GoGrid‘s Channel, Partner and Reseller Programs have already received notable recognition and today we released news of our participation in the new Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace (http://www.ingrammicrocloud.com).

The following Press Release was released today and is available online here and here as well:

GoGrid to deliver Cloud Hosting Solutions through new Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace

Infrastructure-as-a-Service Leader to Enable Ingram Micro Channel Partners with Pioneering Cloud Computing Capabilities

San Francisco, CA – November 22, 2010 – GoGrid, a leading cloud infrastructure provider, today announced a strategic marketing alliance with Ingram Micro (NSYE: IM), the world’s largest technology distributor . GoGrid is among the first cloud service providers to be featured within the Ingram Micro Cloud, a new reseller enablement platform and online Cloud Marketplace (http://www.ingrammicrocloud.com) from Ingram Micro. GoGrid is committed to providing best-of-breed cloud infrastructure solutions, resources and enablement tools to Ingram Micro’s extensive and growing network of IT Value Added Resellers (VARs) and Managed Service Providers (MSPs).

GoGrid is focused on delivering innovative infrastructure solutions in the cloud and doing it second-to-none,” said Jack Duffy, Senior EVP of Sales and Business Development at GoGrid. “We are committed to investing in our partners in this early stage of adoption and we truly value the role and importance that Ingram Micro and their channel ecosystem bring to the market. We are confident that working together, GoGrid and Ingram Micro will further drive cloud adoption and enhance partner profitability.”

GoGrid’s award-winning reseller programs will support Ingram Micro VARs and MSPs through two significant industry transitions:

1.    Fulfilling the strong demand to migrate customers’ on-premise IT environments to the cloud and create financial and technological efficiencies
2.    Helping resellers adapt their business models and support mechanism to ensure scale and sustained profitability

Ingram Micro has proven itself to be the leader in cloud offerings and the new partnership with GoGrid is further confirmation of the distributor’s commitment to identifying leading cloud vendors that understand and thrive around the channel partner community,” said Patrick Ciccarelli, President & CEO of Varsity Technologies and Ingram Micro reseller. “GoGrid’s cloud technology and service to the channel will enable Ingram Micro’s partners to find new opportunities with existing and new customers.”

GoGrid is providing channel partners essential resources and educational information through the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace. For many channel partners, this site is both the initial introduction to cloud solutions and an ongoing destination for cloud computing research. The Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace provides Ingram Micro’s VARs and MSPs throughout the U.S. and Canada access to an aggregated group of cloud-based computing and communications services providers.

The GoGrid Partner Program is well designed for cloud-centric MSPs who want to provide Infrastructure-as-a-Service, leverage free cloud demonstration accounts in a ‘try before you buy’ sales model, and meet their own profitability goals,” said Ed Becker, President of BeckITSystems.  “The GoGrid Partner Program definitely helps MSPs who want to grow their business and who are willing to contribute to success through mutual participation in demand generation activities with GoGrid.”

GoGrid’s participation in the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace exposes customers to best-of-breed technology, infrastructure and cloud solutions. With over 10 years delivering solutions within the infrastructure space as well leveraging historical insights from over 10,000 customers worldwide, GoGrid has created a winning formula for channel success.

GoGrid has a great focus on the channel,” said Eric Adkins, President of Adkins Technologies. “And from a purely technical perspective, as rated by an independent 3rd party, GoGrid performs faster than other leading cloud infrastructure and platform players. In short, GoGrid’s support is better, their pricing is better, their hardware is better, their ease of use is better, their channel program is better, and my business is better for it.”

For more information about becoming a GoGrid Partner or Reseller, please visit: http://www.gogrid.com/partners/

About GoGrid
Thousands of leading IT experts choose and rely on GoGrid’s Cloud infrastructure services. GoGrid enables sysadmins, developers, and IT professionals to create, deploy, and control cloud environments and complex virtual and physical server networks with full administrative control. GoGrid’s industry standard specifications and robust service offerings are powering thousands of businesses globally to achieve previously unrealized efficiencies. Deploying a GoGrid infrastructure solution using a Standard or Partner Server Image, free hardware F5 load balancing, Cloud Storage, private VLANs and much more takes minutes via a web interface, API, or iPhone application. GoGrid provides users the control and advanced capabilities of a data center environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud. www.GoGrid.com
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If you would like to get more information about GoGrid’s Partner Network and the various programs available to VARs, MSPs, Resellers, SaaS, PaaS, Infrastructure Resellers and the like, please visit our Partner Section.

A few months ago we submitted a nomination for the UP 2010 Cloud Computing Awards, and a few weeks ago GoGrid was selected as a finalist for the “Efficiency in Technology” Award!

The UP 2010 conference is a hybrid conference with a combination of virtual and physical elements that cover the latest trends and innovations in the world of cloud computing. There are panels and workshops as well as virtual sessions and the Awards recognition event is being held on November 15, 2010. Other nominees for the “Efficiency in Technology” Award include: Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, Salesforce, SAS and VMware. More information about the conference can be found at: http://up-con.com/.

Below is the Press Release that GoGrid issued about the nomination:

GoGrid Named Finalist in UP 2010 Cloud Computing Awards

Infrastructure-as-a- Service Leader honored for technical achievements

San Francisco, CA – November 2, 2010 – GoGrid, a leading Cloud Infrastructure and Hybrid Hosting Provider, has been recognized as a Finalist in the UP 2010 Cloud Computing Awards program in the “Efficiency in Technology” Award category. The UP 2010 conference, produced by Cloudcor, is a “hybrid” conference held both physically and virtually that covers the latest trends and innovation in the world of cloud computing.

As a finalist, GoGrid CEO and co-founder, John Keagy, will be presenting an overview of GoGrid’s impressive leadership in the Cloud Infrastructure Hosting marketplace. GoGrid has been a pioneer in Cloud and Infrastructure-as-a-Service industry introducing powerful cloud computing market-firsts such cloud-based Windows Server 2003 and 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server as well as being the first provider to offer hybrid hosting solutions within the same environment.

“We are honored to be a finalist in this important category along with such a fine list of industry front-runners,” says John Keagy, “This recognition is further confirmation of GoGrid’s technology and product innovation leadership. GoGrid is committed to providing the highest level cloud infrastructure solutions to the thousands of global customers that choose GoGrid every day.”

With over 10 years’ experience hosting business’ complex infrastructure, GoGrid has skyrocketed in popularity, making it one of the top Cloud Infrastructure Service providers in the world. Tens of thousands of GoGrid customers worldwide have successfully and easily deployed robust customized cloud infrastructures leveraging the multifaceted features and services that make up the GoGrid cloud. Customers can deploy cloud servers, on-demand dedicated servers, F5 hardware-based load balancers, and cloud storage — all using the award-winning GoGrid portal, REST-like API or iPhone application.

The UP 2010 Cloud Computing Awards recognition event will be held November 15, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency Airport Hotel; San Francisco on the first day of the UP 2010 Cloud Computing Conference.

The full list of UP 2010 Cloud Award finalists can be viewed at http://www.up-con.com/awards

About UP 2010 Cloud Awards

The UP 2010 – Cloud Awards – part of the UP 2010 Cloud Computing Conference – Produced by Cloudcor (and Sponsored by PwC), is an event which will showcase the leading technology innovators in cloud computing, providing a forum for business and technology leaders to learn more about how cloud computing can enable growth and innovation for companies across all industries. The UP 2010 Cloud Awards takes place on November 15th at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Burlingame, California USA. Full details on the UP 2010 Cloud Awards can be located at http://www.up-con.com/awards

About UP 2010

UP 2010™ (15 – 19 November 2010), is the world’s first truly “hybrid” cloud computing conference for business leaders, IT professionals and investors. UP 2010 is an affordable “hybrid” conference with both physical locations and full virtual deployment. The conference agenda can be viewed at http://www.up-con.com/agenda. Full details about UP 2010 can be viewed at http://www.up-con.com.

About GoGrid

Thousands of leading IT experts choose and rely on GoGrid’s Cloud infrastructure services. GoGrid’s award winning technology enables sysadmins, developers, and IT professionals to create, deploy, and control cloud environments and complex virtual and physical server networks with full administrative control. GoGrid’s industry standard specifications and robust service offerings are powering thousands of businesses globally to achieve previously unrealized efficiencies. Deploying a GoGrid infrastructure solution using a Standard or Partner Server Image, free hardware F5 load balancing, Cloud Storage, private VLANs and much more takes minutes via a web interface, API, or iPhone application. GoGrid provides users the control and advanced capabilities of a data center environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud.  For more information, please visit: http://www.GoGrid.com.

It is truly an honor to be nominated with a great list of industry leaders. We wish all nominees the best of luck!

Having a secure Cloud Computing environment is paramount to GoGrid cloud customers. In fact, many critics of cloud computing in general point to “security” as one of the primary barriers to entry for their company or clients jumping into the cloud as a critical component of a company’s core IT strategy. We whole-heartedly agree that Security in the Cloud should be on any checklist when evaluating cloud providers. To that end, we have enhanced our Hardware Firewall service to ensure that your servers and critical data remain secure from malicious threats that ANY server or website is vulnerable to, cloud or not.

Set up, managed and maintained by experienced GoGrid System Administrators, the new GoGrid Fortinet is designed to insulate your infrastructure on GoGrid from a variety of new and sophisticated threats. Also, if you are working down the path of achieving PCI compliance for your environment running on GoGrid, this hardware firewall solution provides another “check in the box” towards compliance. While host-based firewall solutions do work in many cases, to achieve true protection against attacks, a hardware-based firewall is definitely the direction to go.

Key Features and Pricing

Briefly, the new GoGrid Fortinet Firewall’s key features are:

• 1 Gbps throughput
• 100,000 concurrent sessions
• Unlimited IP addresses in a trusted interface
• Choice of one VPN from the following
  • SSL
  • Site-to-Site
  • IPSec

The new Fortinet Hardware Firewall service is available for $200/month or $2000/year if prepaid annually. There is no Setup Fee for this service. The service includes one VPN, but should you desire to add additional Virtual Private Networks (like SSL, Site-to-Site or IPSec) those can be added for $50/month with no setup fee.

To order a GoGrid Hardware Firewall, you need to contact the GoGrid Sales Department (if you are a new customer) or your Service Team Account Manager (if you are a current GoGrid customer).

More Information about GoGrid’s Fortinet Firewall Service

We have compiled the following set of Frequently Asked Questions in anticipation of them being asked.

Question: Where are the Hardware Firewalls available?

Answer: The Fortinet Hardware Firewalls are currently only available in our US-West-1 data center.

Q: Can I control my firewall via the GoGrid API?

A: At this time, the Hardware Firewalls cannot be controlled via the API

Q: Can I use my GoGrid F5 Hardware Load Balancers with the Fortinet solution?

A: Yes, the F5 load balancing services can be used in conjunction with the Fortinet Hardware Firewall.

Q: How am I billed for the GoGrid Hardware Firewalls?

A: Fortinet hardware firewall billing is done based on your GoGrid signup month & day on a monthly basis. The bill can always be viewed in the GoGrid Customer Portal.

Q: I have a GoGrid Hybrid Hosting environment (combination of GoGrid Cloud Servers & GoGrid Dedicated Servers), is the Fortinet Firewall compatible with that type of environment?

A: Absolutely! The Fortinet Firewall can be configured to protect your entire GoGrid environment (virtual and physical servers).

Q: Sign me up! How do I order or add to my Firewall?

A: To order a GoGrid Firewall, you must contact a GoGrid Sales Representative (new customers) or your Service Team Account Manager (existing customers). Ordering via the GoGrid Web Portal is not currently available.

Q: Can I see my Hardware Firewalls within the GoGrid portal?

A: At this time, the Firewall is not displayed in the GoGrid portal.

Q: What are your SLA deployment times for the Firewall?

A: Your hardware firewall will be deployed within 2 business days.

Q: Can you show a couple of high-level network diagrams of the Firewall solution?

A: See below.

Above: The Fortinet Firewall provides enterprise-level security on the network layer.

Above: IPSec Remote Access allows “dial-up” connectivity from many operating systems and requires the use of FortiClient software. The SSL VPN allows for unlimited users in non-tunneled mode or 5 concurrent logins in tunneled mode. The Point-to-Point VPN Tunnel is an “always up” end-to-end encrypted tunnel solution which requires a VPN endpoint at a remote location.

GoGrid is one of the only “pure-play” Infrastructure providers who offers a state-of-the-art Fortinet Hardware Firewall solutions to further enhance the security of your infrastructure running on our services.