Today, MuleSoft, who specializes in enterprise-class software, and GoGrid announced the availability of the industry’s first commercially-supported cloud-based Apache Tomcat offering known as Cloudcat as a GoGrid Partner Server Image (GSI). The Partner GSI by MuleSoft contains their product Cloudcat which allows developers and QA personnel to build and test web applications easily in the cloud using a pre-installed & configured Apache Tomcat application server. Having Cloudcat contained within a Partner GSI is important to GoGrid users because it eliminates the need of having to do a manual Tomcat download, installation or configuration. Apache Tomcat is the world’s most widely used application server, with over 1 million downloads per month and over 70% penetration in the enterprise datacenter.

More information about MuleSoft and Cloudcat can be found within the GoGrid Exchange on the MuleSoft Partner Page. There are currently two MuleSoft/Cloudcat images available on GoGrid:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 (32-bit)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 (64-bit)

These images have a monthly (recurring) cost of $29/server (in addition to standard GoGrid RAM and Bandwidth charges).

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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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Today GoGrid officially launched a new micro-site called the GoGrid Exchange where users can view information about various Partner GSIs (GoGrid Server Images) available in the GoGrid cloud. Partner GSIs were developed to provide our partners with a means to share with or sell their custom MyGSIs (GoGrid Server Images) to interested users. These Partner GSIs come complete with pre-installed and pre-configured software or application stacks, specialized in a variety of expertise including:

• Internet Security
• Backup
• Monitoring
• Web Applications
• Compliance
• Application Scaling
• and MORE!

As more partners come on board at GoGrid, more specialized images will be added to the Partner GSI repository. Many are live now!

The GoGrid Exchange

The GoGrid Exchange was created to provide a community center where users could read about and rate the various Partner GSIs available on GoGrid. By using a PartnerGSI, you can dramatically reduce your time to market launching new software or service offerings or ensuring that your offering is robust and resilient.

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A few months ago, we introduced MyGSIs (personal server images) which allow users to create custom personal GSI (GoGrid Server Images) with all of their code, applications and data. These personal server images are then compressed and stored in GoGrid’s Cloud Storage for use later instantiating copies of those MyGSIs within a user’s GoGrid cloud. Building upon that framework, backend structure and concept, we have released Partner GSIs and the GoGrid Exchange.

A Partner GSI appears in the same list of servers or sandboxes available for deployment. GoGrid has a growing number of partners, each of which specialize in a variety of capabilities including internet security, backup, monitoring, web applications, compliance and application scaling. New partners are being added regularly so be sure to check the GoGrid Partner page for additions. Also, a new “microsite”, called the GoGrid Exchange, will be launching shortly where you can get detailed information about Partners and the images they are providing.

To use a Partner GSI, simply select it from the server list as you are creating a new GoGrid cloud server. Do note that some partners charge an additional amount for using their pre-packaged GSI. If you use a Partner GSI that has some sort of “token based billing” attached to it, you will receive a charge for the use of that server in your next billing statement. Also, even if you use a Partner GSI that has a billing token assigned to it for an hour (or more), you are charged the full amount associated with that image. There is no partial or fractional billing for Partner GSIs. Partner images will show a different “owner” (see the screenshot below).

BitNami Open Source Web Applications

GoGrid and BitNami have partnered to make open source web applications easy to deploy on GoGrid. The BitNami GSIs make it fast and easy to run web applications for evaluation, development or production purposes. They are fully configured, so you can start using the application immediately after loading the GSI to your GoGrid account.

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A few days ago, the GoGrid newsletter was delivered to our customers. As with the past newsletters, we want to be sure that all interested parties, whether you are a customer or not, are informed of our important updates. We have a wide variety of items that are covered in this November 2009 newsletter so be sure to read on. If you want to get these updates and others regularly, I encourage you to subscribe to the GoGrid RSS feed, follow us on Twitter (@GoGrid) and become a fan of us on the GoGrid Facebook Fanpage.

Below is the entire GoGrid Newsletter (November 2009):

Hello Michael, (more…)

Last week, we released a new version of GoGrid which includes new RAM Hour and Bandwidth Pricing Plans, included larger volume discounts. Further details of this released covered in this post are:

• New RAM Hour and Bandwidth Pricing Plans
• New Linux & Windows Base Images
• Behind-the-scenes Performance Improvements

Read on for more details.

New RAM Hour and Bandwidth Pricing Plans

With this release, we are also making some changes (for the better) on our pricing plans. Coupled with this, we have now made it even easier to upgrade (or downgrade) your plans from within the GoGrid portal.

These new plans are listed below:

Server RAM Hours

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The GoGrid newsletter went out today. Unfortunately, if you are not already a GoGrid customer, you didn’t receive it…until now! There are a lot of exciting items covered here (a few of which you already know if you subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed including the Edit, Delete and Restore function of MyGSIs). If you aren’t already a GoGrid user, I recommend that you sign up (and here is a quick hint, if you want a $100 GoGrid credit on new account, contact a GoGrid Sales Rep and they can consult with you on your best options for the Cloud).

Below is the entire GoGrid Newsletter (October 2009):

Hello Michael,

In this edition of the GoGrid newsletter I cover recent feature releases, planned features for the next release, and the end-of-life (EoL) of Server Images with preinstalled applications.  Here are the specific topics:

1. MyGSI Enhancements: Edit, Delete, and Restore
2. Revamped Billing Summary Widget
3. Cloud Storage: Data Import via Postal Service
4. Sneak Preview: Planned features for the next two releases slated for early and mid November: (more…)

Yesterday an update to GoGrid was released with the following enhancements:

• Edit, Delete & Restore MyGSI Images
• Updated Billing Widget
• Updated GoGrid API

On August 11, 2009, we announced the availability of GoGrid 2.0 which included the new personal server images (MyGSI) functionality. Details on that important release are found here. Using MyGSI to manage your server repository or inventory is a great way to not only speed up your workflow in terms of deploying copies of servers quickly and easily, but also save money in the process (by storing your personal server images in GoGrid Cloud Storage for just a few dollars a month).

Edit, Delete & Restore MyGSI Images

As our customers were demanding this feature (MyGSIs), we got it out to market as quickly as possible. This new release now provides you with the ability to Edit, Delete and Restore MyGSIs that are located within the Server Images tab.

DELETE

Hopefully many of you are already enjoying the MyGSI feature. Here are a few things you should know about the newly pushed functionality. Within the Server Images tab, you should now see a new icon to the far right hand side of the server images that looks like a trash can:

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Last night we release a new version of GoGrid that has a few notable changes, specifically:

• Server Image Selection Widget
• Smart selection of RAM allocations (and 8 GB RAM options in web GUI)
• Updates to GoGrid API
• Enhancements to underlying Architecture

Server Image Selection Widget

The biggest visual change in this release is to how Windows and Linux Database, Web and Applications server images are selected within the GoGrid web interface. This is essentially the framework that will be used for the upcoming MyGSI feature. Since we continue to add new images to the GoGrid image repository, and we will be enabling your own personal server images to be stored within GoGrid, we realized that the current selection process of Application & Database servers doesn’t scale very well.

Our software engineering team has come up with an elegant image selection widget that will allow you to quickly drill-down to the image type you wish. Instead of trying to articulate what the new selector looks like, here are some screenshots of what to expect.

After you click on the Add Web/Application Server Icon, you are presented with a list of all available images:

You can see that the list shows the Name, Operating System (OS), Architecture type (32/64-bit), Type of server (Web/DB), Price (e.g., MS SQL, for example, shows a charge – see below) and the Date the image was Updated.

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