrastructure. With Isilon IQ’s OneFS® operating system, SoftLayer has unified all of its file-based cloud operations onto a single, high performance, highly scalable, shared pool of storage, streamlining data management and increasing efficiency across three different, geographically disparate data center facilities. With Isilon scale-out NAS, SoftLayer can scale its storage resources in lockstep with customer demand, reducing capital expenditures while delivering more robust, flexible and responsive services to its worldwide customer base.

“Our cloud services address customers’ need for enterprise-class data center resources, meaning our network, servers and storage must always be available on-demand,” said Jacob Linscott, director of IT systems, SoftLayer. “Isilon IQ fits the bill perfectly—an easy-to-use single file system that allows us to buy what we need, when we need it, and then scale capacity and performance in-line with business growth. With Isilon, we’ve improved service functionality and flexibility without having to add any headcount.”

SoftLayer’s global, on-demand data center and hosting services deliver fully automated solutions from facilities across the United States, providing enterprises with complete access, control, security and scalability. Prior to deploying Isilon IQ, SoftLayer’s traditional SAN system was incapable of cost-effectively scaling to meet the high I/O and data growth requirements of its rapidly expanding customer base, preventing SoftLayer from fully capitalizing on market demand. By deploying Isilon scale-out NAS, SoftLayer’s cloud infrastructure can now service a broad spectrum of enterprise applications—including server and desktop virtualization, highly transactional workloads and disaster recovery—improving its ability to address mainstream data center requirements. With Isilon IQ, SoftLayer has unified all of its file-based cloud operations onto a single, easy-to-use, “pay as you grow” file system, decreasing both capital and operational expenditures, while accelerating business growth.

“As businesses enlist cloud service providers to reduce costs and increase efficiency, the providers’ most immediate challenge is how best to manage the rapid data growth and high performance requirements of their expanding customer base,” said Sam Grocott, vice president of marketing, Isilon Systems. “SoftLayer is setting the example for enterprise cloud services by using Isilon scale-out NAS to broaden its service offering, minimize costs and maximize its market opportunity.”

The names of companies mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

Isilon® (Nasdaq: ISLN) IQ Chosen by SoftLayer to Power Enterprise Cloud Services

(The Hosting News) – Web hosting solutions provider Latisys today announced its Chicago-area Tier III Data Center has successfully completed its first SAS 70 Type II audit. In addition to completing the Chicago facility audit, Latisys’ other colocation facilities (Denver, Irvine) were also audited and again confirmed to be SAS 70 Type II compliant. The Denver facility has been compliant since 2005, and the Irvine facility has been compliant since 2007.

Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 70, Service Organizations is a widely recognized auditing standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). The SAS 70 audit independently verifies the validity and functionality of a data center’s control activities and processes. Achieving successful completion of a SAS 70 Type II audit confirms that Latisys’ Chicago data center has been through an in-depth audit to ensure adequate controls and safeguards are in place.

“Our customers – particularly those in heavily regulated sectors such as energy, financial, healthcare, insurance and pharmaceuticals – require assurance that the highest levels of internal controls and security are established and maintained,” said Evans Mullan, Chief Operating Officer, Latisys. “Investing the necessary resources to complete SAS 70 Type II audits for all three Latisys data centers reaffirms our commitment to safeguarding customers’ sensitive data and mission critical IT infrastructure with best practice processes.”

Latisys’s Chicago Data Center Receives First Type II Audit.

(The Hosting News) – The Planet today announced its co-sponsorship of the next Web Host Industry Review (WHIR) networking event, to be held at The Grove Houston this evening. The event, which runs from 7 to 10 pm, will  provide a venue for local hosting industry professionals to personally connect with peers, customers and partners.

“Houston is our headquarters hometown, which makes it a natural for us to sponsor an event with the industry’s leading hosting outlet,” said Todd Mitchell, General Manager for The Planet’s Dedicated Hosting and Global Services business. “Anytime we’re able to talk about our company with business locals, it’s another opportunity to let companies know about the value we provide.”

The evening includes complimentary drinks and appetizers, and The Planet will conduct a drawing for an 8GB iPod nano. Participants can submit their business cards to win. Co-sponsoring the event with The Planet are R1Soft, Alert Logic and Attracta, among others.
To learn more or to register, visit http://www.theplanet.com/events/.

The Planet to Sponsor WHIR Networking Event