Softlayer News – DALLAS — SoftLayer Technologies today announced the appointment of Walter Z. Berger as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), effective in March. A seasoned finance and accounting executive, Mr. Berger will help guide and oversee the company’s continued market leadership and financial growth. He brings more than 30 years of experience to SoftLayer, including extensive operational experience as a CFO with several large, publicly held companies.

“Bringing Walter on board amplifies and extends the deep base of experience and expertise of our executive management team,” said Lance Crosby, CEO for SoftLayer. “His proven track record and leadership will be invaluable as we embark on our next phase of growth. We’re delighted to have such a high caliber executive join our team.”

Prior to joining SoftLayer Technologies, Mr. Berger was the CFO and executive vice president of Leap Wireless International Inc. From 2006 to 2008, Mr. Berger served in senior management roles at CBS Corporation, including as executive vice president and chief financial officer for CBS Radio, a division of CBS Corporation. Prior to joining CBS Radio, Mr. Berger served as executive vice president and CFO and a director of Emmis Communications from 1999 to 2005. From 1996 to 1997, Mr. Berger served as executive vice president and CFO of LG&E Energy Corporation and in 1997 was promoted to group president of the Energy Marketing Division, where he served until 1999. Early in his career, Mr. Berger held a number of financial and operating management roles in the manufacturing, service and energy fields. Mr. Berger began his career in audit at Arthur Andersen in 1977. Mr. Berger is a certified public accountant and holds a Bachelor of Arts in business administration from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

About SoftLayer Technologies
Headquartered in Dallas, SoftLayer operates a global cloud infrastructure platform built for Internet scale. Spanning 13 data centers in the United States, Asia and Europe and a global footprint of network points of presence, SoftLayer’s modular architecture provides unparalleled performance and control, with a full-featured API and sophisticated automation controlling a flexible platform that seamlessly spans physical and virtual devices, and a global network for secure, low-latency communications. With 100,000 servers under management, SoftLayer is the largest privately-held infrastructure-as-a-service provider in the world with a portfolio of 25,000 leading-edge customers from Web startups to global enterprises. For more information, please visit www.softlayer.com or call 1.866.398.7638.

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Forethought News – DENVER, CO – Many business owners continue to be wary of cloud computing and question its reliability, its benefits, and its true costs. In response, FORETHOUGHT.net has launched SilverLining™, an enterprise-level cloud computing solution with redundant back-up, fault tolerance and disaster recovery services. Scalable to customer needs, the suite of services frees companies to focus on their business, not their technology.

“With our solution, businesses can have the infrastructure of a Fortune 500 corporation without the overhead and costs associated with it,” says Jawaid Bazyar, president of FORETHOUGHT.net. “We developed SilverLining to provide our customers with a full-service voice and data solution that saves them hundreds or thousands of dollars a month. It’s hard enough to run a company without worrying about technology. It is our goal to make complex technology decisions simple.”

SilverLining provides secure, reliable, flexible, Fortune-500 Enterprise Grade IT services for any size organization without the upfront investment and overhead. SilverLining supports email services, colocation, data backup, virtual desktops, bandwidth-intensive databases, website hosting, and more. Highly flexible, most SilverLining services can be scaled on the fly without disruption to business. Services are customized so that companies only pay for what they need. Cloud computing provides access to data and voice solutions anywhere, anytime with just an Internet connection and ensures business continuity in the face of adverse events.

“Many businesses still don’t understand the benefits of cloud computing. Because of that, they may be spending too much money on an infrastructure that requires constant hardware updates and replacements,” Bazyar says. “With cloud computing, businesses can even turn their old computers into thin clients with a simple Internet connection.”

Powered by VMWare Enterprise License, FORETHOUGHT.net provides customers with money-saving solutions for a secure, fault-tolerant IT infrastructure as a service (IaaS) without capital expenditures or repetitive hardware upgrade cycles. In addition to cloud computing, the company offers hosted VoIP PBX business phone solutions, Internet connectivity with speeds as high as 100M up and down, and fax services.

For more than 17 years, businesses in the Denver area have trusted the company to serve their technology needs with a high level of technical expertise, security, reliability, and responsiveness. To learn more or to get a quote, visit www.forethought.net/silverlining

About FORETHOUGHT.net
Since 1995, FORETHOUGHT.net is a leading locally owned and operated IT and communications service provider, offering a portfolio of enterprise-level cloud-computing, Internet, voice and data solutions so you can focus on your business, not your technology. Established in 1995, FORETHOUGHT.net helps small and mid-size businesses grow through superior high-performance technology, scalable services and world-class support at a fraction of the expense of traditional models. The company’s commitment to the highest level of technical expertise, security, reliability and responsiveness results in high client loyalty and satisfaction. The Denver Business Journal ranked FORETHOUGHT.net as a Top 15 Telecommunications Company and a Top 15 Internet Service Provider. ColoradoBIZ Magazine listed it as one of Colorado’s Top 250 Private Companies. BBB.org accredited A+ member.

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UK2 News – London, England – UK2.net recently unveiled their new range of lightning fast dedicated servers to the hosting market. The updated servers offer improved speed, storage and power across the board and will see them competing to be market leaders in what is already a fiercely competitive industry. The plan was to have the upgrade work finished before the summer but UK2 have completed the upgrade and have already launched their new range.

The top of the range server, the impressive UK2G3200, comes with all the bells and whistles including; 2x Xeon Six Core 2.4 Ghz, 32GB DDR3, 4x 1TB HD SATA in RAID 10 and a 1Gbit connection with 100TB Bandwidth and starts at a reasonable £269 / month. The rest of the server range has also been upgraded and these start from only £49 / month. The full range of dedicated servers can be found here.

Martin Baker, Managing Director, commented on the new servers: “We are constantly researching ways to improve the overall quality of our products which will help to maximise our clients hosting potential. These upgrades are testamount to that and offer improved reliability, faster speeds and more power per unit across the board.”

UK2 are confident the updated server specifications will be well received within the hosting industry and it is clear that they have once again raised the bar and set a new standard for other hosts to follow.

“The new specs are impressive. The servers are now more powerful and faster than they have ever been and we have no doubt they will exceed expectations,” Martin concluded.

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Online Tech News – Ann Arbor, Michigan – Cogitate, Inc., a provider of online backup services including the 9G BACKUP™ solution, has recently partnered with Online Tech for colocation services. Online Tech, the Midwest’s premier data center operator, offers Cogitate a local, cost-effective solution for their online backup services.

As Cogitate was preparing to launch their new 9G BACKUP™ product in October 2011, the company needed to find a local and cost-effective data center. “One of Online Tech’s data centers was located close to our company employees and had a good price point. We decided that Online Tech would be our best choice for our first data center location,” said George Loescher, President of Cogitate, Inc.

By using Online Tech colocation services, Cogitate does not have IT capital costs of building and managing a high availability, secure data center. Cogitate leverages Online Tech’s uninterruptible power, network and AC infrastructure at Online Tech’s fully redundant data centers. Cogitate benefits from Online Tech’s legacy of compliance, including independent SAS 70 Type II, SSAE 16 Type II, SOC 2, HIPAA and PCI audits to ensure security, privacy, and availability of their clients’ data.

“We looked for a data center partner that could easily grow with our business, that we could easily add new machines and add new services as time goes on. Online Tech provided a very flexible plan for our colocation solution,” states Loescher.

About Online Tech
Online Tech is the leader in secure and compliant hosting services including private cloud hosting, managed cloud hosting, hybrid cloud hosting, managed dedicated servers, disaster recovery and offsite backup services, and Michigan colocation. Online Tech’s legacy of independent HIPAA, PCI, SAS 70 Type II, SSAE 16 Type II (SOC 1), SOC 2, and SOC 3 audits and reports ensures the security, privacy, and availability expected of a trusted service organization.

About Cogitate, Inc.
Cogitate, Inc. has been producing award winning software solutions including quality accounting software and utility billing software for governmental agencies and private industry for over 40 years. Recently, Cogitate has released 9G BACKUP™ setting itself apart from other online backup solutions through its adaptive compression, choice algorithm technology, dual geographic storage locations, and multiple version saving features. For more information, visit www.9gbackup.com.

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Web Hosting News – RENTON, WA — Parallels®, the hosting and cloud services enablement leader, today announced the finalists for its Third Annual Partner Awards. Winners will be officially announced and recognized at Parallels Summit 2012, February 14-16, 2012, at the Gaylord Palms Hotel and Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Anticipation for the event continues to build, as more than 1,500 attendees, from leading hosting companies, communication service providers, independent software vendors (ISVs), value-added resellers (VARs), technology industry analysts and journalists will converge in Orlando for the three-day conference. Parallels Summit 2012 is an unrivaled opportunity to build relationships with the leading players in hosting, while gaining valuable strategies for selling, upselling, reselling, bundling and delivering a wide range of profitable cloud services to Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs), the fastest growing segment in cloud adoption.

The Parallels Partner Awards recognize outstanding yearly achievements by partners who utilize and innovate with Parallels products, solutions, services and ecosystem to increase their revenue, with special attention given to those partners who have excelled in the rapidly-expanding small and medium business (SMB) cloud services market.

“Parallels Partner Awards distinguish the most innovative and successful hosters, service providers and ISVs,” said Jack Zubarev, President of Marketing and Alliances at Parallels. “The nominated organizations have not only positioned themselves well for future growth through their operational strategies, but also demonstrate the advantages of partnering with Parallels and our unmatched combination of expertise, software and ecosystem.”

The award categories and 2011 finalists are:

New Partner of the Year – A partner whose first year in the Parallels Partner Program is highlighted by strong revenue growth and innovative use of Parallels products.

Finalists:
Elabs; Limestone Networks; UPC Broadband

Excellence in Innovation – A partner who has demonstrated innovative use of Parallels technologies in the areas of services, marketing and technical creativity.

Finalists:
Apptix; Otsuka Corporation; Outsourcery

APS ISV/Service of the Year – An Independent Software Vendor (ISV) who has utilized the Application Packaging Standard (APS) to deliver a cloud-based application on the Parallels platform, providing a stellar end-user experience and driving accelerated run-rate growth for Parallels Service Provider Partners.

Finalists:
Ecwid; MXSweep; Symantec

Excellence in Shared Web Hosting Services and Parallels Plesk Panel – A partner that exemplifies a strong commitment to Parallels Plesk Panel technology as demonstrated by: success and creativity in shared web hosting; a strong and growing base of satisfied customers; and deep knowledge and expertise in Parallels products.

Finalists:
Hostalia; MostHost; ViUX Systems

Excellence in Messaging & Collaboration Services and Parallels Automation – A partner that illustrates a strong commitment to Parallels Automation technology through successful and creative deployments of Messaging & Collaboration services, as demonstrated by a strong and growing base of satisfied customers.

Finalists:
KPN; Netstream AG; Ride Co., Ltd

Excellence in Virtualized Infrastructure Services and Virtualization – A partner that has demonstrated commitment to Parallels Virtualization through successful and creative Virtualized Infrastructure Services, resulting in a vibrant and growing base of satisfied customers.

Finalists:
Ipeer AB; KickassVPS.com; ServInt

Emerging Region Partner of the Year – A partner in an emerging market with a strong commitment to Parallels products combined with demonstrated growth and an increased base of satisfied customers.

Finalists:
Kazakhtelecom; MTN Cameroon; PacHosting; UOL Diveo

Cloud Leadership Award – Signifies a partner who has demonstrated leadership in the cloud space, based on their innovative use of Parallels technologies for the delivery of cloud applications and services.

Finalists:
AppRiver; intergenia AG; UberGlobal

President’s Award – A distinguished partner among the Parallels Partner community that has created significant business and market impact; exemplifies high-level commitment to delivering Parallels products and services to customers; and sustains a high level of sales and customer growth, customer satisfaction and innovation.

Finalists:
GMO US; HostEurope; LocaWeb

There’s still time to register Parallels Summit 2012. To register, and for information about the agenda, training and certification sessions, please visit http://www.parallels.com/summit/2012/.About Parallels

Parallels is a worldwide leader in hosting and cloud service enablement and desktop virtualization. Founded in 1999, Parallels is a fast-growing company with more than 800 employees in North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, please visitwww.parallels.com/sp, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ParallelsCloud and Like Us on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/ParallelsCloud.

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Web Hosting News – Houston, TX – AvaHost.net hosting provider doubled the parameters for their VPS hosting: instead of 512 Mb RAM and 40 Gb hard drive storage the customer will get 1024 Mb of RAM and 80 Gb of disk at the same price.

VPS hosting accounts from AvaHost.Net provide the full root-access to the virtual server of the customer. Due to this the user has access to the advanced options. The installation of additional software, modules and services is available also.

The updated VPS account will provide user with 2.4 Ghz CPU power, 1024 Mb RAM, 80 Gb of disc storage, 1.200 Gb of traffic and up to 3 IP-addresses.

VPS Hosting is usually used for the traffic-intensive Web sites. It is also perfect for the Web sites which require a more powerful configuration. With the full root access it is easy to manage the server. VPS Hosting can be used for a wide variety of purposes, including reselling, Java applications, C/C++ and other.

Daniel Hart, the Head of AvaHost Business Development, said that VPS web hosting is a good solution for the Web sites with a lot of traffic, as well as for the customers who need a flexible server configuration, which is not available in the shared hosting. “VPS hosting is a perfect alternative to the dedicated server, but it comes with better price. AvaHost regularly upgrades the servers. We offer our customers more options for the same price.”

About AvaHost
Since 2001, AvaHost has been established in the web hosting industry by providing reliable service and support, and the best web hosting solutions, for personal Web sites and small-to-medium sized businesses.For the last years AvaHost received the following prestigious awards from the well-known hosting business Web sites: #1 Fastest Growing Company, Reseller Hosting of the Month, #1 Budget Hosting, etc.

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Q9 News – TORONTO – Q9 Networks (Q9) is pleased to announce that it has been selected by NYSE Technologies, the commercial technology unit of NYSE Euronext (NYX), to host a Secure Financial Transaction Infrastructure (SFTI®) access centre. The agreement will extend the SFTI backbone into Q9′s Toronto data centre, enabling Canadian customers to directly access services over the global capital markets network.

Created for the financial services community in 2002, SFTI is built to facilitate large quantities of electronic quotes, trades and market data traffic while ensuring reliable, ultra-low latency access to NYSE Euronext’s markets and other global trading venues and firms, including more than 1,300 market participants.

Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, Q9 is providing NYSE Technologies with secure and redundant physical infrastructure in one of its high-availability data centres.

With this new installation, financial services customers within the Q9 data centre will be able to cross-connect into a suite of low-latency trading services available on SFTI. Customers outside of the facility will also be able to receive SFTI services by connecting into the Q9 access centre.

“Co-locating in Q9′s state-of-the-art data centre further strengthens the reach and connectivity of the SFTI global trading network,” says Don Brook, Head of Infrastructure, NYSE Technologies. “Q9 has attracted a strong base of trading firms, including a number of SFTI customers that will benefit from even greater market access, reduced connectivity costs and enhanced performance through this new access centre.”

Q9 designs, builds and operates its data centres to meet the most demanding IT infrastructure requirements, including the increased power and cooling demands of today’s high density computing devices. Customers connect to the Internet via Q9′s unique network and are protected by Q9′s 100 per cent, SLA-backed uptime guarantees on both power and network availability. Customer equipment and data centre environmental parameters are monitored 7×24 by Q9′s Control Centre, staffed by experts versed in all aspects of IT and facilities management.

“We are very pleased to be hosting the NYSE Technologies’ SFTI network at Q9,” says Q9 Chief Executive Officer, Osama Arafat. “Our reputation for security and reliability has been instrumental in establishing us as the data centre provider of choice for Canada’s financial community. With this announcement, we further extend that reputation and enable Canadian market participants to take advantage of direct access to NYSE Technologies’ high-quality, low-latency trading network.”

About NYSE Technologies
A division of NYSE Euronext (NYX), NYSE Technologies provides broadly accessible, comprehensive connectivity and transaction capabilities, data and infrastructure services, and managed solutions for a range of customers requiring next-generation performance and expertise for mission critical and value-added trading services. NYSE Technologies offers a diverse array of products, services and solutions to: the Buy Side, including order routing, liquidity discovery and access to a community of over 630 Broker-Dealers and execution destinations globally; the Sell Side, including high performance, end-to-end messaging software and innovative market data products delivered on the world’s largest, most reliable financial transaction network; and Market Venues and Exchanges, including multi-asset exchange platform services, managed services and expert consultancy. With offices across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, NYSE Technologies offers advanced integrated solutions for the global capital markets community, earning the ability to power trading operations for many of the world’s best financial institutions and exchanges. For additional information visit: http://nysetechnologies.nyx.com

About Q9 Networks
Q9 Networks is Canada’s leading provider of outsourced data centre infrastructure for organizations with mission-critical IT operations. Q9′s 11 data centres and network are backed by an industry leading SLA that guarantees 100 per cent network and power availability. Q9 services, including: co-location, bandwidth, dedicated servers, firewalls, load balancing, virtual private networking (VPN) and back-up/restore, enable the rapid provisioning and scalability of client infrastructure. Q9 is backed by ABRY Partners, one of the most experienced and successful media, communications and information services focused private investment firms in North America, having completed over $21 billion of investments since 1989.

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Nexcess News – Ann Arbor, MI – Nexcess, a Michigan-based managed hosting company with specialized solutions in Magento and WordPress hosting, has announced a new enterprise line of managed server clusters that are uniquely optimized for WordPress-based web sites.

This brand new set of hosting solutions for WordPress cluster hosting has been built from the ground up, and rooted in the same technologies that power the company’s more basic WordPress-Optimized Blog Platform (WP-OBP) hosting environment. The Nexcess WordPress cluster is expected to offer site owners the same level of performance optimization that Nexcess’ entry-level WordPress hosting clients enjoy, with added benefits in scalability, reliability through increased redundancy, and potential for higher system resource availability to combat unpredictable patterns in blog traffic.

“Popular blogs need some big server muscle behind them to keep performance at a maximum. That fact made this the logical next step for our special WordPress product line,” commented Chris Wells, President & CEO of Nexcess, “For the ever-growing number of epic blogging success stories out there, we’ve crafted solutions that have virtually limitless traffic growth potential.”

WordPress site owners should realize that design of the Nexcess managed WordPress cluster differs significantly from traditional managed cluster hosting. Bloggers utilizing these services will benefit from server configurations that are highly tuned towards WordPress’ needs. They will also receive a system that utilizes APC caching and the Nexcess CDN, which will dramatically improve site speeds over more traditional web hosting. This comes in addition to more traditional server cluster features, including such security perks as hardware firewall appliances and the removal of database services from the public Internet.

For more information on the Nexcess managed WordPress cluster, visit: www.nexcess.net/wordpress-enterprise-hosting

About Nexcess
Nexcess is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based managed hosting company founded in 2000, with wholly-owned data centers located in Dearborn, and Southfield, Michigan (opening sometime this quarter). Nexcess offers a variety of hosting services ranging from entry-level packages to specially-catered clustered/complex configurations, with an emphasis on mission-critical hosting for high-profile eCommerce web sites. For more information, visit www.nexcess.net or call +1.866.639.2377.

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Equinix News – REDWOOD CITY, CA — Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), a provider of global data center services, today announced that it is the first company in the Americas to receive the new Management and Operations ‘Stamp of Approval’ Award from the Uptime Institute. This designation recognizes data center companies that are especially proficient at addressing management risks and sustaining data center uptime. Equinix was a key member of the Uptime Institute’s M&O Coalition that developed the assessment criteria for its new Management and Operations (M&O) Program and Site Assessment Service, also announced today.

The Uptime Institute Management and Operations (M&O) Program provides an industry-driven set of criteria for operational and site management independent of Uptime’s Tier Certification, and creates an independent party for validation of management and operations best practices. The M&O Assessment validates the critical facilities management and operations practices of an existing data center and provides third-party assurance that the site management satisfies industry-recognized criteria for 24×7 uptime. Those sites meeting the criteria are awarded an Uptime Institute M&O Site Award.

“As a global leader, Equinix’s participation in the coalition was invaluable, not only providing the necessary views from a data center service provider perspective, but helping to validate those behaviors that need to exist in data centers worldwide,” said Julian Kudritzki, vice president, Uptime Institute, LLC.

As a world-class data center provider, Equinix was invited by Uptime Institute in 2011 to collaborate on the development of the M&O Program. Equinix was one of 11 coalition members to help shape the program.

“Equinix’s exceptional uptime is one of the most important reasons our customers choose us and our work with the Uptime Institute helps us become even stronger in the critical area of management and operations,” said John Shultz, vice president, global product management and development at Equinix.

About Equinix
Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX) connects businesses with partners and customers around the world through a global platform of high performance data centers, containing dynamic ecosystems and the broadest choice of networks. Platform Equinix connects more than 4,000 enterprises, cloud, digital content and financial companies including more than 680 network service providers to help them grow their businesses, improve application performance and protect their vital digital assets. Equinix operates in 38 strategic markets across the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific and continually invests in expanding its platform to power customer growth. http://www.equinix.com.

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Host Virtual News – San Jose, CA – Host Virtual is pleased to announce that it is expanding its Cloud Service in London. “London has become a pivotal location for us since we launched there,” said Sandy Bhargavi, Sr. Vice President of Operations. “We are pleased to continue our investment in the UK market.”

Situated in the heart of London Docklands, the expansion into Telecity Sovereign House provides a premier, Tier 3 carrier class hotel as the basis for the Host Virtual Service.

The location provides unrivaled connectivity options on the campus, including over 400 carriers international and local fixed lines, broadband and mobile networks, internet exchange points, content distribution networks, financial exchanges, and cloud hubs.

The Host Virtual, Inc cloud allows customers to easily deploy over 150 Linux, FreeBSD, and VOIP images in just a few minutes, with native dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6 support to any of its 11 worldwide locations.

“We expect the expanded service to be available to all customers in early March”, said Sandy Bhargavi. “We are also working on our Amsterdam, NL location and expect to announce further services in the EU in the near future.”

About Host Virtual, Inc.
Host Virtual, Inc. is a cloud hosting provider that operates dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6 IaaS clouds worldwide. Built around scalability, self-service and ease of use, Host Virtual customers can deploy Linux, VOIP or FreeBSD servers to any location within minutes. Free from the hassle of complicated, pay-per-minute or per-resource plans, Host Virtual customers can deploy to any of its cloud locations with unlimited usage for a low, flat monthly fee starting at under $10 per month.

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