(The Hosting News) – The Planet, the global leader in IT hosting, today discussed its results for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2009. The Chairman and CEO of The Planet  Douglas J. Erwin was officially quoted as saying that the company  “ended the fourth quarter and the year with increased revenue and EBITDA beyond 30%, despite the tough economic conditions”. Mr. Erwin went on to say that  “during the quarter, we reorganized our sales and support organizations to best serve our various customer segments, and we declared 2010 the Year of Customer Experience. In that regard, we recently announced certain new offerings, and lowered our prices for bandwidth and various server lines. We also have kicked off numerous training and customer service programs in an effort to deliver the best customer experience in the industry.
“To deliver across the board, operational excellence is critical. While our customer satisfaction rankings remain at all-time record highs, we will continue to make changes to improve our performance and deliver the products and services our customers require for their businesses.”

“We had another record revenue year and a solid quarter,” said Chief Financial Officer Kevin Klausmeyer. “Deal sizes continue to increase, and the managed hosting business is gaining more traction. Our cash flows remain very strong, which has resulted in a powerful balance sheet, with our net debt at its lowest level in the past three years. In 2010, we plan to make significant investments in our customer-facing systems, our network, our Virtual Dedicated Server offering and our data center infrastructure.”

Fourth Quarter Highlights
Complex Infrastructure Growth: The company’s complex infrastructure solutions, which include virtual and private racks, experienced more than 30% growth year-over-year, making them the fastest-growing products in the portfolio.

Partner Program Addition: Ayuda Networks, a highly regarded leader in IT infrastructure connectivity strategy and services, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., joined the company’s Partner Plus program.

Cloud Speaking Engagements: Rob Walters, director of product management, represented The Planet as a panelist at the Cloud Computing Expo and Conference. Todd Mitchell, general manager for the company’s Dedicated Hosting and Global Services business, delivered an address on cloud computing at the fourth annual cPanel customer conference.

New Storage Area Network: The company announced the availability of the Dell PowerVault MD3000i, a high-performance storage area network (SAN) disk array. Ideal for multi-server environments such as virtual and private racks, the company’s fastest-growing solutions, the MD3000i offers a cost-effective and scalable storage solution.

Nehalem Servers: The Xeon 3450, based on the Dell PowerEdge R210 platform and loaded with Intel’s next-generation Nehalem microarchitecture, became the third and most powerful server in the company’s fleet.

Microsoft OS Added to Portfolio: The company added the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 to its product line-up, making it available to all dedicated hosting customers.

Microsoft WebsiteSpark Membership: Supporting its SMB customers, the company joined Microsoft’s WebsiteSpark program, which provides small Web development and design firms with free Microsoft licenses for the latest versions of Windows Server and SQL Server, key tools for building and designing rich Web sites.

Texas IPv6 Conference: At its Houston-based headquarters, The Planet hosted and served as a Gold Sponsor for the Texas IPv6 Task Force, which attracted more than 100 participants. Also participating as Gold Sponsors were NTT America, Global Crossing and ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers).

The Planet Reports Fourth Quarter Results

Visit Site!

“Transparency” is definitely one of these words which describe very well  the Cisco culture. This is pretty obvious for a Cisco employee, but  I got many times positive feedbacks from customers on the willingness of the company to share with customers and partners, so that they  can benefit from the  experience of a large and innovative community. This is not different in the data center.
Some other companies on the market may have a different understanding of the communication around their data centers in maintaining a great secret about  strategy, architecture and operations, but at Cisco we strongly believe in the power of sharing knowledge.
I guess also that we are not afraid of the competition learning about our choices,  as we see ourselves as leaders and we do support actively and constantly standardization.

When at Cisco Live Barcelona at the end of January, I met Donald de Witte, Cisco IT Product Manager  and Rich Gore, Cisco IT Members of Technical Staff, who were present on the booth to talk to the visitors about the Richardson Data Center and the opportunity to visit immediately the facility.

As a  global and dynamic company, Cisco like most of the leading companies embarked on a consolidation and virtualization path several years ago, with a plan to move  from 50 data centers to 3 pairs of data centers. The Richardson Data Center is one of these brand new data centers, where Cisco IT has been able to take advantage of the new networking and computing solutions provided by Cisco engineers and partners, such as Unified Computing  and Unified Fabric.

So are you ready to meet the Cisco It team and visit the Richardson Data Center ?

Visit Site!

(The Hosting News) – Open source collaboration software provider Open-Xchange  and German based e-mail security provider  eleven have agreed on comprehensive technical cooperation to easily add e-mail security to all Open-Xchange products.

Web hosters, ISPs and telcos can combine Open-Xchange Hosting Edition — with more than 10 million users — with eleven’s e-mail security solution eXpurgate. eXpurgate is scalable, easy to integrate, and offers a spam detection rate of more than 99 percent. In addition, eXpurgate will be integrated as a premium option in the Open-Xchange products aimed at companies that want to operate their e-mail server in-house.

“With Open-Xchange and eleven, web hosts can offer their customers not only a cost-effective and professional package, but also an optimally protected e-mail solution,” said Robert Rothe, founder and CEO of eleven.

“Effective spam and virus protection is essential for every e-mail server. eleven products protect Open-Xchange users against viruses, spam and phishing e-mails,” said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange. “Companies that run their Open-Xchange Server themselves benefit from this releationship as well as users that get Open-Xchange as Software-as-a-service from hosting providers, telcos and ISPs.”

For more information, visit Open-Xchange and eleven at the Parallels Summit, 22 to 24 February 2010 in Miami, USA, and at WebhostingDay, 17 to 18 March 2010, in Cologne, Germany.

Open-Xchange and eleven join together to Integrate Anti-Spam Security

Visit Site!

“Transparency” is definitely one of these words which describe very well  the Cisco culture. This is pretty obvious for a Cisco employee, but  I got many times positive feedbacks from customers on the willingness of the company to share with customers and partners, so that they  can benefit from the  experience of a large and innovative community. This is not different in the data center.
Some other companies on the market may have a different understanding of the communication around their data centers in maintaining a great secret about  strategy, architecture and operations, but at Cisco we strongly believe in the power of sharing knowledge.
I guess also that we are not afraid of the competition learning about our choices,  as we see ourselves as leaders and we do support actively and constantly standardization.

When at Cisco Live Barcelona at the end of January, I met Donald de Witte, Cisco IT Product Manager  and Rich Gore, Cisco IT Members of Technical Staff, who were present on the booth to talk to the visitors about the Richardson Data Center and the opportunity to visit immediately the facility.

As a  global and dynamic company, Cisco like most of the leading companies embarked on a consolidation and virtualization path several years ago, with a plan to move  from 50 data centers to 3 pairs of data centers. The Richardson Data Center is one of these brand new data centers, where Cisco IT has been able to take advantage of the new networking and computing solutions provided by Cisco engineers and partners, such as Unified Computing  and Unified Fabric.

So are you ready to meet the Cisco It team and visit the Richardson Data Center ?

Visit Site!

(The Hosting News)  – Codero (www.codero.com), has now contributed 100 computers from its San Diego data center to the  San Luis Rey Elementary School, located in Oceanside, California. The Board of Education will formally take possession of the donated computers  at its regular board meeting scheduled for March 23, 2010.

“Our students and staff derive great benefit from gifts such as yours, and on their behalf and that of the school board, I am pleased to extend to you our appreciation and gratitude,” stated District Superintendent, Larry Perondi. “Your generosity and thoughtfulness will help us provide the best possible experience and environment for the young people we serve.”

The donation and preparation of the computers was facilitated by Dave Stanford, Director, Data Centers and Provisioning for Codero at its San Diego data center. “At Codero, being a good steward to the communities in which we work and live in is an ongoing focus. By providing technology to the youth of today, we know that we are contributing to the future of our community.”

The computers were exchanged with the Oceanside Unified School District on February 16, 2010. With an estimated value of $20,000, Codero is pleased to assist the School District by means of this technology donation.

Codero Donates Computers to School in Need

Visit Site!

(The Hosting News) — Isilon® Systems today announced that SoftLayer has deployed Isilon scale-out NAS to power its enterprise cloud infrastructure. With Isilon IQ’s OneFS® operating system, SoftLayer has unified all of its file-based cloud operations onto a single, high performance, highly scalable, shared pool of storage, streamlining data management and increasing efficiency across three different, geographically disparate data center facilities. With Isilon scale-out NAS, SoftLayer can scale its storage resources in lockstep with customer demand, reducing capital expenditures while delivering more robust, flexible and responsive services to its worldwide customer base.

“Our cloud services address customers’ need for enterprise-class data center resources, meaning our network, servers and storage must always be available on-demand,” said Jacob Linscott, director of IT systems, SoftLayer. “Isilon IQ fits the bill perfectly—an easy-to-use single file system that allows us to buy what we need, when we need it, and then scale capacity and performance in-line with business growth. With Isilon, we’ve improved service functionality and flexibility without having to add any headcount.”

SoftLayer’s global, on-demand data center and hosting services deliver fully automated solutions from facilities across the United States, providing enterprises with complete access, control, security and scalability. Prior to deploying Isilon IQ, SoftLayer’s traditional SAN system was incapable of cost-effectively scaling to meet the high I/O and data growth requirements of its rapidly expanding customer base, preventing SoftLayer from fully capitalizing on market demand. By deploying Isilon scale-out NAS, SoftLayer’s cloud infrastructure can now service a broad spectrum of enterprise applications—including server and desktop virtualization, highly transactional workloads and disaster recovery—improving its ability to address mainstream data center requirements. With Isilon IQ, SoftLayer has unified all of its file-based cloud operations onto a single, easy-to-use, “pay as you grow” file system, decreasing both capital and operational expenditures, while accelerating business growth.

“As businesses enlist cloud service providers to reduce costs and increase efficiency, the providers’ most immediate challenge is how best to manage the rapid data growth and high performance requirements of their expanding customer base,” said Sam Grocott, vice president of marketing, Isilon Systems. “SoftLayer is setting the example for enterprise cloud services by using Isilon scale-out NAS to broaden its service offering, minimize costs and maximize its market opportunity.”

The names of companies mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

Isilon® (Nasdaq: ISLN) IQ Chosen by SoftLayer to Power Enterprise Cloud Services

Visit Site!

(The Hosting News) – The Planet today announced its co-sponsorship of the next Web Host Industry Review (WHIR) networking event, to be held at The Grove Houston this evening. The event, which runs from 7 to 10 pm, will  provide a venue for local hosting industry professionals to personally connect with peers, customers and partners.

“Houston is our headquarters hometown, which makes it a natural for us to sponsor an event with the industry’s leading hosting outlet,” said Todd Mitchell, General Manager for The Planet’s Dedicated Hosting and Global Services business. “Anytime we’re able to talk about our company with business locals, it’s another opportunity to let companies know about the value we provide.”

The evening includes complimentary drinks and appetizers, and The Planet will conduct a drawing for an 8GB iPod nano. Participants can submit their business cards to win. Co-sponsoring the event with The Planet are R1Soft, Alert Logic and Attracta, among others.
To learn more or to register, visit http://www.theplanet.com/events/.

The Planet to Sponsor WHIR Networking Event

Visit Site!

(The Hosting News) – Web hosting solutions provider Latisys today announced its Chicago-area Tier III Data Center has successfully completed its first SAS 70 Type II audit. In addition to completing the Chicago facility audit, Latisys’ other colocation facilities (Denver, Irvine) were also audited and again confirmed to be SAS 70 Type II compliant. The Denver facility has been compliant since 2005, and the Irvine facility has been compliant since 2007.

Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 70, Service Organizations is a widely recognized auditing standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). The SAS 70 audit independently verifies the validity and functionality of a data center’s control activities and processes. Achieving successful completion of a SAS 70 Type II audit confirms that Latisys’ Chicago data center has been through an in-depth audit to ensure adequate controls and safeguards are in place.

“Our customers – particularly those in heavily regulated sectors such as energy, financial, healthcare, insurance and pharmaceuticals – require assurance that the highest levels of internal controls and security are established and maintained,” said Evans Mullan, Chief Operating Officer, Latisys. “Investing the necessary resources to complete SAS 70 Type II audits for all three Latisys data centers reaffirms our commitment to safeguarding customers’ sensitive data and mission critical IT infrastructure with best practice processes.”

Latisys’s Chicago Data Center Receives First Type II Audit.

Visit Site!