Scheduled Maintenance Details

Infrastructure Update:
Tuesday, February 9th, 19:00 – 23:00 PST
(Wednesday, February 10th, 03:00 – 07:00 GMT)

Customer Impact:

The GoGrid “my.GoGrid.com” customer portal and API will be unavailable for up to 4 hours while we upgrade our infrastructure. There will be no impact to existing GoGrid VMs, load balancers or cloud storage during this time.

Maintenance Details:

GoGrid is making software improvements to the GoGrid customer portal and API.

Inquiries:

If there are any additional questions before, during or following the maintenance, please direct them to the GoGrid Support Center at 877-946-4743 or +1-415-869-7444, or contact us via the customer service portal at https://my.gogrid.com. (Note: during the scheduled maintenance, you will NOT be able to access the GoGrid Customer Service Portal for support so we recommend using the phone numbers listed above.)

For the latest details on GoGrid’s systems & Data Center status, please visit our system status blog: http://www.GoGridStatus.com

For More Information

Once the release is completed, we will be updating the GoGrid blog as well as the GoGrid Wiki with information about the new features and enhancements. Be sure to subscribe to the blog feed for up-to-date information. You can also get email delivery of blog posts by subscribing here. Lastly, you can get real-time information from our Twitter stream by following @GoGrid there.

Below is the entire GoGrid Newsletter (January 2010):

Hello Michael,

On behalf of everyone here at GoGrid, I want to wish you a very successful 2010!  We are starting the year off with a bang that includes some exciting new developments that I want to share with you in this edition of the GoGrid Newsletter.  Here are the specific topics:

1. New Features and System Enhancements
2. GoGrid CDN: New Singapore and Paris Points of Presence (POPs)
3. New Partner GSIs
4. Preventative Power Maintenance
5. End-of-Life: CentOS 5.1 w/Apache &  RHEL 5.1 w/Apache operating systems
6. New CentOS 5.3 & RHEL 5.4 base operating systems
7. Two New 3rd Party Services to Monitor your GoGrid Servers
8. Hosting for Haiti

New Features and System Enhancements

---

The next GoGrid software release is scheduled for Tuesday, February 9, 2010 and includes the following new features and system enhancements:
GoGrid Dedicated Server ordering, provisioning, and support via the portal

We will offer three dedicated server options via the GoGrid portal with pricing starting at only $200/month.  GoGrid Dedicated Servers use the GoGrid IP address space, support power cycling, and are visible in the new List View tab located in the GoGrid portal.  The dedicated servers can be load balanced, connected to cloud storage, and managed via the GoGrid UI, providing a unique solution that combines the flexibility of the cloud with the control of dedicated hardware.
GoGrid Dedicated Servers support the following operating systems: Ubuntu, RedHat Enterprise Linux, Fedora, Debian, CentOS, Windows 2003, and Windows 2008.  Dedicated server hardware configurations and pricing details will be available on the GoGrid wiki the day of the software release.

Edit Load Balancer API Support

The GoGrid API will allow you to add and remove an IP address from an existing load balancer. This means you can add or remove a virtual or dedicated server from an existing load balancer without downtime.  The feature is great for rapidly scaling web and app servers in real time.

List View Tab

The GoGrid portal will contain a new tab called List View. The List View tab displays virtual and dedicated servers, Cloud Storage, and load balancing details, including: host name, IP addresses, operating system type, and storage utilization, in list form.  The list view makes it easier to manage large server deployments using a single convenient view.

New Links

Three new links will be visible in the GoGrid portal.  The new links make accessing the GoGrid Wiki, Forums, and API tool easier.  The links are visible in the Support and My Account tabs.

New Feature Webinar
If you have questions about any of the new features, sign up for a live demo given by the GoGrid Product Team.
Click here to reserve your seat: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/725449257
Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM PST

GoGrid CDN

---

GoGrid CDN customers that deliver content to Asia and Europe will be happy to learn that we will soon roll out two new Points of Presence (POPs):
Singapore: Along with our POPs in Hong Kong and Tokyo, our new Singapore POP boosts our already high-speed delivery of rich media to and from Asia. This newly installed state-of-the-art hardware supports all of our services including live and on demand Windows Media and Flash (FMS3.5) streaming services, web site acceleration and our industry leading reporting and analytics suite. Activate your account today and discover why more and more leading Asian web properties such as Asian Golf TV, QQ, Pixnet and Ninja Saga all use the GoGrid CDN.
Paris: Already strong in Europe, GoGrid will soon be even stronger with the addition of yet another POP, this one in Paris, France. The new Parisian POP will support all of our whole site delivery services, full Windows Media, Flash (FMS 3.5), and Silverlight streaming services as well as our rock solid live streaming service. Contact us today and learn why top tier European companies have partnered with GoGrid CDN for their European and global content distribution needs.
The Singapore POP will roll out in a couple of weeks and the Paris POP will rollout out in a few months.  Please feel free to contact your Account Manager with any questions.

New Partner GSIs

---

We have rolled out five new Partner GSIs.  A PartnerGSI is a publicly available MyGSI (GoGrid Server Image) with the partner’s software preinstalled and preconfigured. Many of our partners specialize in internet security, backup, monitoring, web apps, compliance, and application scaling.  Check out our new PartnerGSIs:

• Gigaspaces
• Mailsites
• CohesiveFT
• Tapin Systems
• Objectivity

Visit the GoGrid Exchange to learn more.

Preventative Power Maintenance

---

There will be a preventive maintenance performed on UPS 1, 2, 3 and 4 on 2/01 and 2/02 2010
The maintenance schedule will be completed in 2 phases.

1. Monday February 1st  – Preventive maintenance performed on UPS 3 and 4. Each unit WILL be put into bypass
2. Tuesday February 2nd  – Preventive Maintenance of UPS 1 and 2. Each unit WILL be put into bypass

There is no downtime expected during this maintenance schedule.

When: February 1st 10:00am – 5:00pm and February 2nd 10:00am – 5:00pm
Why: UPS maintenance is required to continue to provide consistent, uninterrupted power to our customers

End-Of-Life Server Images

---

The below Linux images will be End-of-Life’d effective 02/09/2010:

• CentOS 5.1 (64-bit) w/ Apache 2.2
• RHEL 5.1 (64-bit) w/ Apache 2.2

These images will no longer be available in the GoGrid portal for deployment once they are retired. We will continue to support all current Linux base operating systems. If you would like to use the EoL’d images after February 9th you will need to create your own GoGrid Server Image (using the myGSI feature) before February 9th. MyGSI allows you to keep server images in Cloud Storage for future use.  Additional Information about myGSIs can be found here:

• GoGrid Wiki MyGSI Entry

You can also find more information about this on this GoGrid Blog post which includes some Frequently Asked Questions about this process:

• GoGrid Image EOL Blog Post

New Base Operating Systems

---

We recently rolled out two new Linux base operating systems which are live and available in the GoGrid portal:

• CentOS 5.3 (32- and 64-bit)
• RHEL 5.4  (32- and 64-bit)

Two New 3rd Party Services to Monitor Your GoGrid Servers

---

Monitoring your GoGrid infrastructure is an important task that should not be overlooked. Our Technology Evangelist, Michael Sheehan, recently spent some time analyzing two new 3rd party services that can help you manage and monitor your infrastructure:
Server Density: Monitor CPU load, memory, processes, disk usage, network traffic, Apache, MySQL & Nginx. Keep an eye on your servers and get e-mail, SMS & iPhone alerts when things go wrong.
See the GoGrid blog post about Server Density’s service here:

• GoGrid Server Density Blog Post

CloudKick: Easily and efficiently monitor and manage cloud server environments with robust graphing, alert and other tools.
See the GoGrid blog post about CloudKick’s service here:

• GoGrid CloudKick Blog Post

Hosting for Haiti

---

With the recent earthquake devastation that crippled the nation of Haiti a couple of weeks ago, the country is struggling to care for the injured, rebuild infrastructure and basically survive as a nation. There has been tremendous outpouring of support from around the world. To that end, GoGrid was among the initial group of internet hosting providers to announce support for Hosting For Haiti, a site where all of us hosting providers have put aside our differences in order to provide release for Haiti. We have made a significant donation to the American Red Cross and encourage you to help out in whatever way you see fit.
More information on Hosting For Haiti can be found at:

• http://www.hostingforhaiti.com

Further details are in this GoGrid blog post:

• GoGrid Hosting For Haiti Blog Post

Become a Fan of GoGrid on Facebook and Follow Us on Twitter

---

If you have photos from an event where you saw GoGrid in action or met with some of our employees, we encourage you to post them to the Fan Page:

• http://www.facebook.com/GoGrid

We also actively monitor and send out messages via Twitter. You can follow GoGrid on Twitter at:

• http://twitter.com/GoGrid

As always, you can find more information about GoGrid at:

GoGrid Product Site – http://www.gogrid.com
GoGrid Blog – http://blog.gogrid.com
GoGrid Wiki – http://wiki.gogrid.com
GoGrid Forums – http://forums.gogrid.com

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me directly.

Thank you,
Mario

This email was sent out by our VP of Product, Mario Olivarez.

• Cloud Platform
• Cloud Security
• Cloud Infrastructure
• Cloud Productivity Applications
• Cloud Storage

We are pleased to announce that GoGrid is listed under the “20 Coolest Cloud Platform Vendors“:

The other vendors mentioned include: Amazon EC2, Appistry (a GoGrid partner), AppScale, AT&T, Engine Yard, Enomaly, Flexiscale, GCloud3,  Gizmox, Google, LongJump, Microsoft, OrangeScape, RackSpace, Salesforce.com, Terremark, Ubuntu, VMware and Verizon.

While we typically categorize ourselves as Cloud Infrastructure (along with AWS and Rackspace), we truly appreciate the inclusion in the “Coolest Cloud Platform Vendors”.

CloudKick offers a variety of robust services to help you quickly and easily gain insight into your infrastructure hosted on GoGrid. Some services and features include:

• Monitor critical metrics
• Simple management tools
• Flexible alerting to multiple addresses including SMS
• Visualize performance data
• Multiple users
• Changelog tool
• CloudKick agent

Depending on the plan that you are on (they range from free to $599+ a month), you get a variety of services mentioned above. The difference in plans depend on the number of servers, users, data retention, alerts and the type of support you desire.

There is a special GoGrid Signup page (details below) that will automatically pre-populate your GoGrid servers within CloudKick.

Setting Up a CloudKick Account for GoGrid

GoGrid is the first Cloud within the CloudKick ecosystem to fully integrate the registration and signup process. As CloudKick CEO and co-founder, Alex Polvi states:

“With CloudKick for GoGrid customers it has never been easier to get your server monitoring and management tools up and running, in fact, our GoGrid implementation represents the first cloud provider with seamless signup and integration capabilities.”

To start, simply visit this Sign Up page and create a new CloudKick account. After that, just log in using your GoGrid portal account information. Below is the process to create a CloudKick account that automatically pulls in your GoGrid server information.

Enter in the details you wish for your CloudKick account.

After that, you are asked for your GoGrid account credentials (note: these credentials are not stored but merely used to pull in your GoGrid API key(s) or allow you to create a new API key):

Lastly, if you already have a GoGrid API created, simply select that and click Next, or you can create a new API on the fly:

Once you have done that, your GoGrid servers will automatically show up in the Nodes section of CloudKick:

Using CloudKick to Manage & Monitor your GoGrid Environment

Once you have set up your CloudKick account, you have a variety of options available to you to manage and monitor your GoGrid infrastructure. The site is generally divided into 6 main sections:

• Overview – gives you the current snapshot of your environment
• Monitor – allows you to view, setup and tweak your various alert monitors
• Graph – this section provides robust graphical interfaces to your infrastructure
• Activity – any changes or additions to your account appear here
• Change Log – if you are running Ubuntu (only distro currently supported, CentOS/RHEL and Windows support will be coming soon I have been told) and have installed the CloudKick agents, you can see a change log as entered by sysadmins and others
• Account – manage your CloudKick account here

I recently hooked up my personal GoGrid account to CloudKick so that I could understand what it can do for me. Below are a few screenshots of items I have currently configured.

On the Overview section, you see a list of all of the servers that are actively being monitored. Below is the expanded view of my server on GoGrid:

Within that section, you can click on the Monitors sub-tab to see active monitors for that server (green=good):

I restarted my server and the screenshot below shows an updated status (red=bad) – I also received email notifications (as I had configured those to be sent when issues happened):

Under the Graphs sub-tab, you can quickly create and view graphs of various metrics available (including ping, http and ssh) on that particular server (as reported from different monitoring/logging locations):

If you have the CloudKick Agent installed, you can get insight into the performance of CPU and Memory usage under the Diagnostics tab. (Currently supporting Ubuntu with CentOS/RHEL and Windows coming shortly.)

Within the Monitors section, you can view active monitors and configure new ones:

Basic monitors like HTTP, HTTPS, Ping/ICMP and SSH are immediately available. Other monitors require the CloudKick agent to be installed on your server(s):

Perhaps one of my most favorite items within CloudKick is the ability to instantly spawn an SSH session right within the browser. You have to configure a pre-shared key but once you have that set, simply click on the terminal link to open a dynamic SSH session right within your browser. Below is “top” running on my server:

Individual servers within the Nodes section can have Tags applied to them to make identification a bit easier:

You can also color-code specific servers:

You can “destroy” and “reboot” GoGrid servers from within the UI as well:

You also have the ability to include other Cloud providers within your environment.

GoGrid & libcloud

Lastly, the founders of CloudKick helped create libcloud which is a pure python client library for interacting with many cloud server providers. It was designed to make the development of products running in the cloud a bit easier. libcloud is now an independent free software project licensed under the Apache License (2.0). libcloud is fully supported on GoGrid in terms of lists, reboots, creations, destroys, images and sizes actions.

Be sure to give CloudKick a try for managing and monitoring your GoGrid Servers!

• CentOS – CentOS 5.1 (64-bit) w/ Apache 2.2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux – RHEL 5.1 (64-bit) w/ Apache 2.2

I’m sure that some of you will have questions about this. In anticipation of this, I have compiled some quick Q&A’s:

Question: What does the removal of these images mean?

Answer: Simply that after the removal date, they will no longer appear within the GoGrid Image Selection widget.

Question: I have server(s) deployed that use these images? Will they continue to function?

Answer: Yes, there is no change to how your server(s) will function if they are using one of these EoL-ed images. Just be sure that you keep everything current within those servers.

Question: Will you continue to provide support for servers that are based on the EoL-ed images?

Answer: Yes, we will continue to support all Windows and Linux images that you have deployed using GoGrid, even ones that have been EoL-ed.

Question: But wait! I still want to use those particular images in my GoGrid infrastructure! What can I do?

Answer: If you want to use either of these images after February 9th, 2010, you will need to create a personal GoGrid Server Image (MyGSI) prior to that date. If you follow the process outlined in this blog post, you can be assured that you can deploy servers based on those EoL-ed image(s) after that date from your personal GoGrid repository.

Question: Since those images are being removed, what are replacing them?

Answer: As of the writing of this blog post, we have several CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) images available including the ones listed below and others will be added in the future:

• RHEL 5.4 (32-bit)
• RHEL 5.4 (64-bit)
• CentOS 5.3 (32-bit)
• CentOS 5.3 (64-bit)

The images below are a filtered set of images (filtered on OS and grouped by “GoGrid” owner) as of this writing (note that in the future, this set of available images WILL change):

Question: What if I have more questions about this? What can I do?

Answer: There are a couple of things you can do. First, be sure to read up on how to create, deploy and store MyGSIs. If you have further questions, you can contact GoGrid Support either via the Live Chat within the GoGrid Portal, or by logging a Support Ticket within the portal as well.

If you have further questions, feel free to contact me or leave a comment on this post. I hope that these proactive notifications are useful!

The bottom line, the Haitian people need assistance of ANY TYPE immediately and in an on-going basis, whether it be in the form of time, money or other types of support. Doing absolutely nothing is the worst thing that you can do. Even if you cannot afford to donate time or money, there are other activities that you can do to assist in the relief efforts (one example is listed later in this post).

The outpouring of relief efforts thus far is impressive, however, as a worldly community living under the same “roof”, we all need to put aside our differences and work together to help the Haitians in their time of need.

Hosting for Haiti Initiative

Officially launching today is an initiative comprised of a group of Hosting Providers who normally compete head-to-head. The initiative brings together several hosting providers including Rackspace, Peer1, GoGrid, The Planet and ServInt, in an effort to create a consolidated and organized front to provide monetary assistance to the Haitian Relief Efforts. HostingForHaiti.com is a site designed to provide support from the hosting industry, because through a unified effort, more gains can be realized.

The site is simply a place where you can donate money to the American Red Cross. Even if you don’t donate through HostingForHaiti.com, we encourage you to donate elsewhere. However, our goal is to spread the word that donations are needed. We ask that you raise awareness of this site and encourage your own hosting provider to become a participant as well. Today, a variety of prominent bloggers will be talking about our effort to provide assistance and we ask that you join in this process of social awareness.

100% of the funds donated through the HostingForHaiti.com site will go immediately to the Red Cross relief efforts.

What YOU can do NOW

Please take a few minutes to not only contribute but also help to spread awareness via Social Networking sites like Facebook or Twitter.

Click HERE to tweet out the following message:
“Hosters are working together to support Haiti Relief Efforts! Please donate & RT! Info: http://hostingforhaiti.com #HostingForHaiti“.
Or create your own message to share!

GoGrid will be donating via the Hosting For Haiti site and encourage you to do the same!

For Hosting Providers: If you’re one of our industry partners and want to join us, contact us at info@hostingforhaiti.com about joining the cause.

Other Ways to Help – Identify Photos

Last week, GoGrid contributed Cloud Infrastructure to an organization looking to provide assistance in a different way. Conceived and created by The Extraordinaries, the contributions you make are not only helpful, they only require your time in helping to tag and identify pictures coming from Haiti.

Visit http://Haiti.beextra.org to get started.

Using the power of “crowdsourcing” and API integration, you are presented with a picture (pulled from Flickr using their API) and you are asked the following questions (which change based on your answers):

• Is this photo directly related to the Haiti Quake (Yes/No)
  • No – removes the picture from the identification list
  • Yes – Asks if there are people in the photo
    • No – Enter in comments or tags related to the photo
    • Yes – Asks a series of questions (see below)
• If the photo is related to the Haiti Quake AND there are people in the photo, you are asked the following questions:
  • Can you Clearly See a Person’s Face (Yes/No)
  • Gender(s) – (Female/Male/Mixed)
  • Age – (Young/Teen/Adult/Elderly/Mixed)
  • Alive – (Yes/No/Mixed)
  • Anything Else? – enter in description or tags

You also have the ability to view other tags or descriptions of the photo. Once you have filled out the answers based on your best judgment, you can move on to the next photo to tag.

An example is shown below:

By tagging the photos, you are assisting in matching these images against the various missing persons’ databases.

As of this writing, the site has the following encouraging statistics:

You can see some coverage of The Extraordinaries’ efforts on NBC in the video below:

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/video.

If you are looking for someone or have information to provide, you can visit the Google Crisis Response page for more information.

Just Be Sure To Help

I guess the bottom line here is that there are a variety of ways to help in the relief efforts. I have outlined a couple above in hopes to get the GoGrid community engaged in assistance efforts. As an individual, you can do a lot, and as a group or organization, you can do even more!

Whether you have 1 server or multiple, Server Density has your monitoring covered with both free and paid for pricing plans (details here). The folks over at Boxed Ice, the makers of Server Density set me up with the premium version of their service so that I could test it out on my personal blog which is running on GoGrid. Before I go into my analysis of the service, here are some of the highlights (pretty much all of which I have tested):

• Monitoring of Core Measurables:
  • CPU Load (included w/ free acct)
  • Memory (included w/ free acct)
  • Processes (included w/ free acct)
  • Disk Usage
  • Network Traffic
  • Apache
  • MySQL
  • Nginx
• Alerting:
  • Email
  • SMS
  • iPhone Push Notifications
• Graphing – all configured monitors have graphs associated with them to help you visualize server performance
• Snapshots in Time – allows you to click a point on a graph to know exactly what was happing when your servers were acting up.

Currently, Server Density works with Linux servers but I’m told that Windows support will be coming. Be sure to read their FAQ.

Installing Server Density

Primarily, all that you need to install Server Density is access to your Linux distro (you don’t even need root access to install the agent). You simply install the monitoring agent and away you go. There is a great video that shows how to install on GoGrid specifically, using our API key/functionality to pull in all available servers (more details about Cloud support can be found in this blog post):

Installing the basic monitoring agent is very straightforward. The process is clearly documented within the Server Density Documentation section of their site. The only issues that I had was in setting up some of the more advanced monitors as I had to direct the traffic through a particular port (specific to the Apache monitoring). My issues had nothing to do with the install, but rather with the configuration of my server so that I could run the Apache monitoring through a particular port. The Server Density team provides great support in assisting you with configuration issues.

Using Server Density

Once you get Server Density installed and configured on your servers, the Agent will begin pushing out data about your server. There are a few ways that you can view your data: online and via an iPhone app (requires the paid version of the service).

Online Viewing & Management

When you log into your Service Density account, the first thing that you see is your dashboard which will list out any and all servers currently running (automatically refreshes every 60 seconds):

Also listed within the dashboard are the last 5 triggered events based on the alert thresholds you configure (you can see below that while I passed the threshold on “load average”, it wasn’t sustained long enough to have an alert sent – except for one case):

If you want to see each of the monitors in a graph form, simply click on the server and you will be presented with a variety of options, including but not limited to:

Load Average (when you mouse over a particular peak, you can see the values as well as drill down on that particular event):

Physical Memory (shows cached, free and used memory):

There are other graphs including: Processes, Swap Usage, Disk, Network Traffic, Apache Status, Nginx Status and MySQL Status (all depending on your configuration).

But the real power of the reporting comes when you want to troubleshoot a particular point in time. Simply click on a point on the graph, and you are given details around that particular snapshot:

Snapshot Overview (all of the stats right at that point in time):

Disk Usage, MySQL status and Network Traffic

The Top 4 CPU and Memory Processes at that point in time (mouse over shows details):

And a List of Processes running at that point in time:

Once you set up your monitoring, you can add a variety of Alerts that can be sent via SMS, Email or via iPhone Push Notification:

It’s easy to pause notification as well as set a “wait time” before a notification is sent. This is useful in preventing too many false positives from being sent. You can also configure an “All Clear” email to be sent. Similarly, you can set Alerts to only be delivered one time or on a pre-defined basis.

Server Density iPhone Application

Those customers who choose to pay for the monitoring also get access to a nifty iPhone app that pulls the data in real-time. Shaking your iPhone refreshes the data and there are a few fields that can be tapped to include additional measures (e.g., Disk Usage, Apache Status and Network Traffic):

All of the stats that are included in the web-dashboard are also included in the iPhone. If you rotate your iPhone, you can see detailed charts on a variety of metrics.

Alerts can be Paused and Started from the Alert tab and you can see the Last 5 Alerts that were triggered.

Do note that Server Density does say that you probably should NOT rely on iPhone Push Notification for critical Alerts because if you are in an area of no cell phone coverage and there are a series of alerts, it will only pull the latest alert.

Whether you use Server Density or another monitoring service to keep track of your server environments, the fact that you ARE monitoring is an important step!

What started as an idea over Twitter is now a fully built-out .NET community, all fully developed by Shannon. As he explains it: “Server Explorer is a social network for all of the adventurous people who administer their own web servers.  Everyone is welcome, and people of all skill levels are encouraged to join.  Amateur server admins will feel comfortable learning and asking questions on the site, while professional administrators have an opportunity to share knowledge and market their services.”

So, Shannon leveraged the open GoGrid API to create a fully integrated portal solution where developers can provision pre-defined Windows (.NET) and Linux servers on-the-fly. Behind the scenes, the servers being instantiated are simply private GSIs (GoGrid Server Images) that have been configured. As of the launch, there are several Windows Server 2003 and 2008 images available which are pre-configured with the following items:

• IIS, SMTP, Windows Firewall, and FTP are installed.
• All .NET framework versions are pre-installed with current patches (as of the image date)
• IIS Web Service Extensions are configured to Allow legacy ASP, .NET 1.1 and 2.0.
• PHP is installed and configured for IIS.
• URLRewrite is installed and configured.
• MySQL is installed.
• SQL Server 2008 management tools are installed.
• SQL Server 2008 Express is installed.
• FTP is setup and configured with special permissions by IP address.

When you use a ServerExplorer (GoGrid) image, you save a lot of time by not having to configure these basic .NET items. Also, ServerExplorer is providing a slightly less expensive pricepoint with 0.5 GB servers starting at around $25/month.

So why not go completely with ServerExplorer instead of GoGrid? Well, the environment is mainly targeted towards developers. Consequently, the only items available to ServerExplorer customers are the servers themselves. With GoGrid, you also get free f5 Load Balancing as well as Cloud Storage. GoGrid also provides a robust API (which ServerExplorer was built on), logging history, the ability to create and store MyGSIs and a variety of other functions. ServerExplorer simply provides the ability to create and deploy servers (with password and restart functionality). Below is a picture of the ServerExplorer Portal:

The ServerExplorer Client Area:

I recommend reviewing the Registration and Ordering page as well as the FAQ section for more details.

I spent some time with Shannon to discuss the launch of his site. The video is below as well as hosted on GoGrid’s YouTube Channel.

ServerExplorer is a prime example of what customers can do leveraging the GoGrid API, Private or Partner Server Images and a little bit of creativity and development knowledge. If you are using GoGrid in a similar way, I would love to know!

With New Relic’s RPM running on GoGrid, users can monitor many aspects of a Ruby, Java or JRuby application, detect performance problems and eventually drill down to uncover root causes of any performance issues. RPM also cleanly integrates with other development tools.

There are several RPM Service Plans available for GoGrid customers to choose from including:

• RPM Lite
• RPM Bronze
• RPM Silver
• RPM Gold
• RPM Enterprise

The graphic below clearly depicts the differences between each tier:

Do note that pricing varies based on the billing plan that you choose: Annual, Monthly or On Demand, as well as the number of hosts you choose to monitor. The pricing does NOT include the cost of using the GoGrid Cloud infrastructure. According to New Relic’s FAQs, installing of the RPM agent takes only a few minutes.

The RPM dashboard shows a wide range of data points including a snapshot of the health and availability of a customer’s managed applications including response time, errors and throughput. For a full overview of the RPM feature set, I recommend reading through their Feature Page.

The following Press Release was delivered today regarding the availability of the New Relic RPM application on GoGrid:

New Relic Teams with GoGrid to Deliver Superior-Performing Web Apps in the Cloud, on Dedicated Servers, or in Hybrid Environments

Customers taking advantage of GoGrid’s robust cloud infrastructure can use RPM to monitor, troubleshoot and tune Java and Ruby web applications.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) January 12, 2010 — New Relic, Inc., the leading software-as-a-service provider of application performance management solutions, and GoGrid, the Cloud Infrastructure Hosting service from ServePath Dedicated Hosting, today announced that New Relic RPM supports monitoring, troubleshooting and tuning of Java and Ruby web application deployed on GoGrid’s leading platform. Additionally, the companies announced that customers who select New Relic RPM to manage their GoGrid-hosted applications are eligible for preferential pricing.

With more than ten years of experience in enterprise-level data center hosting, GoGrid applies a unique understanding of uptime, security, and service level agreements to its public cloud offering. GoGrid goes beyond existing public cloud offerings by providing Hybrid hosting solutions that privately connect cloud front-ends with dedicated back-end infrastructures, as well as the ability to create and store customer images (MyGSIs). New Relic RPM is a leading on-demand application performance management that operates seamlessly in both cloud and dedicated server environments, making it uniquely suited to monitor, troubleshoot and tune web applications deployed on GoGrid’s cloud or hybrid infrastructures.

“Organizations taking advantage of GoGrid’s multi-tier cloud-computing platform have high expectations for performance and reliability,” said John Keagy, Co-Founder and CEO of GoGrid. “Working with New Relic to add application performance management as a complement to our robust infrastructure provides our customers with the very best combined solution for deploying and managing applications that successfully meet business needs.”

“As more and more companies deploy their applications with GoGrid, it’s especially important that they have a single performance management solution that they can use on-premise, in the cloud, and in hybrid environments,” said Bill Lapcevic, New Relic’s vice president of business development. “New Relic RPM is the only enterprise-class application management tool delivered as a service, and that automatically offers the same monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities for web applications deployed on both virtual and dedicated servers. Its a perfect fit for GoGrid’s customers.”

As part of the partnership between GoGrid and New Relic, GoGrid customers are eligible for a preferred partner discount on RPM pricing and a complementary trial of RPM Gold premium service. To take advantage of preferred pricing, GoGrid customers can visit New Relic’s GoGrid partner page, select a subscription level, then sign up for RPM. Discounts will be applied automatically.

About GoGrid
GoGrid is a leading Cloud Infrastructure Hosting provider that delivers true “Control in the Cloud™”. GoGrid enables sysadmins, developers, IT professionals and SaaS vendors to create, deploy, and control free f5 load balanced cloud servers and complex hosted virtual server networks with full root access and administrative server control which includes personal server images (known as MyGSIs). GoGrid server instances maintain the industry standard specifications with no requirement to learn and adapt to proprietary standards. Bringing up servers and server networks takes minutes via a unique, award winning web control panel or GoGrid’s API. GoGrid delivers portal controlled servers for Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, SQL Server, and ASP.NET, as well as multiple Linux server operating systems like RHEL and CentOS. GoGrid gives users the control of a familiar datacenter environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud, a “cloudcenter.” To learn more, visit www.gogrid.com.

About New Relic RPM™
New Relic RPM is an on-demand performance management solution for web applications developed in Ruby, Java or JRuby. New Relic RPM is fully implemented in minutes and provides deep, 24×7 visibility and code-level diagnostics for web applications deployed on traditional, dedicated infrastructures, private and public clouds, or any combination thereof. RPM’s real-time metrics enable application owners, developers and operations teams to quickly and cost effectively monitor, troubleshoot, and tune application performance. To learn more about RPM and to subscribe, visit www.newrelic.com/get-RPM.html.

About New Relic®
New Relic, Inc. is the leading software-as-a-service provider of application performance management solutions that enable developers and operations teams to quickly and cost effectively monitor, troubleshoot, and tune application performance in real time. More than 3,200 organizations use New Relic RPM to monitor and optimize more than 35,000 production application instances, including customers 37signals, CSC, Getty Images, GitHub, Hot Topic Stores, Juniper Networks, Intuit, Linked In, Liz Claiborne, OurStage, Shopify, and Simon and Schuster; and partners Amazon AWS, Blue Box Group, Brightbox, Engine Yard, GoGrid, Heroku, Red Hat, RightScale, Stax Networks and VMware. New Relic is a private company headquartered in San Francisco, California, USA. To learn more about New Relic, visit www.newrelic.com/get-RPM.html“>www.newrelic.com.

New Relic is also extending some Preferred Pricing for GoGrid customers. If you have questions about the signup or installation process, I recommend contacting New Relic directly. To sign up, simply choose the RPM level you want on the GoGrid/New Relic page and then fill out the form.

Their offering, called VPN-Cubed, comes in two free versions currently on GoGrid (with a paid version coming soon):

• VPN-Cubed for GoGrid SSL Free Edition – Users launch one or two VPN-Cubed Manager GSI(s) and “plug” up to 10 server instances into the resulting encrypted network inside of GoGrid. Users can specify subnet address each connected instance and all communication between the connected devices and the Manager is encrypted.
• VPN-Cubed for GoGrid IPsec Free Edition – Users launch a single VPN-Cubed Manger/IPsec Gateway GSI and “plug” up to 5 server instances into the resulting encrypted network inside of GoGrid. In addition to subnet control and communication encryption inside of GoGrid, users can connect the overlay network to their existing in-house infrastructure via a secure IPsec Tunnel. There is support for a wide range of IPsec extranet devices.

These Partner Images are now available within GoGrid:

Through the use of VPN-Cubed, GoGrid users get:

• Static addressing for GoGrid infrastructure
• Topology control by using VPN-Cubed Managers as virtual switches, virtual bridges or virtual routers
• The use of popular enterprise protocols like UDP Multicast for service discovery
• Encrypted communications between all configured GoGrid infrastructure
• Encrypted communications between GoGrid and existing external infrastructure (IPsec version only)

Below is a video explanation of what VPN-Cubed can do for your Cloud Infrastructure:

More information about VPN-Cubed SSL is available within the GoGrid Exchange page for CohesiveFT as well as on CohesiveFT’s VPN-Cubed SSL to Cloud page.