At GoGrid, we pride ourselves on being the world’s largest pure-play Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider. We work tirelessly to innovate the top cloud infrastructure technology available, provide the best support solutions and offer the most comprehensive Service Level Agreement (SLA) in the industry. And when an independent research group recognizes our hard work, it’s extremely validating and a little hard not to share.

This past July, Info-Tech Research Group released an extensive report entitled “Vendor Landscape: Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)”. This report is designed to help companies understand the offerings of cloud infrastructure providers so they can select a partner with solutions that best meet their needs. Each cloud IaaS vendor was scored based on their product offering and company strengths. GoGrid was one of 3 companies placed in the highest quadrant, “Champion”, and had the highest “Value Index” of every company profiled.

GoGrid topped the charts because our services had the highest value and, as Info-Tech put it, was the biggest “bang for the buck” (e.g. features, usability, stability, etc.).

The research and findings of the Info-Tech Research Group are available for download. The report highlights the purpose and methodology behind Info-Tech’s research, complete industry results and detailed analysis of GoGrid as a cloud infrastructure provider.

Learn why GoGrid was positioned as “Champion.” Please Download the Info-Tech Cloud IaaS Research Report

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!

If you are already a GoGrid user, most likely your inbox has a copy of the June 2010 GoGrid Newsletter. But for those of you who are not customers or are simply interested in receiving the latest and greatest information straight from us, below you can find the content of the newsletter. It was definitely an action-packed month for us at GoGrid as you will indubitably see from reading.

Below is the full content of the newsletter:

Hello,

It’s been a busy start to the first half of the year for us at GoGrid. We’re excited to fill you in on all of our important news and how we’ve been working to make your GoGrid cloud even better. From opening a new East Coast data center to our release of GoGrid version 3.0, you’ll find this newsletter full of information on how you can enhance and expand your GoGrid cloud.

Specific topics include:

• New East Coast Data Center
• GoGrid 3.0
• GoGrid’s Leadership Team
• CloudHarmony Benchmarks
• New GoGrid Website
• Partner News
• Events and Other News

NEW EAST COAST DATA CENTER

We’re thrilled to announce our new East Coast (US-East-1) data center in Ashburn, VA. Our expansion to the East Coast has been in development for several months and is available now. All of our GoGrid data center locations are SAS70 Type II certified and Cisco Powered Networks.

Data Center Locations:

• West Coast (US-West-1): San Francisco, CA
• East Coast (US-East-1): Ashburn, VA

Virtual servers with GoGrid base images are available for immediate deployment at the US-East-1 data center; additional features will be launched in subsequent releases. You can use the GoGrid portal or API to provision virtual servers in real time, and in either of our locations; US-West-1 or US-East-1.

GOGRID 3.0

You’ll notice that throughout the newsletter we’ll be talking about making complex infrastructure easy and that’s really the goal of GoGrid version 3.0. In addition to continually enhancing our product offering, we’ve also been listening to you – our customers – and developing features that make creating a complex IT infrastructure in the GoGrid cloud easy.

Some of the new features and system enhancements you’ll recognize from previous newsletters, however, the culmination of all the hardware architecture and feature development make up GoGrid version 3.0. While each of our releases contain many features and improvements, the timeline below represents those that can help you make an immediate impact on how you leverage your GoGrid cloud.

GoGrid 3.0 Timeline: Complex Infrastructure Made Easy

• June 2010 New East Coast Data Center – GoGrid partners with Equinix, Inc (Nasdaq: EQIX) in the expansion to a new data center in Ashburn, VA. The initial rollout enables you to provision cloud servers in real-time and in either location Us-East-1 or US-West-1.
• May 2010 GoGrid Node Hardware and increased CPU allocations – All GoGrid data centers are updated and outfitted with the latest Intel Nehalem chipset architecture which allows for 25-50% more CPU for virtual servers. Cloud Servers also now have greater CPU allocations. See the blog posting.
• April 2010 Hardware Firewalls – Firewall services are introduced allowing you to manage security for your GoGrid VLAN from a single device.
• February 2010 Virtual & Physical Servers – The ability to create a hybrid IT infrastructure with virtual and physical servers within the same environment becomes available.
• November 2009 GoGrid Exchange – GoGrid introduces the GoGrid Exchange with new Partner Server Images (PGSIs). PGSIs provide a variety of software solutions deployed as software server images for common business challenges including: Software & Applications, Development & Testing, Disaster Recovery & Backup, Cloud Management, and Security, Monitoring & Reporting.
• November 2009 Content Delivery Network – GoGrid CDN is rolled out, allowing you to accelerate the delivery of all your web content using our global infrastructure.

GOGRID’S LEADERSHIP TEAM

Not only have we been enhancing our product offering, but, we’ve also been expanding our GoGrid leadership team. With a keen eye to selecting industry pioneers with proven track records, we’d like to introduce you to the newest members of our leadership team and formally introduce you to all of our GoGrid executives.

New Members of the Executive Team

• Jeff Samuels, CMO
• Mark Worsey, CIO and EVP of Technology

Executive Team

• John Keagy, Founder and CEO
• Brett Newsom, CFO
• Jeff Samuels, CMO
• Mark Worsey, CIO and EVP of Technology
• Jack Duffy, EVP of Sales and Business Development
• Paul Lappas, VP of Engineering
• Mario Olivarez, VP of Product Management
• Bobby Brown, VP of Operations and Support

Learn more about each of our executives on the GoGrid website.

CLOUDHARMONY BENCHMARKS

CloudHarmony just announced the results of the first industry wide test of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers. In the recently published Input/Output (I/O) Cloud Performance report, GoGrid Cloud Servers dramatically outperform most other cloud vendors in the marketplace.

GoGrid Benchmark Results:

• GoGrid’s 4 GB RAM cloud server benchmark performed best with input/output performance (IOP) of 161.14. This was over 50% faster than Amazon’s equivalent cloud server which had an IOP of 104.36
• Our 4 GB RAM cloud server was almost twice as fast as RackSpace’s equivalent cloud server which had an IOP of 86.75

Read the GoGrid blog for more details on the methodology and results.

NEW GOGRID WEBSITE

Our GoGrid website has been completely overhauled. Easily navigate to find product information, pricing plans and case studies to help enhance your GoGrid cloud. Explore the new site www.gogrid.com.

PARTNER NEWS

Did you know that a partner image (PGSI) can be provisioned in minutes, drastically reducing the time it takes to get new applications up and running in the cloud? As a GoGrid user, you have full access to any public PGSI within the GoGrid catalog of images. Detailed partner information, as well as descriptions of the available PGSIs can be found on the GoGrid Exchange.

The following images are NEW to the GoGrid Exchange.

• SNORT IDS/IPS – Snort® is an open source network intrusion prevention and detection system (IDS/IPS) developed by Sourcefire. There is an additional charge of $29/month per instance of this deployed. It gets the user access to updated rules via Sourcefire.
• MediaWiki – MediaWiki is a wiki package originally written for Wikipedia. It is now used by several other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and by many other wikis. MediaWiki was designed to be run on a large server farm for a website that gets millions of hits per day.
• JasperServer – JasperServer Community Edition, the open source report server, built by the developers of JasperReports, the leading open source reporting library. It provides a web and web services based environment for reporting and dashboards.
• Spree – The most powerful and flexible E-Commerce platform for the Ruby Enterprise. Spree.
• Coppermine – Coppermine is a multi-purpose, full-featured web picture gallery script written in PHP using GD or ImageMagick as image library with a MySQL backend.
• Rubystack – Ruby on Rails is a full-stack MVC framework for database-backed web applications that is optimized for programmer happiness and sustainable productivity. It lets you write beautiful code by favoring convention over configuration.
• LAPPstack – Includes ready-to-run versions of Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP and phpPgAdmin and required dependencies. LAPPstack
• Librato Silverline – Silverline allows you to process your workload on a smaller number of servers without any impact on the Quality of Service provided by your primary applications.
• Sentrigo Hedgehog – Hedgehog Cloud-Based Database Compliance and Security Suite.

OTHER NEWS AND EVENTS

• Structure 2010 hosted by GigaOm – GoGrid was a sponsor at the annual Structure conference hosted by GigaOm on June 23 and 24.GigaOm/Structure
• GoGrid Named One of The “Hottest Companies in San Francisco” by Lead411Read more on our blog
• GoGrid named “Best Cloud Computing Provider” for May and June 2010 by HostReview.com Read more.
• ASCII Awards GoGrid “Best Channel Incentives.” Find our more on our blog.

As always you can find more information about GoGrid at:

• GoGrid Product Site – www.gogrid.com
• GoGrid Blog – blog.gogrid.com
• GoGrid Wiki – wiki.gogrid.com
• GoGrid Forums – forums.gogrid.com

If you have any questions please contact me directly at Maria[at]gogrid.com.

Thank you,
Maria Gallegos

I told you we were busy! Please don’t forget to follow us on Twitter (@GoGrid) as well as become a fan of us on Facebook. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. We hope you enjoy all of the great news coming from our San Francisco headquarters.

The ASCII Group held their ASCII Reseller Success Summit in Chicago, IL in June 2010 and GoGrid was there to spread the word about the GoGrid Reseller Program we have in place. And at the end of the Summit, GoGrid was awarded the “Best Channel Incentives” award!

The ASCII Success Summit was attended by about 130 IT resellers that sell into the SME market and about 30 vendors. GoGrid announced our Premier channel program that provided the resellers the opportunity to get involved with an IaaS provider that really understands their reselling business. GoGrid offers a program that provides for a true partnership between the reseller and the vendor by helping evolve their business into a cloud services model versus asking them to make wholesale changes to their business strategy as most vendors do. Our lucrative discount strategy, joint marketing incentives and deal registration programs provide the business tools that resellers need in order to make this transition into IaaS business.

The main focus of the show was Cloud Services. Most resellers were highly interested in the space but, confused as to how to go about getting a piece of this growing market segment. The overall message was that up to 30% of their legacy infrastructure and software business was going to go away in place of as a service type business. Resellers wanted to know what role they had in this market and how they were going to make money by participating.

Reid Cooper, Sr. Channel Account Manager at GoGrid, represented GoGrid at the show and helped GoGrid secure the “Best Channel Incentives” award.

The Channel Incentive Award was given to GoGrid because of the consensus of the reseller community that GoGrid had the best overall channel program and sales incentives at the show. Our 50% discount for Premier Partners, joint marketing activities investment and deal registration program combined, provided the best in class and resonated well with the reseller community.

Reid also sat on a advisory panel at the event with three other vendors including Google titled, “Cloud Consulting… The Conversation You Need to Have Now With Your Clients” which was moderated by Gennifer Biggs, Managed Services Editor of Business Solutions.

About The ASCII Group

The ASCII Group, Inc. was founded in 1984 and is the world’s oldest and largest group of independent computer solution providers and integrators. Their members provide products and services to clients ranging from small and medium businesses, to Fortune 500 companies, as well as governments and educational institutions in the United States, Canada, the UK and other countries. The ASCII community members sales are over $9.5 Billion in the U.S. alone!

The ASCII Group’s focus remains the same — providing solution providers with the tools necessary to survive and grow in the competitive technology market. These tools include leveraged purchasing programs both through major computer products distributors and direct with manufacturers; education and training; knowledge sharing amongst peers; sizeable discounts on business services such as errors and omissions/business liability insurance; and a worldwide locator which allows customers to find a local independent solution provider.