In order to bring clarity and understanding, we recorded a new educational webinar, hosted by GoGrid, where guest speaker James Staten, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research Inc., and Mario Olivarez, VP of Product Management of GoGrid share new research and discuss the status and direction of the Cloud infrastructure landscape.

These cloud experts discuss:

• The 4 characteristics of cloud computing
• Why are companies using the Cloud?
• What is the difference between Public and Private Cloud?
• Why is 2011 the Year of the Hosted Private Cloud?
• What is the ROI of the Cloud?

The recorded webinar also includes all the answers to the questions submitted by the live audience.

So if you are interested in learning more about the cloud industry or want to have a greater understanding of how cloud computing technology can help your business The Future of the Cloud will be well worth viewing. Starting today, this webinar is now available as a free download (.wmv and .mov versions available).

Please download the webinar by clicking the download link and leave your thoughts in comment section on this blog post.

Download “The Future of the Cloud – Why 2011 is the Year of Hosted Private Cloud”

While public clouds offer incredible advantages over traditional, dare I say, old fashioned (physical) infrastructure implementations, sometimes corporations need to be able to leverage the benefits and technology of a state-of-the-art public cloud, but within a non-shared environment. This is where GoGrid’s Hosted Private Cloud comes in to play.

On Wednesday, May 25th from 11:00am to 11:30am PST, GoGrid and Equinix will be providing an educational webinar to discuss a variety of topics surrounding public and private clouds, including:

• Distinguishing between a Public vs. Hosted Private Cloud
• Determining which type of cloud is right for your business
• How enterprises are leveraging the private cloud

Additionally, the webinar will provide attendees various Resources on how to get started as well as answer questions from the audience.

Panelists for this webinar are:

• Lou Najzdin – Lou is a Subject Matter Expert with Equinix’s Cloud and IT Services vertical. In this role Lou consults with both Cloud companies and Enterprises on deploying and utilizing cloud technologies. Lou is in the unique position to see Cloud the subject from both the provider and user perspectives.
• Mario Olivarez – Mario is GoGrid’s Vice President of Product Management and leads all aspects of product strategy, development and execution; including product roadmap planning and management, product marketing initiatives and is a key member of the executive team that took GoGrid to market.

Register now at: http://go.gogrid.com/equinix

This webinar focuses on the relationship between Ubuntu and cloud infrastructure, how open-source software is fueling innovation and some examples of an Ubuntu environment on GoGrid.

If you weren’t able to make the live webinar, don’t worry because we recorded and it’s available on demand!

This is a really educational webinar that covers a lot of content. Ubuntu in the GoGrid cloud discusses the following topics:

• An overview of the cloud landscape
• A Ubuntu retrospective
• Ubuntu server adoption statistics
• Benefits of Ubuntu in the GoGrid Cloud
• Use cases – applications best suited for Ubuntu
• Q&A

Whether you’re a Linux expert or just getting started with open-source software, we’re sure you’ll enjoy this recorded webinar.

Click here to view the webinar.

This is your chance to learn the advantages of cloud computing over traditional (physical) implementations of infrastructure, and then dive deeper into how Private (and Public) Clouds can optimize productivity within your business.

Webinar Details

WHO should attend? – IT professionals, System Administrators, C-Level executives, Infrastructure Managers.

WHAT is the Webinar about? – “Hosted Private Cloud” – presentation on ways in which your business can implement a private cloud environment, quickly and easily, with no capital expenditure.

WHERE is it being held? – In the cloud, of course!

WHY should you attend? – If you have ever had questions about the implementation and usage of cloud computing, specifically cloud infrastructure within your workplace, and specifically would like to learn more about the total cost of ownership of implementing a Hosted Private Cloud versus an On-premise Private Cloud, then this webinar is for you!

WHEN is the webinar? – Thursday, February 3rd from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM (Pacific Time)

HOW do I register? – Simply fill out the registration form on the webinar sign-up page and you will be registered.

Topics to be discussed include:

• Distinguishing between a Public vs. Hosted Private Cloud – What’s right for your business?
• Use cases – how enterprises are leveraging the private cloud
• Resources – getting started with a Hosted Private Cloud
• Questions & Answers

We believe that this webinar will help any organization understand not only cloud computing but also the choices available within public and private Cloud Infrastructure.

In February 2010, GoGrid released our unified vision for supporting Hybrid environments with the addition of GoGrid Dedicated Servers within the GoGrid Cloud. We realized through customer feedback and based on our 10 years of infrastructure service delivery that this would be a powerful and important feature that would help businesses craft custom infrastructure topologies that met their business requirements. No need to try to fit a round peg in a square hole – we believe that providing our customers a choice of pure cloud, pure dedicated or hybrid infrastructure on demand was something that they wanted. And we were correct.

But it’s not about what WE think, it’s about what our customers want. And given that the rest of the marketplace is jumping on the bandwagon now simply re-affirms what we pioneered.

And it is not a question of IF or WHEN we will offer the functionality because we already do and have for some time now, but rather HOW you will use it to create the IT environment that best fits your needs.

On Wednesday, January 12, 2011, we released the following Press Release that discusses not only our Hybrid solution, but also provides a quick roadmap of our innovation within this important feature:

GoGrid Expands Hybrid Cloud Service to East Coast Data Center

Leading Cloud Provider Enables Hybrid Topologies within Same Cloud Infrastructure Environments

San Francisco, Calif., – January 12, 2011 – GoGrid, a leading cloud infrastructure provider, today announced that it has expanded its 2nd Generation Hybrid Cloud capabilities.  GoGrid customers can now use any GoGrid data center to build secure, high-performance and scalable infrastructures to power applications based on a combination of dedicated and virtual servers.  This announcement coincides with the effective phasing out of its two-year old “Cloud Connect” service, a legacy feature that enabled the cross connection of physical and cloud environments.

After being the first company in the world to offer “Cloud Connect” functionality, GoGrid continued its leadership in Cloud technologies by incorporating its next-generation approach for combining virtual and physical servers within its public cloud service. From the same GoGrid portal, businesses provision unique, dynamically scalable virtual and physical infrastructures that are custom crafted to meet distinct requirements of businesses around the world.

“GoGrid’s Hybrid Cloud offering is an important customer and market development and continues to be a true differentiator,” said Jeff Samuels, chief marketing officer at GoGrid.  “While other companies in the market are only now catching up with the cross connect functionality that GoGrid launched in 2008, GoGrid has advanced its capabilities by fully integrating our hybrid cloud into GoGrid’s public cloud service. Our customers are now able to seamlessly expand their topology with both physical and virtual instances in all GoGrid data centers.”

GoGrid has shown a solid innovation roadmap related to Hybrid Hosting:

• Original Offering (2008): GoGrid first to deliver hybrid hosting capabilities to the industry. GoGrid’s first-generation “Cloud Connect” service supported cross-connection via physical wiring with network integration across virtual, dedicated and collocated environments.
• True Hybrid Offering (February, 2010): GoGrid releases its next generation of its Hybrid Hosting service that features full integration of virtual and physical servers and appliances as part of its public cloud offering.
• Hybrid Capabilities in all GoGrid Data centers (December 2010): GoGrid expands Hybrid Hosting services to East Coast data center.

“GoGrid’s hybrid cloud solution represents a new way of deploying infrastructure that truly meets my business needs,” said Pierre Chew, CEO and founder of Plan Elements (www.planelements.com), a powerful new event planning solution. “Managing my previous infrastructure was cumbersome, difficult and did not allow me to react to changes within my business fast enough. Now, using GoGrid’s Hybrid Cloud Solution, my business has complete control over our destiny, using a combination of dedicated and virtual servers which I manage to ensure both security and elasticity.”

GoGrid’s Hybrid Cloud model combines the benefits of dynamic and on-demand scalability from a cloud environment with the permanence and compliant infrastructure available from dedicated, managed server offerings. Leveraging a standards-based IT framework that integrates critical infrastructure appliances and services is core to GoGrid’s Hybrid solution. GoGrid hybrid hosting environments allow for cross usage of hardware-based F5 load balancers, private VLANs, integrated cloud storage and hardware firewall solutions by physical and cloud servers alike.

“Hybrid Hosting is an essential part of businesses embracing the cloud as it provides users the important capability of choosing between physical and virtual servers when building infrastructure,” said Philbert Shih, Senior Analyst at Tier1 research. “Allowing users to manage both from a single interface in the same environment — as opposed to a physical cross connect — is the end goal of Hybrid Cloud Hosting and is where the entire market is heading.”

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

Again, it’s not about the product, it’s about you. We simply want to provide you with the tools you need to make your business succeed without you having to re-invent the wheel. We have made the wheel, the chassis, put the doors on and constructed the engine. GoGrid is ready for you to just hop in and drive. But if you still have questions, I encourage you to talk to us directly. We can set up a 1-on-1 consultation to walk through your IT needs and develop your cloud strategy. Similarly, we regularly host webinars that address a variety of topics to help you better craft your cloud implementation. My best recommendation? Just ask us!