Even though it is the summer here, we are hard at work growing the GoGrid product and feature offering as we strive to live up to our new Unique Value Proposition: “Complex Infrastructure Made Easy™”.
Hello,
It’s August and we’ve hit our stride. The release of GoGrid version 3.0 was a major milestone and we’ve continued at a steady pace for feature parity in our new US-East-1 data center. In this edition of the newsletter, you’ll discover how our new features and system enhancements can make an immediate impact on your GoGrid Cloud.
Specific topics include:
- New Features and System Enhancements
- Unique Value Proposition
- Partner News
- CDN News
- Events and Other News
New Features and System Enhancements
F5 Load Balancer Support US-East-1
In June, we opened our new US-East-1 data center in Ashburn, VA, which allows for immediate provisioning of virtual servers with GoGrid base images. We’re happy to announce that free F5 load balancing is now available for immediate deployment in the US-East-1 data center as well.
You can use the GoGrid portal or the API to provision virtual servers and F5 load balancers in real time and in either of our locations: US-West-1 or US-East-1.
16 GB RAM Virtual Servers
In April we began the process of upgrading our node hardware with the latest Intel Nehalem chipset architecture allowing for 25-50% more CPU for virtual servers. We also gave Cloud Servers greater CPU allocations and now have included the ability to provision 16 GB RAM virtual servers in both GoGrid data centers.
As new node capacity continues to be built, we expect to soon have enough new Nehalem nodes to handle 100% of new virtual server adds. Currently, most virtual servers will be added to new nodes, but depending on demand, some virtual servers may be deployed on non-Nehalem nodes and therefore will receive the older CPU allotments.
Below are some FAQs for this new feature:
Q: Are the new 16 GB virtual servers compatible with my existing MyGSIs and PGSIs?
A: Yes, all of your existing MyGSIs and PGSIs are compatible with the 16GB RAM virtual servers, and that option will automatically be made available with existing compatible MyGSIs and PGSIs. Note that only server images with a 64-bit OS will have the option to add a 16GB RAM server.
Q: Are there any restrictions with the types of operating systems I can use?
A: Yes, there are some restrictions with Windows operating systems due to Microsoft licensing constraints. Please see the chart below for specifics:
New Virtual Servers
RAM Cores Disk Storage
16 GB 16 (Linux) 960
8 (Windows)
Existing Virtual Servers
RAM Cores Disk Storage
16 GB 8 960
If you have questions, please contact your dedicated GoGrid account team or GoGrid technical support.
Six New Images for GoGrid Dedicated Servers
We now support 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Ubuntu, CentOS, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for our GoGrid Dedicated Servers. All of the existing images continue to be supported and are still available.
See below for new image details:
- Ubuntu 10.04 (32-bit) Dedicated Server
- Ubuntu 10.04 (64-bit) Dedicated Server
- CentOS 5.5 (32-bit) Dedicated Server
- CentOS 5.5 (64-bit) Dedicated Server
- RHEL 5.5 (32-bit) Dedicated Server
- RHEL 5.5 (64-bit) Dedicated Server
Make an Impact on Your GoGrid Cloud
At GoGrid you have a dedicated service team with cross-functional expertise that is available to help you every step of the way. Our team of experts can translate your business and technical requirements into the best solution for you.
Interested in or have questions about:
Contact us directly to discuss getting started with a GoGrid solution. We will be happy to coordinate a technical and strategy call, as well as a consultative GoToMeeting on how to use our system.
Unique Value Proposition
Help Improve GoGrid and You Could Win an iPad
As part of our continued effort to provide a positive experience for our customers we are asking for your feedback. Below is a link to our quarterly customer survey. Simply fill out the survey and you’ll be entered to win an iPad. The survey is super quick (only a minute or two of your time) and will help us assess our ability to serve our customers and identify areas where we need to improve. This is your chance to provide input on the features that will help you. Here’s the link so that you can participate: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/D7ZDKTY
Partner News
We continue to add exciting new partners to the GoGrid Exchange. In the past month we’ve added several new Partner GoGrid Server Images (PGSIs) to the GoGrid catalog. You can deploy an image directly from the GoGrid Portal.
NEW to the GoGrid Exchange:
- Trend Micro Deep Security – Trend Micro Deep Security 7 provides advanced protection for servers in the dynamic data center, whether physical, virtual, or in the cloud. Deep Security combines intrusion detection and prevention, firewall, integrity monitoring, and log inspection capabilities in a single, centrally-managed software agent.
- Automated Security Assessment Program (ASAP) – Cranium Solutions’ flagship product, ASAP™ (Automated Security Assessment Program), is the first fully automated end-to-end network security testing solution that runs as a loud-based service. Businesses can perform simple and automated Vulnerability Assessments and Penetration Tests of any systems they have deployed on the GoGrid Cloud.
- enStratus – enStratus is a cloud infrastructure management platform for enterprise-class applications in private and public clouds including GoGrid. enStratus delivers governance for the cloud through a patent-pending security architecture and a range of management capabilities including financial controls, role-based security, auto-scaling, and auto-recovery.
UPDATES to the GoGrid Exchange:
- BitNami WordPress 3.0 – WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. The project was started in 2003. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.
- BitNami SugarCRM 5.5.2-0 – SugarCRM is a flexible customer relationship management solution for companies of all sizes. SugarCRM can be easily customized and integrated with other software to allow companies to build and maintain a more flexible system. The core functionality includes sales force automation, marketing campaigns, support cases, project management, and calendaring.
- GigaSpaces XAP – GigaSpaces Technologies is a leading provider of a new generation of application platforms for Java and .Net environments that offer an alternative to traditional application-servers. The company’s eXtreme Application Platform (XAP) is a high-end application server designed to meet the most demanding business requirements in a cost-effective manner. It is the only product that provides a complete middleware solution on a single, scalable platform.
Webinar: Sentrigo and GoGrid
Title: Learn to Build a Stable, Scalable, and Secure Databases in the Cloud
Date and time: Thursday, August 12, 2010 10:00 am – 11:00am PDT
In this webinar, GoGrid and Sentrigo, a leader and innovator in database security, share our expertise on database deployments and real-time security in this latest frontier of information technology. Click here to register, or paste http://go.gogrid.com/e/3442/7YXX2/RXDE/7101902 into your browser.
CDN News
18 Global PoPs
GoGrid is pleased to announce that our Parisian CDN PoP (Point of Presence) is now fully functional, bringing the total number of global GoGrid CDN PoPs to 18. Also new to the GoGrid CDN are upgrades to our Flash Live Streaming Platform and new HTTP Rules Engine.
There are no fees to have a CDN account provisioned. Learn more or have yours created today.
Flash Live Streaming Platform
If you’re looking to stream live Flash video, then our new offering Live StreamCast offers superior scalability and performance over our previous Live Streaming service.
Enhancements include:
- Automatic redundancy and failover
- A new live publishing point in Australia
- Simpler URL structure
- Improved scalability
We’ll continue to offer and support our existing Flash platforms: Flash On-Demand and Flash via HTTP progressive download.
HTTP Rules Engine
The HTTP Rules Engine gives you highly granular control over how, when, and if your content is served. The possibilities are endless, but the end result is much more control over the security, cost, and burden of your content delivery.
The HTTP Rules Engine allows you to:
- Easily block content leeching and hotlinking
- Slash bandwidth costs by specifying precise “origin pull” update intervals for each URL or object
- Reduce load on your origin servers by offloading your existing rules to our processing engine
The cost is $299.99/month and $299.99 for setup.
For more information, consult your Service Team Account Manager.
Events and Other News
Net Promoter Survey
If you’ve filled out our Net Promoter Survey, Thank You! We recently sent you a short survey asking you if you would recommend GoGrid to a friend or colleague. Your feedback is very important to us and will be reviewed closely by our executive team. If you haven’t had a chance to fill out the survey, there’s still time.
GoGrid 3.0 Webinar
On June 28, we hosted a webinar featuring the release of GoGrid version 3.0 and our new East Coast data center. If you were unable to attend or would like to review the recording, visit our blog.
As always, you can find more information about GoGrid by visiting the following links:
If you have any questions please feel free to contact your service team directly.
Thank you,
[Service Team Account Executive]
Your Service Team
