Houston, Texas - (The Hosting News) - May 15, 2008 - Privately held dedicated web hosting company, The Planet, has upgraded and expanded its Network Operations Center (NOC), through a Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) designation requirement.

All employees who work in the company's NOC are required to hold the CCNA, and the staff is now 100 percent certified. Every NOC technician has earned this complex designation, which tests the skills required to install, configure, operate and troubleshoot routed and switched networks. Many on the team have earned even more senior Cisco certifications.

Created by Cisco Systems Inc., CCNA is the industry-recognized standard of expertise for IT network professionals. The rigorous certification requires knowledge of core network functions, including the verification of remote sites in a Wide Area Network (WAN), knowledge of various network types and the basic mitigation of security threats. Additional skills tested include the implementation of Local Area Networks (LAN) and an understanding of wireless networking concepts.

Stan Barter, Vice President of Network Operations at The Planet noted, ''Customers tell us that they come to The Planet to host their IT infrastructures based on the quality of our network and our six world-class data centers. The NOC is the nerve center for our company, and its primary role is to ensure the entire network infrastructure functions at its highest level of capability. Cisco is the recognized market leader in IT and network knowledge, so we certify each engineer to their standards, which offer an excellent career path for advancement in our company.''

Currently, there are open positions in The Planet NOC for those with CCNA qualifications. For more information on careers at The Planet, visit www.theplanet.com/about-us/careers.asp.

Earlier this month, The Planet unveiled six new promotions, including savings of up to 26 percent on its two Check Point solutions, as the company's first-ever firewall discount.

The following promotions continue through May 31, 2008, or while promotional supplies last:

• Firewall Upgrades: The Check Point X16, formerly priced at $89 per month, is now available for $69, a 22 percent savings. The Check Point XU is now available for $139 per month - reduced from $189 per month - a savings of 26 percent.
• Double Down Select: This promotion provides customers the choice to double their base bandwidth, hard disk or RAM for free on new orders of the Kentsfield SATA or the Dual Xeon 2.8 IDE.
• Dual Xeon 2.4 SCSI: Now priced at $143 per month - down from $219 - customers can take advantage of a 35 percent savings on this popular server.
• Dedicated Backup Servers: For customers looking for special pricing on backup servers, the company is offering savings ranging from 13 percent to 29 percent on 500GB to 6TB servers.
• Component Upgrades: Existing customers can take advantage of disk space, additional bandwidth and backup at 50 percent off current prices.

Ultimately, The Planet endeavors to provide:

• High levels of network capacity and speed to deliver peak performance
• Instant scalability to handle even the largest spikes in network traffic
• Parallel, redundant, multi-tiered network routing and switching architecture to assure reliability and stability
• Multiple layer network security that prevents Delayed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks from harming businesses
• Knowledgeable experts with a passion for excellence and a commitment to operate the best networks in the business

The Planet is a leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting over 22,000 small and medium size businesses and 6.7 million web sites worldwide, using the best choice of servers, software tools and support, backed by enhanced facilities and network connectivity.

For more information about The Planet, please visit: www.theplanet.com.