GoGrid Blog

Today (Wednesday) there were a flurry of announcements about Microsoft Windows suddenly being available in the Cloud, first by Amazon Web Services and then by 3tera. (Oh, and now since the writing of the first draft of this post, Steve Ballmer just revealed the “Windows Cloud.”) It made me scratch my head a bit. If you are a regular reader of this blog or are familiar with GoGrid in general, you would know by now that GoGrid has been offering Windows Server 2003 (and more recently Windows Server 2008) in the Cloud since the public launch at the beginning of 2008. So why is this suddenly “breaking news” in the industry? Probably because the Goliath in the Cloud industry, Amazon, has thrown its weight behind this.

Being the “David” though has its definite advantages. Having the ability to introduce new and different Operating Systems and features quickly (weeks as opposed to quarters or years) is a clear plus. And being able to offer a “complete” package is another. One thing that Amazon EC2 users are used to is using a command line to control their EC2 server instances. Many of those users are Linux programmers and developers - those who are well versed “in the command line.” Windows users are a very different breed. For them, the GUI is very important. Users want to see icons, click on them, use menus, etc. to “make things happen.”

When we started developing GoGrid over 3 years ago, the user experience was a huge factor in determining the feature set. We settled on using Google’s Web Toolkit (GWT) because it provided the structure to create a rich experience without compromising performance. We won awards (Linux World 2008’s Best of Show) for our implementation. The rich web portal won the hearts of many for its ease of use and the eye candy.

GoGrid users wanted to also control their infrastructure programmatically as well. We responded with a public API for full “control in the cloud.” The GoGrid API is a huge untapped resource for any developer. Add the rich experience of a graphical web interface with the programmatic power of an API; GoGrid provides the full control spectrum for all types of users. 

So, before you run off spawning a bunch of EC2 Windows servers (oh wait, you can’t yet), remember that GoGrid has already almost a year of proven experience providing Windows Server 2003/2008 to end users… we are also a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.

Regardless, it is important for Cloud Users to have a choice. Making the proper one is the challenge however, which means that (as I have mentioned before) one has to look beyond the Cloud itself and also at the ancillary services (SLA, Support, Industry knowledge, etc.) when making the choice.

At LinuxWorld 2008, Linux Journal’s Associate Editor, Shawn Powers, interviewed Mario Olivarez, the GoGrid Director of Product Management about Cloud Computing and how GoGrid is taking the technology and Cloud Computing movement to the next level. Obviously the LinuxWorld 2008 judges couldn’t agree with us more as they awarded GoGrid the high recognition of Best of Show. Below you can watch the Linux Journal interview in its entirety.

We will definitely have more interviews with various GoGrid champions in the future as well as some other exciting videos floating out there “in the wild.” Stay tuned!

ServePath’s Cloud Computing service, GoGrid was nominated this year for the LinuxWorld Expo 2008 Product Excellence Award of Best Virtualization Solution. Unfortunately, we did not win the award even though we were a finalist in the category. 

We did, however win the LinuxWorld 2008 BEST OF SHOW which is an incredible honor for us! Last year, at LinuxWorld 2007, ServePath won Best Grid Solution Product Excellence award. Winning the Best of Show this year was the icing on the cake for us.

GoGrid Wins LinuxWorld 2008 Best of Show

All of the award winners can be seen in the official press release on the winners of the Expo. Congratulations to all who were nominated as well as won.

Justin Kitagawa, Paul Lappas & Jeff Carr

John Keagy, CEO and Co-Founder of ServePath (GoGrid’s parent company) said “We are super excited to win the LinuxWorld 2008 Best of Show.  GoGrid Cloud Computing is making such broad impact on the field of computing that I’m glad we’re being recognized as more than just a novel approach in a single discipline such as hardware, storage or networking.”

There is plenty of excitement among the GoGrid Development team. They were just recognized by the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) team as a showcase example of GWT. GWT is an open-source Java development framework that is the driving force behind GoGrid’s quick, responsive and interactive Graphical User Interface (GUI).

The Google Web Toolkit was critical to the success of GoGrid’s front-end interface. It helped our developers code, debug and test while also providing a “thick client feel but with the performance of a thin client,” said lead GoGrid software engineer, Justin Kitagawa. “We were heavily influenced by Google Maps, the new Yahoo! Mail client and several other state-of-the-art AJAX applications,” says Kitagawa.

The video below illustrates how the GWT enables the GoGrid interface to quickly redraw regions, scale icons, and provide “flashy” effects, among other things. More information can be found here.

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To experience the GoGrid interface first-hand, simply sign up for a GoGrid account. Let us know what you think!