ServePath Blog

Last week, we had some very exciting news. Our Cloud Computing Hosting Division, GoGrid, has been positioned in Gartner’s Visionaries Quadrant for Web Hosting and Hosted Cloud System Infrastructure Services (On Demand) in the Magic Quadrant.

About the Magic Quadrant
The Gartner Magic Quadrant is copyrighted July 2009 by Gartner, Inc., and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

For a limited time, the full Gartner Magic Quadrant study is available on the ServePath home page. Simply look for this graphic and click through for the full report:

The report is only available until October 7th, 2009 so get it now!

The press release is available online and the full text is provided below:

GoGrid was positioned in the Visionaries quadrant for Web Hosting and Hosted Cloud System Infrastructure Services (On Demand) in Magic Quadrant

Evaluation is Based On Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute

San Francisco, CA July 8, 2009 — GoGrid, a leader in Cloud Computing Infrastructure Hosting and the Cloud Computing division of ServePath, LLC, today announced it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc., in the Visionaries quadrant in the “Magic Quadrant for Web Hosting and Cloud Infrastructure Services (On Demand)” report.

Gartner evaluated each provider against five use cases, specifically: Self-managed hosting, mainstream managed hosting, highly complex managed hosting, global solutions portfolio and enterprise applications hosting in order to produce a composite rating.

“We think our positioning in the visionaries quadrant is validation of our industry-leading cloud computing technology.  GoGrid pioneered cloud computing before any other leading hosting company was in the game. We continue to offer a more complete hybrid hosting solution consisting of on-demand cloud infrastructure and robust managed hosting environments,”
said GoGrid CEO and Co-Founder, John Keagy. “We think this will position us well to promote our technology as a standard in the field that lends itself manageability, scalability and portability of computing environments around the globe.”

The “Magic Quadrant for Web Hosting and Cloud Infrastructure Services (On Demand)” report is available currently on the GoGrid home page.

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 megabit 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.

Parent company, ServePath, LLC was 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. published April 6, 2009.

About the Magic Quadrant
The Gartner Magic Quadrant is copyrighted July 2009 by Gartner, Inc., and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About the Cool Vendor 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.

About GoGrid (http://www.gogrid.com)
GoGrid is the leading Cloud Computing, hosted, Internet provider that delivers true “Control in the Cloud™” in the form of cloudcenters. GoGrid enables system administrators, developers, IT professionals and SaaS (Software as a Service) vendors to create, deploy, and control load balanced cloud servers and complex hosted virtual server networks with full root access and administrative server control. GoGrid server instances maintain the industry standard specifications with no requirement to learn and adapt to propriety standards. Bringing up servers and server networks takes minutes via a unique web control panel or GoGrid’s award winning API. GoGrid delivers portal controlled servers for Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server, and ASP.NET. GoGrid hosts multiple open-source server operating systems including several Linux operating systems (Red Hat Enterprise and CentOS) and supports application environments like Ruby on Rails. Free f5 hardware load balancing and other features are included to give users the control of a familiar datacenter environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud, a “cloudcenter.” GoGrid won the coveted 2008 LinuxWorld Expo’s Best of Show award.

About ServePath (http://www.servepath.com)
ServePath, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, is the leading managed and dedicated hosted server provider, delivering custom solutions and managed services to businesses that require powerful Internet hosting platforms for their production environments. Thousands of companies worldwide look to ServePath for its reliability, customization, and speed. ServePath has a Keynote-rated A+ network and guarantees uptime with a 10,000% guaranteed™ Service Level Agreement. The employee-owned company has been in business for nine years and operates its own San Francisco data center and is SAS70 Type II certified. ServePath uniquely delivers server infrastructures optimized for complex databases with cloud front-ends and application servers with Cloud Connect.

If you haven’t given GoGrid a try, what are you waiting for? Find out for yourself why we were placed in the Visionaries Magic Quadrant!

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.

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.

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.

The judges at the 2008 LinuxWorld Convention peered through the clouds and found something truly noteworthy of recognition, namely ServePath’s Cloud Computing offering, GoGrid, and gave it the Linux World Best of Show Award! The Product Excellence Award is given out to various categories (GoGrid was a finalist in the Best Virtualization Solution for this year), and a Best of Show award is granted to those who rise up above the rest (like the clouds).

The Product Excellence Awards represent “major areas of innovation in the Linux and open source community,” according to an IDG World Expo press release. ServePath won a LinuxWorld Product Excellence Award for “Best Grid Solution” in 2007.

What really makes this Best of Show Award stand out is by simply looking at some of the past winners of Best of Show which include Mozilla FireFox and SUSE Linux.

Among the past Best of Show winners are:

• 2001 – IBM eServer iSeries
• 2002 – Borland Kylix 3
• 2003 – SGI Altix 3000
• 2004 – Mozilla Foundation for Mozilla Firefox
• 2005 – Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP)
• 2006 – OpenSUSE
• 2007 – Unicon Systems’ System-on-Display (SoD)
• 2008 – ServePath’s GoGrid

Be sure to sign up for an Award-winning GoGrid account today! We offer Windows 2003/2008, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS Linux as well as free f5 load balancing, free static public IPs, private and public VLANs, Free Support and several pre-configured images to help you deploy a GoGrid Cloud Computing environment in minutes without any up-front costs to you.