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Riverbed Stingray 8.1 Now in the GoGrid Cloud!

Rupert Tagnipes — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:20:00 +0000

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, basic load balancing, and health checks.

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

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.

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”.
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.
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.
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.
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 basic 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.

GoGrid’s Cloud Expo Europe Debut Highlighted by Successful European Launch

Jeff Samuels — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:15:00 +0000

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.

MHF Tech Network Interview from Cloud Expo Europe 2012 with GoGrid CMO Jeff Samuels & Sr. Prod. Mgr. Rupert Tagnipes

Michael Sheehan — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:30:00 +0000

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.

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.

How to Configure Static Routes to Traverse Traffic on CloudLink

Rupert Tagnipes — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

CloudLink is infrastructure so it can enable many use cases. However, you will be unable to use it until you configure your servers to use static routes. The rest of this post will describe how to create a static route from one server in US-West-1 to servers in US-East-1. This assumes that you have not already assigned a private IP to the West server. This guide assumes that you have a basic knowledge of Linux and/or Windows and with the basic principles of networking.

Find your Private IPs

First, you will need to find your private IPs. You can find your private IP block by going to the GoGrid portal, selecting the List tab and then Network. Under Type: Private you will see your private IP blocks. In this example, this is a listing of private IP blocks for US-West-1. US-East-1 has a DIFFERENT private IP block. The gateway is +1 from the first number in your private IP block (10.109.32.1) in the example above.

If you want to assign a private IP to a server in US-West-1, you would select it from the list in the screenshot – just pick one that you have not already assigned somewhere else. Take note of the subnet as you will need it later.

Assign a Private Static IP on Ubuntu / Debian

To assign a private IP, you can update the interface directly. Enter the following at the prompt or use your favorite Linux editor.

nano /etc/network/interfaces

Within the file enter the following (the IP is just an example, use one of your own. Don’t enter the text in the brackets):

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 10.100.10.3 [a private IP address in the West ]
netmask 255.255.255.0

Save the file.

This step assigns a private IP from your West block to a single Ubuntu / Debian server. You will need to activate the new IP so restart your network interface.

ifdown eth1

and then enter:

ifup eth1

Assign a Private IP to a Windows Server

For Windows users, you will need to do the following.

Click on Start > Control Panel > Network Connections.
Select Local Area Connection 2.
Click Properties.
Double-click TCP/IP in the scroll box.
Enable the radio button titled Use the Following IP Address.
Assign a PrivateIP address to this machine
1. You can find your private IP block by going to the GoGrid portal, selecting the List tab and then Network.
2. Under Type: Private you will see your private IP blocks. If this Windows Server is in the West, make sure to use IPs that have US-West-1 in the Datacenter column.
3. Select an available private IP address and note the Subnet Mask
Enter the subnet mask as found on your list of private IP blocks.
Leave the gateway blank.
You can enter GoGrid’s name servers under DNS if you are so inclined.
Continue to click OK to exit each subsequent window.
To confirm changes were successful, open a command prompt window and type
```
ipconfig /all
```
Those steps will assign a private IP address to a particular machine. Make sure to enable “Local Area Connection 2”.

Create a static route on your Linux server

Once you have assigned a private IP to your server, you will then need to create a static route to your East private IP block. The IPs below are examples only, use your own IPs when you enter the command! This command will work on Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat, and CentOS.

At the command line type:

route add -net 10.200.10.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 10.100.10.1

This adds a route from your US-West-1 server to your US-East-1 private IP block (the 10.200.10.0 netmask… of the code) via the US-West-1 private gateway (10.100.10.1).

Persisting the static route on Linux

The command entered in the previous step will only keep the route while your session is active. In order to have the route stay through reboots, you will need to update configuration files on your server. Please see the wiki for instructions on how to set persistence and for configuring CentOS or Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Create a static route on your Windows server

Windows

Open a command prompt by clicking on Start > Run
Type “cmd” and click OK.
Enter the command
```
route add -p 10.200.10.0 [East private IP block] mask 255.255.255.0 [West Gateway IP]
```
1. where [West Gateway IP] is +1from your first IP address in your Private Network block available in the GoGrid user interface. If your Windows Server is in the WEST then you will want to use the Gateway IP for the US-West-1 private network. So in the screenshot above, 10.109.32.1 is the gateway NOT 10.109.32.0. You will want to connect to the East private IP block, so the number after p is the first available number in your East Private IP block.
2. For example, you would enter something like:
```
route add -p 10.200.10.0 mask 255.255.255.0 10.109.32.1
```
  The p flag ensures that the route is persistent across reboots.

Testing the connection

If you want to test ping, you will need to assign a private IP to the server that you want to ping and also define a static route back to the IP blocks in the other datacenter. In this example, since you have setup a Windows machine with a route from West to East, you will need to setup a static route on an East server that you want to ping back to the West.

For example, you can execute the route command if you don’t want to persist the route for Windows:

route add 10.109.32.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 10.200.10.1

And for Linux machines:

route add -net 10.109.32.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 10.200.10.1

This command sets a static route to your West private IP block through your East gateway.

ping 10.200.10.5

If you can successfully ping that configured US-East-1 private IP from your Windows server in US-West-1 then this has been configured correctly.

You’re done!

That’s all you need to do to start using CloudLink. You will need to set static routes for any server that is going to use this product. CloudLink is just the first step is GoGrid’s plan to continually innovate and expand our offerings to our customers. As GoGrid expands globally, so will all our products including CloudLink. As you grow your company internationally, GoGrid will be ready to grow with you!

CloudLink Now Available to All GoGrid Customers

Michael Sheehan — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:00:00 +0000

CloudLink, a dedicated, private connection between GoGrid data centers, is GoGrid’s newest product that comes with some exciting new features. After being in private beta for several months, is now available to all GoGrid customers via the GoGrid portal. Customers who purchase it will have the ability to link servers from our US-West-1 Data Center to our US-East-1 Data Center via a dedicated, secure and redundant line. Customers are now be able to easily connect their servers via the private network between our Data Centers.

How do I get it?

The first step is to purchase the product. We have added a link within the GoGrid portal where you can click to order CloudLink. After clicking on the link, you will be presented with a form where you can select the desired bandwidth. It will take at least 2 business days to activate CloudLink on your account – once it is ready, you will get a message from GoGrid with a CloudLink welcome letter.

There are 3 product options to select :

10 Mbps for $99/month
100 Mbps for $699/month
1 Gbps for $4999 (requires a 1 year commit)

You also have the option of pre-paying for a year of the product in advance at a discount. Note that you will need to contact a GoGrid account representative if you are interested in the 1 Gbps option – this level requires a 1 year commitment. Your account representative can work with you on the required documents and will also need to verify capacity. You can also ask your representative for other available capacities.

Once you have received the welcome letter, then you are good to go!

What is it?

CloudLink is a data center interconnect product. It sits on a redundant 10 Gbp pipe that will only contain GoGrid traffic. This means fewer hops and less interference since only GoGrid customers will be on the line. Unlike a public line traversing the internet, you will not need to compete with a large amount of unrelated traffic.

Customers can use their private interface on one data center to connect to the private interface of their servers in our other data centers. For example, customers can send traffic from servers in US-West-1 to servers in US-East-1. Since this is using the private network, this also means no bandwidth costs. CloudLink is designed to be easy, so we allow unlimited traffic through the pipe – you will only be limited by the bandwidth rate that you select.

What can I do with it?

CloudLink is an enabling technology. Customers will most likely find multiple uses cases for this product – two that are a natural fit are disaster recovery and data replication.

Disaster Recovery

Customers who run production systems out of US-West-1 will now have the option of transferring their data and files to US-East-1 via CloudLink. In the event of a failure in the West Data Center, all their data and files will exist on US-East-1, safely stored and isolated from issues in the West. Customers can configure this to be an automated failover solution (leveraging technology like Global Load Balancing) so that traffic fails over to their up-to-date backup server in the East or as a simple store of data so that there will be a complete recovery of files when the West data center is brought back up.

Data Replication

This can be conducted in two flavors, big data replication using products like Cassandra or Hadoop or relational database replication using products like MySQL or Postgres. A scenario that I can envision customers using this solution would be an app company that has customers on the West and East coast. For latency reasons, it would be preferable for customers to be routed to either US-West-1 or US-East-1 servers depending on their location. As customers interact with the app, the local databases store their information. Unless the data is replicated between the two local databases, they can quickly get out of sync.

Customers can leverage CloudLink to ensure that data is replicated on the fly, ensuring the information in one database is quickly and securely replicated in the other. Since the data travels only over the private network, bad actors outside the network will have no way to access this traffic.

Users of this customer’s service will now have updated information whether they are routed to either the East or West coast data centers.

See how one of our customer’s, Martini Media used CloudLink to enhance their Big Data solution.

Sign-on today!

CloudLink is an important strategic technology that broadens the capabilities of the GoGrid cloud, bridging the gap between data centers. Click here to learn more about CloudLink. Shortly, we will be posting an article that discusses how to configure CloudLink once you are ordered it. Sign-up on the portal or contact your GoGrid Sales Representative to start using it today!