server e hosting

Houston, Texas - (The Hosting News) - January 31, 2008 - Privately held dedicated web hosting company, The Planet’s Vice President of Network Operations, Stan O. Barber, recently delivered an address at the 30th annual Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) Telecom with Vision tradeshow.

Mr. Barber commented, ”As customers demand additional functionality, we will begin to see broader adoption of IPv6. There are no significantly large companies driving adoption, so we face a chicken-and-egg scenario that has plagued widespread deployment. While anyone can connect to IPv6 today using a tunnel broker, it is difficult to use such connections when driving traffic of any significant bandwidth. Having providers deliver IPv6 natively removes this bandwidth barrier and makes it possible for web sites, as an example, to deliver the same content with the same experience over IPv6 and IPv4.”

Mr.
Barber’s remarks included a discussion about the emerging adoption of IPv6, and the barriers to entry over the IPv4 standard. The conference was held at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort and Spa in Honolulu. The conference agenda covered issues related to emerging changes and strategic business drivers that affect today’s telecommunications industry.

The PTC opened its 30th anniversary conference with the largest attendance in five years, and a 20% increase from last year, as thousands of professionals converged in the biggest East-West conference in the industry. The conference overall spent much time discussing current regulatory issues as well. Bottom line is that reregulation is coming; globally, the days of continuous deregulation are over. Privacy, security, and digital dividend, to developing markets and population are the key issues in today’s regulatory environment.

Ultimately, The Planet endeavors to provide:

• High levels of network capacity and speed to deliver peak performance
• Instant scalability to handle even the largest spikes in network traffic
• Parallel, redundant, multi-tiered network routing and switching architecture to assure reliability and stability
• Multiple layer network security that prevents Delayed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks from harming businesses
• Knowledgeable experts with a passion for excellence and a commitment to operate the best networks in the business

The Planet is a leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting over 22,000 small and medium size businesses and 3.1 million web sites worldwide, using the best choice of servers, software tools and support, backed by enhanced facilities and network connectivity.

To learn more about the sale, please visit: www.theplanet.com/super-server-sale.

For more information about The Planet, please visit: www.theplanet.com.

Renton, Washington - (The Hosting News) - January 31, 2008 - Server virtualization firm, Parallels (formerly SWsoft), has released its latest version of the container-based server virtualization software. Parallels Virtuozzo Containers Version 4.0, includes enhancements and features designed to improve usability, data center management and business continuity.

Parallels Virtuozzo Containers differs from traditional hardware virtualization solutions in that it dynamically partitions a single Windows or Linux operating system instance into highly efficient and scalable virtual environments or ”containers.”

Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels noted, ”The ever-changing needs of today’s enterprise data centers call for a virtualization solution that is flexible and delivers high performance. With the release of Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0, we are launching the next wave of virtualization, including a suite of products that help IT administrators effectively manage their growing virtual infrastructures.”

By delivering native server performance, Virtuozzo virtualization can be used with performance-sensitive workloads such as Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle databases that are not practical with other virtualization solutions due to their associated overhead and the performance penalties that are incurred.

Mr. Beloussov continued, ”Parallels offers the right technological approach coupled with the best economics to deliver a comprehensive suite of virtualization and automation products for any hardware or software environment.”

Also, Parallels Virtuozzo offers three times the density or more versus other solutions, which permits data center managers to maximize the number of virtual containers per each physical server. In fact, Virtuozzo is the only virtualization solution that enables dozens to hundreds of containers to immediately and automatically leverage hardware, resulting in exceptional data center efficiency from administrative, ROI and energy-consumption perspectives. Along with the increased density capabilities, IT administrators can reduce operating system sprawl in the data center by using Virtuozzo.

Robert Berry, Director of Technical Services, Homes and Land Magazine, noted, ”We were impressed by the Beta and are looking forward to implementing Virtuozzo 4.0. The new centralized management and networking options in the tools will make managing our virtualized data center even easier.”

John Humphreys, Program Vice President with IDC’s Enterprise Platform Group remarked, ”With the Virtuozzo product, Parallels is focused on taking virtualization to the next level. By virtualizing above the operating system, customers get both the benefits of hardware reduction and a reduction in the number of operating system images they need to run to support their applications.”

Diane Bryant, Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Server Platforms Group commented, ”As virtualization continues to proliferate in data centers and on desktops, Intel is delivering leading platform capabilities and performance to foster the growth. Parallels Virtuozzo 4.0’s manageability tools, ease-of-use and reliability take advantage of the performance improvements with Intel’s latest generation of Quad Core Xeon and Itanium processors and make it a leading virtualization solution.”

Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 offers new features and functionality in several key areas:

- Business Continuity - Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 includes several new options to drive uptime, such as Windows Server 2003 and Red Hat clustering services. In addition, Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 delivers a comprehensive set of backup enhancements

- Ease of Use and Manageability - Version 4.0 extends the already significant resource management in Parallels Virtuozzo Containers with the inclusion of virtual CPU improvements, burstable CPU limits, hardware device forwarding, hardware device sharing and more

- Efficiency - Version 4.0’s architectural enhancements provide even higher levels of stability and performance. New efficiency-driving features include real-time optimization of hardware resources, and an improved Virtuozzo file system that speeds common management tasks and more effectively utilizes hard disk resources.
More information about how customers are using Parallels Virtuozzo can be found at www.parallels.com/virtuozzo.

Virtuozzo 4.0 also introduces the Parallels Infrastructure Manager, a powerful tool for managing the Virtualized Data Center that enables IT administrators to efficiently manage their infrastructure from anywhere.

The Parallels Infrastructure Manager includes a number of important features such as:

- Enhanced Permissions - Includes role-based security and audit, Microsoft Active Directory support and LDAP integration.
- Newly Designed Management Tool - Easier assessment of resources and assets via powerful dashboards.
- Large Scale Deployment and Management Capabilities - Includes application and OS templates as well as centralized data center management, providing logical views of the data center.

Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 is available worldwide from Parallels or any of its partners. The product, including the Parallels Infrastructure Manager, is available for $3,000 per dual CPU. A Parallels Virtuozzo Containers license can be purchased without the Parallels Infrastructure Manager for $2,500 per dual CPU.

Parallels (formerly SWsoft) is a worldwide leader in virtualization and automation software that optimizes computing for consumers, businesses and service providers across all major hardware, operating system and virtualization platforms. Founded in 1999, Parallels is a fast-growing company with 900 employees in North America, Europe and Asia.

To learn more, please visit: www.parallels.com.

Dulles, Virginia - (The Hosting News) - January 31, 2007 -
Provider of compliant IT hosting and infrastructure management services for sensitive government and commercial systems, has been selected as part of a team that will continue to operate and maintain the Defense Travel System (DTS).

John Kraft, President and CEO of ServerVault noted, ”ServerVault remains committed to delivering secure managed hosting and IT infrastructure management services that assist Federal agencies in achieving a stringent security posture and comply with a wide range of IT security regulations. We look forward to contributing our expertise and services to the Northrop Grumman team as it continues to support the Defense Travel System.”

DTS is a web-based, secure, end-to-end system that automates travel and travel management for military and civilian employees of the U.S. Department of Defense. More than 5 million travel authorizations and 4 million approved travel vouchers have been processed using DTS since it became operational at all major military installations in September 2006. The U.S. Air Force Headquarters 754th Electronic Systems Group awarded the task order under the Air Force Network-Centric Solutions (NETCENTS) contract on June 8. The initial period of performance for this contract began June 25.

The Northrop Grumman team also includes Dovel Technologies, McLean, Va.; Multimax Inc., Herndon, Va. (acquired by Harris Corp. on June 15); and Arena Technical LLC, Bethesda, Md.

ServerVault Corp. provides customized, highly secure, fully managed infrastructure solutions for sensitive and critical federal government and commercial organization applications. ServerVault caters to organizations that place a high priority on the security and the availability of their critical applications, particularly those that must comply with federal standards for information security management and data management, such as FISMA, DITSCAP, HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley and others. ServerVault has passed critical examinations by SysTrust and is certified by CyberTrust, both of which represent objective indicators of a provider’s security and reliability.

To learn more, please visit: www.servervault.com.

Hong Kong, China - (The Hosting News) - January 31, 2008 - Global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology, IDC, has released the initial results of its ongoing Asia/Pacific Green Poll.

An end-user surveys assessing the buying behavior of IT executives with respect to Green IT, the study highlights that awareness and adoption of Green IT does vary a great deal depending on the maturity of the market. However, it is becoming clear across the board that end-users will be expecting vendors to take more responsibility in terms of bringing ‘Green’ products and services to market as well as improving their own internal ‘Green’ operations and practices in the future.

Philip Carter, Head of IDC’s Asia/Pacific Green IT practice, noted, ”It is interesting to see that IT executives are expecting vendors to take more responsibility in the area of Green IT. This is validated by the fact that 81% of organizations thought that the Greenness of their IT suppliers would become ‘much more important’ over the next few years. Today, 18% of the organizations surveyed considered the greenness of the IT suppliers before making a selection and another 30% expected to do so in the near future.”

Organizations in the more developed economies are looking to integrate ‘green requirements’ into ‘requests for proposals’ for procurement of IT products and services. In Japan for example, more than half (52%) of the organizations surveyed indicated that this is already part of their procurement process. The fact that this approach is still emerging in other countries highlights the varied adoption with regards to ‘Green IT ‘ in the region.

Also important for vendors is the fact that IT executives will be looking at their internal Green policies and practices. The Green Poll highlights that 70% of organizations across the region regard this as either rather important or very important. So for vendors, Green IT is not just about putting an energy efficient product on the shelf it is about having a Green supply chain, initiating recycling programs, and reducing internal carbon footprints.

M. Carter added, ”In most cases, the first phase of the adoption of Green IT will be about ‘Lean IT’ focusing on improving energy efficiency of IT equipment within the data center to reduce costs in the face of rising electricity costs. Initiatives like recycling, e-waste guidelines and paper management, which are perceived to have less of an impact on the bottom line, will not be focal points until sustainability is accepted as part of standard business practice. We also see governments increasingly playing a key role here in the region by way of introducing regulations for energy efficiency and e-waste to expedite organizations down this path.”

In emerging economies, it is very clear that cost savings is the primary driver for investment in Green IT, while the more developed economies like Australia, New Zealand and Japan are beginning to understand that corporate social responsibility will increasingly play a key role as the focus on sustainability becomes more prevalent. For now, however, the Green Poll has highlighted that the majority of the organizations do not currently have a Green Policy within their IT departments in place, which means that putting ‘Green’ into practice has not moved into mainstream yet.

Hence, the key takeaway for vendors is the need to ensure that they are making a business case for Green IT in the context of reducing cost in the short term. However, further down the line, as governments become more active in terms of regulating this area, IDC expects the broader notions of corporate social responsibility and sustainability to become increasingly important and drive both growth and financial benefits in this market.

IDC is a global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 900 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 90 countries worldwide. For more than 43 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world’s leading technology media, research, and events company.

To learn more, please visit: www.idc.com.

Aliso Viejo, California - (The Hosting News) - January 30, 2008 - Utility and grid computing solutions firm, 3Tera, Inc., presented a discussion on the Impact of Utility Computing on new the Web 2.0, at the Technosium 2008 Global Conference and Expo, with Senior VP Product Management, Bert Armijo.

The 2008 Technosium Global Conference and Expo, which took place at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California, is an international Information Technology and Wireless and Mobile Broadband Telecommunications conference and expo for technology professionals from all around the world. The speaking session was entitled, ”Utility computing - Tapping a new resource to power your Web applications.”

The speaking session examined the fact that while the biggest value in new Web 2.0 applications is functionality, deploying and operating applications on fixed infrastructure is becoming prohibitively expensive. Power costs are skyrocketing, servers depreciate before they’re plugged in, and skilled operators are in short supply. The presentation discussed and demonstrated a new architectural model for running and scaling Web 2.0 applications without breaking the bank - utility computing.

An annual Mega-Event in Silicon Valley, Technosium’s goal is to bring IT companies and end-users closer, face-to-face and open all the possibilities to discuss products, solutions, the latest technologies and business opportunities. With more than 150 vendors participating at Technosium 2008, this educational and networking event is for the corporate market, public sector, technology professionals and the venture capital community.
Bert Armijo, Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Product Management, 3Tera, Inc.

Bert Armijo is Co-founder and VP of Product Management at 3Tera, Inc., a provider of grid computing and utility computing. A veteran of multiple startups, Mr. Armijo co-founded Topspin Communications, a pioneer in fabric computing, which was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2005. Mr. Armijo was a co-founder of a Gigabit Ethernet startup Rapid City Communications, where he launched the first Gigabit Ethernet routing switch in 1997. Later the company was acquired by Bay Networks, which was acquired by Nortel. At Nortel’s High Performance Switching Division, Armijo was responsible for launching the Passport 8600 Enterprise LAN switch. Mr. Armijo has an MBA from Saint Mary’s College. His blog is at www.3tera.com/hotcluster.html.

3Tera, Inc. is a grid and utility computing firm for the deployment and scaling of web applications. Named a 2007 Category Breaker by NetworkWorld magazine, 3Tera’s AppLogic grid operating system enables the first true utility computing services that completely remove the cost and complexity associated with infrastructure. The operating system converts commodity servers into scalable grids on which users can visually operate deploy and scale transactional web applications without any modification of code. Software-as-a-Service providers, Web 2.0 companies, enterprises and open source developers may obtain new online services, to market by utilizing resources from commodity hosting providers on a pay-as-you-go basis, while maintaining complete control of applications including visual operation, scaling and on-demand resource provisioning using only a browser.

For more information about 3Tera, please visit: www.3tera.com.

Houston, Texas - (The Hosting News) - January 30, 2008 - Privately held dedicated web hosting company, The Planet, has reported its financial results for the fourth quarter ending December, 2007. The Planet provides quarterly updates to its customers, business partners and prospects with information relative to new initiatives and its progress.

Kevin Klausmeyer, Chief Financial Officer at The Planet noted, ”The Planet again produced a record quarter both in revenues and servers sold, continuing its inception-to-date string of sequential record quarters. We experienced the highest sequential quarterly growth in the past two years, which on an annualized rate is north of 20 percent. Margins remain healthy despite continued investments in every area of our business, all of which provide competitive advantages that yield returns to the business.”

Douglas J. Erwin, Chairman and CEO of The Planet added, ”2007 was a good year, and our fourth quarter began to yield the benefits from many months of investing in the business. We closed 2007 with strong results across the company based on our intense focus on customer experience. This was our first year under a single name, and by any measure it was one marked by tremendous success. We have made monumental changes across every operating unit to improve our customer-facing operations. We doubled network capacity this past year and made upgrades to support 10GB speeds, along with interconnecting Houston and Dallas. We added 25,000 square feet of raised flooring to our data center footprint, along with expanded backup generator capacity in both cities. For another year, we added to our continued string of successes with no power events. Our new and enriched call center is now fully operational, and we’re already experiencing improvements in customer satisfaction. Newly initiated advanced training and certifications for our support teams now provide clearly defined career paths. Finally, based on customer requests, we’re well on our way toward SAS70 compliance. Across the board, we’ve raised the bar, setting the stage for 2008 to be another banner year for The Planet.”

Fourth Quarter Highlights include:

Record Transactions: In the fourth quarter, 2,200 new customers leased servers in the company’s six world-class data centers. This was the greatest number of quarterly new customer additions for 2007.

StatCounter Announcement: Dublin-based StatCounter, which provides its 1.5 million global customers with free Web site traffic analysis, joined forces with The Planet to announce the addition of the 100th server to its private rack profile. StatCounter founder Aodhan Cullen was named by BusinessWeek as its Young European Entrepreneur of the Year for 2007.

New Consolidated Reseller Program: The company launched its first reseller program under the new corporate moniker. The three-tiered program provides web hosting resellers with multiple options for building their businesses. Resellers gain access to a specially designed portal for placing orders, which also includes marketing materials, photography and white papers to support their customer outreach.

Microsoft Small Business Server White Paper: The company published a new white paper, based on research conducted by Frost and Sullivan’s Stratecast Partners, which details wide-ranging economic benefits and business value for system integrators and their SMB customers. The research outlines how integrators who partner with The Planet can increase their profits by more than 20 percent per customer, without incurring upfront costs. The Planet offers a complete enterprise-class IT portfolio-in-a-box that includes Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft SQL Server, bundled with anti-virus and spam protection, and a comprehensive data backup solution.

Expanded KVM Additions: Based on extensive customer feedback, the company added the Lantronix Spider KVM to its entire product portfolio. Previously available only on private racks, KVM - keyboard, video and mouse - allows customers to remotely install software, and manage the operating system and complete software stack from the convenience of their own offices. Customers retain complete management and control of their servers at the console level to simplify troubleshooting.

Extended Server Configurations: The Planet extended full hardware and software configurability for its most affordable entry-level servers, providing customers with additional RAM or hard drive upgrade options to satisfy their power requirements.

Executive Appointment: The company announced the addition of Stan O. Barber as vice president, network operations. Barber is responsible for the company’s Network Operations Center (NOC) and its abuse department, which oversees issues related to violations of its acceptable use policies.

Keynote Speaking Engagement: At the ISPCON Fall 2007 conference, Chairman and CEO Douglas J. Erwin delivered the keynote address titled ”Beyond Hosting: Unlocking Profits with On Demand IT Infrastructure for the SMB.”

Awards - Adding to its broad array of awards, The Planet ranked #81 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list for North America. The annual survey recognizes the 500 fastest-growing technology companies in the nation based on consolidated results from its regional Fast 50 events. The win capped a series of awards during the year, including ranking #12 on the Fast 50 list for Texas; the Computer Reseller News Fast Growth list; and the Inc. 5000 roster.

Web Site Visitors - The company capped 2007 with 1.6 million visitors to its new Web site. In the fourth quarter, the site generated an average of 5,300 visits per day.

Ultimately, The Planet endeavors to provide the following:

• High level of network capacity and speed to deliver peak performance
• Instant scalability to handle even the largest spikes in network traffic
• Parallel, redundant, multi-tiered network routing and switching architecture to assure reliability and stability
• Multiple layer network security that prevents Delayed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks from harming businesses
• Knowledgeable experts with a passion for excellence and a commitment to operate the best networks in the business

The Planet is a leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 22,000 small and medium size businesses and 3.1 million web sites worldwide, using the best choice of servers, software tools and support, backed by state-of-the-art facilities and network connectivity.

For more information about The Planet, please visit: www.theplanet.com.

Livonia, Michigan - (The Hosting News) - January 30, 2008 - Web hosting company, Future Hosting, an Internet Solutions provider serving small to medium sized businesses internationally, will offer a new data protection service free of charge, to all Virtual Private Server customers.

Future Protect provides data back up every six hours, stored on a remote server. In the event of a disaster or hardware failure, the company can quickly and seamlessly restore backed up data, minimizing any potential downtime and providing an extra layer of security. Future Protect utilizes R1Soft’s revolutionary Continuous Data Protection technology to offer such frequent backups.

Charles Kowalski, COO of Future Hosting noted, ”For businesses operating on the Internet, we recognize that data security and service uptime are absolutely mission-critical. Hardware failures and other disasters are often unforeseen and unpreventable. Even so, businesses need assurances that their data will survive unexpected situations, and that recovery will be quick. Future Protect meets that need and offers an important level of security.”

Currently, Future Protect backups are only available for disaster recovery. Customers are encouraged to keep their own backups to be used in the event of an accidental deletion or other case of human error. Future Protect has been automatically added at no charge for VPS customers, and dedicated server customers can elect to add Future Protect for an additional monthly fee, based on their individualized data size requirements and backup frequency. Dedicated server customers are encouraged to contact the company’s Sales department for more details about the new service.

Managed Virtual Private Server plans from Future Hosting, hosted in Dallas, Texas; Chicago, Ill.; or Seattle, Wash., start at $34.95/monthly. Introductory plans include 300GB of monthly data transfer and 10GB of SA-SCSI disk space. Customers can choose either a cPanel- or Plesk-based management platform.

Future Hosting is an IT company focused primarily on web hosting and other high-tech internet solutions. Founded in 2000, the company has built a reputation for high-quality customer service including instant server reboots, on-demand OS reloads and 3-hour Service Level Agreements.

For more information about Future Hosing, please visit: www.futurehosting.biz.

Santa Clara, California - (The Hosting News) - January 30, 2008 - Management software for unified communications and collaborative infrastructure, and web hosting application firm, Ensim Corporation, has released its Ensim Unify Migration Tools for easier migration to Microsoft Exchange 2007.

Unify Migration Tools automate the migration of mailbox data from Microsoft Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007, dramatically simplifying what is considered one of the most complex and costly IT projects.

Unify Migration Tools are available to both enterprises and service providers looking to migrate to Microsoft Exchange or Hosted Exchange 2007.

For IT administrators, Unify Migration Tools provide a secure, user-friendly web-based interface allowing for a completely automated process, without needing to use Power Shell or write complicated scripts.

Unify Migration Tools are designed to deliver the following critical benefits to organizations migrating to Exchange 2007:

- Reduces project costs by 40 to 70%. Enterprises of 2,000 employees would typically spend 30 continuous hours to migrate their user base - with an average of 100MB mailboxes. Using Ensim’s Unify Migration Tools, the same process takes only 34 minutes.

- Reduces complexity. With Unify Migration Tools, Exchange administrators can simply select the mailboxes, organizational units or entire domain that they want to migrate and schedule the process at a time that is most convenient to them.

- Provides comprehensive migration. Unify Migration Tools handle all of the critical data from Exchange and Active Directory, including calendar events, public folders and mailboxes data.

Francois Depayras, Vice President of Marketing and Alliances at Ensim Corporation noted, ”There is no question about the promise of better performance that Exchange 2007 can provide, but the migration process is always overwhelming for any enterprise or service provider. With Ensim’s automated migration tool, we’ve removed the time, cost and complexity constraints that can make this project such a daunting task.”

For service providers looking to maintain their competitiveness and increase customer satisfaction, Unify Migration Tools enable them to migrate dozens to hundreds of small and medium-sized businesses, including resellers, organizations and end user data, with a
simple click. Additionally, Unify Migration Tools work seamlessly with any infrastructure. Whether on HMC 3.5, HMC 4.0 or a homegrown deployment, service providers can benefit from Ensim’s point-and-click automated migration capabilities.

The Ensim Unify Migration Tools are available immediately to all Unify Enterprise and Shared Edition customers. For more information, visit www.ensim.com or call Ensim at 1-888-248-4003 (1-408-496-3700 from outside the U.S.).

Founded in 1998, Ensim Corporation is a provider of management software for unified communications and collaboration infrastructure. Ensim products are used by service providers and enterprises worldwide to accelerate and enable deployment of integrated solutions, simplify and automate secure management of complex environments, and increase user and IT productivity. Ensim is Microsoft Gold Certified, and maintains strategic partnerships with many leading infrastructure vendors including Research In Motion (BlackBerry), Hewlett-Packard, Accenture, Siemens and BroadSoft. For more information, contact Ensim at 1-877-693-6746 or 1-408-496-3700 outside the United States.

For more information about Ensim, please visit: www.ensim.com.

Houston, Texas - (The Hosting News) - January 29, 2008 - Shared, dedicated and reseller web hosting firm, Host Gator, after reporting a successful fiscal year, has given gifts to support cancer fighting initiatives, while promoting education in underdeveloped countries.

The company gave $100,000 to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX, and $25,000 to One Laptop per Child. The gifts were decided upon by HostGator management and staff, including a significant contribution to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Brent Oxley, President of HostGator noted, ”The gift to Anderson reflected a mix of the wishes of the staff here at HostGator and suggestions from our users. It’s pretty hard to find anybody whose life hasn’t been touched in some way — directly or indirectly — by cancer. We gave to them, partly because we’re located in Houston and some of our employees have had family members treated there, but mostly we gave because of their amazing country-wide reputation for treating patients and researching cancer cures.”

In addition. HostGator donated to the international organization, One Laptop Per Child. The Anderson Cancer Center received a gift of $100,000 and One Laptop per Child received $25,000. The goal of One Laptop per Child is spelled out in its name: to improve the educational opportunities for children in underdeveloped regions by giving every child access to an inexpensive, durable, web-capable laptop. At $100 each, the gift from HostGator should provide at least 250 laptops.

The gift to One Laptop per Child was another easy decision, according to Mr. Oxley, ”If it wasn’t for the internet and computers we wouldn’t be in business. If just one of the kids can further their knowledge in computers and make a career out of it, in some shape or form, it will have been worth every penny.”

At Anderson, one of the country’s largest cancer treatment centers, HostGator’s gift will go to support a variety of programs — from research and clinical trials, to education, counseling and treatments. Mr. Oxley says as HostGator continues to grow and earn profits, it will continue increasing the amount of its annual gifts.

Mr. Oxley added, ”As a company, we expect to go on making charitable donations, and letting our people decide each year where our gifts should go. We want the benefits of our success to go beyond our own narrow interests, so that’s why we’ll keep on doing it. Some other companies may donate for ‘political’ reasons, not because they really want to help — but that’s still good. Whatever the motives and whatever the amounts given, it all helps. The more corporate giving there is, the better.”

Host Gator is a provider of shared, dedicated and reseller web hosting services focused on the consumer and small business markets. Founded in 2002, Host Gator has become a leader in reseller hosting, assisting over 15,000 businesses become web hosting companies, currently hosting over 700,000 domains. Host Gator has offices in Houston, Texas and its data center operations are co-located out of The Planet’s facility in Dallas, Texas, enabling it to access Tier-1 backbone providers such as UUNet, Sprint, Level 3, Global Crossing, Verio and AT and T and AboveNet. HostGator’s shared hosting plans are supported by HostGator’s 24/7/365 phone support, and comes with a 99.9% uptime and 30-day money-back guarantee.

For more information about Host Gator, please visit: www.hostgator.com.

Dallas, Texas - (The Hosting News) - January 29, 2008 - On-demand, dedicated web hosting solutions firm, SoftLayer, has reportedly enhanced connectivity of its Dallas and Seattle datacenters, with an expansion initiative featuring a network-within-the-network dedicated 10G fiber link.

George Karidis, Chief Strategy Officer at SoftLayer noted, ”This level of control and enterprise grade capabilities are new to mass market hosting, they’ve just been too expensive for many businesses to deploy. This is only the first of many cross-datacenter services that we have slated to go live in 2008. We will continue to ramp up our virtual datacenter services and deliver even more sophisticated IT services to all of our customers.”

The company’s private and public networks are now both connected between the cities via private, 10G point-to-point connections, providing the fastest connection with the lowest latency. The new advancement provides SoftLayer customers with an increased range of options and advantages, including transfering an unlimited amount of data between cities securely and free of charge. The StorageLayer (SoftLayer’s proprietary storage solution including EVault backup, NAS, and ISCSI storage), provides improved failover capabilities, with high-speed access to both sites for onsite or offsite backup and disaster recovery, and ISCSI snapshots and global datacenter-to-datacenter replication for higher protection. In addition, customers can now access the private network via out-of-band VPN connections in either Dallas or Seattle.

The host of new services the company plans to release in the first quarter of 2008 will also focus on geographical redundancy, improved performance, and data protection, as well as SoftLayer’s central goal to provide fully outsourced IT operations and “serverless operations for startups and mature businesses.

Mr. Kardis added, ”Our fundamental vision is to deliver all of the infrastructure that a business needs to survive and thrive in the 21st century at a fraction of the traditional costs, letting that business focus on its core competency. The days of simple colocation and managed hosting are gone.”

Located in the INFOMART in Dallas, Texas, SoftLayer was formed in June 2005 by a team of industry executives seeking to deliver low cost next generation on-demand hosting services for the small to medium enterprise (SME). Utilizing proprietary software, coupled with the industry’s first network-within-a-network topology, the company delivers the power and control to securely manage IT environments while providing comprehensive scalability.

To learn more, please visit: www.softlayer.com.