Whether you are new to GoGrid or an existing customer, we can grant you early access to the GoGrid Amsterdam data center easily. Choose one of the options below:

• New GoGrid Users – Please visit the GoGrid signup page: https://securesignup.GoGrid.com and use promocode: AMSGG100. The promocode will grant you access to deploy infrastructure within the new Amsterdam data center as well as provide you with a $100 service credit.
• Existing GoGrid Users – Please contact your GoGrid Account Representative about VIP early access and pricing.

Please note, for new users, the promo code can only be used between January 30^th, 2012 and February 13^th, 2012 and will last through February 29^th, 2012 or when the $100 cap is reached, whichever comes first).

We look forward to your feedback on our new data center and should you want to learn more about European presence and to download our Cloud Computing 101 Toolkit, which is a collection of white papers, industry research, analyst reports, case studies and videos, please visit: http://go.gogrid.com/amsterdam_launch/ .

Why now? Why Amsterdam?

The appetite for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is rapidly growing worldwide. With Gartner predicting that the IaaS market will soon account for a quarter of the overall hosting department, the opportunity seemed ripe to take the next step in our continued global expansion. Amsterdam was the perfect choice when looking to set up our HQ thanks to its central geographic location, which makes it attractive to businesses operating or looking to operate within the EU, as well as its rich infrastructure, its reputation as a high-tech center, and its talented workforce.

Interested in learning more?

If you’re attending Cloud Expo Europetomorrow and/or Thursday, be sure to pop by the GoGrid booth (1013) where you can chat with me and other key members of the team: Craig DeMartini, head of sales, VP of Operations Bobby Brown, and Senior Product Manager Rupert Tagnipes. We can tell you more about the opening and the benefits that this expansion brings.

At the show there’ll also be the opportunity to hear about Condé Nast Digital Germany’s success hosting its magazine content on GoGrid’s infrastructure (25 January at 14.20 – Cloud and Virtualization Infrastructure and Platforms Theatre) and why Martini Media chose GoGrid’s cloud technology for its multi-data-center solution (25 January at 16.35 – Cloud and Virtualization Infrastructure and Platforms Theatre).

It’s set to be a great show, so we hope to see you there!

If you can’t make it down to Cloud Expo Europe, please contact GoGrid’s new European HQ at emea-sales@gogrid.com for more information. To learn how cloud computing can help your business and to access our Cloud Computing 101 Toolkit, go to http://go.gogrid.com/amsterdam_launch/.

This past July, Info-Tech Research Group released an extensive report entitled “Vendor Landscape: Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)”. This report is designed to help companies understand the offerings of cloud infrastructure providers so they can select a partner with solutions that best meet their needs. Each cloud IaaS vendor was scored based on their product offering and company strengths. GoGrid was one of 3 companies placed in the highest quadrant, “Champion”, and had the highest “Value Index” of every company profiled.

GoGrid topped the charts because our services had the highest value and, as Info-Tech put it, was the biggest “bang for the buck” (e.g. features, usability, stability, etc.).

The research and findings of the Info-Tech Research Group are available for download. The report highlights the purpose and methodology behind Info-Tech’s research, complete industry results and detailed analysis of GoGrid as a cloud infrastructure provider.

Learn why GoGrid was positioned as “Champion.” Please Download the Info-Tech Cloud IaaS Research Report

IPv4 Networking Protocol

IPv4 is a networking address space that most of us should be familiar with. It is a numeric, 32-bit only, and takes the form of XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX (so like 192.168.100.000). There is a physical limitation to the number of IPv4 addresses you can have, 2^32 or 4,294,967,296 to be exact, and we are running out pretty quickly. Every website has an IP address bound to it. We, as consumers, are used to typing in domain names (like www.GoGrid.com). But what happens is that the domain name is translated into an IPv4 address (like 216.93.160.144). Think of IP addresses like an “internet phone number”. Nowadays, we click on a name (e.g., a domain name) to call someone. In the past, we dialed a phone number (e.g., an IP address).

Remember, not all of those combinations can be used as some are reserved:

(table source: Wikipedia)

When you think about it, Cloud Computing is burning through IP addresses pretty quickly. For example, every GoGrid customer is allocated a block of IPv4 addresses to use with their infrastructure. That’s a lot of IP addresses that we are giving away. And, as more and more sites or infrastructures are created, more IPv4 addresses are being consumed. Since there is a finite amount of these addresses, companies need to start thinking about transitioning over to the new IPv6 protocol.

Also, cell phones & other public internet-enabled devices are consuming these limited IPv4 addresses (even if using DHCP – Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol – where IP addresses are applied for a specific time duration and then released back to a pool). So, as society becomes even more internet-enabled, this pool of IPv4 availability dries up even more quickly.

Do you get the point? When you think about it, running out of IPv4 addresses is really the sign of growth and the internet is expanding. This is a good thing.

IPv6 Networking Protocol

IPv6 builds for tomorrow’s growth and beyond.  Instead of being limited to numeric addresses only, IPv6 is 128-bit and is alpha-numeric. IPv6 takes the form of:

(image source: Wikipedia)

Using “simple” math, that means that theoretically you can have 2^128 addresses or 340 undecillion (3.4 x 10^38) addresses. Let’s take a look at that number:

• 2^128
• 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456
• 340 undecillion, 282 decillion, 366 nonillion, 920 octillion, 938 septillion, 463 sextillion, 463 quintillion, 374 quadrillion, 607 trillion, 431 billion, 768 million, 211 thousand and 456
• 340 billion billion billion billion
• 340 trillion trillion trillion

Uh…that’s a LOT of numbers!

Let’s put it another way:

• a 70 kg body, has approximately 7×10^27 atoms in it (7 and 27 zeros)
• there are 6.79 billion people in the world (2009 estimate)
• that means there are 4.753*10^37 atoms in all of the people of the world
• which means that there are 7.16 IPv6 addresses available for every atom of living people in the world

I don’t think that we will be running out of IPv6 addresses in our lifetimes!

GoGrid and IPv6

GoGrid helped with World IPv6 day. We enabled IPv6 networking within Compuware’s IPv6 Website Performance Testing Page, a GoGrid customer, where you can determine how IPv4 and IPv6-enabled websites compare in terms of site performance. GoGrid is currently executing a comprehensive IPv6 roadmap, and the Compuware development project represents a technology preview that demonstrates a complete rollout of IPv6 within GoGrid’s infrastructure.

Engineering teams from both GoGrid and Compuware collaborated to design and implement a custom solution within GoGrid’s infrastructure to allow Compuware to enable the first ever Gomez IPv6 Website performance test.

Today we issued a Press Release about our work with Gomez & Compuware related to World IPv6 Day.

Be sure that if you have an IPv6-enabled site that you run the Compuware/Gomez Performance test to see how your sites perform.

What You Can Do Now

Again, the goal of World IPv6 Day is to raise the awareness of the depletion of IPv4 addresses and to nudge companies along in their efforts to begin utilizing the new IPv6 protocols. It’s essentially a “test flight” for major web companies and other industry players to come together by enabling IPv6 on their main websites for 24 hours. If you remember the days of Y2K, this can be likened to a similar effort. No, the Internet won’t crash or stop working if you aren’t IPv6 ready today, but in order to save costs and effort in the future, companies should definitely start their long term plans and preparations of this inevitability. GoGrid, for example, expects to have IPv6 compatibility by the end of 2011.

So, take a deep breath, stop worrying about all of those IPv6 digits and what they mean, and start driving ahead in your planning for enabling IPv6 within your software, devices and infrastructure.

To better explain IRM technology and why it is so important, I sat down with Raja Srinivasan, VP of Cloud Computing at Zeus Technologies, and our very own Paul Lancaster, Manager of Cloud Ecosystems at GoGrid. They discuss how IRM is the solution to licensing software in the cloud and what the GoGrid Exchange means for partners and customers.

Raja and Paul highlight many of the benefits of the GoGrid Exchange as well as focus on our new IRM technology. They break them down into two main areas.

Benefits for Partners:

• License Management – IRM technology automatically verifies if the software is correctly licensed to run within the GoGrid cloud, and will automatically take pre-defined actions should the licensing be invalid.
• Software Management – Simply update your software on the GoGrid Exchange and it is automatically made available to your customers.
• Easier to Deliver Support – When a customer has a support need, the ISV can quickly understand exactly what kind of infrastructure the software is running on so they can identify the support issue faster.
• Easy Payments – GoGrid handles the invoicing of customers for both Partner Image licensing and infrastructure usage, and then pays the Partner for the Partner Service Image usage.

Benefits for GoGrid Customers:

• Single-Button Install – Customers can find the software solution they want on exchange.gogrid.com and instantly install it with little to no configuration.
• Software Management – Users are automatically kept up to date with the latest versions of the software they installed from the Exchange.
• Unified Invoicing – GoGrid handles the billing for Exchange Partner server images as well as infrastructure costs within a single invoice. Customers can manage their software and infrastructure payments from a single portal on a single bill.
• Flexibility & Scalability – the GoGrid Exchange allows customers to get the software they want when they want it. Also, customers aren’t locked into any multi-year licensing deals. The Exchange makes software solutions in the cloud highly efficient and ready to scale with your company.

We’re very excited about the release of IRM what this means for our customers and the cloud computing industry.

For more information, please read our Press Release titled “GoGrid Enhances Partner Exchange Platform with New Image Rights Management Technology” which is available in the Press Release section of the GoGrid site.

For more information, please visit http://exchange.gogrid.com