GoGrid CEO, John Keagy, recently spent some time overseas visiting the new GoGrid European Headquarters and data center in Amsterdam. I caught up with John upon his return in order to find out his thoughts and visions of a global GoGrid cloud, how Equinix has enabled GoGrid’s expansion and why it is important to the GoGrid customer.

Michael Sheehan: Why is opening a new overseas data center important?
John Keagy: It’s part of our global expansion plan. Europe is a logical next step.

MS: Why Amsterdam and not somewhere else?
JK: My favorite reason on why we selected Amsterdam as the first part of our overseas expansion is AMS-IX. AMS-IX is an Internet exchange that has resulted in Amsterdam being the place for Internet transit. Bandwidth is affordable and comparable to Silicon Valley. It means that customers are in the spot where most Internet traffic originates and terminates. If you are going to locate a web server in one location in Europe, Amsterdam is the most connected city. It’s the best place to locate your Internet infrastructure. It’s got the most connections and because it has the most connections, it is the most affordable – the highest performance at the lowest cost.

MS: Why was having a European presence critical?
JK: We have a strong European customer base that has been demanding a localized presence and when we examined that marketplace, we determined that it was critical to enable those European customers to have a cloud infrastructure deployable in their backyard.

MS: What are your impressions of the data center facility having visited it?
JK: The data center facility is incredible. It’s a combination of GoGrid doing a nice job with its installation – the racking and stacking, cabling and design of the installation. But it is also Equinix’s implementation of its cold aisle technology. It’s like walking into a refrigerator. It’s sealed. It doesn’t have a cage door, it has a glass door. They pump cold air into the interior of the cage and it’s vented through the equipment. Where there is no equipment, the slots are filled with baffles so that the cold air is forced through the equipment. It’s sort of like a refrigerator within a cage. It’s not just us doing a good job, it’s Equinix pursing a better utility efficiency score through sophisticated cold aisle containment technology.

MS: What’s your longer term strategy for global operations?
JK: Europe was just a first step in our global expansion plan. The next step will be Asia, although we have always enjoyed a large percentage of our customers coming from South America, so our next step after that will be South America.

MS: Personally, how is this exciting for you – 10 years in the making, we now have an overseas footprint?
JK: GoGrid has always had a customer base that served an international audience. Over 90% of our customers historically were outside of the state of California – considering the value we bring to Silicon Valley-based companies, that is quite remarkable. And we are on the order of 40% international. For me personally, it’s a milestone that I have been looking forward to for a long time and I’m excited that we finally have automation technology that is really facilitating what we are doing.

MS: Why is the Equinix partnership important?
JK: I’m very excited about the partnership with Equinix. They have an ecosystem for cloud services that is more compelling than their ecosystem for telecom services. The difference here is that businesses (consumers of cloud services) are learning that by connecting to Equinix, they can procure cloud infrastructure and other services securely and reliable in a high performance fashion that avoids the public Internet.

MS: How does that work with GoGrid’s Hosted Private Cloud?
JK: It’s about avoiding the two largest fears regarding the adoption of Cloud Computing: the public Internet and sharing. Customers are worried about consuming cloud services over the public Internet. There are over 3 million buildings connected to Equinix facilities in one way or another – this allows them to remove the public Internet from how they consume cloud services. GoGrid Hosted Private Cloud is a non-shared environment – it’s dedicated and private – which eliminates the 2nd big fear which is sharing – it provides security and performance benefits.

MS: For GoGrid customer, having a global footprint like this is important because…
JK: GoGrid is the only company that has a single pane of glass that lets you manage infrastructure across the globe in a truly on-demand fashion – through one pane of glass and one API.

Do you have any questions for John? If so, please leave a comment!

To celebrate the release of their API, Spotify sponsored a Hack-a-thon at SPiN Ping Pong Club in New York City from Friday February 24 until Sunday February 26. Spotify was joined by big brands like Doritos, CW, McDonald’s, Showtime, State Farm and Mountain Dew. Technology companies sponsoring the event included Facebook, Twilio, FourSquare, The Echo Nest and of course, GoGrid. GoGrid provided all the cloud servers for the event to support the developers as they created brand new apps using the Spotify API in conjunction with other API like Facebook’s Open Graph. GoGrid’s manager of cloud ecosystem, Paul Lancaster and I were on-hand to meet with developers and provide support for the event.

50 CentOS x64 cloud servers were provisioned to the hackers by GoGrid to build their applications free of charge with root level access for maximum flexibility. Hundreds of hackers showed up to build the next great apps and were treated to live performances by Blood Orange and MNDR. While hack-a-thons tend to have attrition over time, hackers stayed throughout the night and most for the entire weekend.

There were roughly 30 projects worked on during the weekend which ranged from an app called Museik (UI shown above) that extracts content from the internet related to the release date of a song on Spotify to a project called Orbidal by the students of the VCU Brandcenter that gathers the collective feelings of your Facebook feed and creates a playlist based on that mood on Spotify.

GoGrid awarded a prize to JukeSpot, an app that combined the APIs of Spotify, Facebook, and Foursquare to allow users to play their songs and playlists at any bar/club/restaurant that has the JukeSpot app running on their system. It also allows users to compete against each other for points, share points socially, and buy points from marketers or retailers.

One app called Music Monster integrated Spotify with Foursquare and The Echo Nest. This app is designed to be used by a DJ to check-in to a location, set up a playlist and start tracking audience responses in real-time. The data comes from a client app that users at the venue use to check-in and then provide real-time feedback to the DJ (indicating that they want to hear more familiar tracks or something more mellow). This particular app won for best Echo Nest hack.

Another app called Swarm.fm built by Peter Watts inverts the paradigm of integrating Spotify activity into Facebook. Rather, Facebook (and other sources) activity is integrated into Spotify, so that you can see your friend’s likes of particular bands and the activity of artists that you like all tied to your music collection. It can also find similarities between friends and can generate playlists based on artists, interests and brands you have in common. This clever app won the Spotify Grand prize and $10,000.

The Grand Prize was judged on the following criteria:

• Overall Product Viability
• Level of innovation
• Depth of integration with Spotify API(s)
• User Experience
• Utility
• Integration of Music

Overall, this was a well-organized, fun and productive event. Lot of great, innovative apps were built in a short period of time. Spotify and OMD provided a great atmosphere with plenty food (seemingly unlimited supply of Doritos and Mountain Dew), live music and support from technology partners and brand executives.

According to Wikipedia, a Software Engineer is “an engineer who applies the principles of software engineering to the design, development, testing, and the evaluation of the software and systems that make computers or anything containing software…”

Software Engineers are everywhere and in about every company out there. They are in high demand and GoGrid is no exception. We want Software Engineers! What makes working at GoGrid exciting for a Software Engineer? I asked one of our Software Engineers, Suman, a few questions about what it’s like to be a Software Engineer for GoGrid.

What do you do at GoGrid?

I work on cloud software solutions, which, in a nutshell, means turning infrastructure into code. It’s a rapidly growing software development area with very interesting challenges. There is a long list of products with great customer interest. New use cases and requirements arise frequently that become new features or products. It’s very exciting to work in a transforming environment like this.

As a Software Engineer, I am deeply involved in all aspects of my projects. I focus equally on design and architecture, development and testing. Given my experience with Linux and large scale infrastructure automation, I like to engage closely with Systems and Network Engineers to keep up with new technologies. This helps to develop elegant, feature-rich and high-performing solutions.

What does your typical day look like?

On a typical day, I am either brainstorming ideas with my colleagues or completely glued to the computer developing software. From time to time, I get to learn about projects that other engineers are developing and offer feedback. I also try to find time and research about other similar and upcoming solutions in the industry and academia.

What type of exciting technologies do you get to work with?

I get to work with any technology that is appropriate. This freedom in itself is exciting. Currently, I am working with a revolutionary filesystem which lends itself into interesting use cases. I work entirely in Python programming language. Working with cool technologies has an interesting cascading effect of discovering new ones. It’s also a lot of fun to use familiar technologies in new ways.

What do you like best about your job?

I like the ownership that comes with my projects. I get to research on my own, discuss design and implementation ideas with other talented and experienced Engineers and finally run with the most suitable ideas to turn them into software. Our meetings are short and rare, coworkers are always ready to help and management all the way to the top is engaging and encouraging. These are top things I like about my job.

What makes GoGrid a unique place to work at?

GoGrid is in a very hot sector of the software industry. Cloud computing is rapidly evolving and GoGrid is in a unique position to deliver with a strong head start. My team and others that I directly work with are aptly clued into customer needs, features to provide and how to best design and develop them. This helps me focus clearly on my software. Another unique thing about GoGrid is how the startup environment is sustained while being a mature company.

What type of people do you get to work with?

I work with smart and experienced software, systems and network engineers. I also work with knowledgeable and cooperative technical managers.

Any additional thoughts?

Overall, I enjoy working here and look forward to being part of providing useful cloud solutions.

Interested in being an integral part of the cloud computing movement? We’re hiring! Be sure to check out our open positions on our careers page!

Today is very important milestone for all of us here at GoGrid. While we have always considered ourselves an international company, with over 35% of our customers located outside the US, expanding to our first international location is an exciting step for GoGrid and marks the beginning of many great things to come. And today is that day that we are “throwing open the doors” of our new data center in Europe. I am extremely pleased to announce the general availability of our newest data center in Amsterdam, which represents the culmination of our team’s hard work and big dreams.

Our Amsterdam data center is housed in a state-of-the-art Equinix facility which has proven to be a perfect fit for GoGrid. My team and I had a great time working with the Equinix team while we were getting things up and running. Particularly impressive is the Internet connectivity from our Amsterdam data center to the rest of Europe which makes this location the best choice for us.

When I wasn’t at the Equinix facility supervising the installation and rollout, I was also visiting our new European headquarters in Amstelveen. Just minutes from Amsterdam and our data center, Amstelveen is a prime location for GoGrid’s EMEA headquarters and is also home to major offices for companies like HP, Agilent, Cannon, and Ricoh.

While this expansion is clearly an important step for GoGrid, it is also an incredible personal accomplishment for me. When I started working at GoGrid seven years ago, I asked founder John Keagy if he could foresee an opportunity for eventual international expansion. His answer? Absolutely. You can imagine how amazing it was for me to take on the role of lead executive for this expansion and see our vision become a reality.

I’ve spent countless hours in data centers throughout my career, but being in our data center in Amsterdam in the middle of the night when we first flipped the switch to allow some initial beta customers test the environment out, and then seeing those green lights flashing away was an experience I’ll never forget.

Being a part of GoGrid’s international expansion has shown me just how much potential there is for GoGrid even beyond this most recent achievement, and to be a part of that growth is truly exciting.

So, now that our European data center is open for business, I hope that you can come and light up some of those green lights in there!

As of today, GoGrid has released multiple images of the leading software load balancer, Riverbed Stingray! The following images are available on the GoGrid Partner Exchange in both San Francisco and Amsterdam:

• Riverbed 7.4 Simple Load Balancer 10 Mbps
• Riverbed 8.1 Load Balancer 10 Mbps
• Riverbed 8.1 Load Balancer 200 Mbps
• Riverbed 8.1 Load Balancer 200 Mbps WAF

Note that the Riverbed 7.4 image is still Zeus branded. We have made that available in order for users to have access to the Simple Load Balancer on GoGrid. It currently supports up to 10Mbps bandwidth and basic load balancing. It does not have clustering, SSL decryption, health checks or any advanced load balancing features.

The Riverbed 8.1 Load Balancer 10 Mbps Load Balancer supports bandwidth up to 10Mbps, clustering, no SSL, and basic load balancing.

The Riverbed 8.1 Load Balancer 200 Mbps Load Balancer supports bandwidth up to 200Mbps, clustering, no SSL, and basic load balancing.

The Riverbed 8.1 Load Balancer 200 Mbps Load Balancer WAF supports bandwidth up to 200Mbps, clustering, SSL, load balancing, health checks and integrated Web Application Firewall.

Finding the Images

The images are available via our image selector. In order to find and launch the Riverbed images, click on “Add Cloud Server” for the Data Center that you want to use. In the “Name” field type “Riverbed” and then hit enter. This will filter for just the Riverbed images.

The charges are monthly and you will be charged after you deploy the image. There is a special promotion occurring for Amsterdam regarding deployment of the Riverbed images. Please contact your GoGrid Sales Representative for more details.

Deploying the Load Balancer

The deployment of Stingray is similar to the setup for Zeus. The main difference is the setup is now automated and the license is automatically applied. Note that these instructions ONLY apply to the Riverbed 8.1 versions. These are the basic steps.

1. Select the Load Balancer image based on your needs. For this example, I will select “Riverbed 8.1 Load Balancer 10Mbps”. Click “Next” and then enter a Server Name, select an IP and the amount of RAM – I recommend using at least 1 GB of RAM on the server. This will generate a Virtual Machine with the software pre-deployed after you click “Save”.
2. All the Stingray Images run on Ubuntu x64 base images. You will need to access the server via SSH using the root login. Your logins can be found in the GoGrid web portal by clicking on the server icon, then Tools > Passwords.
3. One of the main differences with this version is that the installer starts immediately upon login and applies the appropriate license. Type “accept” at the prompt to begin the installer or press “return” to abort. If you do not accept the license terms, please delete the server.
4. The script will configure the Load Balancer for you and generate a temporary password. The password for the Load Balancer will be documented at the end of the script so look for it there. Make sure to take note of it since you will need it to login to the GUI.
5. You will be returned to the prompt – at this point I recommend changing the server password (note that this is NOT the password for the load balancer). This is the password that you will use to access the server again via SSH. In case you have forgotten, the command to enter a new password for Ubuntu is “passwd”.

Launching the UI

Launch your favorite browser and enter the IP address of the server with the port 9090. For example, you would enter something like:

https://190.10.1.1:9090

Since you are connecting via SSL with a self-signed certificate, your browser will give you a warning message. Since this is your own server, you can bypass the message (assuming that you entered the address correctly) and set an exception for this address.

Once you have cleared the warning page, you will be presented with the Riverbed Stingray GUI. At the login screen, enter the following:

Username: admin

Password: [the password generated for you by the system in the previous step]

Update the Admin Password

Go to the tab “System”.

Select Users > Local > Admin

Change your admin password on this screen. You can also create other accounts from the User tab.

All the Stingray 8.1 licenses in GoGrid allow for clustering and passive health checks. You can configure this on the GUI – the process is the same as the Zeus Load Balancer so you can refer to my previous blog post for more details – “How to Configure Zeus’ New Load Balancer in the GoGrid Cloud“. You can just scroll past the SSL Certificate graphic to bypass the Zeus-specific instructions and into the details on how to add servers to a pool and configure the load balancer.

You can also refer to the Riverbed Quick Start Guide on our wiki.

Since this is a partner image, all support will go through Riverbed. There is extensive documentation on the Riverbed support website as well.

With four different images to chose from, you will now have the flexibility to select the features and price point that work best for you. From controlling traffic to a single web server to managing a large pool of servers across multiple data centers, GoGrid with Riverbed Load Balancers offers the right, scalable solutions for your unique Cloud Fingerprint.