Yesterday we release several new and updated base GoGrid cloud server images as part of our regular Operating System refreshes.

Below is a quick lists of the New, Updated and End of Life-d base images.

New Major Versions

• CentOS 6
• What’s new in CentOS 6 (RHEL technical details): http://www.redhat.com/rhel/server/details/
• This version of CentOS is not subject to the “time drift” issue
• These machines now run in PV (paravirtualization) mode
• Debian 6
• What’s new in Debian 6: http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/armel/release-notes/ch-whats-new.en.html

New Minor Versions

• CentOS 5.6
• RHEL 5.7

Updated Versions

• Windows Server 2003 – updated with Microsoft Security Patches & Powershell 2.0
• Windows Server 2008 – updated with Microsoft Security Patches, Powershell 2.0 and on SQL Server images, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
• Windows Server 2008 R2 – updated with Microsoft Security Patches

End of Life-d (EOL) Versions

• CentOS 5.3
• RHEL 5.4

Note: Servers already deployed that are running older (perhaps EOL-ed) images are not affected (meaning, we do not delete them) but you may want to consider refreshing those servers to a later version of the OS. When a server is EOL-ed, it is simply removed from the GoGrid base OS repository and you cannot create new servers from these images.

Remember that these updates and new versions only apply to NEW VMs that you create using these images listed above. If you have existing cloud servers running, please be sure that you regularly run security and Operating System updates to ensure that you servers are running the latest versions and have the most current security patches.

When most people hear the phrase “operating system in the cloud” they usually think of a really cool client-side, Web-based desktop like EyeOS or CloudMe or even Chromium OS. Perhaps that is the future of client operating systems, but when cloud infrastructure providers talk about operating systems, they are making reference to which OS your cloud infrastructure will run on. And, it’s not always limited to just one in many cases.

At GoGrid, we provide a variety of operating systems including:

• Windows Server
• Ubuntu
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Debian
• CentOS

Operating systems in the cloud are very important because they are what your applications and infrastructure are built upon. Whether you’re using the cloud to deploy test & development environments, act as your data center or run your company’s business critical applications, the operating system plays a vital role in cloud infrastructure.

Most IT professionals are pretty passionate about what operating system they prefer. For instance, search for “Windows vs. Linux” on Google – over 109 million results have some sort of opinion on the topic. But, since actions speak louder than words, we wanted to determine which operating system was used more by the IT industry.

In early 2011, as part of the GoGrid Cloud Survey Report, we polled over 500 CTOs, developers and IT professionals and asked them a variety of questions regarding cloud computing trends, best practices and use cases. Because there is such a wide variety of operating systems that serve different use cases, we decided to ask: Which OS do you use for your critical business applications?

The numbers exceed 100% because most businesses use several different server operating systems to run their critical applications (businesses either run several physical, virtual or mixed environments to accomplish this). When we look at the results, it isn’t terribly shocking that Windows Server is used by 80% of the sample – they’ve been dominating the server scene since Windows Server 2003 or earlier. However, the amount of Linux and Solaris servers is much higher than anticipated. In fact, if you do a search of various Linux distros, you can see how Ubuntu, for example, is making huge advances in the space.

Just last year, ZDNet shared stats from the International Data Corp. (IDC) that found 73.9% of servers were Windows and only 21.2% of servers were Linux based. Perhaps our 2011 survey data is showing Linux use in the cloud is on the rise.

Do you have any strong thoughts or opinions about operating systems in the cloud? Which server operating system do you use? How do you think cloud computing will affect server operating systems? Does the Operating System even matter? We look forward to your responses.

With only one more blog post left in the series, the GoGrid Cloud Survey Report is coming to a close. Our next post will also be our last survey results article, but it covers the most interesting cloud computing question thus far: Why aren’t you using cloud computing? Stay tuned…

For more information on our survey methodology or to see all of our results, please download the Cloud Survey Report.

This is the 3^rd and final post in my setup and use of the GoGrid Community GSI server for Cacti Monitoring. In my first post, “Set Up A Cacti Monitoring Server in Minutes with this GoGrid Community Server Image,,” I covered how to deploy Cacti in your GoGrid environment using a Community GSI. My second post, “How to Monitor Your Ubuntu Server on GoGrid in 6 Steps Using Cacti 0.8.7g,” I discussed how to initiate monitoring of your GoGrid Ubuntu server. Now to round things off, I want to show you how to link up your Cacti monitoring server to a Windows Server 2008 server on your GoGrid network. The base install of Cacti 0.8.7g will allow you to monitor the server’s bandwidth utilization, Ethernet errors, number of logged in users, and total number of processes. There are other templates available to monitor other components and services on your Windows server, but they require using an additional SNMP service beyond the Microsoft SNMP service. My blog post won’t get into the latter, but I will cover the former.

Objectives:

1. Configure GoGrid private network connectivity on Windows 2008 Server and test connectivity to Cacti server
2. Configure and start Microsoft SNMP service on your Windows 2008 Server
3. Add new Cacti device
4. Create graphs to log Local Connection and Local Connection 2 bandwidth and errors, Logged in Users, and server processes

Configure GoGrid private network connectivity on Windows 2008 Server and test connectivity to Cacti server

Below we see that we have a server (“Web2”) deployed on GoGrid with a public IP. Let’s log into this server and configure the private network with a private IP from the same subnet of the Cacti Monitor server. As I described in my previous post – I am using the prescribed private IP subnet from my GoGrid portal, contained under the List tab and then under Network – Private Network.

Once logged into the Windows 2008 server (“Web2”), I go to the Network and Sharing Center which is found by first going to the Start button. From here I need to open up Local Area Connection 2. This is the private network interface that plugs into your own private VLAN on GoGrid. I enter the “Properties” button and then open up “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)”. By default GoGrid will enable DHCP for this private network interface. If you have a DHCP server, your server can receive private IP addresses upon initial boot up. Perhaps I will cover this in a different post. For now, we need to configure the interface with a static IP available from our example private subnet 10.129.151.0/24. The subnet will be randomly generated for each customer account. I show you how to find this in my previous post, “How to Monitor Your Ubuntu Server on GoGrid in 6 Steps Using Cacti 0.8.7g.” Following the nomenclature – keeping the last octet of the 32bit address space the same as the public to make IP address association easier – I give this system the private IP address 10.129.151.110. The .110 matches up with the last 3 digits of the public IP address 173.204.58.110. This isn’t necessary, but helps you identify systems and know their private IP address based upon their public address and vice versa. See the image below of me assigning the private IP address.

Now, open up a command prompt >Go to Start, then Run – type in cmd and hit “enter”. I now test connectivity to the 10.129.151.0/24 network by pinging the gateway IP – 10.129.151.1. I get a response, so I can move on. If you don’t get a response, double check the private IP address you used and make sure the Subnet mask is correct. You can also test connectivity by pinging the private IP address of your Cacti Monitoring server. Remember, your 10.x.x.x/24 network will be different than my example subnet. Please check your portal for what you should be using.

Configure and start Microsoft SNMP service on your Windows 2008 Server

Check to see if you have the SNMP Service running already on your Windows system. By default, this server role in Windows Server 2008 on GoGrid isn’t installed and running. Go to Start -> Administrative Tools -> Services. SNMP Trap may be there, but we also need SNMP Service. To install SNMP Service go to Start -> Administrative Tools -> Server Manager -> Select Features -> Add Features. From here find and check SNMP Services (which covers SNMP Service and SNMP WMI Provider). See image below.

Click Next and this will begin the install process of this feature on Windows.

Once the SNMP Service is installed, we can go to the Services page to find and configure the SNMP Service with the appropriate community and host IP address to accept SNMP calls from.

First go to the Services page – Start -> Administrative Tools -> Services or from Run type services.msc

Find the local service – SNMP Service and right click it and go to properties. From here you need to give the service the community string that you will set on the Cacti server and the private IP address of your Cacti Monitor server. This is under Accepted Community Names and Accept SNMP packets from these hosts. See image below:

Add new Cacti device

This step is same “create a device” step that I outlined in my previous post – except the details of the host will be different.

The IP, hostname and template used in the screen shot below represent my example Windows 2008 server named “Web2.” I chose the Host Template Windows 2000/XP Host –> selected SNMP v2 -> put in the community string I chose, and clicked “create.”

You should see the SNMP information for the host quickly appears near the upper left portion of the screen. If you see an error here, you will need to check your private network connectivity between the two servers and check the SNMP Service configuration on the Windows 2008 server.

With the new device in place on Cacti, we can now create the graphs.

Create graphs to log Local Connection and Local Connection 2 bandwidth and errors, Logged in Users, and server processes

From the device we just created, go to Create Graphs for this Host.

From this page we want to add a check to the following graph templates seen below in the image:

1. Logged in Users
2. Processes
3. Local Connection
4. Local Connection 2

Once you have done this, click Create at the bottom of the page.

We will do this again for the In/Out Errors/Discarded Packets option next.

1. Change the “Select a graph type:” near the bottom of the Create Graph page to In/Out Errors/Discarded Packets
2. Next check box the “Local Area Connection” and “Local Area Connection 2”
3. Finally click the Create button at the bottom.

After about 5 minutes, the graph icons will be available and your data will then begin to accumulate for your viewing.

I hope this blog series was helpful for you. The GoGrid Cacti Monitor – Community GSI is a great server-based application that can easily be deployed to a GoGrid virtual server, and configured to communicate via SNMP with your servers on the GoGrid network. The information gathered will give you real-time and historical interface bandwidth, server performance, and other important system level information.

Be sure to check out other Community or Partner Server Images available on GoGrid. The GoGrid Exchange has many pre-configured software solutions that can be deployed to your GoGrid architecture in a matter of minutes.

Our software “elves” have been hard at work preparing the latest and greatest feature and service updates to the GoGrid cloud. We are excited about our December 2010 release as it is packed with enhancements and new and updated features to truly make GoGrid your choice for deploying Cloud Infrastructure or setting up a Hybrid Hosting environment.

Some of the noteworthy features and changes include:

• GoGrid Dedicated Servers in our East Coast Data Center
• Limited Time Promotion on East Coast Dedicated Servers and West Coast GoGrid Firewall
• GoGrid Image Sharing
• GoGrid Fortinet Firewall Ordering
• Increase Windows Sandbox Server Size
• Other Changes including Windows Patch Updates

Read on for more details on each of the items above.

GoGrid Dedicated Servers on East Coast

GoGrid has been leading the industry when it comes to Hybrid Hosting as is evident with other providers rolling out similar features. However, we are 2 years ahead of most of our competitors in providing integrated cloud and dedicated infrastructures within GoGrid. To complement this, we have rolled out GoGrid Dedicated Servers in our East Coast facility (US-East-1). GoGrid Dedicated Servers (GGDS) in our West Coast data center (US-West-1) have been incredibly successful for our customers.

GoGrid Dedicated Servers are provisioned via the GoGrid web portal and can be fully publicly and/or privately networked with our F5 load balancers, Firewalls, and Cloud Storage. There are a variety of use cases you might want to consider that are optimal for using Dedicated Servers or a hybrid of Dedicated and Cloud Servers including:

• Disaster Recovery – now you can set up a DR environment on either the East or West Coast.
• Fail Over – similar to DR environment, mirroring or providing a portion of your infrastructure on either coast can help you recover from costly outages. You can also set up a secondary presence to handle routine maintenance periods.
• Unique Application Sets – there may be some applications that have requirements for particular hardware or operating systems not available within the GoGrid Cloud Server list. In many cases, Dedicated Servers can meet these requirements.

The steps to provision a GoGrid Dedicated Server are the same in all of our data centers.

When you first launch the Add screen, you can select either US-West-1 or US-East-1. Selecting US-East-1 will show you the following:

You can see that “Dedicated Server” is now an option. Selecting that will start you down the easy process of provisioning a Dedicated Server.

Fill out the form and choose a Configuration option and Pricing plan.

Accept the Terms of Service for the Dedicated Server:

Once the server request has been created, it will be available within 2 business days as per GoGrid’s Service Level Agreement (SLA). You can track the progress by viewing the icon within the Grid and List views. Yellow means that it is being provisioned. When it is Green, your server is ready to use. The server below (GGDS East #1) is in the “Processing” state:

You can also view the status via the Jobs tab.

Once the Dedicated Server is ready, the Job will show as “Succeeded”:

GoGrid Dedicated Servers are also displayed within the List View.

Promotion on GoGrid Dedicated Servers or GoGrid Hardware Firewall

Beginning on 12/15/2010, GoGrid will be making minor price increases on Standard Dedicated Servers and Advanced Dedicated servers. The new pricing is reflected below:

• Standard Dedicated Servers: $300/month or $3,000/year if prepaid annually
• Advanced Dedicated Servers: $400/month or $4,000/year if prepaid annually

NOTE: If you purchase a GoGrid Dedicated Server prior to 12/15/2010, you will be GRANDFATHERED into the current pricing plan. What that means is if you purchase a Dedicated Server before 12/15/10, your price will remain at the old rates as long as you have the server deployed. The price for Ultra Dedicated Servers is not changing.

GoGrid Image Sharing

Have you created a server image that you are proud of? Or perhaps you want to share a Diaspora server to help spread the Open Source alternative to Facebook? With this release, we have launched a new GoGrid Image Sharing feature that allows for true collaboration between GoGrid users across the globe. The process is extremely easy. You start with a MyGSI (GoGrid Personal Server Image) and then simply click on the Sharing icon to make it available to all GoGrid users. Let’s walk through this briefly.

First, start with a private server image (MyGSI). Details on how to create a MyGSI can be found here.

Once you create your MyGSI, it will appear under the Images tab:

Note the Sharing state is set to “Private” by default and the icon next to it shows a single user.

To make the image “Public“, simply click on the Server Image line. It will launch the editing screen (where you can change the Name and Description of your server, as well as the minimum RAM required to use your image):

When you choose to make your image “Public” be sure to choose a clear, descriptive name to make it easier for users to find. Also, be sure to set the minimum amount of RAM for that server image to be at a level that it would perform well for other GoGrid users who deploy it.

Simply change the Sharing status from “Private” to “Public” and click the Submit button. Your server image will then be available to all GoGrid users.

Should you ever need to make changes to your server image, be sure to mark the image as “Private” and then go through the Image change process of using that Server Image to create another Image Sandbox, making your appropriate edits and then creating a new MyGSI.

Once the image is publically shared, it will appear within the GoGrid Cloud Server Image Selector (note the Owner column):

Creating a new server based on this Shared Server Image is the same process as creating any other Cloud Server within GoGrid. The only exception is that when you select a shared image, you will be presented with a screen that says GoGrid does not provide support for this image.

Once you agree to the terms, you can create your server.

GoGrid Fortinet Firewall Ordering

With this release, you can now easily order a GoGrid Fortinet hardware firewall. To provision a hardware firewall via the GoGrid Customer Portal you simply need to click on the Fortinet Firewall link in the portal. It appears under the Quick Links section:

As well as within the List view when the Network section is active:

Once you click on that link, you will be presented with the Fortinet Firewall Order Form:

Fill out all of the required and appropriate information and your GoGrid Hardware Firewall will be available within 2 business days. You will be notified via email when your Firewall is available to use. Please note, the Fortinet Firewall option currently is only available in our US-West-1 data center.

The GoGrid Hardware Firewall is $200/month and this price includes one type of VPN connection. Additional VPNs are available at $50/month or $500/year with a pre-paid plan.

Increase Windows Sandbox Size

Users of Windows Servers and the GoGrid MyGSI feature will rejoice with this enhancement. Due to popular request, we are increasing the GoGrid Sandbox Image size from 20 GB to 30 GB. The sandbox disk size for Linux distros will remain at 20 GB.

This increase in size will allow you to have more space for software and OS updates as well as your code and data.

Other Changes including Windows Patch Updates

This release also includes some other changes of note. For starters, we have renamed the “Upgrade” icon to “Scale”. This is part of the RAM Scaling feature that we released previously. To scale your servers vertically (meaning increasing or decreasing the amount of RAM allocated to your server), simply click on the server you want to scale and click the Scale icon:

For more details, please read our blog post on this feature.

We have also updated our base GoGrid Server Images for Windows to include the latest software updates and security patches as of November 30, 2010. The following servers have been updated:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition R2 w/MSSQL 2008 Workgroup
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition R2 w/MSSQL 2008 Standard
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition R2 w/None
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition R2 w/None
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition R2 w/MSSQL 2005 Standard
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition R2 w/MSSQL 2005 Workgroup
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition w/None
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition w/MSSQL 2008 Express / PHP5 / IIS 7.0 + FastCGI
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise x64 Edition w/None
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise x64 Edition w/MSSQL 2008 Standard
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise x64 Edition w/MSSQL 2008 Workgroup

Several bug fixes have also been applied and the GoGrid API has been updated to version 1.7. Please see our Wiki for documentation on the new API items.

More to Come!

I’m sure that you’ll agree this is quite a list of enhancements and new features. There’s plenty more coming in 2011! I encourage you to attend our Webinars or request a 1-on-1 consultation with one of our GoGrid Cloud Specialists to learn more about how GoGrid makes Complex Infrastructure Easy!

Recently, Microsoft announced WebMatrix, a free Web development suite of software and tools that bring together a Web Server, a database and programming frameworks all within a single, integrated solution. WebMatrix allows you to code, test and deploy ASP.NET and PHP applications, all within the same environment. What does this have to do with GoGrid you might ask? Well it’s pretty simple actually, once you have developed your application locally on your PC’s desktop, you will need an easy way to copy it over and show to the world. GoGrid has worked with Microsoft to create a seamless publishing and hosting experience practically effortless.

To make it easy for new GoGrid users, we are offering a $150 GoGrid service credit for you to get started with Microsoft WebMatrix and GoGrid. To get going, simply sign-up here.

About WebMatrix (and a bit of GoGrid)

Microsoft does a clear job outlining the features of WebMatrix, specifically:

• Small, but complete package – simply download and install WebMatrix for free on your desktop. From there, you can immediately start to use the built-in webserver, database and programming framework to jump-start your web-development. And, you can quickly get started on the hosting side of things as well by deploying a GoGrid server that is ready to automatically connect to WebMatrix.
• Grows with you – you start simple and then grow as your application and development grows, much like that of Cloud Computing. As your coding expands, you can easily integrate Visual Studio into your work environment. Similarly, you can update the built-in database from SQL Server Compact to a full-blown Microsoft SQL Server.
• Start > Open Source – if you aren’t ready to start from scratch, WebMatrix includes a variety of popular and free open source applications like WordPress, Joomla!, Umbraco and DotNetNuke. Just choose your software package from the library and WebMatrix will download and install the software. And you can tweak each environment using the built-in code editor.
• Database made simple – don’t let data-driven websites scare you either. If your web application needs to serve data like a online catalog or CMS, WebMatrix has you covered by providing a small, embedded database (SQL Server Compact). But the really nice thing is, once you are done doing all of the development on your Desktop, you can publish your database quickly and easily to your GoGrid production environment.
• Elegant interface, simple experience – WebMatrix has editors galore! It includes a rich code editor and database editor, but also has easy management consoles for SEO, web server management and FTP publishing as well. Couple this management with the ease of use of the GoGrid portal and you can’t go wrong.
• Simple to code – at GoGrid, we have always believed in adhering to industry standards when it comes to hosting and managing infrastructure. WebMatrix follows a similar suit by sticking to HTML, CSS & JavaScript standards. Your code is easy to read and by using the software suite, you can do some learning in the process as you create your next web application.
• More than “Hello, World” – WebMatrix has a variety of built-in code helpers that make development even easier by simply tagging your HTML.
• Desktop or server, it’s all the same – moving from a desktop development environment to a full-fledged production environment is practically effortless since the Desktop version is built with the same frameworks, web server and database engine as production servers.
• Tightly knit, fully integrated – WebMatrix also acts as the “traffic cop” because of its integration with IIS Developer Express and other Web server components that run your site. You can monitor things in real-time and if an issue pops up, it helps you to track down and resolve that issue.
• Optimized for search – you no longer need to pay a 3rd party to ensure that your website or application is SEO optimized. Built in guides assist you in optimizing your site to the fullest.
• Site publication – once you are ready to move your web site or application to a robust production environment, WebMatrix can help in that selection process. But you may not even need that since GoGrid has partnered with Microsoft to provide a full production-ready environment within the GoGrid cloud. And, we are giving new GoGrid users a $150 service credit to make that on-ramp even faster!

Now that you know a bit about what Microsoft WebMatrix (and GoGrid) can do for you, let’s learn a bit more about it.

Getting Started with WebMatrix & GoGrid

There are two components to setting up the WebMatrix and GoGrid environments: Desktop and Server. The Desktop environment is the one where you do all of your coding and development, all within the WebMatrix development suite. The Server environment on GoGrid is where you will host the product of your labors.

Starting with the Desktop side, you will need to download the WebMatrix installer which is located at: http://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/.

Installing the Desktop version of WebMatrix

Initiating the installer. Do note that depending on your choices, the installation process could be a bit longer:

The Installer confirms your selections:

Be sure to set up a secure password for SQL Server Express (you will be prompted to change it if it isn’t very secure):

Go grab a cup of coffee while the components are downloaded and installed:

Once the installation is complete, you will receive a confirmation screen:

Installing an Application (e.g., WordPress) via WebMatrix Locally

Once your installation of WebMatrix is complete, you can either start coding on your own, or install a pre-configured Open Source application. In this case, I chose to install WordPress. There are other items that you can install as well, including:

• DotNetNuke Community Edition
• nopCommerce
• Gallery
• WordPress
• Umbraco CMS
• mojoPortal
• ResourceBlender.NET
• Kentico CMS for ASP.NET
• BlogEngine.NET
• Acquia Drupal
• ScrewTurn Wiki 3.0
• Gallery Server Pro
• nService
• Moodle
• Sitefinity Community Edition
• DasBlog
• SugarCRM
• Subtext
• SilverStripe CMS
• Joomla!
• Mayando
• AtomSite
• My Web Pages Starter Kit
• phpBB
• KoobooCMS

You choose which Web Server you want to use. I chose Microsoft WebMatrix.

The Installer confirms your installation choices:

Since WordPress uses MySQL, you need to configure a secure password for it:

Time for another cup of coffee while the installer runs:

Once you have completed the installation, you can begin configuring your WordPress (or other application) install on your local machine. Just launch WebMatrix from your Start menu:

I clicked on My Sites:

The WebMatrix management console has everything you need right at your fingertips:

You can edit files using the built-in code editor that is complete with context-color-coding:

Similarly, you can manage your database (in this case, MySQL) through the database console:

Creating a GoGrid Server Ready for WebMatrix Publishing

The beauty of the WebMatrix install is being able to develop locally on your Desktop and then publish your final site to a production server on GoGrid. Before you can do the publishing, you need to set up a GoGrid server running WebMatrix. Be sure to take advantage of our $150 GoGrid Service Credit by signing up here.

Once you log into the GoGrid Portal, click the Add button and then select Cloud Server. Within the Image Selection widget, choose the “WebMatrixServer2″ image:

After that, configure your server and click Save:

Within a few minutes, you will have your production environment ready to go. At that point, you need to use a Remote Desktop Connection to remotely manage your server. Remember that the Administrator password is within the Support > Passwords section of the GoGrid portal.

Getting Your GoGrid /WebMatrix Server Environment Ready

Once you connect to your server running on GoGrid using a Remote Desktop Connection (RDC), you will see two files on the desktop, a Getting Started document and a link to Microsoft WebMatrix.

To quickly summarize, here are the high-level steps you need to complete on the GoGrid Server:

1. Run the Certificate Preparation script
2. Change the Default Application Pool
3. (Recommended) Change your MySQL or SQL Server password from the default one listed in this blog post

1) Certificate Preparation Script

Before you configure your publishing environment, you need to run a Certificate Preparation script on the server. It is located at: C:/certprep/CertPrep.exe. Simply double-click the application and it will run quickly. You will see a DOS prompt pop up briefly and then automatically close.

2) Change Default Application Pool

In order for the publishing to work properly, you do need to change the Default Application Pool from version 2 to version 4. To do this, go into your IIS manager on the server, select Application Pools, select “DefaultAppPool” (which will probably say “v2.0″) and make the change (to “v4.0″) as shown below:

Original Setting:

Updated Setting (Note: it might show a different version – just choose the v.4.0.xxxxx one):

3) Change Default Database Password

While this is not a required step, it is a recommended one. You might want to change the default password on your MySQL or SQL Server database from the default one that the server starts with. Just use the appropriate method for the database that you are using.

Editing & Publishing from Local Environment to GoGrid

Now, we will dive into the publishing to your GoGrid server. For a test, I made some edits to my WordPress theme locally. I wanted to see how it could be pushed over to WebMatrix running on the GoGrid Server instance. Here is the minor code change:

And how it appears in the local version of my WordPress blog:

The Getting Started guide which resides on the GoGrid WebMatrix Image will tell you how to configure your local development environment for publishing, specifically:

1. Click Start and Microsoft WebMatrix Beta.
2. Click Site from Gallery or create your own website
3. Click Publish
4. Enter the following information in the Publish Settings dialog:

Protocol: Web Deploy
Server: http://IP address e.g. “http://111.222.33.44″
Username: Administrator
Password: password of local Administrator account (you can get this from the GoGrid portal)
Site Name: Default Web Site
Destination URL: http://IP address

If your application needs a database connection, use the following formats in the Publish Settings:

SQL: Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS; Initial Catalog=gogrid_db;User Id=sa;Password= $trongPassw0rd;
MySQL: Server=localhost;Database=gogrid_db;Uid=root;Pwd=$trongPassw0rd;

Note: If you changed the default password on your server, be sure to change it in the appropriate string above.

Within WebMatrix locally, click on the Configure button under Publish:

You will see the Publishing Settings:

Fill in the Publishing Settings as per the list in the Getting Started guide (as mentioned above):

Once you enter in all of the information, be sure to push the “Validate Connection” button. Assuming you have no validation issues, you can proceed with the publishing of your code/site. Clicking “Publish” will show you a confirmation screen of the files that will be published. If you want to include your database, be sure to check off that box:

Click “Continue” to publish your site/code (and database). WebMatrix will start publishing your content. You will see a status bar at the bottom showing the progress:

Clicking on “More Details” can show you what is happening:

Once you publish the site (using the Publish button) and send over the database, you may also need to change which Default Document loads first. By default, it is Default.htm. In order to have the WordPress default document show up, you should move Index.php to the top of the list within your IIS manager. Once you do that, the WordPress blog (in this case) will load, complete with the changes you had made locally:

Now, any changes that you do locally on WebMatrix can be published to your GoGrid Server.

Summing It Up

Obviously, you don’t need to use one of the pre-packaged webapps that are available. You can just as easily create your own custom code and publish it the same way as I have outlined above. Regardless, using the GoGrid/WebMatrix combo does fulfill a variety of end-to-end development, testing and publishing scenarios. And with the $150 GoGrid service credit, you can test out this environment to see if it meets your needs.

Let me know how it goes or if you have any questions!