Part of a new Engineering and Product initiative at GoGrid is the fact that we will be providing more frequent updates to our Cloud Infrastructure Services. These updates may take the form of new or updated features, bug fixes, or back-end enhancements. Our goal is to provide these updates and feature releases on a monthly basis (more information on our new agile software engineering process will be coming) so that we can answer customer requests and needs on an extremely timely basis as well as introduce revolutionary services to the Cloud Infrastructure marketplace.

Today (March 11, 2011), we released our March 2011 update (code name “Long Beach”). The major features and updates are listed below:

• Enhancement to the MyGSI Feature
• Usage Report
• Billing Improvements
• Ubuntu 10.04 Cloud Server Support
• Debian 5.0 Cloud Server Support

Please read on for details on each of the items listed above.

MyGSI Updates

About a year ago, we introduced a new feature called MyGSIs – customized GoGrid Server Images – and how easy it was to create and save a Server Image. Server images are helpful for horizontal scaling, re-imaging of servers, disaster recovery, or setting up failover environments. Until this update, we had a pretty straight forward 3-step process: 1) create a Sandbox Image, 2) configure your server, prep it, and run scripts, and 3) save the server to cloud storage.

Now, we have consolidated this process into ONE step. Simply select the existing server you want to save and click the Save icon. That’s it! There is no need to create a Sandbox Image, run preparation scripts or anything else. And, the best thing is, any existing server can be saved as a server image.

The Save button is also in the List view:

Once you choose the server that you want to save and click the Save icon or link, you will get the following prompt.

Note that if your server has more than 50 GB of data on it, the saving process will fail and you will need to reduce the amount of data on your server.

Simply give your server image a name, description, and indicate whether it is a Web or Database server.

After this, you server will be gracefully shut down, and the image saving process will start. You will see your server’s status light turn to amber:

And there will be an entry in the Jobs tab that not only states that the action has started, but also after a few seconds, displays the expected time for the server to be fully saved to cloud storage. If there is no “Estimated Job Duration,” just wait a minute and refresh the Jobs tab.

Your server will come back on line shortly.

Once the server image is created, you have the ability to instantiate new servers from it, or share it with the GoGrid community as a Community GSI (CGSI).

Lastly, the MyGSI process is backwards compatible, meaning that if you had created a Sandbox Server previously and it still appears within your GoGrid account, you can still convert it into a MyGSI using the same older process. Also, any MyGSIs created using the legacy process will still be available to create new server instances. However, the creation of Sandbox Images has been removed as of this release, and replaced with the much easier process described above.

Be sure to read the MyGSI User Documentation that can be found on the GoGrid Wiki.

USAGE REPORT

Included with the “Long Beach” update is a new feature to help you get a better view into the activity within your GoGrid account. There is now a new tab called “Usage” which is under the My Account section. This new report is in beta for the next 90 days.

The Usage Report overview is broken up into two sections: Metered Services and Fixed Services. Metered services are things like RAM, Storage, and Outbound Transfer. Fixed services are for items that recur regularly during a month’s time, things like monthly licenses or IP addresses allocated to your account. Metered services are more variable in nature.

The Usage Report shows a quick snapshot of Metered and Fixed Services for the current or previous billing period. NOTE:  The historical data in this report will not be backfilled; therefore the previous billing period will not be viewable as of this release. Also, the Usage data collection officially starts on March 11th, 2011. This means that the current billing period report may be inaccurate for up to 30 days for some customers. Once a full billing cycle passes, the Usage Report will show accurate data.

Under the Usage Menu, you can see a link to “Download usage report”. After selecting the billing period from the drop-down menu, click the link to download all of the associated usage data for that period and it will be downloaded to a CSV file.

The CSV file contains the usage statistics for the following objects:

• Cloud Servers – # of GB Hours
• Outbound Transfer – # of GBs
• Licenses – # of instances of a particular license
• Cloud Storage – maximum GBs stored for that day
• Load Balancing – # of instances of a load balancer
• Public IPs – total # of IP addresses allocated to the account
• Operating Systems – # of instances of a particular Operating System in use

The fields reported are listed below:

• Account Name
• Customer ID
• Report Start date/time
• Report End date/time
• Object Type (see above)
• Name of the Object
• Description of the Object
• Data Center
• Usage Start date/time
• Usage End date/time
• Quantity
• Units

A quick tip, be sure to format the “reportStart,” “reportEnd,” “usageStart” and “usageEnd” to mm/dd/yy hh:mm to see the full details with the date and time.

For additional details, visit the GoGrid Customer Portal Guide that discusses the new Usage feature.

Billing Improvements

One of the advantages of utilizing GoGrid’s Cloud Infrastructure Services is the ability to choose a Pay-As-You-Go plan or a Volume pricing plan. We are allotting more focus to the “billing experience.” In the past, our focus was on the delivery of the services and after engaging with our customers, we realize that some time and care was needed for the overall experience. To that end, we have kicked off a complete overhaul of the billing process to provide you with not only a better experience but also with more insight into your account usage.

This first iteration of Billing Improvements consists of the following changes:

1. Monthly Invoices
2. Account Plan Changes
3. Usage

The details of each of these items are listed below.

Monthly Invoices

To make the billing and invoicing process easier, we are removing daily invoicing. From this point forward, customers will now receive monthly invoices on their monthly bill date. The monthly bill date is the date on which a customer opened their account with GoGrid.

There are a few exceptions in which additional invoices may be generated:

• Fixed Services – if you are using a fixed service like dedicated servers, VPN, or hardware firewalls, you will receive an immediate, one-time invoice. The charge(s) for this service(s) will be pro-rated through the next bill date. However, the next monthly invoice will include a full charge for the next month’s fixed service and is paid in advance.
• Manual invoices – if there are manual invoices generated off-cycle.

NOTE: There may be a bit of a transitional period during March 2011 because of the switch from daily to monthly invoicing. If you have any questions, please contact your account manager.

Account Plan Changes

We have updated the process of making changes to your GoGrid account plan and have a clear trail of the changes you have made and when they were made. We have also added email notifications to the process so that you get two email confirmations: one when you request a change and one when the change is implemented.

Just as you could in the past, select either the RAM or Data Transfer Plan and then choose whether you want your plan to be Monthly or Annual (you get a better discount if you choose an Annual plan):

Confirm the plan you want and accept the terms of service.

Once you make your selection, there will be an indication of the plan change within the Plan Selection page (in red) and your current or active plan will appear grayed out:

Also, within the Jobs tab, you will see an entry confirming your plan change.

You may upgrade or downgrade your various plans as you see fit. Downgrades take place on the customer’s next bill date. Plan Upgrades take place retroactively back to the beginning of the current billing period.

The process for Upgrades is a bit more complicated. On the next bill date, customers are credited the last month’s lower plan charge and are charged for the new plan for the previous month and in advance for the next month.

Sometimes examples are a bit easier to understand:

In the case above, you can see how the charges for the lower plan are reversed out and the new plan is retroactively applied.

In most cases, people upgrade plans during a current month because they are going into an overage situation or in anticipation of incurring overage charges.

Ubuntu 10.04 Cloud Server Support

With this release, we are pleased to announce that Ubuntu 10.04 32- and 64-bit Cloud Server Operating Systems are now available to complement Ubuntu within the Dedicated Server Operating System choices. This is the LTS – Long Term Support – version of Ubuntu.

Debian 5.0 Cloud Server Support

Also with this release, we have included Debian 5.0 32- and 64-bit Cloud Server Operating Systems to complement Debian within the Dedicated Server Operating System choices.

More to Come

The “Long Beach” release is the kick-off of a new agile development process here at GoGrid. We will be aiming to have regular monthly releases from this day forward so stay tuned for more exciting news from GoGrid. Be sure to subscribe to the GoGrid Blog Feed to get regular updates.

So you’re looking at purchasing cloud infrastructure for your business? That’s great! While we believe cloud infrastructure is a viable solution for everybody, each company needs to find an implementation and provider that best meets their specific need. We call it crafting your “Cloud Fingerprint“. Every cloud infrastructure solution is unique to the business looking for a solution. If you choose a provider that tries to convince you that their solution is the only way to go, you might want to consider looking around for another vendor. Your cloud provider should really be your cloud partner. And, they should work with you in crafting your unique cloud solution, not try to jam a round peg into a square hole.

Before breaking out the checkbook there are several things to consider internally and questions you should ask your potential cloud provider to make sure you are getting the best solution for your business.

Internal Question for your Company

Cloud infrastructure comes in many different shapes and sizes. Having a clear understanding of how your organization will be using this infrastructure will help narrow down which providers will have solutions that fit your need. Here are some questions to ask yourself before approaching vendors:

1. What appliances (e.g., servers, load balancers, firewalls, networks, etc.) need to be supported?Every infrastructure topology is unique, just like your business. In order to create the best infrastructure solution, you need to consider what virtual and physical appliances are required or optional to your cloud solution.
2. What security requirements do you have? Is a shared environment acceptable or does your cloud infrastructure need to be single-tenant?Cloud computing can come in multi-tenant and single-tenant options. Single-tenant infrastructures are 100% dedicated to your company, but they do come with an additional price. And within public clouds, you can segment off a portion of your infrastructure (e.g., dedicated or colocated environments) that is single-tenant (see Hybrid Hosting).
3. What are some of the different use cases that need to be supported?Understanding how much computing power your company needs, when your company needs it (seasonal) and which departments will use cloud infrastructure is useful in selecting cloud infrastructure packages. Your first step is to clearly define these business models and use cases so that a custom solution can be created to meet your needs.
4. Who will manage the implementation?Many companies are happy with a do-it-yourself option in terms of creating a cloud infrastructure for their company. But there are plenty of time and cost constraints that come with these types of implementation. You can also choose a cloud provider that consults with you to understand and help you implement your environments in the most cost and time-effective way. And once the implementation is live, who will be there to support it? Your internal team or the cloud provider? (Be sure to look at SLAs as well.)
5. Are there regulatory requirements to consider?If there are compliance, regulatory requirements or unique/customer hardware considerations that are critical to your cloud implementation, be sure to map those out ahead of time.

Questions to Ask your Cloud Provider

Now that you know exactly what YOU are looking for, it’s time to find a cloud provider that builds solutions tailored to your needs. Simply sharing your business’s needs to an infrastructure-as-a-service vendor will get you recommendations and solutions, but they may come with some unexpected surprises. It’s a best practice to know the vendors process and procedure to make the purchase and implementation as smooth as possible. Here are some things to consider:

1. Is it a scalable solution from both a company-installation standpoint and an end-user usage standpoint?You need to be sure that whatever cloud provider (or partner) you choose can grow with your business, otherwise you do not get the advantages of cloud computing. Is your cloud partner large enough to scale with your needs? And can users of your cloud account scale the infrastructure as well on-demand and just pay for what they use? (Beware of the “false cloud” where you have to shell out money in terms of capital expenditure – buying hardware to power your cloud is NOT cloud computing.)
   
2. Are they simply a reseller of someone else’s technology or are they an innovator in the space?Several of the big players in the cloud space are simply resellers of Infrastructure as a Service. Or, they have an older infrastructure solution and they are simply slapping the word “cloud” in front of it (this is known as “cloud washing.”) If your needs are simple, they can be great partners. If your computing needs are more complex, it makes sense to partner with a company who is considered an innovator.
3. Do they require capital expenditures?Believe it or not, several cloud providers will require capital expenditure and on-site hardware. Again, it is not a cloud solution if you have to buy hardware to power it and then manage that infrastructure yourself (“false cloud”). Having to buy physical hardware to power and grow your company’s “cloud solution” really just causes more work for your IT staff and isn’t cloud computing.
4. Do they provide technical expertise when creating the implementation?The hardest part of cloud computing is the implementation or migration process. Make sure you have the support you need during the transition. Will your cloud partner help you overcome any technical hurdles or offer best practices?
5. Is their offering based on industry standards or are you required to architect your infrastructure design to meet THEIR requirements?This is big. Some cloud providers require you to re-architect your infrastructure design to meet the requirements of their stack. This can often lead to more work for your company.

We hope that these questions will help you find the right solution for your company when you are looking to acquire cloud infrastructure. We’ve identified even more considerations in our white paper, “Skydiving Through the Clouds”.

Download “Skydiving Through the Clouds”

The word “cloud” has become a bit of a buzzword in the IT industry. Well, let me rephrase that, it has become a HUGE and overused buzzword not just within various tech sectors, it has also infiltrated the lives of us all. A year or two ago, if you mentioned “cloud” or even “cloud computing” to the average passerby, they might have looked back at you with a cloudy look on their face (sorry). Terms like “public cloud,” “private cloud,” “hybrid cloud” and “false cloud” are currently thrown around and peppered throughout conversations. And now, especially exemplified by Microsoft’s recent ad campaign, the phrase “To the cloud!” seems to have brought clouds to everyone, including the general public.

We are being bombarded from every angle. So what do they mean?

Some seem to be useful in our everyday lives:

Others seem to be a bit ominous (as is seen in this tweet from Marc Benioff – Chairman & CEO of SalesForce.com):

But even with everyone talking about “clouds” now, they are still confusing.

The truth is, clouds can take on many different forms, shapes, sizes and characteristics.

“Cloud” is one of the most confusing terms currently in the computing world, but we aim to clear up this nebulous term. Today we release a new white paper titled “Skydiving Through the Clouds” which explains what clouds are, how they work, who uses them and why they are becoming of growing importance within the IT industry.

Download “Skydiving Through the Clouds”

A few weeks ago GoGrid launched its revolutionary Hosted Private Cloud offering, receiving quite a bit of publicity in the process. But Private Clouds and even Cloud Computing is still confusing to many organizations, even to this day. As part of our on-going educational webinar series, where our goal is to get knowledge of cloud computing into the hands of our users and other interested parties, we will be doing a webinar specifically on GoGrid’s Hosted Private Cloud offering.

This is your chance to learn the advantages of cloud computing over traditional (physical) implementations of infrastructure, and then dive deeper into how Private (and Public) Clouds can optimize productivity within your business.

Webinar Details

WHO should attend? – IT professionals, System Administrators, C-Level executives, Infrastructure Managers.

WHAT is the Webinar about? – “Hosted Private Cloud” – presentation on ways in which your business can implement a private cloud environment, quickly and easily, with no capital expenditure.

WHERE is it being held? – In the cloud, of course!

WHY should you attend? – If you have ever had questions about the implementation and usage of cloud computing, specifically cloud infrastructure within your workplace, and specifically would like to learn more about the total cost of ownership of implementing a Hosted Private Cloud versus an On-premise Private Cloud, then this webinar is for you!

WHEN is the webinar? – Thursday, February 3rd from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM (Pacific Time)

HOW do I register? – Simply fill out the registration form on the webinar sign-up page and you will be registered.

Topics to be discussed include:

• Distinguishing between a Public vs. Hosted Private Cloud – What’s right for your business?
• Use cases – how enterprises are leveraging the private cloud
• Resources – getting started with a Hosted Private Cloud
• Questions & Answers

We believe that this webinar will help any organization understand not only cloud computing but also the choices available within public and private Cloud Infrastructure.

There has been plenty of news recently how other cloud providers are stepping into the realm of providing connectivity between cloud and dedicated environments, and the buzz out there is that this is a feature that customers want. Well, we should know. At GoGrid, we initially launched this capability back in November of 2008 under the name “Cloud Connect”. Over the past few months, other providers have launched similarly named services that do exactly that, cross-connect these two types of environments via a physical connection. But GoGrid is well beyond this initial stage.

In February 2010, GoGrid released our unified vision for supporting Hybrid environments with the addition of GoGrid Dedicated Servers within the GoGrid Cloud. We realized through customer feedback and based on our 10 years of infrastructure service delivery that this would be a powerful and important feature that would help businesses craft custom infrastructure topologies that met their business requirements. No need to try to fit a round peg in a square hole – we believe that providing our customers a choice of pure cloud, pure dedicated or hybrid infrastructure on demand was something that they wanted. And we were correct.

But it’s not about what WE think, it’s about what our customers want. And given that the rest of the marketplace is jumping on the bandwagon now simply re-affirms what we pioneered.

And it is not a question of IF or WHEN we will offer the functionality because we already do and have for some time now, but rather HOW you will use it to create the IT environment that best fits your needs.

On Wednesday, January 12, 2011, we released the following Press Release that discusses not only our Hybrid solution, but also provides a quick roadmap of our innovation within this important feature:

GoGrid Expands Hybrid Cloud Service to East Coast Data Center

Leading Cloud Provider Enables Hybrid Topologies within Same Cloud Infrastructure Environments

San Francisco, Calif., – January 12, 2011 – GoGrid, a leading cloud infrastructure provider, today announced that it has expanded its 2nd Generation Hybrid Cloud capabilities.  GoGrid customers can now use any GoGrid data center to build secure, high-performance and scalable infrastructures to power applications based on a combination of dedicated and virtual servers.  This announcement coincides with the effective phasing out of its two-year old “Cloud Connect” service, a legacy feature that enabled the cross connection of physical and cloud environments.

After being the first company in the world to offer “Cloud Connect” functionality, GoGrid continued its leadership in Cloud technologies by incorporating its next-generation approach for combining virtual and physical servers within its public cloud service. From the same GoGrid portal, businesses provision unique, dynamically scalable virtual and physical infrastructures that are custom crafted to meet distinct requirements of businesses around the world.

“GoGrid’s Hybrid Cloud offering is an important customer and market development and continues to be a true differentiator,” said Jeff Samuels, chief marketing officer at GoGrid.  “While other companies in the market are only now catching up with the cross connect functionality that GoGrid launched in 2008, GoGrid has advanced its capabilities by fully integrating our hybrid cloud into GoGrid’s public cloud service. Our customers are now able to seamlessly expand their topology with both physical and virtual instances in all GoGrid data centers.”

GoGrid has shown a solid innovation roadmap related to Hybrid Hosting:

• Original Offering (2008): GoGrid first to deliver hybrid hosting capabilities to the industry. GoGrid’s first-generation “Cloud Connect” service supported cross-connection via physical wiring with network integration across virtual, dedicated and collocated environments.
• True Hybrid Offering (February, 2010): GoGrid releases its next generation of its Hybrid Hosting service that features full integration of virtual and physical servers and appliances as part of its public cloud offering.
• Hybrid Capabilities in all GoGrid Data centers (December 2010): GoGrid expands Hybrid Hosting services to East Coast data center.

“GoGrid’s hybrid cloud solution represents a new way of deploying infrastructure that truly meets my business needs,” said Pierre Chew, CEO and founder of Plan Elements (www.planelements.com), a powerful new event planning solution. “Managing my previous infrastructure was cumbersome, difficult and did not allow me to react to changes within my business fast enough. Now, using GoGrid’s Hybrid Cloud Solution, my business has complete control over our destiny, using a combination of dedicated and virtual servers which I manage to ensure both security and elasticity.”

GoGrid’s Hybrid Cloud model combines the benefits of dynamic and on-demand scalability from a cloud environment with the permanence and compliant infrastructure available from dedicated, managed server offerings. Leveraging a standards-based IT framework that integrates critical infrastructure appliances and services is core to GoGrid’s Hybrid solution. GoGrid hybrid hosting environments allow for cross usage of hardware-based F5 load balancers, private VLANs, integrated cloud storage and hardware firewall solutions by physical and cloud servers alike.

“Hybrid Hosting is an essential part of businesses embracing the cloud as it provides users the important capability of choosing between physical and virtual servers when building infrastructure,” said Philbert Shih, Senior Analyst at Tier1 research. “Allowing users to manage both from a single interface in the same environment — as opposed to a physical cross connect — is the end goal of Hybrid Cloud Hosting and is where the entire market is heading.”

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

Again, it’s not about the product, it’s about you. We simply want to provide you with the tools you need to make your business succeed without you having to re-invent the wheel. We have made the wheel, the chassis, put the doors on and constructed the engine. GoGrid is ready for you to just hop in and drive. But if you still have questions, I encourage you to talk to us directly. We can set up a 1-on-1 consultation to walk through your IT needs and develop your cloud strategy. Similarly, we regularly host webinars that address a variety of topics to help you better craft your cloud implementation. My best recommendation? Just ask us!