From February 13-16, 2012, in Santa Clara, CA, GoGrid sponsored Cloud Connect 2012, an expo devoted to educating professional seeking to learn more about the benefits of Cloud Computing. We have been a long time sponsor of this show and each year it seems to get better, not only from the caliber of content being presented, but also in terms of the level of expertise on cloud computing that attendees profess.

As I attend many of these conferences as a sponsor, exhibitor and interested party, I have seen a great evolution not only of knowledge and education but also in the cloud services being presented by various companies at the show. A few years ago, it was all about “what is cloud” and how do we define it. The past years have allowed us to really fine-tune the definition and really move beyond this to rolling up the sleeves and implementing cloud solutions. I’m definitely encouraged by the progress of companies with their cloud innovations and the individuals looking to capitalize on this influx of knowledge.

Talking with customers and prospects looking for or implementing cloud infrastructure solutions gives and insight into what is working in the cloud and what people are really looking for. For example, a few years ago, we introduced the concept of Hybrid Hosting – the ability to mix and match virtual and physical servers within the same architecture, all managed through a single pane of glass, so to speak. In fact, many of our recent Case Studies show that hybrid environments are really the reason why these companies turned to GoGrid for their cloud solution.

GoGrid Customer Presentation – Microgroove

At the show, one GoGrid customer, Microgroove, presented their decision-making process and implementation strategies on moving their music platform to our cloud. It was an interesting journey for them as they did have to do some tests on other clouds only provided completely virtualized environment that simply did not meet their requirements. In the coming days, we will post a video of their presentation but if you are interested in reading about their case study, you can download it here.

We have compiled a list of new GoGrid customer success stories that you may find interesting. These stories can be downloaded here.

The full PowerPoint presentation can be viewed below:

A Hybrid Hosting Primer

David Michael, a Solutions Architect here at GoGrid, also gave a presentation on the benefits and use cases of our hybrid hosting model in the Demo Theater of the Cloud Connect show. To a captive and interested audience, David walked through things to consider and the advantages that companies can benefit from by using a hybrid hosting scenario.

The full presentation is shown below.

Listening to You

While presenting success stories and best practices is always helpful, it’s also important to listen to and answer questions about GoGrid and the services that we provide. That is where I personally find it important to be an active exhibitor, staffing our booth. A while back, we developed this concept of the “Cloud Fingerprint” – essentially that your business and infrastructure needs are unique and the cloud partner your choose should be adaptable and flexible enough to meet those needs. We believe that it is important for not just the sales and marketing teams to be at these shows, but also representatives from all departments at GoGrid. On-site, we had executives from Engineering, Support and even Human Resources as well (yes, we are hiring) gathering their own perspectives of the show and what people are looking for in a cloud provider.

“Cloudy with a Chance of Cocktails”

Lastly, GoGrid also sponsored a party at Cloud Connect 2012. With everyone’s mind swirling with cloudy thoughts, it was important to relax, be social and have a gathering place to literally blow off some steam. Below are a few pictures from the Party (also be sure to view the Cloud Connect Flickr set that has more pictures from the party – towards the end of the set).

If you did attend Cloud Connect 2012, we hope that you found it educational and rewarding and allowed you to build up your set of cloud resources and tools. If you didn’t, we hope that you can attend next year.

To celebrate the release of their API, Spotify sponsored a Hack-a-thon at SPiN Ping Pong Club in New York City from Friday February 24 until Sunday February 26. Spotify was joined by big brands like Doritos, CW, McDonald’s, Showtime, State Farm and Mountain Dew. Technology companies sponsoring the event included Facebook, Twilio, FourSquare, The Echo Nest and of course, GoGrid. GoGrid provided all the cloud servers for the event to support the developers as they created brand new apps using the Spotify API in conjunction with other API like Facebook’s Open Graph. GoGrid’s manager of cloud ecosystem, Paul Lancaster and I were on-hand to meet with developers and provide support for the event.

50 CentOS x64 cloud servers were provisioned to the hackers by GoGrid to build their applications free of charge with root level access for maximum flexibility. Hundreds of hackers showed up to build the next great apps and were treated to live performances by Blood Orange and MNDR. While hack-a-thons tend to have attrition over time, hackers stayed throughout the night and most for the entire weekend.

There were roughly 30 projects worked on during the weekend which ranged from an app called Museik (UI shown above) that extracts content from the internet related to the release date of a song on Spotify to a project called Orbidal by the students of the VCU Brandcenter that gathers the collective feelings of your Facebook feed and creates a playlist based on that mood on Spotify.

GoGrid awarded a prize to JukeSpot, an app that combined the APIs of Spotify, Facebook, and Foursquare to allow users to play their songs and playlists at any bar/club/restaurant that has the JukeSpot app running on their system. It also allows users to compete against each other for points, share points socially, and buy points from marketers or retailers.

One app called Music Monster integrated Spotify with Foursquare and The Echo Nest. This app is designed to be used by a DJ to check-in to a location, set up a playlist and start tracking audience responses in real-time. The data comes from a client app that users at the venue use to check-in and then provide real-time feedback to the DJ (indicating that they want to hear more familiar tracks or something more mellow). This particular app won for best Echo Nest hack.

Another app called Swarm.fm built by Peter Watts inverts the paradigm of integrating Spotify activity into Facebook. Rather, Facebook (and other sources) activity is integrated into Spotify, so that you can see your friend’s likes of particular bands and the activity of artists that you like all tied to your music collection. It can also find similarities between friends and can generate playlists based on artists, interests and brands you have in common. This clever app won the Spotify Grand prize and $10,000.

The Grand Prize was judged on the following criteria:

• Overall Product Viability
• Level of innovation
• Depth of integration with Spotify API(s)
• User Experience
• Utility
• Integration of Music

Overall, this was a well-organized, fun and productive event. Lot of great, innovative apps were built in a short period of time. Spotify and OMD provided a great atmosphere with plenty food (seemingly unlimited supply of Doritos and Mountain Dew), live music and support from technology partners and brand executives.

GoGrid is one of the Platinum Sponsors of this week’s Cloud Connect 2012 conference and Expo at the Santa Clara Convention Center. The event promises to be a memorable one for cloud newcomers as well as those of us trying to keep up with the blazing pace of cloud innovation.

This year, we’re particularly excited to be focusing on GoGrid’s hybrid infrastructure solution, which we think combines the best of both the physical and virtual worlds. We believe that your company is unique, and your infrastructure should be, too. Stop by our booth 709 to find out what your unique “cloud fingerprint” looks like. Chances are it’s a flavor of our hybrid solution.

Presentations

Maybe you’re wondering whether to keep your dedicated servers or move to the cloud. What if you could have it all? Join one of our solutions architects as he walks through real-life examples of how hybrid hosting can improve your business’s infrastructure: Tuesday, Feb. 14, 3:35 – 3:55pm in the Cloud Solutions Theater on the Expo Floor. Here’s the presentation description: “Different businesses have different infrastructure needs. And the choices of clouds, colocation, or dedicated services can be daunting if not confusing. So why choose just one when GoGrid’s hybrid architecture (a union of the best of virtual and physical) provides options for both flexibility and growth? Physical hardware provides guaranteed, dedicated, high performance coupled with an assurance of strict data control and security, while cloud architecture scales when your business demands it. Learn the secrets of hybrid hosting and how it can improve your business’s infrastructure in this 20-minute walk-through.”

Then on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 1:15 – 2:15pm (Grand Ballroom H), learn how Microgroove is creating a high-performance, cost-effective cloud environment for the music industry with GoGrid. The title says it all: “Performance Matters, Especially in the Music Industry – Global Hybrid Infrastructure Makes Artists Sing.” Here’s an overview: Learn first hand how Microgroove leveraged physical and virtual infrastructure components in creating a high-performance, cost-effective cloud environment for the music industry. One that easily supported their need for cloud scalability coupled with the permanence and single-tenancy of dedicated servers — a hybrid solution not found in commodity clouds. Microgroove’s technology platform running on GoGrid is powering hundreds of popular artists’ sites from Snoop Dogg to Yani as well as an eCommerce site of 1.5 million+ SKUs.

We’ll also be holding several short presentations at the GoGrid booth. Topics include:

• Cloud 101 in less than 10 minutes
• Hybrid Hosting in less than 10 minutes
• Hosted Private Cloud in less than 10 minutes

Be sure to drop by for these quick primers on cloud computing.

GoGrid-Sponsored Reception

And don’t forget to drop by “Cloudy with a Chance of Cocktails,” the GoGrid party on Wednesday from 6 – 8pm in the Hyatt Mezzanine. Register now and beat the rush! This party is open to all Cloud Connect attendees but, space is limited, so act now.

Everybody Loves Free Stuff!

Lastly, Cloud Connect attendees can participate in the GoGrid Cloud Scavenger Hunt, where one lucky person will win an iPad 2. Stop by the GoGrid booth (709) for details. We’ll also be giving away various GoGrid goodies, including a Mystic Pyramid to help predict your future –- a perfect complement to our Cloud Pyramid!

Register for the Expo

To make sure you don’t miss out, we’d like you to be our guest at the Expo; just complete the online registration form and mark your calendar. Hope to see you there!

Cloud Expo Europe 2012 is now over, and according to everyone we spoke to, it was an unqualified success. As I mentioned in my last post, GoGrid was proud to announce the opening of its new Amsterdam-based European HQ and data center at the show. The recurring themes we heard included cloud security, the evolution of cloud services, the desire for more cloud education, and where the market is going next. A common theme from visitors to our booth was hybrid hosting and how to secure a business’s cloud infrastructure. They were also very interested in hearing about the success EMEA customers like Condé Nast are having using GoGrid.

Here are some photo highlights of the show:

An overview of the busy Expo floor.

Some of the meetings at GoGrid’s booth.

GoGrid’s Rupert Tagnipes shares Martini Media’s multi-data-center story.

GoGrid staff members celebrate the company’s EMEA launch.

To learn more about how our new EMEA data center can help your business, read the post about our new VIP Program.

Last week GoGrid officially launched our new European headquarters as well as opened our Amsterdam data center. We are already in the process of granting early access to select VIP GoGrid customers as well as opening up access to new GoGrid customers. If you are interested in using our new European data center, you can find out more information on the early access program in this blog post.

Podcast Interview with GoGrid

As part of the launch event, we were also sponsors of Cloud Expo 2012 which took place in London. During the show, GoGrid CMO Jeff Samuels and Senior Product Manager Rupert Tagnipes participated in a podcast interview with the MHF Tech Network.

The following topics were covered in the podcast (“MHF Specials Episode 5: Cloud Expo Europe 2012 Part 1″):

• Partnerships and services that GoGrid provides
• Out-of-the-box solutions and services from GoGrid
• What differentiates GoGrid from other vendors in the marketplace
• Thoughts on the future of cloud computing in 5-10 years
• Ideas on what the “next great thing” will be in the cloud hosting marketplace
• What the future will bring for GoGrid

The podcast can be played directly below and is also available on iTunes.
Note that the GoGrid interview begins around timestamp 3:45 and ends around 11:25.

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We would like to thank the MHF Tech Network team for spending the time to let us discuss cloud computing, the current and future state of GoGrid and how we view the marketplace. If you have any questions about any of the commentary in the podcast, please feel free to leave a comment on this article.