This month, we tried something a bit different with our Customer Newsletter for August 2010 in that we sent the newsletter from our Service Teams. In case you didn’t already know this, every GoGrid customer is assigned a service team to help our customers manage and grow their GoGrid account and answer any questions customers may have. The teams consist of an Account Manager, a Support Specialist, a Billing Specialist, a Data Center Technician and a Network Specialist.

Even though it is the summer here, we are hard at work growing the GoGrid product and feature offering as we strive to live up to our new Unique Value Proposition: “Complex Infrastructure Made Easy™”.

Below is the full content of the August 2010 Customer Update newsletter that went out to all GoGrid customers:

Hello,

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Ever since the launch of GoGrid, we made sure that we included Open Source stacks in our server offerings. As the GoGrid ecosystem grew, we partnered with several companies who provide various Open Source solutions. Since these offerings have been gaining traction and popularity, we are now working much more closely with Partners providing Open Source Software within the GoGrid Exchange.

The following Press Release was distributed last Wednesday:

Open Source Community Embraces the GoGrid Cloud

GoGrid announces the launch of its Open Source Software (OSS) Partner Program. GoGrid is the industry leader in partnering with open source companies to enable their software in the cloud. Through the GoGrid platform, open source companies can deliver their offerings as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

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Yesterday, Cranium Solutions, a GoGrid Partner announced the launch of an automated cloud-based security assessment tool within the GoGrid Exchange.

About Cranium Solutions

Cranium Solutions’ flagship product, ASAP™ (Automated Security Assessment Program), is the first fully automated end-to-end network security testing solution that runs as a Cloud Based Service.  Businesses can perform simple and automated Vulnerability Assessments and Penetration Tests of any systems they have deployed on the GoGrid Cloud. Furthermore, the Cranium Solutions ASAP Service is a GSI based service that can be setup in minutes and requires no configuration by the customer unless they are performing assessments of servers that do not have external IP addresses.

Cranium Solutions on the GoGrid Exchange

There is currently 1 image live on the GoGrid Exchange for Cranium Solutions. It is on a CentOS 5.3 (64 bit) image:

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We at GoGrid are excited to introduce you to the latest version of GoGrid! (Perhaps you already saw the “Sneak Peak” article I posted earlier.) After several months of planning, developing, implementing, testing, deploying and wiping the sweat off of our collective brows, we present to you, GoGrid 3.0.

This post will not be about the nitty-gritty details of the release as there will be several other posts that touch on all of the activities going on at GoGrid. To provide some guidance though, here’s what I’m going to briefly cover:

• New GoGrid Product Site
• Webinar for New GoGrid Customers
• High-level Overview of GoGrid 3.0 Features
• Copy of Press Release on GoGrid 3.0

There are many ways to get more information about this release and what it can do for you as someone shopping for Cloud Infrastructure or already using the GoGrid Cloud. One of the best ways is to talk to a GoGrid Sales Representative as they have great ways to choose the right GoGrid infrastructure solution for you. You can call them at: 1.877.946.4743 (US & Canada) or 1.415.869.7444 (Worldwide). Or we typically have 24×5 Live Sales Chat & Contact forms available here.

New GoGrid Site

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With the March 2010 GoGrid newsletter, we welcome and introduce a new name to our communications, that of Maria Gallegos who has joined us as a Product Marketing Coordinator for GoGrid. Maria comes from a marketing background (from financial services to non-profits) and will be producing the GoGrid newsletter as well as managing other customer experience programs. One of her first tasks has been the March 2010 Customer Update Newsletter.

For those who are not current GoGrid users, we provide the full newsletter on our blog, just so that you can see what you are missing out on! If any of the items that are mentioned here interest you, or if you want to get started on GoGrid right away (remember, we provide a full range of hosted infrastructure solutions ranging from Cloud Servers to Dedicated Servers to Cloud Storage, all within a Load Balanced network), I encourage you to speak with a GoGrid Sales Representative. They can provide you with answers to many of your infrastructure hosting questions. Just tell them that I sent you!

Here is the full March 2010 GoGrid Customer Update newsletter:

Hello,

As 2010 continues to progress, so does GoGrid. From system enhancements to new partners, you’ll find this edition of the newsletter full of information to better help you manage your cloud hosting infrastructure. Specific topics include: (more…)

Today, the team at GoGrid is pleased to announce several new enhancements and features to our Cloud Infrastructure Hosting service. With us, it is all about trying to make our Cloud offering as powerful as possible. To that end, we have released our latest version of GoGrid, available now! Some highlights include (each of which I will go into further details later on in this post):

• GoGrid Dedicated Servers
• List View of GoGrid Objects
• Edit f5 Load Balancers
• New Login Page
• Self-Service Support Links
• Other Items

We hope that you share our excitement about this release! Now, let’s get into the details. Also be sure to see our video that talks about many of the items listed here (Available on GoGrid YouTube channel and the GoGrid Facebook Fan Page as well.)

GoGrid Dedicated Servers

Let’s face it, we have been doing dedicated hosting for over 8 years so we do know a little bit about it. Last year, we introduced a first-to-market service that we internally called “Hybrid Hosting” which allowed users to connect GoGrid cloud infrastructure with a separate dedicated infrastructure, all within a private network. This proved to be incredibly successful, and something that many of our customers had desired. So, we decided to take it to the next level by offering Dedicated Servers within the GoGrid infrastructure.

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As you probably know by now, GoGrid released a series of new enhancements to our Cloud Computing Infrastructure Hosting service. You can read more about what was included in this latest release in this blog post. Some of the highlighted new features and improvements include:

• GoGrid Dedicated Servers
• List View of GoGrid Objects
• Edit f5 Load Balancers
• New Login Page
• Self-Service Support Links

We also sent out a newsletter highlighting some of the changes in the January/February 2010 timeframe.

As with previous releases, I wanted to spend some time with our VP of Products, Mario Olivarez, and discuss some of these items and what they mean to GoGrid customers. (YouTube direct link.)

This video is also available on the GoGrid Facebook page as well as our GoGrid YouTube Channel.

As always, if you have any questions about any of the items you heard in this video or about GoGrid in general, please leave a comment on this post or ask us on Twitter (@GoGrid). Stay tuned for more updates and videos.

Today we sent out the January 2010 GoGrid Customer Update to all GoGrid customers. We wanted to ensure that all people who are interested in GoGrid have access to the latest and greatest information coming from our headquarters so the full newsletter is posted below. If you want to get regular updates similar to this newsletter, I recommend that you subscribe to the GoGrid blog RSS feed, subscribe to blog post via email, follow us on Twitter (@GoGrid) as well as become a GoGrid Facebook Fanpage.

Below is the entire GoGrid Newsletter (January 2010):

Hello Michael,

On behalf of everyone here at GoGrid, I want to wish you a very successful 2010!  We are starting the year off with a bang that includes some exciting new developments that I want to share with you in this edition of the GoGrid Newsletter.  Here are the specific topics:

1. New Features and System Enhancements
2. GoGrid CDN: New Singapore and Paris Points of Presence (POPs)
3. New Partner GSIs
4. Preventative Power Maintenance
5. End-of-Life: CentOS 5.1 w/Apache &  RHEL 5.1 w/Apache operating systems
6. New CentOS 5.3 & RHEL 5.4 base operating systems
7. Two New 3rd Party Services to Monitor your GoGrid Servers
8. Hosting for Haiti

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In an effort to be as proactive as possible, GoGrid has officially notified select customers of the removal (End of Life – EoL) of two specific GoGrid images. The users that were notified are ones that are actively using the images. On 2/9/10, GoGrid will be removing the following images from the GoGrid image repository:

• CentOS – CentOS 5.1 (64-bit) w/ Apache 2.2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux – RHEL 5.1 (64-bit) w/ Apache 2.2

I’m sure that some of you will have questions about this. In anticipation of this, I have compiled some quick Q&A’s:

Question: What does the removal of these images mean?

Answer: Simply that after the removal date, they will no longer appear within the GoGrid Image Selection widget.

Question: I have server(s) deployed that use these images? Will they continue to function?

Answer: Yes, there is no change to how your server(s) will function if they are using one of these EoL-ed images. Just be sure that you keep everything current within those servers.

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Sometimes it is important to reflect back on activities and achievements of the past year in order to focus on the road ahead. 2009 was a year full of “firsts” and exciting announcements for GoGrid and I thought that I would quickly summarize and highlight a some blog posts of interest.

I have personally enjoyed documenting our achievements, analyzing trends, reviewing opportunities, showcasing new clients and partners as well as musing about Cloud Computing in general. Much of the writing on the GoGrid blog during 2009 was my own, however, the people who have helped provide me inspiration are countless, ranging from those within GoGrid to others creating the cloud community at large.

The journey through 2009 has definitely been an exciting one. Looking back on 2009 should make all users, creators and consumers of the cloud very proud. We have done a tremendous amount in 2009! So without further ado, below are a few selected posts of interest from the GoGrid blog for each month during 2009.

January 2009

• “Cloudcenters Are Datacenters In The Sky” – in this post, Randy Bias outlines his vision of what the “cloudcenter” meme truly is and how it is unique
• “Building A House In The Cloud – Cloudcenters Vs. Infrastructure Web Services” – in this post, I tried to simplify some of the differences between our new term of “cloudcenter” and “infrastructure web services” using a comparison to building a house.
• “GoGrid Releases API Specification To The Cloud Computing Community Under Creative Commons License” – GoGrid released our Application Programming Interface (API) under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License which allows users to share, distribute, display and make derivative works based on our API
• “New Windows Server 2003 & 2008 Images Added To GoGrid” – we continued to build out our Windows Server 2003 and 2008 image offering as the first to market with Windows Server 2008 in the Cloud
• All January posts are here

February 2009 (more…)