Earlier this month, we had had the distinguished pleasure of celebrating GoGrid’s international expansion to EMEA by hosting a party with Equinix in Amsterdam. Europe has been more than hospitable to our new European team, and this event was no exception.

This was my 4th visit to our Amsterdam HQ and data center and I’m truly excited to see the traction within the European community and the adoption by those European companies seeing value in multiple global points of presences.

The location of the event was at a converted auto shop which is now a cool new restaurant and lounge, it still had some stylish remnants of its past – including an actual Ferrari in the center of the room! This venue turned out to be the ideal location for our welcoming party.

The turnout to the event was great. GoGrid received a warm welcome from over 100 different partners and customers as well as some of the top international companies who also have expanded to Europe. Having a casual atmosphere in which to discuss technology services, the importance and adoption of cloud computing within Europe and the direction it is going globally definitely set the stage for some powerful conversations.

But, it wouldn’t have been a party if we didn’t have a guest speaker. Comedian, Greg Shapiro, was perfect for the event. Shapiro is also from the US but now makes a living in the Netherlands. His antics and insights on transitioning cultures made for a fun and enjoyable evening. Greg Shapiro is top notch and we highly recommend him to anybody looking for a sharp speaker who understands both a US and European audience.

With two large TV screens displaying pictures and words to illustrate the differences in cultures and languages, Shapiro kept the audience engaged while balancing cultural and language nuances.

It’s important for me to see the results of our hard work over the past year developing not only an EMEA HQ but also firmly establishing a cloud data center presence. As our global reach continues to expand, I hope to meet more of our overseas customers and get to know how they are utilizing our cloud services.

In January, we announced the opening of GoGrid’s new EMEA Headquarters and deployment of our cloud infrastructure in Equinix’s International Business Exchange (IBX) data center in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. To mark this collaboration, we’re pleased to announce an upcoming event jointly hosted with our friends at Equinix. The “Heads in the Cloud” happy hour will take place Thursday, 15 March, 2012, from 16:30–19:00 at De Goudfazant, Amsterdam (Noord). If you’re in the area, we’d be delighted to have you join us for the celebration.

The highlight of the evening will definitely be the comedy of Greg Shapiro, our guest speaker. If you haven’t heard Shapiro perform, check out his website and learn how this Chicago native ended up in Amsterdam and why his humor helps make everyday business bearable. We expect it to be a terrific event, so make sure to block the date out in your calendar.

After Shapiro’s performance, relax over drinks and chat with your peers—partners, suppliers, and customers—as well as the GoGrid and Equinix teams. We’ll be happy to answer your questions about our plans for the region moving forward. And for those who’ve never visited De Goudfazant before, ”Heads in the Cloud” provides the perfect complement to the stylish waterfront location and unique atmosphere.

If you’re interested in attending, we encourage you to register ahead of time via email to Geesje.Duis-Bakker[AT]eu.equinix.com. We look forward to seeing you on the 15^th!

GoGrid CEO, John Keagy, recently spent some time overseas visiting the new GoGrid European Headquarters and data center in Amsterdam. I caught up with John upon his return in order to find out his thoughts and visions of a global GoGrid cloud, how Equinix has enabled GoGrid’s expansion and why it is important to the GoGrid customer.

Michael Sheehan: Why is opening a new overseas data center important?
John Keagy: It’s part of our global expansion plan. Europe is a logical next step.

MS: Why Amsterdam and not somewhere else?
JK: My favorite reason on why we selected Amsterdam as the first part of our overseas expansion is AMS-IX. AMS-IX is an Internet exchange that has resulted in Amsterdam being the place for Internet transit. Bandwidth is affordable and comparable to Silicon Valley. It means that customers are in the spot where most Internet traffic originates and terminates. If you are going to locate a web server in one location in Europe, Amsterdam is the most connected city. It’s the best place to locate your Internet infrastructure. It’s got the most connections and because it has the most connections, it is the most affordable – the highest performance at the lowest cost.

MS: Why was having a European presence critical?
JK: We have a strong European customer base that has been demanding a localized presence and when we examined that marketplace, we determined that it was critical to enable those European customers to have a cloud infrastructure deployable in their backyard.

MS: What are your impressions of the data center facility having visited it?
JK: The data center facility is incredible. It’s a combination of GoGrid doing a nice job with its installation – the racking and stacking, cabling and design of the installation. But it is also Equinix’s implementation of its cold aisle technology. It’s like walking into a refrigerator. It’s sealed. It doesn’t have a cage door, it has a glass door. They pump cold air into the interior of the cage and it’s vented through the equipment. Where there is no equipment, the slots are filled with baffles so that the cold air is forced through the equipment. It’s sort of like a refrigerator within a cage. It’s not just us doing a good job, it’s Equinix pursing a better utility efficiency score through sophisticated cold aisle containment technology.

MS: What’s your longer term strategy for global operations?
JK: Europe was just a first step in our global expansion plan. The next step will be Asia, although we have always enjoyed a large percentage of our customers coming from South America, so our next step after that will be South America.

MS: Personally, how is this exciting for you – 10 years in the making, we now have an overseas footprint?
JK: GoGrid has always had a customer base that served an international audience. Over 90% of our customers historically were outside of the state of California – considering the value we bring to Silicon Valley-based companies, that is quite remarkable. And we are on the order of 40% international. For me personally, it’s a milestone that I have been looking forward to for a long time and I’m excited that we finally have automation technology that is really facilitating what we are doing.

MS: Why is the Equinix partnership important?
JK: I’m very excited about the partnership with Equinix. They have an ecosystem for cloud services that is more compelling than their ecosystem for telecom services. The difference here is that businesses (consumers of cloud services) are learning that by connecting to Equinix, they can procure cloud infrastructure and other services securely and reliable in a high performance fashion that avoids the public Internet.

MS: How does that work with GoGrid’s Hosted Private Cloud?
JK: It’s about avoiding the two largest fears regarding the adoption of Cloud Computing: the public Internet and sharing. Customers are worried about consuming cloud services over the public Internet. There are over 3 million buildings connected to Equinix facilities in one way or another – this allows them to remove the public Internet from how they consume cloud services. GoGrid Hosted Private Cloud is a non-shared environment – it’s dedicated and private – which eliminates the 2nd big fear which is sharing – it provides security and performance benefits.

MS: For GoGrid customer, having a global footprint like this is important because…
JK: GoGrid is the only company that has a single pane of glass that lets you manage infrastructure across the globe in a truly on-demand fashion – through one pane of glass and one API.

Do you have any questions for John? If so, please leave a comment!

Today is very important milestone for all of us here at GoGrid. While we have always considered ourselves an international company, with over 35% of our customers located outside the US, expanding to our first international location is an exciting step for GoGrid and marks the beginning of many great things to come. And today is that day that we are “throwing open the doors” of our new data center in Europe. I am extremely pleased to announce the general availability of our newest data center in Amsterdam, which represents the culmination of our team’s hard work and big dreams.

Our Amsterdam data center is housed in a state-of-the-art Equinix facility which has proven to be a perfect fit for GoGrid. My team and I had a great time working with the Equinix team while we were getting things up and running. Particularly impressive is the Internet connectivity from our Amsterdam data center to the rest of Europe which makes this location the best choice for us.

When I wasn’t at the Equinix facility supervising the installation and rollout, I was also visiting our new European headquarters in Amstelveen. Just minutes from Amsterdam and our data center, Amstelveen is a prime location for GoGrid’s EMEA headquarters and is also home to major offices for companies like HP, Agilent, Cannon, and Ricoh.

While this expansion is clearly an important step for GoGrid, it is also an incredible personal accomplishment for me. When I started working at GoGrid seven years ago, I asked founder John Keagy if he could foresee an opportunity for eventual international expansion. His answer? Absolutely. You can imagine how amazing it was for me to take on the role of lead executive for this expansion and see our vision become a reality.

I’ve spent countless hours in data centers throughout my career, but being in our data center in Amsterdam in the middle of the night when we first flipped the switch to allow some initial beta customers test the environment out, and then seeing those green lights flashing away was an experience I’ll never forget.

Being a part of GoGrid’s international expansion has shown me just how much potential there is for GoGrid even beyond this most recent achievement, and to be a part of that growth is truly exciting.

So, now that our European data center is open for business, I hope that you can come and light up some of those green lights in there!

As of today, GoGrid has released multiple images of the leading software load balancer, Riverbed Stingray! The following images are available on the GoGrid Partner Exchange in both San Francisco and Amsterdam:

• Riverbed 7.4 Simple Load Balancer 10 Mbps
• Riverbed 8.1 Load Balancer 10 Mbps
• Riverbed 8.1 Load Balancer 200 Mbps
• Riverbed 8.1 Load Balancer 200 Mbps WAF

Note that the Riverbed 7.4 image is still Zeus branded. We have made that available in order for users to have access to the Simple Load Balancer on GoGrid. It currently supports up to 10Mbps bandwidth and basic load balancing. It does not have clustering, SSL decryption, health checks or any advanced load balancing features.

The Riverbed 8.1 Load Balancer 10 Mbps Load Balancer supports bandwidth up to 10Mbps, clustering, no SSL, and basic load balancing.

The Riverbed 8.1 Load Balancer 200 Mbps Load Balancer supports bandwidth up to 200Mbps, clustering, no SSL, and basic load balancing.

The Riverbed 8.1 Load Balancer 200 Mbps Load Balancer WAF supports bandwidth up to 200Mbps, clustering, SSL, load balancing, health checks and integrated Web Application Firewall.

Finding the Images

The images are available via our image selector. In order to find and launch the Riverbed images, click on “Add Cloud Server” for the Data Center that you want to use. In the “Name” field type “Riverbed” and then hit enter. This will filter for just the Riverbed images.

The charges are monthly and you will be charged after you deploy the image. There is a special promotion occurring for Amsterdam regarding deployment of the Riverbed images. Please contact your GoGrid Sales Representative for more details.

Deploying the Load Balancer

The deployment of Stingray is similar to the setup for Zeus. The main difference is the setup is now automated and the license is automatically applied. Note that these instructions ONLY apply to the Riverbed 8.1 versions. These are the basic steps.

1. Select the Load Balancer image based on your needs. For this example, I will select “Riverbed 8.1 Load Balancer 10Mbps”. Click “Next” and then enter a Server Name, select an IP and the amount of RAM – I recommend using at least 1 GB of RAM on the server. This will generate a Virtual Machine with the software pre-deployed after you click “Save”.
2. All the Stingray Images run on Ubuntu x64 base images. You will need to access the server via SSH using the root login. Your logins can be found in the GoGrid web portal by clicking on the server icon, then Tools > Passwords.
3. One of the main differences with this version is that the installer starts immediately upon login and applies the appropriate license. Type “accept” at the prompt to begin the installer or press “return” to abort. If you do not accept the license terms, please delete the server.
4. The script will configure the Load Balancer for you and generate a temporary password. The password for the Load Balancer will be documented at the end of the script so look for it there. Make sure to take note of it since you will need it to login to the GUI.
5. You will be returned to the prompt – at this point I recommend changing the server password (note that this is NOT the password for the load balancer). This is the password that you will use to access the server again via SSH. In case you have forgotten, the command to enter a new password for Ubuntu is “passwd”.

Launching the UI

Launch your favorite browser and enter the IP address of the server with the port 9090. For example, you would enter something like:

https://190.10.1.1:9090

Since you are connecting via SSL with a self-signed certificate, your browser will give you a warning message. Since this is your own server, you can bypass the message (assuming that you entered the address correctly) and set an exception for this address.

Once you have cleared the warning page, you will be presented with the Riverbed Stingray GUI. At the login screen, enter the following:

Username: admin

Password: [the password generated for you by the system in the previous step]

Update the Admin Password

Go to the tab “System”.

Select Users > Local > Admin

Change your admin password on this screen. You can also create other accounts from the User tab.

All the Stingray 8.1 licenses in GoGrid allow for clustering and passive health checks. You can configure this on the GUI – the process is the same as the Zeus Load Balancer so you can refer to my previous blog post for more details – “How to Configure Zeus’ New Load Balancer in the GoGrid Cloud“. You can just scroll past the SSL Certificate graphic to bypass the Zeus-specific instructions and into the details on how to add servers to a pool and configure the load balancer.

You can also refer to the Riverbed Quick Start Guide on our wiki.

Since this is a partner image, all support will go through Riverbed. There is extensive documentation on the Riverbed support website as well.

With four different images to chose from, you will now have the flexibility to select the features and price point that work best for you. From controlling traffic to a single web server to managing a large pool of servers across multiple data centers, GoGrid with Riverbed Load Balancers offers the right, scalable solutions for your unique Cloud Fingerprint.