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(The Hosting News) - Microsoft Corporation officially announced today that they will be hosting a workshop presentation on their cloud platform offering ‘Windows Azure’ at the Cloud Computing Congress (www.cloudcomputingcongress.com). This event will be taking place on the 16th March at Olympia, London.

Eric Nelson, Microsoft’s Developer Evangelist will be giving an introduction to one of the leading cloud platforms that is at the cutting edge of the Cloud Computing Age. Attendees will learn what Windows Azure is capable of doing and why, how and when you should adopt the Azure platform that went into production on the 4th January 2010.

The free to attend workshop session is a must attend for resellers, developers, the IT community and independent software vendors (ISV) who can explore the potential to increase revenues and decrease its costs.

The session will demonstrate Windows Azure PaaS offering that enables applications built in .NET, Java, Ruby, PhP, SQL Server, MySQL and more to be run on Microsoft Data Centers.

“For the past decade we have relied on Microsoft for underpinning technologies in our foundational SaaS, infrastructure services and innovations in the Media & Entertainment and Enterprise markets’’, said Darcy Lorincz, CEO of Origin Digital. “Integration with the Windows Azure platform is another market leading, evolutionary step for our company and we expect that Origin Digital and our customers will benefit from performance and cost benefits for years to come.’’

“The Cloud Computing Congress is an event designed for building partnerships across the board, and providing a good networking environment for those to communicate and take the cloud debate forward.” commented Ian Johnson, Managing Director, Six Degrees Events. “I’m especially interested in heading the latest in the demand for mobile devices and mobile cloud computing, and the challenges this presents.”

The Cloud Computing Congress will run simultaneously with other conferences including; Enterprise Social Media www.enterprisesocialmedia.net, Social Media World Forum www.socialmedia-forum.com, Mobile Social Media – www.mobilesocial-networking.com.

Microsoft ‘Windows Azure’ Workshop to Appear at Cloud Computing Congress 2010 is a post from: Hosting News and Reseller Web Hosting information.

(The Hosting News) – IBM ( IBM) today announced the opening of a new data center designed to support new compute models like cloud computing, in order to help clients from around the world operate smarter businesses, organizations and cities.

The new data center reduces technology infrastructure costs and complexity for clients while improving quality and speeding the deployment of services – using only half the energy required of a similar facility its size. The data center will ultimately total 100,000 square feet at IBM’s Research Triangle Park (RTP) campus and is part of a $362 million investment by the corporation to build the new data center in North Carolina. IBM owns or operates more than 450 data centers worldwide.

Data centers are the backbone of information technology (IT) infrastructure delivery for businesses and other organizations, with powerful servers and storage systems running business-critical technology including software applications, email and web sites. IBM has engineered the data center to help its clients use new Internet technologies and services to meet the business challenges of an environment marked by an exponential rise in computational power, a proliferation of connected devices and an imperative to manage energy costs.

The data center uses advanced software virtualization technologies that enable access to information and services from any device with extremely high levels of availability and quality of experience.  The facility aggressively conserves energy resources; saving cost and speeding services deployment through a smart management approach that links equipment, building systems and data center operations.

“I thank IBM for its continued commitment to North Carolina. This facility promises to be one of IBM’s greenest data centers in the world, proving once again that green is gold for North Carolina,” Gov. Bev Perdue said. “Growing North Carolina’s green economy plays a critical role in my mission to create jobs and to ensure our state’s economy is poised to be globally competitive in the long term.”

The data center is showcasing a cloud computing solution in partnership with North Carolina Central University (NCCU) and NC State University that enables Hillside New Tech High School students in Durham, NC to access educational materials and software applications for the classroom over the Internet from the high school’s computer lab, as well as from any networked device.  This means that the learning environment can be extended to nearly any place at any time without the restrictions many schools face such as limited support, hardware resources and lack of access. The Hillside outreach project with NCCU, using cloud computing as a vehicle in support of education, is one of several such K-12 projects that IBM supports. The new data center also currently hosts IBM’s global web site, ibm.com, and the IT operations of strategic outsourcing clients such as the United States Golf Association (USGA).

“Data centers have always been a critical part of IBM’s global technology services – and they will be even more important as the processes, infrastructure, and systems that define business today become increasingly connected and intelligent,” said Pat Kerin, general manager, IBM North America.  “This new facility not only sets new standards for energy efficiency, but provides the flexible capacity that allows IBM to deliver services that enable clients to reduce costs, improve productivity, and gain competitive advantage in their markets.”

Alex Withers, managing director of Digital Media for the United States Golf Association, said, “The migration of our USOPEN.com operations to IBM’s new data center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina reduced our energy consumption by 38 percent and floor space requirements by 54 percent. We count on IBM to deliver a cost effective, reliable and scalable hosting environment that supports the presentation of our world-class championships to players and fans.”

Key attributes of the new data center include:

* Smarter data center management: Thousands of sensors, connecting IT equipment, data center and building automation systems, provide data that can be analyzed to plan future capacity planning, conserve energy and maintain operations in the event of a power outage.
* Energy efficiency: The data center uses half the energy cost to operate compared to data centers of similar size by taking advantage of free cooling – using the outside air to cool the data center.  Intelligent systems use sensors to continuously read temperature and relative humidity throughout the data center and dynamically adjust cooling in response to changes in demand.
* Cloud computing capability: Support for cloud computing workloads allow clients to use only the resources necessary to support their IT operations at any given moment – eliminating the need for up to 70 percent of the hardware resource that might have been previously needed to perform the same task. The data center also hosts recently announced “Smart Business” cloud computing offerings – each of these solutions can significantly reduce a client’s total cost of ownership by up to 40 percent.
* Built for expansion: Due to an innovative modular design method, IBM will be able to add significant future capacity in nearly half the time it would take traditional data centers to expand. This design/build method – called IBM Enterprise Modular Data Center (IBM EMDC) – also enables IBM to rapidly scale capacity to meet demand by adding future space, power, and cooling to the data center with no disruption to existing operations. This means up to 40 percent of capital costs and up to 50 percent of operational costs may be deferred until client demand necessitates expansion. The new data center can also quickly and seamlessly expand its power and cooling capacity.
* New building standards: IBM started building the data center in August 2008 and it began to support client operations within 15 months compared to the industry benchmark of 18-24 months.

In constructing the new data center, IBM renovated an existing building on its Research Triangle Park campus by reusing 95 percent of the original building’s shell, recycling 90 percent of the materials from the original building and ensuring that 20 percent of newly purchased material came from recycled products The result lowered costs and reduced the carbon footprint associated with building by nearly 50 percent allowing IBM to apply for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification. LEED is a third-party certification program and the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.

Factors key to IBM’s selection of RTP as the site for the new facility include North Carolina’s robust network infrastructure, its leadership approach to energy efficiency, information technology security and geographic elements such as the low risk for natural disasters.

New IBM Data Center Designed to Support Cloud Computing is a post from: Hosting News and Reseller Web Hosting information.

Managed Dedicated Servers Content Provided by Superb Dedicated Servers

(The Hosting News) - Managed servers are a little bit different than your ordinary dedicated server. Managed servers could be anything from a shared hosting solution to a complete server that is simply “managed” by the hosting company. However, in general, most managed servers give you less control than servers that are dedicated and simply located on a rack at a data center. While this might not mean much to most people, it can have a serious effect on what you are able to do in the case of an emergency with your server.

Contingencies are meant to be planned out so that they never ever have to be used. Still, many dedicated/shared hosts find themselves with unique situations that require them to put a plan into action quickly and efficiently. This is why you need to contact your hosting company early on to see what sort of backups that they have in place. Many hosting companies know how to deal with problems, and will help you with certain strategies. This could be anything from weekly backups, to daily backups and more. Some hosting companies may even allow you to request a backup from the past day or two if you have a hacker/virus attack your managed server.

Another great thing about a managed server is that most of the contingency planning is done for you. Your host is going to be well experienced in dealing with massive server failures, including natural disasters and the like. They will have a plan put into place in order to protect you and your server from large amounts of downtime. However, if you are tech savvy that does not prevent you from contacting them in order to find out what their plans are. After all, it is good to be on the same page. Most data centers have redundant utilities as well as generators so that they can continue to power their servers regardless of the time that they are without power. You may still want to maintain an off site backup, just in case the server explodes or something similar.

Thanks to technology you can typically setup an automated backup whenever it is a good time to do so. Many server owners choose to have their server backup during the overnight hours, when server usage is lower and the server will be able to tolerate it better. However, if you are not sure how to do this, you can always contact your hosting company who will be more than happy to help you. Another good contingency plan for your managed server is to be able to reboot it remotely. Most, if not all, managed server hosts offer this feature now. In case your server ends up having problems or is extremely sluggish, you can remotely restart it. This saves you time and anger as well as labor for the host.

RAID hard drives are another great contingency plan to have in your server. The RAID drives are actually one of the best features that you could possibly have. This is because they allow your data to “mingle” or transfer between all of the hard drives in the array. Your data will no longer be on a single hard drive, making certain that even if one drive crashes, you will have a copy of it. Plus, most RAID hard drives are “hot swappable”. This means that if one hard drive does stop working or has a problem, it can be removed and replaced with a different one without having to restart the server. The server then automatically transfers the data from the other hard drives to the new hard drive.

While many data centers are great at what they do, some may not have a clue at how to truly run their environment. Do you know the people who run your data center? Are they experienced not only with dealing with true emergencies, things that can come up in the course of your server. You might be amazed by the number of data centers that say that they “manage” a server and do not know the first thing about actually doing so. Do your research ahead of time to find things out!

Data centers can often have some of the best backup systems in the world. You must simply know what you are doing in order to make sure you have the right catastrophic backups in place. Most data centers that deal with managed servers know how to deal with large scale issues. However, it never hurts to talk with them about the problems that could come up. They may be able to tell you about their plans, and security of your data. The more that you can work together with your host, the better off you are going to be in the case of a real emergency.

Planning ahead for Emergencies with a Managed Server is a post from: Hosting News and Reseller Web Hosting information.

Exchange Web Hosting Content Sponsored by 1 and 1 Internet Exchange Web Hosting

(The Hosting News) - Microsoft Exchange is a customized solution for large scale organizations. While your company or group may not be using it, it is still rather common. You may someday deal with a group who has it, and you will want to know what to do in case a situation comes up. There are several topics that you should keep under consideration with Microsoft Exchange contingency planning.
Whether you use just part of Microsoft’s online services or you use their entire suite, the first thing that you will notice is that support is sometimes lacking. After all, in such a giant corporate structure there can sometimes be difficulty communicating. Continuity is one of the services that Microsoft prides itself on. Even if you own email hosting solution is down, Microsoft can pick it up and continue to provide you with service. This does not cost as much as making your own solution, and can last for as long or as short of a period of time as you need it to. Best of all, Microsoft does not charge through the roof like many of the other companies would! This is included with your Microsoft Exchange Hosting!

Best of all, Microsoft does all of this with their integrated service. Many other providers may nickel and dime you for each and every additional feature that you want with your hosting, including unlimited support and the like. While you might sometimes come across someone at Microsoft who isn’t the brightest, you will soon be able to get someone who can help you solve your problem and get on with your difficulties of normal business.

Getting back to the continuity of Exchange hosting. Microsoft does not require any client side installations, which is rather shocking to some. The other great feature that Exchange offers is backups. You are able to backup everything and keep multiple backups as well. This is great if you are simply trying to mess with some settings, upgrading the Exchange servers themselves, or have a massive meltdown on your corporate infrastructure. In order to truly know what you are doing you need to talk as a company. Setting technology goals for your business should be one of the first things that you do as an organization. What do you want the technology to be able to help you to achieve, when should it do it by and what tools should you use to do so. While Microsoft Exchange in and of itself is great, with a preset plan there is a lot more that can be done with it.

A contingency plan that plans for every eventuality will also have how long of a backup you would like with Microsoft Exchange. While in theory you could have an unlimited backup, this is just not practical due to the size of emails, and how many accounts are in your group/company/organization. You must decide on how long of a time period you would like to have and go with it. Otherwise, you are going to be backing up for hours upon hours, and never ending the backup!

Another important part of the Microsoft Exchange contingency plan will be what will happen in the case your Microsoft Exchange server dies/goes down. While this is highly unlikely, most of the time, Exchange automatically receives the email regardless because a backup picks up. However, you should make sure that your company is configured properly for this, otherwise you could lose some very important emails! Also, make sure that you can easily access the server in case of emergency either using SSH or another type of connection.

Exchange also has another great feature that lets you run command line functions. These are going to be your lifesaver if your server ever should go down. Not only will these tools help you to restore corrupted data and other problems with your Exchange database, but they will help you to find other problems with your Exchange server as well. The two command line functions are called ESEUTIL and ISINTEG.

Exchange Hosting Contingency Planning is a post from: Hosting News and Reseller Web Hosting information.

Managed Dedicated Servers Content Provided by Superb Dedicated Servers

(The Hosting News) - Dedicated servers can be one of the most difficult hosting solutions to deal with. You can have problems that range from simple technical issues to a catastrophic fire that destroys the server and data center. However, there is some planning that can be done in the case that you ever have a situation. You should always have a worst case scenario in place to ensure you do not end up with a ruined server.

Dedicated servers are called that because they are… dedicated. They are servers that are completely owned or leased by a client. They have complete control of the content inside of them on the hard drives, but the data center manager is responsible for what goes on with them otherwise. The more layers of planning that you have in place, the better off you are going to be able to be.

First off, you are going to need to have your utilities on a backup. There are many data centers that simply are like a home, they have one source of utilities and that is it. If you are a data center that is like this, or find a data center like this, do not use them. A reputable data center will have at least dual redundant backups for every situation. They also will have staff on-site 24×7×365 working 100% to keep your dedicated servers up and running. Being able to have a dedicated staff on call for all of your problems will put a lot of your fears to rest. You would simply be astonished by the number of people who do not take advantage of dedicated servers though, the number is really shocking!

Another good feature to look for when you are thinking about contingency plans with dedicated servers is whether or not you have a RAID hard drive. A RAID hard drive actually allows for your data to be mirrored to other hard drives within your server at the same time. This is great when you have important data and must have your sever up all the. There are plenty of methods of putting this data onto another server and doing a hot switch, but none that will crate also no downtime.

Contingency plans do not always have to be around the data that is on your server. You might want to also have a plan in place in case the data center is subjected to something as difficult as a natural disaster or as simple as a power outage. While most of the time data centers are able to use their backup systems there can and are times where they will need to keep your dedicated server offline. Do you have a working backup on an offsite server that you can restore at a moment’s notice? Also, does your data center provide you with backups daily, weekly, or never? These are important questions that you should know the answer to before you setup your server!

Yet again, an important part of your contingency plan is being able to put it into motion. You want to make sure that you know how to contact the data center using a number of different ways. This way, you will be able to find out whatever the problem is with your dedicated server. Actually, you can plan for the worst by simply thinking about the worst. Most people think that their data center and host will take care of any possible issues that rise up. While most of the time this is true, sometimes data centers are simply not ready/able to deal with the problem right away. If you host your own dedicated server, you may also be allocated to the lowest support tier. Make sure that you get information about this ahead of time. The more that you know, the better off you will be able to be with a major problem and your server.

Dedicated servers should have contingency plans like anything else. The more time you spend without a plan, the more and more you are asking to have a problem. While there are plenty of people who go for years and never have a problem with their dedicated server, some people only have it a few days or weeks and find themselves faced by a major crisis. You should have a plan in place that includes relocation requirements, backups available on site, support numbers, and even more information about your server. Best of all, contact the host/data center of your dedicated server before you have a problem. They will be more than happy to talk with you about their contingency plans.

Planning for the Worst with Dedicated Servers is a post from: Hosting News and Reseller Web Hosting information.

(The Hosting News) - Opus Interactive, a leading business and agency SAS 70 certified hosting provider, and the only independently owned virtual solutions provider in the Portland, has partnered with Rubicon Marketing Group.

Rubicon Marketing Group, based in Portland, specializes in demand generation, lead management, marketing intelligence, and data management. “We chose Opus as our IT partner primarily because of their personable and prompt customer support,” said Ben Oh, Director of Operations at Rubicon. “With a fully managed service that is SAS 70 compliant and fully secure, we have full confidence that our servers will simply be ‘taken care of’ as we continue to grow our business.”

Rubicon joins numerous other agencies that rely on Opus Interactive to provide virtual or dedicated server management and hosting support for their internal and client needs.

“Partnering with Rubicon further illustrates the successful track record and reputation we are creating among agencies,” said Jeremy Sherwood, VP Sales and Operations at Opus Interactive. “We were created within an agency, and while now an independent organization we still maintain an intimate understanding of the unique demands that agencies are under. This helps both in creating solutions and providing customer service.”

Portland, Oregon based Opus Interactive is a full-service Managed Services Provider (MSP). Founded in 1994, the company provides managed hosting, dedicated virtual and standard servers, collocation and hi-capacity Internet services. With its unique high density data center model, advanced technology adoption, clean power utilization and energy efficient hosting solutions, Opus Interactive works with organizations of all sizes helping them reduce IT infrastructure costs and consolidate their server footprint. They team with industry leading partners such as VMware, HP, LeftHand Networks, and Microsoft. Opus Interactive is SAS70 Certified and an accredited member of the International Managed Services Provider Alliance. For more information about Opus Interactive, visit http://www.opusinteractive.com.

Opus Interactive joins hands with Rubicon Marketing is a post from: Hosting News and Reseller Web Hosting information.

(The Hosting News) - In the digital age, writing and submitting effective online press releases can be a remarkable method to climb to the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and increase your web presence.  Press releases should be a primary component of any Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign.  The distribution of press releases is a fantastic way to market your company whether you are announcing major news, sales, promotions or accomplishments.  Since numerous sites, journalists and bloggers are constantly searching for newsworthy content, press releases are a highly effective link building technique because your release will be syndicated all over the web.  Furthermore, quality releases will get you quality links from sites with high authority and will ultimately drive traffic to your site.

There are a few different ways to go about distributing press releases.  After writing a release in the proper format, you can try to distribute it to websites, media outlets, blogs and any other relevant content providers yourself.  While that may be a cheaper option, you will have more success using a distribution service such as PRWeb or Send2Press.  These services are relatively inexpensive, offer different pricing plans and will get your release to an abundance of relevant sites, search engines and news outlets.  They work hard to ensure that your story is syndicated throughout the web.

Some reasons to write a press release include newsworthy stories within your company, such as the hiring of a new CEO.  Accomplishments such as breaking a sales record or hosting a company-wide volunteer project are another major reason to publish a press release.  Furthermore, if your company is having a major sale, special or promotion, these seem to be things that journalists and bloggers love because they get the attention of a lot of readers.  Press releases announcing sales can benefit your company in many ways.  You are guaranteed links, traffic and most likely conversions, which will increase your search engine standings as well as your bottom line.

Before you write your release, if you have been employing proper SEO techniques, you should already have a list of target keywords that you are trying to rank for in the search engines.  You will want to use these keywords throughout your release.  Be sure to keep keyword density in mind while writing your press release.  The general rule of thumb is to use no more than one keyword per 100 words.  Keep in mind that long-tail keywords might be your best bet if you are a smaller company with a lot of competition because you are not likely to rank high for the most sought after keywords.  In other words, you are a little fish in a big pond and if you are selling chocolate then you are going to have a difficult time ranking number one for the search term “chocolate.”  However, if you can focus on your specialty or something that sets you apart from your competition then you will be better off.  For example, if you sell “fine imported Belgian chocolate,” it will be much easier to rank higher for this long-tail keyword.

Press releases are one of the most effective SEO tools.  If you are not currently utilizing the press release in your marketing strategy then you should start right away!

Online Press Releases = Highly Effective SEO Method is a post from: Hosting News and Reseller Web Hosting information.

(The Hosting News) – CoreSite, announced today the expansion of its Boston data center located at 70 Innerbelt Road in Somerville, Massachusetts. The requirements for the project include an additional 12,000 square feet of data center space and power to be delivered in the second quarter of 2010.

The additional wholesale data center and cage-to-cabinet colocation space will be capable of cooling high performance computing environments and will feature access to CoreSite’s Any2 Northeast Internet exchange. Any2 Northeast is a distributed exchange point that facilitates interconnection between CoreSite’s Boston, New York, Northern Virginia and Washington, DC data centers.

CoreSite will also further enhance the Boston data center’s security with additional mantraps and biometric scanners, and gated, access-controlled parking with perimeter fencing. CoreSite received a SAS 70 Type II certification at the data center in March 2009.

“The additional wholesale data center and colocation space will meet the growing demands of our existing customer base and prospective New England enterprises,” commented David Dunn, CoreSite’s senior vice president of marketing and business development. “We anticipate having the entire expansion phase completed and ready for occupancy by the end of May 2010.”

Expansion of CoreSite’s Boston Data Center Announced is a post from: Hosting News and Reseller Web Hosting information.