Behind Your Business

Scottsdale, Arizona – (The Hosting News) – June 10, 2009 – Web hosting domain registrar, GoDaddy.com, recently testified in front of a Congressional subcommittee about the critical need for a continued relationship between the U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Go Daddy’s General Counsel and Corporate Secretary Christine N. Jones strongly urged the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet to renew, or at the very least extend, the Joint Partnership Agreement (JPA) between NTIA and ICANN. The JPA is currently scheduled to sunset September 30.

Ms. Jones testified, ”ICANN is responsible for an important public trust,” noting significant concerns about ICANN’s lack of transparency and accountability. ICANN was created 12 years ago to administer a globally acceptable Web address system. While Go Daddy acknowledges ICANN has made progress in achieving some of its original goals, the company feels there is much more to be accomplished before the U.S. Commerce Department recommends ICANN operate independent of NTIA oversight.

A majority of subcommittee members noted their shared concerns about allowing the JPA to sunset.

At one point during the hearing, Counsel Jones was asked by Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona about Go Daddy’s transparency concerns of ICANN. Ms. Jones noted the lack of open meetings held by the ICANN Board and accused ICANN of ”stonewalling” registrars who request board meeting transcripts. ICANN’s CEO Paul Twomey, Ph.D., disagreed with Ms. Jones’ assessment. His retort, however, did not appear to allay the subcommittee’s concerns.

The security of the Internet was also a high priority at this hearing, as it is for the current White House administration. President Obama is keenly aware of the extraordinary dangers a compromised Internet would cause to national defense and the world’s economy. Those concerns led to his announcement last week of a ”cyber-security czar” to help protect the nation’s crucial telecom infrastructure and information systems.

As the world’s largest domain name registrar and a leader globally in both web site hosting and eCommerce, Go Daddy worries about many of the same issues. The company believes strongly that, without NTIA oversight, ICANN may be vulnerable to ”capture by another government, international organization, or business that does not have a secure and stable Internet as its top priority,” declared Ms. Jones at the hearing.

Go Daddy also believes the JPA between the U.S. Department of Commerce and ICANN is a critical ingredient for a safe and secure Internet. Ms. Jones added, ”It is essential for both international commerce and the security and stability of the Internet that the relationship between the NTIA and ICANN continue.”

This is not the first time Go Daddy has headed for Capitol Hill in defense of a safer and more secure Internet. Just last year, Go Daddy worked tirelessly to help pass two new federal laws – one protecting children from online sexual predators – and a second, providing web companies with much-needed tools to take illegitimate Internet pharmacies offline.

In addition to its work in Washington, Go Daddy donates generously to charity. In 2008, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company gifted $1.7MM to charities which help the less fortunate. Go Daddy employs more than 2,100 people and operates offices in Scottsdale, Gilbert and Tempe, Ariz., as well as Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Denver, Colo. and Washington, D.C. The Internet giant has more than 6.6MM customers and 35MM domains under management. The company offers 50+ products to enhance Web sites for individuals and online entrepreneurs and is also known for its industry-best 24/7 personalized customer service.

GoDaddy is a provider of services designed to enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. GoDaddy provides a variety of domain name registration plans and web site design and hosting packages, as well as a broad array of on-demand services. These include products such as SSL Certificates, Domains by Proxy private registration, ecommerce web site hosting, blog templates and blog software, podcast packages and online photo hosting. The GoDaddy Group, Inc. has more than 34 million domain names under management. GoDaddy registers, renews or transfers a domain name every second. GoDaddy.com is the world’s No. 1 domain name registrar according to Name Intelligence, Inc. GoDaddy.com is also the largest paid hosting provider in the world, according to Netcraft Ltd. During 2007, The GoDaddy Group registered more than one-third of all domain names registered in the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .mobi.

To learn more about Go Daddy, please visit: www.godaddy.com.

Dallas, Texas – (The Hosting News) – June 10, 2009 – Several new features have been recently added to the launched CloudLayer line of cloud services at SoftLayer. Key among these is hourly billing for CloudLayer Computing instances.

Nathan Day, Chief Technology Officer for SoftLayer offered, ”Our CloudLayer suite provides comprehensive and powerful on-demand computing resources. With the addition of these new service features, our customers have an even finer degree of scalability at their disposal.”

Now available is:

• 1 Core -$0.15/hour
• 2 Core -$0.25/hour
• 4 Core -$0.35/hour
• 8 Core -$0.50/hour

  Outbound bandwidth usage will be charged at $0.10 per GB. As with all SoftLayer computing services, inbound and private network bandwidth is a free service.

Also added was the capability for customers to instantly upgrade computing instances via the company’s industry-leading, proprietary Customer Portal. The following can be upgraded:

• Core and RAM
• Uplink port speed (no reboot required)
• Bandwidth allocation (no reboot required)
• Additional disks

  The upgrades are processed automatically and take only a few minutes to complete. While ordering their upgrade, customers are given the option to specify a time for the upgrade to occur.

CloudLayer was released early last month and includes CloudLayer Computing instances, CloudLayer Storage, and CloudLayer CDN. Each is available as a standalone service, or can be integrated with SoftLayer dedicated servers and automated services to create a unified computing environment. CloudLayer provides a wide-range of benefits, including:

• Pay As You Go or Monthly Packages: Monthly billing is based on hourly usage or monthly plans with no long-term commitment, letting customers optimize their return on technology investment by paying only for the resources they need and use. Hourly billing will be offered in the near future.
• Immediate Scalability: Services are added in real time to accommodate unexpected or temporary changes in demand, providing exactly the level of IT power and capacity as needed, when needed.
• Ease of Use and Control: Full control via SoftLayer’s Customer Portal and API provides streamlined, simplified management, as well as direct access to all SoftLayer services and tools.

Headquartered in Plano, Texas, SoftLayer delivers world-class, on-demand virtual data center services on a global basis from facilities located in Dallas, TX; Seattle, WA; and Washington, DC. SoftLayer integrates all facets of IT to innovate industry-leading solutions that are fully automated. This empowers customers with complete control, security, scalability, and ease-of-management for their IT environment.

For more information, please visit: www.softlayer.com.

Pasadena, California – (The Hosting News) – June 10, 2009 -
DiscountASP.NET, an ASP.NET hosting and SQL hosting company, has received the ”Best ASP.NET Hosting Service” award in The Code Project’s first annual members choice awards, by one of the world’s largest online developer communities.

Jeff Hadfield, president of The Code Project (USA) remarked, ”The Members Choice Awards reflect the diversity and depth of the tools available to today’s professional developer. While there is still a robust collection of UI controls as there has been since the advent of visual programming, today’s array of tools encompass multiple platforms, tiers and stages of the development process. Kudos to the winners, and congratulations to the development community: the ultimate beneficiaries of these excellent products.”
 

The Code Project members were asked to rate their favorite ASP.NET services, software, and tools in over 30 categories. The award winners were the highest ranked in each product category. Since, The Code Project members decide which companies or products deserve recognition based on their experience, the results reflect the actual perceptions of what the developer community values.
 
Takeshi Eto, VP Marketing and Business Development at DiscountASP.NET offered, ”We are extremely grateful to The Code Project member community for their support. The announcement has energized our team. We are committed to providing innovative ASP.NET hosting solutions.”

  
 
The Code Project is one of the largest development communities in the world, comprised of involved professional developers, development managers, and architects. An industry-leading community since 1999, The Code Project has reached over six million registered members since its inception. Developers worldwide contribute quality, how-to articles about all aspects of development, including Windows, web and server projects. Over 3.4 million developers visit the site each month to access its lively discussion boards and more than 23,000 articles, complete with source code and examples.

 DiscountASP.NET is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a global leader in Microsoft Windows shared hosting, focused on providing the best value in hosting and SQL database hosting. DiscountASP.NET is one of the first to offer Windows 2008 hosting, IIS7 hosting, SQL 2008 hosting and ASP.NET MVC hosting. Through strong word-of-mouth and their commitment to ASP.NET and SQL technology, DiscountASP.NET has become the choice for affordable and feature-rich ASP.NET web hosting.
 
  To more about The Code Project, please visit: www.codeproject.com

For more information, please visit: www.DiscountASP.NET

Los Angeles, California – (The Hosting News) – June 9, 2009 – Data center operator and managed services provider, Colocation America, has begun a preferred vendor relationship with provider of high-end server hardware, server parts, storage solutions, and data center equipment, This Old Store.

Michael Goldberg, vice president of sales and marketing for Colocation America Corporation remarked, ”Businesses of all sizes rely on Colocation America to deliver reliable, affordable, and scalable hosting solutions. Meeting these sacrosanct commitments requires access to quality and competitively-priced hardware. For more than two years This Old Store has enabled us to deliver on the promises we make to our clients, and today we are taking our relationship to the next level.”

Operating from a climate-controlled 15,000 square feet warehouse in Sarasota, Fla., This Old Store stocks a wide array of inventory and can turn-around orders within minutes, helping to assure fast delivery of replacement parts or equipment when needed. As its preferred vendor, Colocation America purchases the vast majority of its servers and data center equipment from the company, and receives dedicated support and volume discounts.

Stephen Jaynes, vice president of This Old Store added, ”As one of the industry’s most recognized managed services provider, Colocation America is fueled by a supply of world-class hardware and data center equipment. Our commitment to both quality and low-prices has helped make This Old Store a natural trading partner with Colocation America. We’re excited to continue this mutually beneficial relationship for years to come.”

Colocation America helps its customers maximize their technology investments and Internet presence through flexible, cost-effective and robust infrastructure hosting and management. The company is California’s leading data center operator and managed services provider and enjoys unmatched geographic diversity, vast technical and engineering expertise, and one of the industry’s strongest financial positions.

Colocation America is a leading managed services provider, offering world-class colocation and transit solutions for organizations of all sizes, from small businesses to enterprises and government. Colocation America maintains its primary datacenter in the world-famous ”One Wilshire” building in Los Angeles, featuring broad access to transit providers and redundant design. Through strategic partnerships, the company also boasts presence in dozens of private data facilities throughout the United States, including in Arizona, California, New York, Washington, and Virginia.

For more information, please visit: www.colocationamerica.com.

Houston, Texas – (The Hosting News) – June 9, 2009 – BreakThisRecord.com, headquartered in Kent, Washington, has selected The Planet’s Northstar Managed Hosting platform for its IT infrastructure.

Steve Kahan, vice president of marketing and product management for The Planet explained, ”Businesses of all sizes rely on Northstar and its Anticipation Advantage methodology. With its prescriptive methodology, customers plan their IT infrastructure to accommodate their long-term business goals without having to purchase more servers than they need. Plans are evaluated quarterly with the Northstar team to be certain they’re ready for the next growth phase.”

The free challenge web site extends opportunities for anyone – from individuals, schools or even groups and clubs – to post videos, establish their own personal records and defy others to best the performance. Co-founded by Jeff Huffman and Jesse Prohn, the two entrepreneurs kicked around numerous ideas as they looked for ways to engage their children to become more active and less interested in video games.

Mr. Huffman explained, ”We wanted a fun, clean and safe place for our kids, but also for anyone from 1 to 99 to have some fun. We envision schools using BreakThisRecord, with their logos and school colors, to post events on their own dedicated pages. They can conduct not only physical challenges, but also academic contests.”

Mr. Prohn added, ”Jeff and I are both in the construction industry, so technology is a not one of our core competencies. We needed technical advice on servers, software and architecture, and the Northstar services were key in our decision making. They simplified the process for us and laid out a plan for our growth. The team is fast and reliable, and we don’t have to worry. We can focus on building interest in the site.”

Jesse Prohn and Jeff Huffman are hard-working and competitive entrepreneurs, both with an interest in their construction business. Mulling plans for establishing new opportunities, the two discussed the fact that they missed the competitive physical activities of their youth. They surfaced the idea of competitive challenges, and Prohn credits Huffman with taking the next steps to make BreakThisRecord.com a reality. Core to both was that it should be a family-friendly site that offered good, clean fun.

The two tapped a friend with deep technical expertise to help. From there, they decided that hosting was the best option since it meant they didn’t have to buy servers or manage the IT infrastructure on their own.

Mr. Prohn added, ”We’re both raising families, so we have fewer opportunities to compete. I can’t go out and play basketball like I used to do, and that’s how the idea came about. We both liked it, but it was Jeff who initiated what came next.”

As their ideas evolved, they both agreed they wanted to combine fun and humor. Today, the site provides a wide array of challenges, from the largest elk antler ever found; the best time on eating a can of Vienna sausages; and even the best rainbow caught on a camcorder. They also offer prizes every month, including new Flip video cameras, for the best entry.

Mr. Huffman added, ”Not every entry goes up. We monitor the site around-the-clock to keep it clean and safe. If we deem it’s not right for the audience we’re targeting, it just doesn’t go up.”

The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 20,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 17.1 million Web sites worldwide. Customers have the power to choose from the broadest range of hosting solutions in the industry, from dedicated servers, Managed Dedicated Servers, Northstar Managed Hosting and data center colocation, all backed by 24x7x365 support. With the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class service, backed by state-of-the-art data centers and an enterprise-class network, The Planet turns IT into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to grow their businesses.

For additional information, please visit: www.theplanet.com.