Web Hosting Industry Event, HostingCon 2008, to Feature Microsoft Keynote Speech

HostingCon 2008 is the only conference and tradeshow, focused exclusively on the hosting industry. As companies and individuals continue to expand usage of hosting services and hosted applications, hosting providers have new opportunities to provide valuable services to customers.

George A. Roberts IV, Executive Director of HostingCon 2008 noted, ”HostingCon 2008 will be a great place to learn about how cloud services will impact your hosted services business and how you can take advantage of those trends. It will also be a wonderful opportunity to network with others in the industry and get their thoughts and ideas on how they’re transforming their businesses to thrive in a cloud services future.

”The emergence of the Web as a business and consumer platform presents many new possibilities for the hosting industry, as well as a new set of challenges. While hosted services providers are rightly concerned with a new competitive landscape that includes Microsoft and others, cloud services hold the key to a bright future. Mr. Rogers spends his time talking to the industry about the choice between on-premise software and cloud services, and the important factors to consider when determining and investing in models for software and services.Mr. Rogers explained,

”Hosting providers are contemplating the challenges and opportunities cloud computing represents. At HostingCon 2008, I look forward to sharing the exciting technology developments taking place, and initiating a dialogue about the potential concerns and opportunities for hosting service providers.”In addition to Mr. Rogers’ keynote address, HostingCon 2008’s conference program will contain a number of sessions discussing cloud computing and its impact on hosted services providers.

Attendees will be able to learn how to help their customers feel comfortable with cloud services, how software as a service and open source software work together and how to employ virtualization in your infrastructure.HostingCon 2008 will feature a full three days of conference sessions, intended to allow hosting professionals the ability to expand knowledge in business, shared services, enterprise, data center, and application hosting.

HostingCon is the largest conference and trade show for the hosted services industry, this year to be spread over 56,000 square feet reserved specifically for the event, with approximately 20,000 net square feet of booth space in an easy to navigate floorplan. The exhibit hall will feature over 70 vendors displaying products and services, offering demonstrations and activities related to the hosted services industry.

Web Hosting ISP, Earthlink’s New Edge Networks, Upgrades DSL-Based MPLS

The service, planned to be sold through selected communications network providers, was revealed during the NXTcomm08 conference and expo in Las Vegas.

Greg Griffiths, Vice President of marketing for New Edge noted, ”Making our MPLS over DSL service available through strategic carriers greatly expands our sales growth opportunities. MPLS over DSL helps provide improved network service to business customers and stimulates increased use of bandwidth that will lead to service provider growth.”

New Edge indicates that its decision to provide its telecom industry-first service through certain carriers is in response to these providers interest to include Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) class of service over DSL in their programs to customers. New Edge is evaluating strategic partnerships based on sales volume commitments, distribution models and market focus.

Utilizing New Edge’s platform allows service providers to avert capital outlays for network infrastructure as well as costly product development delays and expenses. Interested carriers say offering MPLS over DSL powered by New Edge will help them attract and retain customers. Business customers can use the service to gain three principal benefits:Mix and match access technologies (DSL, T1, private lines) to meet the needs of each location without compromising the key values of MPLS networks: data traffic prioritization with classes of services and any-to-many communications;

Accelerate deployment of additional applications over less expensive DSL-based networks without the risk of creating network bottlenecks that compromise overall network performance;Set up affordable DSL networks as backup for primary MPLS T1 networks in the event of network disasters or outages while retaining true MPLS classes of service tags on data traffic in the switchover.

Until New Edge recently launched its MPLS over DSL service, data traffic tagging and prioritization with true classes of service were only available on more costly T1 lines with MPLS, short for Multi-Protocol Label Switching.Industry analysts hailed New Edge’s MPLS over DSL as an important service introduction that fills the large gap between DSL and T1 pricing. The service includes bandwidth optimization with up to five classes of service over DSL access, improved service level guarantees, and a Cisco router upgrade.To introduce MPLS over DSL, New Edge installed carrier-class gateway switches at various regional aggregation points around the country. The multi-million-dollar network infrastructure investment also helps New Edge expand network capacity, improve service and add traffic routing diversity.New Edge Networks is a wholly owned subsidiary of EarthLink Inc. (NASDQ: ELNK). New Edge Networks builds and manages private networks for businesses and communications providers. Through its nationwide backbone network with almost 900 switches and Internet routers, New Edge Networks uses any blend of network and access technologies (MPLS, frame relay, ATM, xDSL, cable, wireless, and satellite) for providing high-speed connections at any business address in the United States. Network options include any combination of access, network management functions, and on-site installation services.

To learn more about New Edge Networks’ MPLS networks with class of service over DSL, please visit: www.newedgenetworks.com/products/mpls.For more information about New Edge Networks, please visit: www.newedgenetworks.com.

Web Hosting Provider, LeaseWeb, Supports Twenga Business Network

Twenga chose hosting by LeaseWeb, in order to initially obtain all of the product data from e-commerce websites indexed, since the company needs more than 100 dedicated servers. LeaseWeb has installed the dedicated servers at EvoSwitch, the CO2-neutral datacenter. Expanding rapidly internationally, Twenga chose The Netherlands for its hosting provider.

LeaseWeb provides a Linux-based dedicated hosting solution to Twenga, which uses the sizeable LeaseWeb hosting network (with a current capacity of 210 Gbps). The rapidly growing solution initially uses over 100 servers divided over several 19-inch racks at EvoSwitch, the CO2-neutral datacenter.

The hosting solution’s design was developed by Twenga’s engineers in collaboration with LeaseWeb’s engineers. The heavy crawl technology will require even more hardware capacity in the near future.

The company has explained, ”A good shopping search engine that displays accurate results with the right products and prices needs a lot of capacity. Right now the TwengaBot uses about 100 servers, which together scan some 100 million web pages per day. But the LeaseWeb engineers will have to add new servers for us every day. I even expect that within just two years we will need to have more than 500 servers in place at the datacenter.”Recently, LeaseWeb was selected by new multilingual Internet platform for live broadcasting, zaplive.tv, for its international hosting network.Because of the size of the Dutch hosting provider LeaseWeb, the zaplive.tv went live in April 2008. Everyone can easily make his own programme or even his own web-tv via the portal, all for free.

Companies, institutions and private persons can stream concerts, parties, reports on hobbies or sport events, even press conferences, only using a webcam or camera and a computer with Internet connection. zaplive.tv not only is live but also interactive. Users can communicate via live chat and rate single broadcasts as well as commenting on them.

As an Internet start-up, zaplive.tv hopes to generate enough Internet traffic to attract advertisers within a year. Christian Steiger, Technical Director and Co-Founder of zaplive.tv explained, ”Our earning model depends on the Internet traffic we generate. And it started off well. We had a lot of interest from viewers in the first weeks. One point surely was our programme including performances of top ten bands. We had the finals of German premier league basketball and real Hollywood stars on the red carpet. And one user was streaming live from one of the biggest electronic parties in Germany with DJ-Sets from some of the world’s best DJs.”

zaplive is a multilingual portal for live streaming, based in Germany. Companies, institutions and private persons can use the streaming platform for a live and global broadcast of their events, such as concerts, parties, hobby reports, sport reports or press conferences. Users only need a camcorder or webcam and computer with Internet connection. The streaming technology, on which the platform is based, ensures that the live images can be displayed via the Internet. zaplive started in April 2008 after four months of hard work to take the platform into production.

LeaseWeb is an international supplier of hosting products and services that specializes in both Microsoft and Linux, and focuses primarily on the professional market. The company is among the top 20 hosting providers in the world and provides services such as web hosting, dedicated hosting, colocated hosting, VPS and streaming, as well as technical support. LeaseWeb owns a Cisco-powered network offering a bandwidth of over 210 Gbps, which extends across five data centers in the Amsterdam region via the major telecom carriers. LeaseWeb is also present on Internet exchanges in Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Frankfurt, New York, Vienna , Stockholm, Warsaw, Zurich, Prague and Madrid. Founded in 1997, hosting provider LeaseWeb now manages 11,000 servers. Its customers include Starbucks, Hyves, Telegraaf Media Groep, Koninklijke Joh. Ensched, PricewaterhouseCoopers, AVRO, Direct Wonen, and University

The Planet Dedicated Server Web Hosting Firm, Commences Data Center Expansion?

Jeff Lowenberg, Vice President of Facilities at The Planet noted, ”As energy costs continue to climb, operating our data centers at peak performance is absolutely critical, both to our company and to our customers. Our goal is to use best practices and a practical approach to optimize our operations.”

Bringing The Planet’s total data center footprint to 167,000 square feet, the company expects the new data center to open in November. The company operates six data centers, with four located in Dallas and two in Houston. The new space will feature an enhanced energy-efficient design that utilizes improved measures to completely separate hot and cold air. The company expects to improve the data center ‘coefficient of efficiency’ to approximately 1.5. The coefficient of efficiency is an EPA- and Uptime Institute-recognized measurement of the total power necessary to operate a data center divided by its critical power, which is the energy required to operate its computers. An ‘ideal’ ranking is 1.6.

The enhanced energy-efficient measures include extending the returns of the computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units through the ceiling and utilizing the space above the ceiling as a return air path. By using CPI (Chatsworth Products Inc.) ducted exhaust cabinets in the new phase, The Planet is taking the next steps beyond traditional ‘hot aisle-cold aisle’ setups to completely isolate the hot and cold air in the data center.

Ultimately, The Planet endeavors to provide the following:

High level of network capacity and speed to deliver peak performanceInstant scalability to handle even the largest spikes in network trafficParallel, redundant, multi-tiered network routing and switching architecture to assure reliability and stabilityMultiple layer network security that prevents Delayed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks from harming businessesKnowledgeable 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 6.7 million web sites worldwide, using the best choice of servers, software tools and support, backed by state-of-the-art facilities and network connectivity.