In order to provide a more “rounded” voice on the GoGrid blog, we are going to start having some new authors. To kick off this initiative, I wanted to introduce Paul Lappas, GoGrid’s VP of Engineering and Co-Founder. Paul manages GoGrid’s engineering efforts, technical operations, IT and the technology vision for GoGrid.

Recently, he and some other team members attending a MeetUp in San Francisco at the Twitter headquarters to discuss and present  JClouds and Pallet and how those tools are being used at GoGrid. Here is Paul’s synopsis of Jclouds and the presentation:

“GoGrid is doing some really cool stuff using an automated provisioning technology called “Pallet”.  Pallet is similar to existing automating configuration technologies like Puppet and Chef but with a key difference that it was built specifically to solve the problem of quickly spinning up and configuring groups of servers in the cloud. It support “Jclouds” out of the box and is implemented as a set of libraries for “Clojure” which is a LISP-based programming language that is quickly building steam.  Jclouds is an open source framework developed by Adrian Cole that helps you get started in the cloud and reuse your java development skills, with an API that allows you the freedom to use portable abstractions or cloud-specific features.

GoGrid is working with the author of Pallet (Hugo Duncan) and a key contributor Toni Batchelli to enable the fast deployment of fully functional GoGrid environments for use by development teams for test & dev. It’s a tough problem for most companies, but especially challenging for us considering how complex (and capital intensive) it is to stage an end-to-end GoGrid environment due to the sheer breadth of technologies that span almost all 7 layers of the OSI stack. With Pallet, we are able to treat our “infrastructure as code” and manage the configuration of systems, networks and applications just like we do our source code so that they can be quickly applied to spin-up new environments. But perhaps the coolest aspect is that we are using GoGrid internally to virtualize the individual components! It’s kind of like Inception where there is a grid-within-a-grid. Our teams are still getting their heads around logging into a GoGrid account and seeing virtual representation of physical GoGrid components represented as VM icons in the GUI! Very cool stuff.

The following presentation provides more details of the implementation and was presented at the recent Jclouds meetup at Twitter’s headquarter in San Francisco. Check out future jclouds meetups here:
http://www.meetup.com/jclouds/”

Below is the presentation that was presented at the Jclouds meetup:

Stay tuned for more posts from some of the thought-leaders driving GoGrid.

Have you ever wondered what this “new” term “NOSQL” means? Is it something that you need to seriously look at when you are crafting your cloud environment? Is it a viable alternative to MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, PostreSQL or other database applications? Do you even know how to get started with it?

If any of the questions above left you scratching your head AND you are in the Silicon Valley on October 26th, you might want to head over to the following meetup “A NOSQL Evening in Palo Alto“.

Many industry experts are saying that NOSQL will be or is the database of choice for Cloud Computing because of its scalability and ability to handle data-intensive applications better. Many popular websites that are high-traffic or deliver lots of rich media are adopting and re-architecting their infrastructures to take advantage of NOSQL.

From the Event Page:

Tim Anglade (founder, A NOSQL Summer), hosts a 2-hour discussion and Q&A with representatives from some of the most prominent NOSQL vendors and projects. The topics will look back on the origins of the movement and its growing pains, discuss the current technological & business states, as well as look ahead to the opportunities for improvement and expansion.

So if you ever wanted to hear the lessons learned by an emerging tech industry, or wanted to have an inside look into the non-relational revolution, come join us for a unique evening at beautiful Dinah’s Garden Hotel, in Palo Alto, California.

Confirmed Panel Participants, by alphabetical order

• 10gen: Roger Bodamer — SVP, Products and Engineering
• Basho: Andy Gross — Vice President of Engineering
• CouchOne (formerly CouchIO): Mikeal Rogers — Employee Number One
• Cloudant: Mike Miller — Co-Founder and Chief Scientist
• Cloudera
• GoGrid: Paul Lancaster — Business Development Manager
• InfiniteGraph: Warren Davidson — Director, Business Development and Strategic Alliances
• NorthScale: James Phillips — Co-Founder and Senior Vice President, Products
• Riptano: Jonathan Ellis — Founder
• Scality: Randy Parker — Sr. Director, North America

We’re running out of space on the panel but many other NOSQL project leaders and executives will be in the audience, including the CEOs of Neo4J and InfoGrid. Each company with also have several additional team members in attendance at the evening.

Space is limited, please RSVP in advance.
Date: Tuesday, October 26
Time: 6PM-10:30 PM (Pacific)
Location:
Dinah’s Garden Hotel
4261 El Camino Real
Palo Alto, CA

Registration: http://www.meetup.com/Silicon-Valley-NoSQL/calendar/14727419/

Schedule

• 6:00pm: Doors open. Mingle over drinks and appetizers.
• 7:00-9:30pm: Discussion and Q&A with the panel with a break in the middle (coffee, fruit and cookies will be available at the break).
• 9:30-?: Trader Vic’s is literally feet away from the conference room. We’ll be hosting a dinner there for the panelists and special guests, but you’re welcome to join us in the restaurant (just let us know in advance, so we can reserve more tables for you).

This might be a really great meetup to attend if you are looking at Cloud Computing and databases therein.

This past Wednesday night, GoGrid was the host of another StartUp SF (along with co-host Microsoft BizSpark of which we are a Hosting Partner). The guest speaker was David Weekly, founder of PBWorks, a client of GoGrid & ServePath. StartUp SF is a regular meetup in San Francisco designed to help young businesses become more successful. Each meetup has a format designed to stimulate, engage and network in a social learning environment. Each event has a guest speaker who talks about expert subject matter and how it relates to helping startups. Also, successful companies showcase their products and services in an interactive manner with product demos occurring throughout the event.

Full details from the 12/02/09 event are on the StartUp SF page.

Below is the video of David’s talk titled “Give Your Ideas Ex-Lax“:

David Weekly (PBWorks) Speaks at StartUp SF v2.2 from HighTechDad on Vimeo.

His presentation is also available on SlideShare and is below:

GoGrid regularly hosts StartUp SF and we look to bring you many more in 2010!

GoGrid is pleased to be a sponsor of this year’s FailCon 2009 which is a 1 day conference where you can find out how NOT to be one of those nine companies that fail when starting up. FailCon is a forum where you can ask those questions you were always afraid to ask, and the people giving the answers are successful founders, investors, designers and developers. GoGrid is offering a 25% discount on tickets to FailCon so read on!

It’s not easy being an entrepreneur and it is practically impossible to be a SUCCESSFUL one. In fact, having some battle scars from a failure or two will make your next endeavor more successful (hopefully). Have you had a #FAIL tag assigned to your brand? You probably can be a speaker or an expert at FailCon. But the goal of the conference is to help you move beyond the failure and on to the next success!

Some of the questions that will be discussed at FailCon are (from the FailCon site):

• What variables do VCs watch for to preemptively prevent a company going under?
• How do you financially prepare for the possibility of failure: legally, fiscally, and in your team?
• What have some of the leading executives today learned from their past experiences?
• What are you watching out for with the current social web and rising companies?
• How do you layoff or fire an employee or partner?
• How do you save a failing company?
• How do you recover from a failed product or marketing campaign?
• Early team communication and where it can break down.
• What ruins viral campaigns.
• How investors handle failing companies.
• How to handle a client if your service fails to deliver.
• Classic UI and design mistakes.
• Common online marketing mistakes.

Speakers include:

• Kevin Barenblat; CEO and Co-Founder, Context Optional
• Lane Becker; President and Co-Founder, GetSatisfaction
• Diana Benedikt; Strategic Advisor, Venture Insight
• Michael Burke; President and Co-founder, Appssavvy
• Larry Chiang; Self Employed
• Christine Herron; Principal, First Round Capital
• David Hornik; Partner, August Capital
• Craig Jacoby; Partner, Cooley Godward Kronish
• Sandy Jen; Co-Founder and VP of Engineering, Meebo
• Lynne Johnson; Senior Editor, Fast Company
• Max Levchin; Founder and CEO, Slide
• Phil Libin; Founder and CEO, Evernote
• Vinay Mahagaokar; Director of Product, RockYou
• Eric Marcoullier; Co-Founder, Gnip
• Dave McClure; Master, 500hats
• Thor Muller; CTO and Co-Founder, GetSatisfaction
• Mark Pincus; CEO and Founder, Zynga
• Scott Rafer; CEO, Lookery
• Adeo Ressi; Founder, TheFunded.com
• Brandon Schauer; Experience Design Director, Adaptive Path
• Seth Sternberg; CEO and Co-Founder, Meebo
• Kavin Stewart; CEO and Co-Founder, LOLapps
• Jonathan Teo; Partner, Benchmark
• Jessica Vascellaro; Tech Reporter, Wall Street Journal
• Max Ventilla; Zoo Director, Aardvark

Using the Cloud Will Make Your Investors Happy!

One thing that many investors actually are looking for now is how wisely you spend your money on IT. And this is actually where Cloud Computing (from GoGrid) would make them happy as you convert CapEx to OpEx. You don’t have to spend gobs of (their) cash on hardware that may not be used in the future (if your startup fails). GoGrid has lots of experience helping startups and we can definitely get you moving down that road to success!

The Details

WHEN: October 27th, 2009
WHERE: Kabuki Hotel, San Francisco (map link)
TIME: 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM (Pacific)
HOW MUCH: Online Rate – $259.00 & Students – $50.00 … but WAIT, GoGrid is offering you a 25% discount if you click here!
WHAT DO I GET: Full conference pass, admission to all Main Stage, Workshop & Demo talks, breakfast/snacks/beverages, free wifi, SWAG, networking time & much more

GoGrid will have a table at the show so be sure to come by and get a GoGrid credit on new accounts or chat with us about many of our exciting new features, partners and announcements.

After FailCon, we will also be sponsoring the FailCon After Party (SFBeta) so be sure to save some energy for that event! Tickets for that event can be purchased here. But, if you are a FailCon attendee, you get into SFBeta for free! Otherwise, purchase online for $15 or $25 at the door.

Hope to see you at both events!

It’s with great pleasure that we announce the guest speaker for the StartUp SF (version 2.1) event coming on June 4th, 2009. (StartUp SF is a San Francisco Technology Meetup co-hosted by GoGrid/ServePath and Microsoft BizSpark.)

Loic Le Meur, Founder and CEO of Seesmic, has graciously agreed to do a presentation titled “How to Launch a Product with your Community.” Learn first hand how to use various community building techniques to build your product, service or brand from the ground up.

You may have seen Loic and Seesmic Desktop mentioned in the New York Times site.

Seesmic is Loic’s 5th business so he definitely has lots of experience under his belt. Some more information about Loic:

Loic is the Seesmic CEO. He founded the company in 2007 with the goal of turning online video into a powerful medium for threaded, interactive video conversations.

Loic is the founder and CEO of video conversation site Seesmic.com. Seesmic also makes one of the most popular Twitter and social software clients – Twhirl.org.

Loic also founded and hosts the #1 tech event in Europe, LeWeb.net, with his wife Geraldine. LeWeb gathers together 2000 entrepreneurs from 40 countries in December every year.

Prior to Seesmic and LeWeb, Loic started several other businesses such as Six Apart Europe, RapidSite, a web hosting service (acquired by France Telecom in 1999), as well as B2L, an interactive agency in 1999 (acquired by BBDO).

Loic has been blogging since 2003 at http://www.loiclemeur.com and can be also found online at http://www.seesmic.com/loic and http://www.twitter.com/loic

Recently, Business Week Magazine named Loic one of The 25 Most Influential People on the Web. He advises the World Economic Forum as well as covers the Annual Summit every year in Davos. Originally from the South of France, Loic lives in San Francisco, California and has three boys.

Be sure to mark your calendars. Here are the details:

Date: June 4th, 2009 (Thursday) Time: 6-9pm Location: Microsoft, 835 Market St, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA 94103

DEMO COMPANIES We are pleased to announce the following demo companies will be showcasing their products and services:

Tap In Systems, Inc

URL: http://www.tapinsystem.com
Presenting: Peter Loh (Founder/CEO)
Description:
Tap In Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of systems management services for cloud-based applications. Awarded the 2009 Under the Radar Conference Judges Choice Award as the top cloud management company, Tap In Systems has developed a cloud-based systems management service to respond to the unique needs of today’s increasingly heterogeneous and virtual IT infrastructures. Tap In Systems’ Cloud Management Service (CMS) is a cloud-based, scalable monitoring service which manages both cloud and on-premises systems, providing status and performance data, alerts and reporting to keep applications running smoothly. CMS is an affordable, on-demand solution that requires no hardware or proprietary expertise, and can scale up and down as a user’s needs change. For more information, visit www.tapinsystems.com.

IDNTITI

URL: http://www.idntiti.com
Presenting: Sree Unnamatla (Founder/CEO)
Description:
IDNTITI (pronounced “Identity”) believes in putting consumer research into the hands of consumers. IDNTITI is a Web 2.0 quantitative rating tool. It provides you the power to create polls and surveys and get the community voice gathered – QUANTITATIVELY. User can analyze rating data around demographic information of the raters. It’s a fun way of understanding community feedback, friends views etc. At core of the application, users build reputation of Organizations (companies, schools, colleges, hospitals, restaurants etc.) products or people they are associated with by rating them quantitatively. We are now available as facebook app at http://apps.facebook.com/idntiti/. Quantitative feedback matters!

Eduify

URL: http://www.eduify.com/beta
Presenting: Dan Merritts (VP of Marketing)
Description:
Eduify is a cloud-based writing platform that helps high school and college students learn to research faster and write better. Eduify is like a writing coach that is always by your side. The service provides web-based applications to edit and store documents; discover, use and automatically cite research; find writing tutorials and examples; safeguard against plagiarism; receive expert writing help. Eduify’s service integrates with existing social networks, giving students everywhere the community, applications and help to immediately improve their writing.

If you are interested in being a Demo Company, please be sure to fill out the Contact form and we will evaluate your submission.

MORE DETAILS

There will be food and drink provided as well as ample time to do networking and talk to the GoGrid and BizSpark folks about programs that can help you jump-start your startup.

Tickets are now on sale. To buy them online (for $10), please visit the EventBrite ordering page. Tickets may be available at the door (for $20), however there is no guarantee that there will still be any remaining.