ServePath Blog

ServePath is excited to announce participation in Microsoft’s new WebsiteSpark Program, specifically targeted towards Web Professionals. Both our dedicated, managed hosting brand (ServePath) and our Cloud Computing hosting brand (GoGrid) are members of the WebsiteSpark program. Using WebsiteSpark, Web Pros can drive new business opportunities through connections with partners and customers around the world.

Before jumping into the details and Q&A, if you already know that you want to participate in this program with either GoGrid or ServePath as your Hosting partner, please visit our signup pages on the ServePath site or GoGrid site .

But what does all of this mean? Trust me, I have read through all of the 19 pages of Frequently Asked Questions and Program documentation and it is a bit overwhelming. So, this blog post is really an effort to try to cull out the critical points of importance for you. However, if there are any questions that you do have after reading this, I encourage you to talk to some WebsiteSpark folks or sales reps at ServePath or GoGrid. At a high-level, this is an incredibly helpful program targeted towards Web Professionals.

Probably the best way to approach this is through a series of questions and answers.

What is WebsiteSpark?

Similar to the Microsoft BizSpark program, WebsiteSpark is designed to help small companies ramp up their business, web dev and design capabilities and offerings. Those companies who qualify for WebsiteSpark can add Microsoft product and platform proficiency to their business credentials as well as help create new business opportunities by connecting them with partners (like Web Hosters) and customers via increased visibility.

What is a “Web Pro”?

Web Pro stands for Web Professional. These are individuals or small companies that specialize in web development, web-based Value-Added Providers (VAPs), web-savvy IT generalists, web design or the management or creation of web services.

How do I qualify to participate in WebsiteSpark?

The qualification is fairly simple. First, your business must primarily focus on providing Web development and/or design services or solution to your customers. Second, your company must have 10 or less members (this includes owners, employees and contractors). Those are the “hard” requirements.

Additionally, you must develop and deploy a minimum of one new website using Microsoft tools and servers within 6 months of enrollment. These websites must be logged with Microsoft. Also, you and your business must be enrolled in the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN – formerly known as the Microsoft Partner Program).

So I’m interested and I qualify, what do I get by enrolling?

The benefits abound! For starters, you get: New Business Opportunities, Support & Training, and Access to Software & Solutions. Let’s explore these a bit more:

• New Business Opportunities
  • WebsiteSpark Marketplace – be found by customers by building a web presence to showcase your capabilities, all with a simplified process to connect with qualified customers
  • Partner Recruiting Portal – if you need a partner to compliment or add to your offering or skill set, you can find them within this portal
  • Web App Gallery – find off-the-shelf Web applications and solutions to make your business even better. In the form of a gallery of offerings, you can choose applications that have been designed and built to work within the Microsoft Web platform…all without headaches.
• Support & Training
  • Receive professional support from Microsoft as well as Network Partners, Hosting Partners and other Web Pros
  • 2 professional support incidents per program membership
  • Free online training
  • Managed newsgroups on the Microsoft Developers Network (MSDN)
• Access to Software & Solutions
  • Design/Dev/Testing Tools: Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition (3 licenses), Expression Studio 2/3 (1 license), Expression Web 2/3 (2 licenses), Windows Web Server 2008 (3 licenses) and SQL Server 2008 Web (3 licenses)
  • Production & Deployment: Windows Web Server 2008 & SQL Server 2008 Web
  • Special Offers: DotNetPanel control panel to manage web site hosting parameters

What is the cost to join?

There is actually no up-front cost to join WebsiteSpark and receive the benefits. There is a Program Offering Fee of $100 (USD) when your company exits the program. Additionally, if you choose a Hosting  or Network Partner, there may be (reduced) fees associated with using their services.

Ok, that’s cool, but how does GoGrid or ServePath come into the mix?

Obviously, if you are a web application developer or designer, you need to host your or your clients’ apps, services or products somewhere. This is something where WE are experts! If you are looking for the LARGEST Windows Server 2003 and 2008 Cloud Hosting provider out there, then you should choose ServePath or GoGrid as your Hosting Partner within the WebsiteSpark program. If you want to set up a hybrid hosting solution using a combination of cloud and dedicated servers (we call it Cloud Connect) , we are one of the few hosting providers that can do this.

We have put together a robust hosting package, with discounts not available to the general public.There are 3 specific packages available: ServePath Windows Package, GoGrid/ServePath Hybrid Windows Package and GoGrid Windows Package. The details are below:

For those interested in a dedicated hosting plan, we provide the ServePath Windows Package which has incredibly nice discounts across the board.

(*1 year commitment required)

The GoGrid/ServePath Hybrid Windows Package gives you the best of all worlds with the ability to create a hybrid infrastructure environment using both Cloud and Dedicated infrastructures.

The GoGrid Windows Package offers not only GoGrid credit towards a new GoGrid account, we also want to help you move your site over to our Cloud and are providing a $100 credit to help you start.

If you are not sure which package is the best for you, be sure to contact a ServePath or GoGrid Sales Representative. They will not only help you through your choices, but also can provide you with a GoGrid trial credit to get you going in the GoGrid Cloud.

Where can I find out more information?

Probably the best way is to talk to a GoGrid or ServePath Sales Representative (as mentioned previously). However, the Microsoft WebsiteSpark site does have a lot of helpful information including a Program Guide (note: direct link to Adobe PDF document). Also, feel free to leave any questions you may have as a comment on this post.

We hope that you sign up with WebsiteSpark with GoGrid/ServePath as your hosting partner. It’s a tremendous program that you would be foolish not to take advantage of.

Yesterday we pushed out a new feature, called My Contacts, to the my.ServePath.com portal that allows you to define contact information in order to ensure that proper contacts are notified at the appropriate times. Often certain types of communications need to go to specific individuals, finance to a Billing User, technical to a System User and perhaps the CEO wants to receive all types of information. The new Contact Management module is located in the main dashboard of the ServePath portal.

Our goal with creating this feature is to ensure accurate, targeted and timely dispersal of critical messaging coming from ServePath.

The Details

There are 4 roles that can be assigned to contacts now:

• Super User – Super Users are contacted for all forms of communication. Every account must contain at least one Super User.
• System User – System Users are contacted for technical support, maintenance and other technical issues. We recommend having at least 1 System User.
• Billing User – Billing Users are contacted for financial, billing or account-related issues.
• Read-Only User – Read-Only Users are secondary users who are contacted if any of the above users are unavailable.

The contact form can be quickly filled out as there are only a few critical details, namely:

• Name (required)
• Email Address (required)
• Phone Number (required)
• Role (required)

Here is what it looks like:

Contacts can be easily created, edited and deleted from within the My Contacts module. You can see the list of created contacts as well:

We believe this new feature is very important for any ServePath customer to have accurately set up and recommend that it is filled out immediately. It only takes a few minutes to ensure that your communications are going to the proper contact person.

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!

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 [↩]

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.

Perhaps that subject was not strong enough. The Financial Sector is currently weathering a hurricane, recently suffering the largest drop since 9/11. Merrill Lynch fell into the hands of Bank of America. Lehman Brothers is in bankruptcy and looking for a buyer with Barclays buying some of their assets. The Airline industry is failing. AIG and other financial companies are looking for some sort of an economic bailout. HP is eliminating 24,600 jobs. And this was all over just a few days. If one extends the look a bit further, the perspective is just a grim: gas prices going up, the dollar losing value and housing going down. One simply cannot be surprised by any of this.

The Tech Sector is getting hammered as well, but this time, it isn’t “our fault.” The Dot Com bust managed to drag down the other sectors last time, but we learned our lesson. Long gone are unproven businesses and their associated models. Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors are taking long looks at business, not just getting in the car for a drive but doing a full check under the hood, looking at the road both ahead and behind and fully vetting the drivers and passengers. To get money as a start-up is truly an accomplishment nowadays. You have to have a proven business model, installed user base, and a clear direction of where your company and your industry will go.

I recently attended TechCrunch 50 which showcases 50 startups and allows them to present their business or service to a panel of experts. I saw about 1/2 of the companies’ presentations and I noticed that the companies where they couldn’t articulate or prove their monetization strategy, these companies got an earful of criticism from the experts. Similarly, at a meetup in San Francisco, the question asked every presenter is “How are you making or going to make money?” It’s a very simple question, but one that must be answered or the company loses credibility.

Perhaps we should apply these same simple questions to the Financial, Housing and Airline Industries? I guess the markets are already doing that.

It will take a long time before all of these markets start to recover, and corporations and businesses are currently challenged to prevent the hemorrhage of money and capital expenditures within their IT infrastructure. I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal called “Cutting Tech’s Energy Bill” by William M. Bulkeley that discusses how large companies are looking at ways to cut electricity usage within the Enterprise. With energy costs directly and indirectly rising, it’s critical for the embattled IT manager or director to make fiscally sound and environmentally responsible decisions to keep their business moving forward will simultaneously ensuring that their technology progresses.

Bulkeley gives several examples:

• IBM has launched a “Green Data-Center Services” business line to help customer redesign their datacenters
• HP purchased a company that specializes in designing datacenters with a focus on energy-efficiency
• EMC has worked to eliminate unneeded equipment and use their cooling infrastructure more efficiently
• Hartford Financial Services Group has shut down 6 of 7 datacenters and host within a “green” IBM facility
• IBM and HP has introduced water-cooled servers and others are hard-selling blade computers that use significantly less power than traditional servers

Outsourcing one’s infrastructure is a core way to tighten your belt of your IT Budget. If you can allow for a managed hosting provider to run your IT infrastructure, you save on capital expenditures as well as human capital running it. Colocation and dedicated hosting were all the rage a few years ago and, while it may be losing its sex appeal nowadays, there are still plenty of IT traditionalists who demand it.

Towards the end of the WSJ article, Bulkeley starts to discuss virtualization as a Green technology that can help cut costs. This is where I pick up the thread and run with it. Virtualization is a key component to helping Corporations reduce their IT expenditures significantly. The ability to consolidate multiple low-end servers onto one or handful of higher-end servers is an obvious and logical cost and energy-savings option. The heavier adoption of virtualization technologies such as Xen or VMware or even Hyper-V is giving corporations or even those self-same outsourced data center and dedicated hosting providers a way to stretch their money and efficiencies even further. To over simplify, reduce the number of servers through virtualization and your datacenter space demands go down, your dependency on IT staff to manage those locations reduces and your CapEx shrinks, giving you efficiencies immediately.

This is where the Technology Sector is starting to get “Cloudy.” I’ve used this metric before to illustrate my point, simply look at the Google (Insights for Search) chart comparing “cloud computing” against “dedicated hosting” keyword searches:

Dedicated hosting will not go away. It’s a viable outsourced technology option that companies depend on. It makes fare more sense (cents?) than doing it yourself within your corporation. There are only a niche of companies that can afford to make the technology and capital investment to support large-scale IT infrastructures, and even those (as exemplified in the WSJ article) are looking to re-architect their infrastructure.

Could “Cloud Computing” be the silver bullet to help corporations survive the financial hurricane? I think so. But there are challenges ahead for both the providers of the Clouds (and even traditional dedicated hosting providers) as well as corporations.

• For Cloud Providers, education of the “Cloud” concept and overcoming the “this technology is only for early adopters” status will be critical. However this can be achieved through collaboration with other Cloud Providers and Enablers as well as standardization of protocols and APIs, for starters.
• For the Enterprise to view the Cloud as a viable alternative to traditional or even self-hosted infrastructures and datacenters, the challenge is larger. While Cloud Computing may be obvious to many  in terms of “green-ness” and cost savings through zero CapEx, IT managers of the Enterprise tend to not quickly jump on board with the latest technology. Some might say they are a bit gun-shy and would rather someone else test the waters and learn from their mistakes. This wait-and-see attitude will be the end of many. Given the current financial weather and outlook, the Enterprise should be looking at the non-traditional and emerging technologies just as hard as within traditional practices.

While I may be sticking my head in the sand by saying that this financial storm will pass soon, I also  have my head in the “clouds” by stating that dedicated/outsourced hosting and Cloud Computing are viable alternatives to “doing it yourself” that all businesses should seriously consider and get on their short term strategic plans. To jump back into the car metaphor, it’s time to dump the old 1970’s Plymouth and get the 2008 Hybrid!

ServePath’s latest product, GoGrid, is starting to get some traction within the cloud and hosting arenas. With just over a month of being in public beta, GoGrid has sign-ups coming from all around the world. End users are understanding how easy it is to quickly create and deploy load-balanced Windows and Linux web, application and database servers through our innovated web-based graphical interface. Also, GoGrid was recently written up on bub.blicio.us as we announced our QuickStart Facebook Servers which enable Facebook developers to quickly get their Facebook applications onto the Facebook networks within minutes.

Today, as I was writing up about how GoGrid will be exhibiting at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, I noticed some truly great subliminal advertising. Many of you may be familiar with the GoGrid logo:

Well, you should pay particular attention to the “O” of “GO” since the artists at the Web 2.0 Expo believe that our iconography is particularly appealing to them and the Web 2.0 audience. The image below is from the Expo’s main page:

That being said, GoGrid should be of great interest to both those attending and exhibiting at the Web 2.0 Expo.

If you…

• …have ever wondered how to get your application on the Facebook network quickly…
• …need to rapidly scale a server environment…
• …want a sandbox, QA or demo environment that you can turn on and off at will…
• …are tired of paying for dedicated or shared hosting…
• …want to deploy real Windows servers in minutes…
• …are a LAMP or Ruby-on-Rails or Linux developer and a looking for a hosting provider…
• …want to experience an extremely slick and elegant web-based UI used for deploying and load balancing servers…

…then you should definitely come by our table and/or give GoGrid a try!

Come visit us at Table 22 in the Long Tail Pavilion. Those who drop by will get some $$$ applicable towards a new GoGrid account.

Hope to see you there!

Being a San Francisco-based Internet Hosting Provider sometimes really has its excitement. Today was no different. Originally, the 2008 Olympic Torch run was scheduled to go right past the ServePath offices in downtown San Francisco, and we were there to greet them, at least we thought we were.

We parked ourselves above the torch route in front of the Palomino (a local restaurant in our building) with a different message, not pro-China nor pro-Tibet, just simply pro-hosting (sorry, I know that was bad). Unfortunately, because of the huge amount of protestors and a few scuffles that took place, the torch run route changed and we were left without the action passing under our noses.

Earlier in the day, I snapped some other photos of various protestors around our area.

As I’m blogging this, the excitement continues elsewhere in the City. Isn’t San Francisco wonderful?!

Microsoft Windows 2008 Server is scheduled to be launched on February 27, 2008 and most hosting providers will not have it available to offer to their customers until some time in April 2008.

However, using the special “GoLive License” that Microsoft has created for hosting providers, ServePath can offer Windows 2008 Server NOW as a hosting solution.

ServePath, a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner and among the first hosting providers to provide Windows 2008 Hosted Servers, currently offers Windows 2008 Web and Standard editions. Pricing varies based on the number of processors, amount of RAM and the features required.

• Windows 2008 Web Edition is configured with IIS 7.0 and SMTP.
• Windows 2008 Standard Edition comes with Terminal Services Gateway, RDC, Application Server, Active Directory Domain Services, DHCP Server, DNS Server Windows Clustering and SMTP.

More information on ServePath’s Windows Server 2008 hosting can be found here. Be sure that you use promo code “ServePathWS08” (while available) to receive a Free Setup for your new Windows 2008 Server account. You can save between $250 to $1000 on the setup costs. Also be sure that you tell your sales representative that you heard about this offer from the blog! Call Sales at 1-866-321-PATH (1-866-321-7284).

Touted to be a revolutionary upgrade, Windows 2008 Server includes:

• Web
  • Internet Information Service 7.0 (IIS 7.0)
  • Hosting of Applications and Services
  • Management and Lower Infrastructure Costs
• Virtualization
  • Hyper-V Server Virtualization (not available at launch)
  • Terminal Services Presentation Virtualization
• Security
  • Network Access Protection
  • Read-Only Domain Controller
  • Active Directory Rights Management Services
• Solid Foundation for Business Workloads
  • Management
    • ServerManager
    • Windows PowerShell
    • Power Management
    • High Performance Computing
  • Reliability
    • ServerCore Installation Option
    • Next-Generation Networking
    • Failover Clustering
    • Dynamic Hardware Partitioning

Learn more about Windows 2008 Server at the Microsoft Windows 2008 Server Launch Site. Order your Windows 2008 Server Hosting Package from ServePath by calling 1-866-321-PATH (1-866-321-7284).