ServePath Blog

It’s with great pleasure that we announce the guest speaker for the StartUp SF (version 2.1) event coming on June 4th, 2009. (StartUp SF is a San Francisco Technology Meetup co-hosted by GoGrid/ServePath and Microsoft BizSpark.)

Loic Le Meur, Founder and CEO of Seesmic, has graciously agreed to do a presentation titled “How to Launch a Product with your Community.” Learn first hand how to use various community building techniques to build your product, service or brand from the ground up.

You may have seen Loic and Seesmic Desktop mentioned in the New York Times site.

Seesmic is Loic’s 5th business so he definitely has lots of experience under his belt. Some more information about Loic:

Loic is the Seesmic CEO. He founded the company in 2007 with the goal of turning online video into a powerful medium for threaded, interactive video conversations.

Loic is the founder and CEO of video conversation site Seesmic.com. Seesmic also makes one of the most popular Twitter and social software clients – Twhirl.org.

Loic also founded and hosts the #1 tech event in Europe, LeWeb.net, with his wife Geraldine. LeWeb gathers together 2000 entrepreneurs from 40 countries in December every year.

Prior to Seesmic and LeWeb, Loic started several other businesses such as Six Apart Europe, RapidSite, a web hosting service (acquired by France Telecom in 1999), as well as B2L, an interactive agency in 1999 (acquired by BBDO).

Loic has been blogging since 2003 at http://www.loiclemeur.com and can be also found online at http://www.seesmic.com/loic and http://www.twitter.com/loic

Recently, Business Week Magazine named Loic one of The 25 Most Influential People on the Web. He advises the World Economic Forum as well as covers the Annual Summit every year in Davos. Originally from the South of France, Loic lives in San Francisco, California and has three boys.

Be sure to mark your calendars. Here are the details:

Date: June 4th, 2009 (Thursday) Time: 6-9pm Location: Microsoft, 835 Market St, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA 94103

DEMO COMPANIES We are pleased to announce the following demo companies will be showcasing their products and services:

Tap In Systems, Inc

URL: http://www.tapinsystem.com
Presenting: Peter Loh (Founder/CEO)
Description:
Tap In Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of systems management services for cloud-based applications. Awarded the 2009 Under the Radar Conference Judges Choice Award as the top cloud management company, Tap In Systems has developed a cloud-based systems management service to respond to the unique needs of today’s increasingly heterogeneous and virtual IT infrastructures. Tap In Systems’ Cloud Management Service (CMS) is a cloud-based, scalable monitoring service which manages both cloud and on-premises systems, providing status and performance data, alerts and reporting to keep applications running smoothly. CMS is an affordable, on-demand solution that requires no hardware or proprietary expertise, and can scale up and down as a user’s needs change. For more information, visit www.tapinsystems.com.

IDNTITI

URL: http://www.idntiti.com
Presenting: Sree Unnamatla (Founder/CEO)
Description:
IDNTITI (pronounced “Identity”) believes in putting consumer research into the hands of consumers. IDNTITI is a Web 2.0 quantitative rating tool. It provides you the power to create polls and surveys and get the community voice gathered – QUANTITATIVELY. User can analyze rating data around demographic information of the raters. It’s a fun way of understanding community feedback, friends views etc. At core of the application, users build reputation of Organizations (companies, schools, colleges, hospitals, restaurants etc.) products or people they are associated with by rating them quantitatively. We are now available as facebook app at http://apps.facebook.com/idntiti/. Quantitative feedback matters!

Eduify

URL: http://www.eduify.com/beta
Presenting: Dan Merritts (VP of Marketing)
Description:
Eduify is a cloud-based writing platform that helps high school and college students learn to research faster and write better. Eduify is like a writing coach that is always by your side. The service provides web-based applications to edit and store documents; discover, use and automatically cite research; find writing tutorials and examples; safeguard against plagiarism; receive expert writing help. Eduify’s service integrates with existing social networks, giving students everywhere the community, applications and help to immediately improve their writing.

If you are interested in being a Demo Company, please be sure to fill out the Contact form and we will evaluate your submission. MORE DETAILS There will be food and drink provided as well as ample time to do networking and talk to the GoGrid and BizSpark folks about programs that can help you jump-start your startup.

Tickets are now on sale. To buy them online (for $10), please visit the EventBrite ordering page. Tickets may be available at the door (for $20), however there is no guarantee that there will still be any remaining.

Today, ServePath released the following press release related to our selection by Gartner as a “Cool Vendor” in the April 2009 “Cool Vendors in Cloud Computing Systems and Application Infrastructure, 2009″ report. The report covers ServePath’s Cloud Computing product, GoGrid, as well as discusses other Cloud Computing key findings. The press release is as follows:

ServePath Named “Cool Vendor” by Leading Analyst Firm

Vendors selected for the “Cool Vendor report” are innovative, impactful and intriguing

San Francisco, CA April 27, 2009 — ServePath, LLC has been included in the list of “Cool Vendors” in the April 2009 “Cool Vendors in Cloud Computing Systems and Application Infrastructure, 2009” report by Gartner, Inc.

The “Cool Vendor” report by Gartner, Inc. showcases key findings and recommendations to consider when evaluating Cloud server infrastructure services and companies. As defined by Gartner, Cloud services are divided into two general categories: infrastructure and applications. ServePath’s Cloud Computing division, GoGrid, represents excellence within both cloud categories as is evidenced through the Gartner “Cool Vendor” selection of ServePath. The report is available on the Gartner website for a limited time.

“We believe the recognition we have received by Gartner’s selection of ServePath for the ‘Cool Vendor’ Report further affirms our pioneering position within the Cloud Computing Infrastructure marketplace,” said John Keagy, CEO and Co-Founder of GoGrid and parent company, ServePath. “As innovators in the hosting industry, we firmly believe that Cloud Computing with a GoGrid cloudcenter exemplifies Cloud technology at its finest.”

GoGrid is the only Cloud Infrastructure vendor that supports the automated instantiation of Windows Server 2003 and 2008, CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Cloud servers through a user friendly GUI or the GoGrid API. Customers can instantly deploy servers and quickly and easily create cloudcenters (datacenters-in-the-sky) using a variety of tools and features that are included in GoGrid, including free hardware-based F5 load balancing, Cloud servers, Cloud Storage, public and private networks and Cloud Connect, which enables Cloud infrastructures to be connected to dedicated or colocated backend environments via private, dedicated gigabit connections.

Cloud Connect handles database servers, transcoding and statistical analysis environments on custom, managed hardware with the power and I/O to perform well. Entire cloudcenters on GoGrid are easily controlled and managed by an industry-recognized web interface or programmatically via a REST-like API.

GoGrid offers customers including startups, small/medium businesses, government and enterprises, the ability to provision, scale and manage complex and robust server networks and infrastructures quickly and easily in the Cloud.

About Gartner’s Cool Vendors Selection Process

Gartner’s listing does not constitute an exhaustive list of vendors in any given technology area, but rather is designed to highlight interesting, new and innovative vendors, products and services. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness of a particular purpose.

Gartner defines a cool vendor as a company that offers technologies or solutions that are: Innovative, enable users to do things they couldn’t do before; Impactful, have, or will have, business impact (not just technology for the sake of technology); Intriguing, have caught Gartner’s interest or curiosity in approximately the past six months.

The full press release can be viewed here.

This week we rolled out a new graphic on the ServePath homepage that when I thought about it, really shows a change in mindset. ServePath has been doing managed, dedicated hosting for over 9 years and will continue to do so in the years to come. However, what has changed is the mainstream adoption of Cloud Computing and Cloud Hosting. Our Cloud division, GoGrid, has been providing Cloud infrastructure for well over a year now and has seen tremendous adoption by the likes of Web 2.0-ers, SMBs, Government Agencies and the Enterprise.

One feature that we were first to market with, is Cloud Connect. Other terms that we have been using is “Hybrid Hosting” or “Hybrid Networks”. Essentially, it enables you to combine the dynamic scalability of a Cloud-based front-end (on GoGrid) with a traditional managed backend of dedicated high-performance servers (with ServePath). The two hosting environments are combined via secure, gigabit private networks, thus enabling best-of-breed solutions to meet any infrastructure requirements.

As always, a picture is worth a thousand words…

If you have any questions about these new hosting strategies and infrastructure possibilities, I encourage you to contact a ServePath Sales Representative. There are many scenarios and opportunities available with this incredible flexibility of hosting, but we want you to surprise us with your ideas and designs. You shouldn’t wait to start planning out your Hybrid hosting solutions, we can get you there now!

Today we released a new Whitepaper written by Randy Bias, ServePath’s VP of Technology Strategy titled “Scaling Your Internet Business.” If you are a Web Application Developer or interested in learning about scalability, specific to how it relates to Web Applications in the Cloud, Dedicated, or Colocation environments, I recommend you download and read this whitepaper.

The whitepaper can be obtained here from the ServePath site.

Scalability is critical to the success of many organizations currently involved in doing business on the Web or who are providing information that may suddenly become heavily demanded. While there are many strategies that IT organizations can undertake, the way they are designed and implemented can make or break these businesses.

The ServePath whitepaper discusses the following topics:

• How web applications scale
• Scalability within different hosting scenarios
• Thinking through and choosing a scaling strategy
• GoGrid & ServePath scalability options

Scalability can come in all shapes, sizes and flavors. You can scale “up” (vertically) or “out” (horizontally). Choosing the right option can be tricky, if not daunting. Depending on what you want your strategy to be, you can choose “cloud-only”, “dedicated/colocated-only” or a “hybrid” approach.

If you are currently using dedicated or colocated hosting, you should potentially re-evaluate your current hosting strategy and architecture to see if it makes sense to use Cloud Computing or a combination of Dedicated and Cloud as a scalability option.

A “Hybrid” environment using Dedicated and Colocated servers in conjunction with a Cloud front-end using Cloud Connect.

“Businesses need more than just cloud computing to solve their scalability problems,“ says the whitepaper author Randy Bias. “Web operators and developers want to use the best tool for the job and, right now, cloud computing is one tool in their arsenal. GoGrid has pioneered the concept of cloudcenters, datacenters-in-the-cloud, which provide the full range of scalability tools needed for a growing business including cloud servers, managed dedicated database servers, private VLANs, VPNs, and even co-location for those who need their own hardware. This whitepaper describes how a growing business can use vertical and horizontal scaling techniques to the most advantage to save money and never miss a prospect, customer, reader or interaction.”

Companies interested in learning about Web Application Scalability, Cloud Infrastructure, hybrid hosting and scaling solutions available from GoGrid or ServePath are encouraged to download this whitepaper from either the GoGrid site or ServePath site.

Has the economy hit your IT budget hard? Are you looking for some additional savings when it comes to managed dedicated hosting? Well, we at ServePath are here to help you out! Starting March 1st, 2009, we have a few specials that won’t hurt your wallet much…but the thing to remember is, these won’t last! So you had better act quickly!

Note: as these are pretty HOT deals, available quantities may have already changed! Be sure to check the Special Offers page for availability.

Also, please note that these offers cannot be combined.

• Free extra 3 GB RAM with purchase of In Specs BusinessPath (total RAM = 4GB) with the following configuration:
  • 1U Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz processor
    • 4 GB RAM (regular RAM=1GB)
    • 80 GB SATA HD
    • 1500 GB data transfer
    • $199.99/mo and $249.99/setup fee (Operating systems licensing fee will be added when applicable)
• Free extra 1 GB RAM with purchase of any value servers with standard deployment time (total RAM=4GB
  • Limited quantities!
• 1-HOUR deployments – In Specs BusinessPath with the following configurations:
  • 1U Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz processor
    • CentOS 5.0
    • 4 GB RAM (regular RAM=1GB)
    • 80 GB SATA HD
    • 1500 GB data transfer
    • $199.99/month and no setup fee
    • Limited quantities!
  • 1U Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz processor
    • Windows 2008 Standard Edition
    • 4 GB RAM (regular RAM=1GB)
    • 80 GB SATA HD
    • 1500 GB data transfer
    • $249.99/month and no setup fee
    • Limited quantities!
• ProActive Monitoring Suite:
  • Description: ServePath Proactive Monitoring service allows you to outsource the management of your hosted server to certified ServePath system administrators. Our team of system administrators apply patches, monitor hardware and TCP/IP services. When a server problem arises, the ServePath system administration team proactively notifies you and resolves the problem.
  • URL: http://www.servepath.com/dedicated-servers/proactive-management-suite.php
  • $99.99/setup fee and $49.99/month for the first month, and get the next 6 months free with any dedicated server purchase
• Free Cloud Connect:
  • Description: Cloud Connect incorporates the elastic benefits of cloud computing with traditional dedicated hosting making it a powerful tool for building a hybrid infrastructure.
  • URL:  http://www.servepath.com/dedicated-servers/cloud-connect/index.php
  • No Set-up Fee for ServePath customers, if you sign up with a GoGrid account
  • No Set-up Fee for GoGrid customers when you buy any ServePath value server package

Remember, with every server that you get on ServePath, you receive the following FREE items:

• 25 GB NAS (Network Attached Storage)
• Remote Server Reboots
• Ping Monitoring with proactive response
• 16 IP Addresses¹
• Hardware replacement guarantee
• 24/7/365 Support
• Unlimited private VLAN bandwidth
• 10,000% SLA with 100% Uptime guarantee
• Fully managed DNS
• SAS 70 Type II Compliant San Francisco Data Center

Also, we have some great deals that are NOT listed on this blog post. Call Sales at 1.866.321.7284 (Worldwide: 1.415.869.7000) or start a Live Chat directly via the ServePath website.

1. IP justification form required if more than 4 IP addresses requested [↩]

ServePath has released version 2.3 of the Customer Portal located at https://my.servepath.com with immediate availability to all ServePath customers. While the entire portal continues to get enhancements and fine-tuning, there are a few items that I wanted to highlight that may be of greater importance and interest to ServePath customers. Namely:

• ServePath Backup & Disaster Recovery is now fully available within the Customer Portal
• Support Case creation now allows for “self-help” and “self case closure”
• DNS requests can now be managed directly from the ServePath Portal Dashboard

New My.ServePath.com Portal

The new Customer Portal has many of the often requested services now within the main dashboard page.

Quick Links include:

• Managed Backups – **updated** access the ServePath Backup & Disaster Recovery service (see below)
• Reboot Server – request for a server within your network be rebooted
• DNS Request – request DNS services
• Knowledge Base – view tips, suggestions, hints and other documentation within the Knowledge Base
• Security Scan – initiate a Security Scan on your environment
• Create a Case – **updated** Case creation tool (see below)
• View Existing Cases – view any open Support or Billing Cases
• View Invoices – view your most recent invoices and billing history
• Pro-Services – order a variety of services from the Professional Services & Consulting Division including:
  • OS Reloads
  • Server Duplication
  • LAMP setup
  • VPN configuration
  • Control Panel upgrades
  • Server Hardening
  • MySQL Configuration tuning
  • …and more!
• ServePath Status Blog – direct link to http://www.servepathstatus.com

Within the Dashboard you can also have the ability to see Network Status Updates, to initiate a Live Support Chat, Order Services & Hardware Upgrades and see headlines from the ServePath blog, among other things.

ServePath Backup & Disaster Recovery

ServePath offers a robust managed backup and disaster recovery service which is now accessible from within the ServePath Customer Portal. More details on this offering can be viewed here. Features and benefits include:

• Volume discounts for large storage requirements
• Easy to use web interface
• Server Cloning
• Restore specific files/folders within minutes
• Bare-metal restore and disaster recovery methods
• Thin provisioning – grow your storage allotment on-the-fly
• Disk-based data protection
• Point-in-time recovery
• Windows and Linux support
• Backup busy MySQL Servers without interruptions
• Customizable backup schedule (hourly/daily)

Schedule a backup:

Browse previous backups:

View details of your server:

View history of backups:

Create a Case

When you create a System, Billing, Professional Services or Network Case within the new ServePath Customer Portal, you now have the ability to fully drill down to a much more granular level within the same page. The process is simple: select a Category and subsequent Sub-Category. Then choose the Server(s) affected and the IP addresses of the server(s) in question. Add the additional Contact information (name, email, phone and anyone you want to copy on the case). Then be sure you create a detailed Description. Once you click the “Create Case” button, your case will be submitted to the appropriate division within ServePath. However, you will now also be presented with a list of Knowledge Base articles that may be related to the case you just created. Results are presented based on matching the Category, Sub-Category and Description. If you find a solution within that list, you can opt to close the case based on that suggested article. Note that the Knowledge Base can also be accessed without having to open a case.

We hope that you find this update to be useful and helpful. As always, we encourage feedback on this update and there is a “feedback” link within the top navigation bar of the Customer Portal.

Chances are, if you are reading this post on the ServePath Blog, that you are a Managed Hosting customer of ours or simply interested in Managed Dedicated Hosting. But, you probably have also been hearing about Cloud Computing (if you haven’t, you should probably take a look at our Cloud Computing product, GoGrid or read some of the posts on the GoGrid blog). Cloud Computing isn’t the solution to every hosting dilemma. There are some hosting requirements that simply cannot be handled within “the Cloud.” High-end, data intensively or highly transactional database servers are a good example. Also, if your product offering requires some eCommerce transactions and associated compliance therein, you may want to opt for a  dedicated environment for that sensitive data.

Back in November 2008, we announced a new product that is a hybrid hosting solution called “Cloud Connect.” The idea behind Cloud Connect is fairly basic. It is essentially a dedicated connection between a Cloud Computing front-end infrastructure (with GoGrid) and a Managed Hosting back-end server (with ServePath). This is a “World’s First” product offering!

When you configure a hybrid infrastructure, you are enabling the “best of both worlds” between Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing. Not only do you get the configurability and high-performance of a dedicated server, you also get the elasticity and scalability of Cloud Computing. In our press release and on our product page, we outlined some possible uses of Cloud Connect:

• Hybrid Load Balanced Server Network – hybrid infrastructure lets you combine cloud and dedicated servers to build a hosted load-balanced server network allowing you to harness the elasticity and low CapEx of cloud computing while getting the hardware control you need from dedicated hardware.
• Development and staging environment – build a development and staging environment in the cloud and conveniently connect to your dedicated server production environment.
• Sandbox –build a sandbox development area in the cloud to test websites, website operations, and untested code in an isolated manner.
• Spikes/surge – deploy servers in minutes to handle seasonal or sudden spikes of internet traffic and pay only for what you use. Avoid long-term contracts for the servers required to handle short-term internet traffic fluctuations.
• Database-intensive applications – deploy large databases with lots of bandwidth, processing power and persistent storage needs with very flexible front-end web servers that interact very efficiently with the database.

You can add a variety of ServePath services to your dedicated back-end environment including:

• Unified Security & Backup
• Managed Server Security & Hardware Firewall
• ProActive Monitoring
• Managed Data Backup & Storage Area Network (SAN)

Cloud Connect uses secure gigabit private networks to “cross connect” GoGrid Cloud Servers with custom-built, managed and dedicated ServePath servers. The gigabit private networks, the GoGrid Cloud and ServePath dedicated servers are all located in the same data center with hard-wired  connections to ensure high performance.

If you are interested in setting up a Cloud Connect solution using GoGrid Cloud Servers and ServePath Dedicated Servers, please contact a ServePath sales representative at 1-977-946-4743 or via the Live Chat on the ServePath site.

On November 13, 2008, ServePath’s new Customer Portal (v2.1), located at https://my.servepath.com,  will be live for all current and new ServePath customers. In case you missed my previous post about some of the changes, I encourage you to look here. Once the cutover is complete, you will no longer be able to access the old customer portal. All of the functionality and features that existed in the old portal will be present in the new one (but potentially in different areas) along with plenty of new or enhanced ones.

We have compiled a list of 10 FAQs in order to help you along:

FAQ: My.ServePath 2.0

1.    How can I be alerted to ServePath maintenances and outages proactively?

You can subscribe to the ServePath Network Status RSS feed by clicking on the RSS icon next to “Network Status” on the home page. This will notify you via your RSS feed reader whenever we update the status on the website. If you’re interested in subscribing to the ServePath blog, you can do that from my.servepath.com as well by clicking on the RSS link next to “News” from the home page.

2.    How can I order new products and services through my.servepath.com?

Our current lineup of products, services and upgrades can be ordered through the my.servepath.com customer portal by clicking on the “Services and Hardware Upgrades” banner on the home page. You can select new hardware upgrades for your existing server, services such as our Unified Security and Backup package or our Proactive Monitoring Suite, or choose from a wide variety of other services and tools we can provide you with.

3.    Where can I find my Account Team’s contact information?

The members of your account team are listed on every page of the new my.servepath.com customer portal. Contact information for our Billing, Support and Sales departments are all readily available so that you can contact us anytime.

4.    How can I Remote Power Cycle or run a Security Scan on my server?

Remote Power Cycle and Server Security Scan tools are now located on the “Servers” page. From there, you can power cycle your machine or run a Nessus scan to check for open ports that may pose potential security risks on your servers.

5.    When I create a case, I see some Knowledge Base articles. How does this work?

Our case creation system will search our Knowledge Base for any articles that may relate to the case description you enter. You case is created as normal, but we will provide you with any articles that may pertain to the issue to that you are submitting. You then have the option to help yourself and close your case if you choose to. Once you select an article, you can let us know whether or not the article resolved your case by clicking on the “Yes” button. If it did help, you then have the option to close your case. If not, our Support team will still investigate the case as normal. Our Knowledge Base can also be searched from the Support tool without entering a case, so you have 24×7 access to our library of thousands of support articles.

6.    Where do I go to manage my passwords?

You can manage your passwords through the “Manage Passwords” tab from the Support menu. You can easily add system or service passwords to share with our Support teams so that we can login to your systems and help you troubleshoot the issue you are experiencing. This is a tool for you to share passwords with our Support team or keep a log of passwords to share with your server administrators. Please note that changing passwords here does change the passwords on your servers.

7.    Where can I go to give feedback to ServePath?

We have a number of ways for our customers to provide us with feedback regarding our portal, website, products and anything else you wish to share. To send us a feedback message, you can click on the “Feedback” link located at the top-right of the screen. You can also provide us with feedback under the Support menu by clicking on the “Customer Survey” tab or by clicking on the “Take our Survey” link from the home page under “Quick Links”.

8.    Where can I access my Network Statistics?

Network statistics, which many of our customers utilize on a daily basis, have been moved to the main navigation for easy access. You can also click on “Network Statistics” under the “Quick Links” section of the home page. This will take you to the Network Statistics tool where you can view bandwidth and transfer utilization graphs for any time period you specify by server and by VLAN.

9.    Where can I access my billing information?

Billing and account information is located under the “My Account” page. You can also cancel your account or services from this page.

10.    How do I reach a Support Representative immediately?

We have 24×7 Support representatives available via chat for any time you need them. There is a Live Chat link on every page in the new my.servepath.com portal for you to get quick access to any of our Support Representatives.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for improvements or new features, be sure to fill out the new Feedback form within the Portal. Also, you can always create a Support ticket using the Support tool for anything that is not immediately obvious.

We hope you like it!

ServePath engineers have been working hard on providing a newly redesigned, more efficient and effective Customer Portal. The new portal was quietly released to all ServePath customers recently so I wanted to take a bit of time to point out a few of the notable changes that can be found there.

First, both portals are currently available (old here and new here), but this won’t be true forever. Once the new portal is finalized, the old one will be gone…forever! There is also a direct link to the new portal on the old login page currently.

Once you log in to the new Customer Portal, you will immediately see a redesigned interface with new sections. Note, your login information works on both portals. For posterity’s sake, I will be including screenshots of both versions.

New ServePath Customer Portal:

Old ServePath Customer Portal:

For starters, the Dashboard has been drastically redesigned to group pertinent information together, namely:

• Products/Services – Call-outs at the top of the page to critical or new product or service offerings (e.g., Services & Hardware upgrades and the ProActive Management Suite)
• Support information – who your account manager is, phone numbers for support and billing and a Live Chat button
• Quick Links – these are links that many of our customers frequent, carefully compiled to streamline the experience
• Network Status – current RSS feeds from the ServePath Status blog
• ServePath Blog feed – quickly scan recent ServePath blog entries
• Survey – answer a few questions and be entered in a monthly drawing for Amazon gift cards (HINT: it takes about 30 seconds to fill out the survey!)

Also live with the new portal is a revamped Support Section. With the new Portal, you can choose the “Create a Case” Quick Link and within one click, be able to enter a support ticket immediately:

Most notable is that you can, on the same screen, drill down to the exact server(s) or other hardware that you need help with. Once you select a particular server or set of servers, for example, you will also be able to select their associated IP addresses as well.

Also, when a Case is entered, after the form is submitted and the Case is created, the user is presented with a list of Knowledge Base (KB) articles that may be relevant to the Case. Users can potentially resolve their issues based on the suggested articles, however, if the solution is not present, the user’s Case is already in the system. If a particular KB article solved the issue, the user can attach that article to the Case and close the Case themselves.

On the old portal, the process of entering a ticket took a bit longer and did not offer the user the ability to resolve their own case. An example of the same type of ticket entry as shown in the previous image is listed below:

There are other numerous changes in the new ServePath portal. If you are a current ServePath customer, I encourage you to compare the different versions. We are currently working on the next revision to the new portal as well, so if you have suggestions, comments or, gasp, criticism, feel free to leave a comment on this post and I will share it with the Engineering team. We will also have a feedback form within the new portal as well soon.

Hope you like the changes! We certainly do.

Once again it’s time for SF New Tech, a meetup in San Francisco for technologists, VCs, geeks, social media pundits and other interested peoples. To quote: “Come on down to Mighty, grab a drink, meet cool people, see live demos from great companies, ask questions, grab the mic, have fun… and geek out!”

GoGrid and ServePath are sponsors of this event. Be sure to come by our table and learn about Cloud Computing. With all the recent hype around Windows in the Cloud…it’s important to remember that GoGrid has been providing Windows in the Cloud (both Windows Server 2003 & 2008) for over 1/2 year now and that we are a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Drop by our table and get $100 off your next GoGrid server!

The format has not changed. Each of the companies below get 5 minutes to showcase their product or service. Be the first person in the audience to ask the famous questions “How are your monetizing?” This question is especially important in these trying times. If you are a struggling startup, I recommend reading this post for some tips and tricks on how to survive this recession.

Demo Companies

Apture
Tristan Harris, CEO
Apture helps bloggers and publishers turn flat web pages into rich, multimedia experiences by empowering them with a point & click interface to create deep links to media from a wealth of different sources.
http://www.apture.com

Lefora
Vincent Lauria, Co-Founder & Product Guy
Lefora is forums made easy and has been called the “Blogger for forums”.
http://www.lefora.com

chi.mp
Anthony Eden, Co-Founder & CTO
chi.mp gives you ownership and control of your digital life on your very own domain.
http://chi.mp

Reframe It
Brian McKinney, Founder & CTO
Reframe It lets you comment in the margins of the web as easily as you can write in the margins of a book.
http://reframeit.com

Goldmail
Tom Hakel, Co-founder
Goldmail lets you create powerful messages in just minutes, combining audio and visuals.
http://www.goldmail.com

Snappr.net
Philip Stehlik, CEO
Snappr.net allows mobile interaction with 1D and 2D Barcodes.
http://www.snappr.net

PBwiki
Brian Klug, Director of Engineering
PBwiki is the world’s largest provider of hosted business and educational wikis.
http://www.pbwiki.com

After the demos …

• Grab the microphone and speak to the room on the famous 60-Second Soapbox. Express that need, want or desire in 60 seconds — GO! (Each one is logged online so people can find you later!)
• Stick around to see who won the solar powered cell phone charger from Sun Startup Essentials. (Register online or at the door!) All attendees are eligible to win — but you must be there to claim your prize.
• Hang out and keep the conversation going… meet you at the bar for shots!

Tickets:

$15.00 online here and now
$20.00 at the door, if not sold out

Mighty is a 21+ venue.

Schedule:
6:30 pm – Doors open
6:30 -7:30 pm – Schmooze
7:30 – 9:00 pm – Demos
9:00 – 11:00 pm Schmooze