Yesterday GoGrid finished the rollout of a series of updates designed to make the GoGrid Windows end user experience even better. While not a major feature release, there are some important items to note moving forward.

Windows Image Updates

With this update, there are a few things that GoGrid users should be aware of, specifically:

• The following GoGrid Windows images have been updated with the latest (as of February 2010) Microsoft Windows Security Hotfixes (see table below).
• Windows image names are now more consistent with Microsoft naming standards
• This only applies to GoGrid Virtual Server Images and does not affect Partner or Personal GoGrid Server Images (MyGSIs).

The full list of updated Windows images is below.

For more details, please visit the Windows Server Images section on the GoGrid Wiki.

New RAM Allotments for Windows Virtual Servers

In order to ensure stability and optimal performance, we are now setting recommended RAM Allotments minimums and maximums for Windows Server Images. We have been working closely with Microsoft to implement the best range possible for any new servers that are deployed on GoGrid. Do note, these limits do not affect currently deploy Windows Virtual Servers.

It’s still cold in San Francisco. No snow today but there are a few “clouds” (sorry). Posts and articles I saw today:

• Windows Azure and the many faces of cloud
  “One of the reasons it’s so difficult to satisfactorily define cloud computing is that people have many different needs and expectations from a cloud platform. To start a conversation about cloud — especially one that seeks to evaluate the relative merits of competing cloud platforms — without first identifying what needs are being met is to invite misunderstanding and confusion. So before I come to my analysis of Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform and the hidden danger lurking there for many ISVs looking to embark on a SaaS strategy, I’m going to segment cloud computing into several important but separate categories.” (source: ZDNet)
  • Commentary: This article is an extremely good analysis of Windows Azure and details a series of use cases for companies evaluating Azure as a solution including: “Short-term, overflow or burst capacity to supplement on-premise assets, Cloud-based services and applications that extend on-premise assets with new capabilities, Interim hosting as part of a cloud migration strategy, and, Cloud-based services and applications that replace and supersede on-premise assets.” One way to use Azure and GoGrid together is outlined in this post (with a demo video) where we demonstrate how the GoGrid cloud can be used seamlessly building, deploying and testing applications for Windows Azure.
• Gartner “Cloud Computing in the Real World” Panel Features Appistry Customer Next Century
  “This year cloud computing is front-and-center at the Gartner Application Architecture, Development and Integration (AADI) Summit in Las Vegas, NV. One of the many interesting items on the agenda this year was today’s no-BS enterprise cloud end-user panel, organized by analysts David Cearley and Gene Phifer, along with the OMG/SOA Consortium. The focus of the panel is on real-world, enterprise-grade cloud computing deployments.” (source: Appistry blog)
  • Commentary: Appistry has been a long-time partner of GoGrid’s. We have a RHEL image that has Appistry already baked into it. It’s nice to get Sam’s analysis (in the form of a case study, albeit from our competitor) of the practical applications of moving physical infrastructure into the cloud. Sam points out how there is a lot of “fluff” around the promotion of Cloud Computing and that actual case studies are the way to cut through the hype. The study talks about how with physical infrastructure costing $80k and consuming 8-14 days of processing time, the same process could be achieved within 12 hours and only costing $130 per run. The same could be done on any Infrastructure-based Cloud with dramatic time and cost savings. It was also nice to see the GoGrid Cloud Pyramid in the graphic.
• Government Technologist: States As Cloud Service Providers
  “As state CIOs devise cloud computing strategies, they must assess whether their teams can provide services with the same skill and efficiency as commercial providers. Some state CIOs are evaluating cloud computing as the way to provide IT services to state agencies and other groups of users, including local governments and schools. It makes sense for states to go this route, but there’s a right way and a wrong way.” (source: InformationWeek)
  • Commentary: Author John Foley brings up some interesting points here. Do States and Education go with Private or Public Clouds? Or is there a happy medium? It seems that while some items must remain under strict “state” control, others could easily be offloaded to a public cloud. State budgets are in the red now, so plopping down multi-millions of dollars to built their own private cloud is probably not something that tax-payers could swallow very easily. The right strategy I would think is to do a cost-benefit analysis on a gradual move of non-critical/data-sensitive IT infrastructure to a public cloud. The problem here though is that “gradual” is an extremely subjective term. For me, gradual would be over a quarter or two. For state/government, “gradual” means 1-2 years or more. There are many efficiencies to be gained as well as considerable cost saving (that could be invested elsewhere…education perhaps?). One way or another, I agree with Foley in that governments should offload some of the risks and costs onto public cloud providers when implementing their IT strategies.

Just in time for the Microsoft PDC 2009, GoGrid is excited to showcase an integrated solution for Windows Azure™ developers, using the GoGrid Cloud for seamlessly building and deploying applications for Windows Azure. Our solution interoperates with the existing GoGrid infrastructure and includes preconfigured development environments which allows developers to build applications and publish them to Windows Azure.

GoGrid’s VP of Engineering, Paul Lappas, narrates the video below demonstrating the interoperability between GoGrid Cloud Infrastructure and the Windows Azure Platform:

GoGrid provides infrastructure services in the cloud allowing customers to rapidly deploy load-balanced and hybrid servers without purchasing costly hardware.

With the release of the Windows Azure™ platform, GoGrid wanted to extend its services and enable its customers to develop, test, deploy, and back up Windows Azure applications efficiently and cost-effectively.

The Windows Azure Application Lifecycle Management Service interoperates with the existing GoGrid infrastructure. With this pairing, Windows Developers enjoy a variety of advantages. For example:

Features

• Enables developers to rapidly build applications and publish them to Windows Azure
• Includes preconfigured development environments
• Rapidly provision unlimited test servers for powerful load testing with a cost-effective, pay-as-you-go pricing model
• The service works with Sync Services for Microsoft® SQL Azure, enabling customers to keep a real-time backup of their Windows Azure database while using the GoGrid infrastructure as additional backup for disaster recovery

Look for this exciting service offering between GoGrid and Windows Azure coming in the first quarter of 2010! If you have questions or comments about this GoGrid and Windows Azure solution, please fill out the contact form on the Azure page of the GoGrid site.

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

* Annual pre-payment are still billed overage at the standard rate on a monthly basis.

Transfer

To access this new section of the portal, simply go to the My Account tab and select the Billing Tab.

Within that page, you now have the ability to view all of the pricing options available for changing:

Within that section, you will see you current RAM and Data Transfer Plans, which include the monthly charge and details of that plan.

To change either plan, simply click on the green Select button next to the plan that you want. After that, you will be walked through a series of screens to finalize your selection:

As you can see above, there are two options available when you upgrade to a Pre-Paid plan, paying Monthly or paying Yearly. Do note that doing a Yearly plan will save you about 33% over a monthly plan.

Once you agree to the new Terms of Service and click the Confirm button, your upgrade will be sent to our team. Note that orders are reviewed and processed quickly, however, it is not an immediate process and could take 1 business day to complete.

The process for Data Transfer Plan upgrades (or downgrades) are the same as with the RAM Upgrade/Downgrade process. If you have questions about which plan or combination of plans works best for you, please contact a GoGrid Sales Representative.

New Windows and Linux Base Images

With this release we have also added support for the following new base images:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 (32 & 64-bit images)
• CentOS 5.3 Linux (32 & 64-bit images)
• Windows 2003 SP2-R2 (32 & 64-bit images)
• Windows 2008 SP2 (32 & 64-bit images)

Another change that you may see as you view the currently available images is the fact that there are fewer overall images. We have made the decision to focus our image support on root operating systems, and less on “stacks” that are essentially add-ons to the base system. So, you will see that various images that had stacks have been End of Lifed (EOL).

But, since you have full administrative and root access to any image that you deploy within GoGrid, you can install these stacks or any applications or code that you see fit. We believe that by focusing on root operating systems, we can provide a richer base infrastructure and leave the customizations to you. However, as our Partner program continues to grow, you will see many more images appear with a variety of great functions and features.

Other Improvements

We have made other “under the hood” improvements to GoGrid in general. Most important of these, multiple server deployment speeds have dramatically increased, allowing you to quickly scale out multiple servers in sequence.

If you have any questions about this release or other GoGrid features, please contact a member of our Sales organization or leave a comment on this post.

GoGrid and AppZero will be conducting a webinar titled “Moving Windows Server Apps to the Cloud in 3 Easy Steps” on May 28, 2009 from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM EDT. To register for the webinar, please go here.

Wondering if you should attend? If you answer “YES” to any of the following questions, you probably should:

• Are you are interested in learning about the cost-effective flexibility of Cloud Computing?
• Do you develop Windows Server Applications?
• Are you hosting with other Cloud Computing providers?
• Do you want to migrate your Windows Applications from a different cloud or data center?
• Are you an Enterprise customer looking to test your application in the cloud?
• Are you afraid of having to re-engineer all of your Applications because you have been told you must move to the cloud?
• Do you want to learn 3 easy steps to move Windows server applications to the cloud?
• Are you afraid of vendor lock-in?

Come and hear Greg O’Connor (CEO of AppZero) and Paul Lancaster (Business Development Manager of GoGrid) speak about how our two companies are working together to take the headaches and heartaches out of Windows Server Application hosting and migration. To register for the webinar, please go here.

At the end of the webinar, GoGrid will be giving out $100 GoGrid promotional credits for GoGrid so that you can test out how truly easy hosting in the cloud is! Hope to see you there.