“Cloud Connect” is Sooo 2008 – Our Next Generation Hybrid Solution is Available on Both West & East Coast Data Centers
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There has been plenty of news recently how other cloud providers are stepping into the realm of providing connectivity between cloud and dedicated environments, and the buzz out there is that this is a feature that customers want. Well, we should know. At GoGrid, we initially launched this capability back in November of 2008 under the name “Cloud Connect”. Over the past few months, other providers have launched similarly named services that do exactly that, cross-connect these two types of environments via a physical connection. But GoGrid is well beyond this initial stage.
In February 2010, GoGrid released our unified vision for supporting Hybrid environments with the addition of GoGrid Dedicated Servers within the GoGrid Cloud. We realized through customer feedback and based on our 10 years of infrastructure service delivery that this would be a powerful and important feature that would help businesses craft custom infrastructure topologies that met their business requirements. No need to try to fit a round peg in a square hole – we believe that providing our customers a choice of pure cloud, pure dedicated or hybrid infrastructure on demand was something that they wanted. And we were correct.
But it’s not about what WE think, it’s about what our customers want. And given that the rest of the marketplace is jumping on the bandwagon now simply re-affirms what we pioneered.
And it is not a question of IF or WHEN we will offer the functionality because we already do and have for some time now, but rather HOW you will use it to create the IT environment that best fits your needs.
On Wednesday, January 12, 2011, we released the following Press Release that discusses not only our Hybrid solution, but also provides a quick roadmap of our innovation within this important feature:
GoGrid Expands Hybrid Cloud Service to East Coast Data Center
Leading Cloud Provider Enables Hybrid Topologies within Same Cloud Infrastructure Environments
San Francisco, Calif., – January 12, 2011 – GoGrid, a leading cloud infrastructure provider, today announced that it has expanded its 2nd Generation Hybrid Cloud capabilities. GoGrid customers can now use any GoGrid data center to build secure, high-performance and scalable infrastructures to power applications based on a combination of dedicated and virtual servers. This announcement coincides with the effective phasing out of its two-year old “Cloud Connect” service, a legacy feature that enabled the cross connection of physical and cloud environments.
After being the first company in the world to offer “Cloud Connect” functionality, GoGrid continued its leadership in Cloud technologies by incorporating its next-generation approach for combining virtual and physical servers within its public cloud service. From the same GoGrid portal, businesses provision unique, dynamically scalable virtual and physical infrastructures that are custom crafted to meet distinct requirements of businesses around the world.
“GoGrid’s Hybrid Cloud offering is an important customer and market development and continues to be a true differentiator,” said Jeff Samuels, chief marketing officer at GoGrid. “While other companies in the market are only now catching up with the cross connect functionality that GoGrid launched in 2008, GoGrid has advanced its capabilities by fully integrating our hybrid cloud into GoGrid’s public cloud service. Our customers are now able to seamlessly expand their topology with both physical and virtual instances in all GoGrid data centers.”
GoGrid has shown a solid innovation roadmap related to Hybrid Hosting:
- Original Offering (2008): GoGrid first to deliver hybrid hosting capabilities to the industry. GoGrid’s first-generation “Cloud Connect” service supported cross-connection via physical wiring with network integration across virtual, dedicated and collocated environments.
- True Hybrid Offering (February, 2010): GoGrid releases its next generation of its Hybrid Hosting service that features full integration of virtual and physical servers and appliances as part of its public cloud offering.
- Hybrid Capabilities in all GoGrid Data centers (December 2010): GoGrid expands Hybrid Hosting services to East Coast data center.
“GoGrid’s hybrid cloud solution represents a new way of deploying infrastructure that truly meets my business needs,” said Pierre Chew, CEO and founder of Plan Elements (www.planelements.com), a powerful new event planning solution. “Managing my previous infrastructure was cumbersome, difficult and did not allow me to react to changes within my business fast enough. Now, using GoGrid’s Hybrid Cloud Solution, my business has complete control over our destiny, using a combination of dedicated and virtual servers which I manage to ensure both security and elasticity.”
GoGrid’s Hybrid Cloud model combines the benefits of dynamic and on-demand scalability from a cloud environment with the permanence and compliant infrastructure available from dedicated, managed server offerings. Leveraging a standards-based IT framework that integrates critical infrastructure appliances and services is core to GoGrid’s Hybrid solution. GoGrid hybrid hosting environments allow for cross usage of hardware-based F5 load balancers, private VLANs, integrated cloud storage and hardware firewall solutions by physical and cloud servers alike.
“Hybrid Hosting is an essential part of businesses embracing the cloud as it provides users the important capability of choosing between physical and virtual servers when building infrastructure,” said Philbert Shih, Senior Analyst at Tier1 research. “Allowing users to manage both from a single interface in the same environment — as opposed to a physical cross connect — is the end goal of Hybrid Cloud Hosting and is where the entire market is heading.”
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
Again, it’s not about the product, it’s about you. We simply want to provide you with the tools you need to make your business succeed without you having to re-invent the wheel. We have made the wheel, the chassis, put the doors on and constructed the engine. GoGrid is ready for you to just hop in and drive. But if you still have questions, I encourage you to talk to us directly. We can set up a 1-on-1 consultation to walk through your IT needs and develop your cloud strategy. Similarly, we regularly host webinars that address a variety of topics to help you better craft your cloud implementation. My best recommendation? Just ask us!
