At GoGrid, we pride ourselves on being the world’s largest pure-play Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider. We work tirelessly to innovate the top cloud infrastructure technology available, provide the best support solutions and offer the most comprehensive Service Level Agreement (SLA) in the industry. And when an independent research group recognizes our hard work, it’s extremely validating and a little hard not to share.

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

Today GoGrid announced that it has been positioned in Gartner’s Visionaries quadrant as outlined within the December 2010 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Web Hosting.

About the Magic Quadrant

The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2010, by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Access to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant Report

For a limited time, the full Gartner Magic Quadrant study will be available on the GoGrid home page. Please look for the following graphic there and click through to register to download the full report:

Press Release

The press release is available on the GoGrid site and the full text is available below:

GoGrid Positioned as a Visionary in 2010 Cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Web Hosting Magic Quadrant

Evaluation Based on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute

San Francisco, Calif., – January 11, 2011 – GoGrid, a leading cloud infrastructure provider, today announced it has been positioned in the “Visionaries” quadrant of the December 2010 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Web Hosting by Gartner Inc. (NYSE: IT), the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company. In this report, Gartner analysts, Lydia Leong and Ted Chamberlin, analyze new opportunities for cost savings and business agility from cloud infrastructure deployments.

“We believe GoGrid’s positioning within the Visionaries quadrant is recognition of our success in making cloud computing a reality for enterprises around the world,” said John Keagy, co-founder and chief executive officer at GoGrid. “GoGrid was founded as a cloud computing company.  We have built the industry’s most advanced cloud software and services that address the infrastructure requirements of companies of all sizes from small businesses to the Fortune 1000. GoGrid will continue to aggressively invest in technology innovations that provide customers with the most cost-effective, on-demand cloud service and the highest quality experience available in the industry.”
GoGrid’s services make complex infrastructure easy by enabling businesses to revolutionize their IT environments in the Cloud. With GoGrid, customers can deploy and scale virtual and physical servers (hybrid hosting), storage, networking, load balancing, and security in real-time and in multiple data centers leveraging a powerful management platform that includes a web interface, iPhone application and API. GoGrid offers a utility-based billing model that enables customers to only pay for the resources provisioned. GoGrid is backed by the industry’s strongest and most detailed SLA and includes a rich partner ecosystem of pre-configured, ready-to-go business applications.

About the Magic Quadrant
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2010, by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About GoGrid
Thousands of leading IT experts choose and rely on GoGrid’s Cloud infrastructure services. GoGrid enables sysadmins, developers, and IT professionals to create, deploy, and control cloud environments and complex virtual and physical server networks with full administrative control. GoGrid’s industry standard specifications and robust service offerings are powering thousands of businesses globally to achieve previously unrealized efficiencies. Deploying a GoGrid infrastructure solution using a Standard or Partner Server Image, free hardware F5 load balancing, Cloud Storage, private VLANs and much more takes minutes via a web interface, API, or iPhone application. GoGrid provides users the control and advanced capabilities of a data center environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud. www.GoGrid.com

Once again, GoGrid is honored by our positioning within the Gartner report. I encourage you to give GoGrid a try for your Infrastructure as a Service solution – you will see why we are categorized as a “Visionary” by Gartner!

Want to see a quick list of the top 10 Cloud Computing players in the space? (And yes, GoGrid is obviously one of those otherwise I wouldn’t be mentioning this article.) Yesterday, Jeff Vance published an article titled “Ten Cloud Computing Leaders” on Datamation where he briefly describes his thoughts on the leaders in the Cloud Computing space.

As Vance writes about each Cloud provider, he breaks down his analysis into answering a few key questions:

1. Why they are a leader today
2. Why the could be on top in years to come
3. Who the Key Executives are
4. Who their Customers are

I have always found that doing comparisons of Cloud-related companies to be quite a difficult task since products and services can vary so dramatically. And, obviously, there are other factors and metrics that simply cannot be listed in these types of “summary” articles, things like hosting experience, feature-to-feature comparisons, breadth & depth of product and services offerings, etc. However, if you are looking for an organized snapshot of the current leaders, you might want to give Vance’s article a good read.

Companies listed in this top ten are:

1. Amazon
2. Salesforce.com
3. Google
4. Microsoft
5. CA
6. Rackspace
7. Eucalyptus Systems
8. Terremark
9. GoGrid
10. Rightscale

Jeff’s description and insightful analysis of GoGrid is as follows:

Why they’re a leader today: GoGrid (formerly ServePath) provides a “multi-tier, cloud computing platform that allows you to manage your cloud hosting infrastructure completely on demand through an intuitive, web interface.” The platform integrates storage, load balancing, hourly billing and a number of other features.

GoGrid is directly positioned against Amazon EC2. It differentiates itself through broader support of various Windows and Linux operating systems, lower pricing and a 100% uptime SLA.

I’m not sure how much of a competitive advantage that extra .01% of uptime is, but as you can probably guess, GoGrid cites its customer service quality and reliability as key differentiators.

Why they could be on top in years to come: Like other hosting companies on this list, GoGrid offers a range of other services – collocation, managed hosting, CDN services – to keep the lights on as its cloud computing services ramp up. The company is pursuing a hybrid cloud strategy, which makes perfect sense in the early days of cloud adoption.

Even more promising, GoGrid has focused on interoperability as a competitive differentiator. With others trying to throw walls around their platforms and sneak vendor-lock in through the cloud, GoGrid’s efforts to integrate with a range of operating systems and its acceptance of tools from vendors that, at first glance, could be considered competitors (RightScale, Tap in Systems) means that when GoGrid mentions “interoperability,” it’s not an empty promise.

Key Executive: John Keagy, CEO and co-founder, previously founded and sold several ISPs.

Customers: GoGrid claims nearly 10,000 customers, including Novell, Macy’s and SAP.

For the most part, the description and analysis is accurate, however I would like to quickly expand on some key differentiators:

• Hybrid Hosting – GoGrid offers the ability to mix and match two different types of hosting scenarios within the same product offering. Cloud (virtual) servers accomplish the horizontal and dynamic, on-demand scalability, complete with personal server images (MyGSIs) and partner server images (PGSIs) through the GoGrid Exchange. And Dedicated (physical) servers allow for cloud-like deployments of physical servers that are dedicated to a customer (helping with compliance concerns) and without costly long-term contracts. Within the same network/IP space, physical and virtual servers and appliances (like load balancers, firewalls & storage) can each be deployed and managed within GoGrid, enabling robust n-tiered infrastructure solutions.
• Service Teams – We pride ourselves on our consultative approach to working with our customers in achieving their success. Each and every GoGrid customer receives a dedicated Service Team comprising of individuals within various departments in our organization. This approach allows us to understand our customers better and help them with infrastructure solutions that truly meet their needs.
• Customer Support – We are available 24x7x365 to assist customers with support related questions. Our Sales Team is available 24×5 as well. And, we do not charge for customer support. However, if you have a particularly complex question or solution need, we do also have a Professional Services to take your infrastructure to the next level.
• Web-based Portal – Our web portal has been recognized as one of the easiest to use in the industry and deploying on-demand infrastructure literally takes only a few clicks of the mouse. If you contact our Sales Team, you can instantly get a $100 new user service credit (or if you actually made it all the way through this article, simply use “GGMS” for the same $100 promotional credit upon signup – new users only).
• Partner Exchange – Having a wide variety of partner solutions is paramount to the success of a Cloud provider and in turn to the end users. The GoGrid Exchange is updated frequently with a variety of Partner Server Images (PGSIs) and subsequent solutions.

These are just a few key points that help people differentiate us from the competition. I encourage you to give us a try and let us know what you think.

GoGrid was selected by HostReview’s editorial staff to be one of the Top 10 Hosts in the Best Cloud Computing Provider categories for May 2010.

This award is based on a variety of items including:

• Overall Product Offering
• Value
• Customer Service
• Users’ Reviews

More information about HostReview’s Top 10 list can be found on their site.

GoGrid would like to congratulate the following other companies who were included in this list as well: Rackspace Cloud, Storm on Demand, NaviSite, Hosting.com, SoftLayer Technologies, 3Tera, BlueHost, VPS.NET and DediPower.

GoGrid previously was awarded the following from HostReview:

Today, New Relic announced that their RPM product supports GoGrid Cloud Hosting Infrastructure and is available for a limited time with preferential pricing. RPM is an on-demand tool that companies can use to optimize, monitor and troubleshoot their Java, Ruby and JRuby applications within a variety of environments, which now includes the GoGrid cloud.

With New Relic’s RPM running on GoGrid, users can monitor many aspects of a Ruby, Java or JRuby application, detect performance problems and eventually drill down to uncover root causes of any performance issues. RPM also cleanly integrates with other development tools.

There are several RPM Service Plans available for GoGrid customers to choose from including:

• RPM Lite
• RPM Bronze
• RPM Silver
• RPM Gold
• RPM Enterprise

The graphic below clearly depicts the differences between each tier:

Do note that pricing varies based on the billing plan that you choose: Annual, Monthly or On Demand, as well as the number of hosts you choose to monitor. The pricing does NOT include the cost of using the GoGrid Cloud infrastructure. According to New Relic’s FAQs, installing of the RPM agent takes only a few minutes.

The RPM dashboard shows a wide range of data points including a snapshot of the health and availability of a customer’s managed applications including response time, errors and throughput. For a full overview of the RPM feature set, I recommend reading through their Feature Page.

The following Press Release was delivered today regarding the availability of the New Relic RPM application on GoGrid:

New Relic Teams with GoGrid to Deliver Superior-Performing Web Apps in the Cloud, on Dedicated Servers, or in Hybrid Environments

Customers taking advantage of GoGrid’s robust cloud infrastructure can use RPM to monitor, troubleshoot and tune Java and Ruby web applications.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) January 12, 2010 — New Relic, Inc., the leading software-as-a-service provider of application performance management solutions, and GoGrid, the Cloud Infrastructure Hosting service from ServePath Dedicated Hosting, today announced that New Relic RPM supports monitoring, troubleshooting and tuning of Java and Ruby web application deployed on GoGrid’s leading platform. Additionally, the companies announced that customers who select New Relic RPM to manage their GoGrid-hosted applications are eligible for preferential pricing.

With more than ten years of experience in enterprise-level data center hosting, GoGrid applies a unique understanding of uptime, security, and service level agreements to its public cloud offering. GoGrid goes beyond existing public cloud offerings by providing Hybrid hosting solutions that privately connect cloud front-ends with dedicated back-end infrastructures, as well as the ability to create and store customer images (MyGSIs). New Relic RPM is a leading on-demand application performance management that operates seamlessly in both cloud and dedicated server environments, making it uniquely suited to monitor, troubleshoot and tune web applications deployed on GoGrid’s cloud or hybrid infrastructures.

“Organizations taking advantage of GoGrid’s multi-tier cloud-computing platform have high expectations for performance and reliability,” said John Keagy, Co-Founder and CEO of GoGrid. “Working with New Relic to add application performance management as a complement to our robust infrastructure provides our customers with the very best combined solution for deploying and managing applications that successfully meet business needs.”

“As more and more companies deploy their applications with GoGrid, it’s especially important that they have a single performance management solution that they can use on-premise, in the cloud, and in hybrid environments,” said Bill Lapcevic, New Relic’s vice president of business development. “New Relic RPM is the only enterprise-class application management tool delivered as a service, and that automatically offers the same monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities for web applications deployed on both virtual and dedicated servers. Its a perfect fit for GoGrid’s customers.”

As part of the partnership between GoGrid and New Relic, GoGrid customers are eligible for a preferred partner discount on RPM pricing and a complementary trial of RPM Gold premium service. To take advantage of preferred pricing, GoGrid customers can visit New Relic’s GoGrid partner page, select a subscription level, then sign up for RPM. Discounts will be applied automatically.

About GoGrid
GoGrid is a leading Cloud Infrastructure Hosting provider that delivers true “Control in the Cloud™”. GoGrid enables sysadmins, developers, IT professionals and SaaS vendors to create, deploy, and control free f5 load balanced cloud servers and complex hosted virtual server networks with full root access and administrative server control which includes personal server images (known as MyGSIs). GoGrid server instances maintain the industry standard specifications with no requirement to learn and adapt to proprietary standards. Bringing up servers and server networks takes minutes via a unique, award winning web control panel or GoGrid’s API. GoGrid delivers portal controlled servers for Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, SQL Server, and ASP.NET, as well as multiple Linux server operating systems like RHEL and CentOS. GoGrid gives users the control of a familiar datacenter environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud, a “cloudcenter.” To learn more, visit www.gogrid.com.

About New Relic RPM™
New Relic RPM is an on-demand performance management solution for web applications developed in Ruby, Java or JRuby. New Relic RPM is fully implemented in minutes and provides deep, 24×7 visibility and code-level diagnostics for web applications deployed on traditional, dedicated infrastructures, private and public clouds, or any combination thereof. RPM’s real-time metrics enable application owners, developers and operations teams to quickly and cost effectively monitor, troubleshoot, and tune application performance. To learn more about RPM and to subscribe, visit www.newrelic.com/get-RPM.html.

About New Relic®
New Relic, Inc. is the leading software-as-a-service provider of application performance management solutions that enable developers and operations teams to quickly and cost effectively monitor, troubleshoot, and tune application performance in real time. More than 3,200 organizations use New Relic RPM to monitor and optimize more than 35,000 production application instances, including customers 37signals, CSC, Getty Images, GitHub, Hot Topic Stores, Juniper Networks, Intuit, Linked In, Liz Claiborne, OurStage, Shopify, and Simon and Schuster; and partners Amazon AWS, Blue Box Group, Brightbox, Engine Yard, GoGrid, Heroku, Red Hat, RightScale, Stax Networks and VMware. New Relic is a private company headquartered in San Francisco, California, USA. To learn more about New Relic, visit www.newrelic.com/get-RPM.html“>www.newrelic.com.

New Relic is also extending some Preferred Pricing for GoGrid customers. If you have questions about the signup or installation process, I recommend contacting New Relic directly. To sign up, simply choose the RPM level you want on the GoGrid/New Relic page and then fill out the form.