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Fasthosts Launches New Business Broadband Packages

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Fasthosts Internet Ltd, a leading web hosting and Internet services provider, has announced a brand new range of ADSL packages specifically designed for business needs. The Fasthosts Broadband range is now faster and more feature-packed, with a 24Mb entry-level package. A new fibre optic package offers up to 40Mb downloads, over 7 times faster than the UK average, enabling businesses to increase productivity and fully benefit from hosted services and cloud computing.

The Fasthosts Business Broadband range now comprises: the entry-level ADSL Lite (with 20GB monthly usage), alongside unlimited plans ADSL Premium, and ADSL 2 Plus both featuring a download speed of up to 24Mb. Furthermore, Fasthosts’ new unlimited flagship VDSL Premium package uses fibre optic technology to deliver up to a massive 40Mb download connection, and up to 10Mb upload speeds. Packages benefit from free set-up, and up to 2 static IP addresses.

Fasthosts Business Broadband is equipped to deliver business users consistently high speed connections and value for money. With unlimited usage, businesses can download whatever they need to at all times, without the need to restrict users. Up to 40Mb speeds better equip firms to efficiently perform data intensive tasks such as sending and receiving large documents, graphics or media files, video conferencing or using web-based software. Faster ADSL can bring to life more flexible working with quicker VPN access to internal systems. By using the inclusive IP addresses, businesses can reduce their communications costs with IP and video calling.

Steve Holford, marketing director, Fasthosts Internet Ltd., said: “Many businesses prefer an all-in-one approach to buying their Internet services. For some, that means making-do with either sub-standard hosting or ADSL bolted-on by their ISP. With Fasthosts firms can benefit from truly business-class broadband alongside high performance and award-winning UK hosting services”.

Fasthosts provides UK-based business broadband experts, on hand to provide free support by telephone or online.

Via EPR Network
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Fasthosts Launches New Mobile Website Builder

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Fasthosts Internet Ltd, a leading web hosting provider, has announced a brand new mobile website builder for its hosting customers. The service enables any level of user to build a mobile compatible website in minutes.

The mobile website builder application can detect mobile visitors and provides them the choice of whether to view a mobile-friendly website or full website version. By catering for mobile users, a business can tap into additional online revenues and ensure greater customer retention and recommendation.

More Britons are browsing the web on the go with devices such as the iPhone, BlackBerry or Android phone. In order to help website owners benefit from this trend, Fasthosts has partnered with goMobi to offer an easy to use and speedy way to create websites especially designed for mobile devices. The smaller screen, touch functionality and larger number of operating systems and browsers for mobile devices often makes it necessary to adapt the design of websites. goMobi comprises a convenient method of ensuring that a business website is available and providing mobile visitors with fast access to the key information they need when mobile surfing.

Compatible with any Fasthosts domain name, goMobi allows customers to build a website in minutes using its easy Setup Assistant. The user simply inserts their company details, uploads a logo and designs their website functionality by selecting options from a broad range of popular features. Features for engaging with mobile visitors include product section, photos and blog. goMobi also includes an extensive set of tools to help firms convert website visits into sales including call-me-back, request a reservation, online coupons and tell-a-friend.

Steve Holford, marketing director, Fasthosts Internet Ltd., said: “Many websites simply do not perform as they should for Smartphone users. goMobi is a highly convenient way to ensure that your website is technically compatible for every type of audience. With goMobi, your website will load swiftly, include vital information and create an attractive and professional image for your business”.

goMobi also includes a Search Engine Optimisation tool for increasing online visibility, and a Traffic Statistics feature for measuring web success and refining the web design. The builder also includes a way to incorporate third party advertisements, and allows easy connection of a website to all the important social networks. goMobi is easily integrated within Fasthosts shared web hosting.

Via EPR Network
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Fasthosts Launches ‘Get Online’ Competition To Support The Great Exhibition 2012

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Fasthosts Internet Ltd, a founding Technology Sponsor of The Great Exhibition 2012, recently launched a competition that encourages individuals and businesses to get online. To support and celebrate The Great Exhibition 2012, each month for 25 months, Fasthosts will provide a worthy applicant with infrastructure they need to be successful online. Every month, the company will also award a substantial package of internet services to help people promote any company, sport, hobby or community project to the rest of the nation. Fasthosts invites any UK individual or company to nominate their project for support. Participants can enter The Great Exhibition 2012 competition online.

Until the start of The Great Exhibition 2012 festival on 1st June 2012, Fasthosts will each month award a First Prize of a DELL laptop, 3 years free Business Premium hosting package (including software to build, optimise and monitor a website), a domain name and Microsoft Exchange email. Furthermore, Fasthosts will support 20 further projects every month that will receive 3 years free business web hosting.

To take part, entrants need only complete a quick online application. During the Great Exhibition, there will be a special award to recognise and celebrate the best new online business and best online community project from all the participants.

Steve Holford, Marketing Director at Fasthosts Internet Ltd, said “The ‘Get Online’ competition is a great opportunity for those individuals or organisations with great ideas but limited resources. In the spirit of the festival, we aim to provide the Internet as a way to champion as many great new British endeavors as possible”.

The Great Exhibition 2012 event, which is billed as the biggest of its kind in more than a generation, will open on 1 June 2012 and will echo similar events held in London in 1851 and 1951. The festival will showcase the advances and innovations that put Britain at the forefront of digital development, celebrating British creativity and entrepreneurialism. Live events and performances will take place throughout the 77-day season on the site at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire.

In addition to The Great Exhibition 2012 competition, Fasthosts recently pledged support for ‘Race Online 2012’, a Government-backed project that aims to make the UK the first nation in the world where everyone can use the web. Fasthosts has pledged help to get more people online throughout the UK by training its resellers in how best to educate end-users about the benefits of using Internet solutions. To achieve this, the company will deliver a series of instructional webinars on the subject, running from October 2010 through to February 2011. This commitment is in addition to the Fasthosts pledge of support with The Great Exhibition to support 25 businesses going online in the run up to the festival and to provide hosting to dozens of runners up.

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Streamline.net Reveals That Only 1 In 10 Small Firms Update Their Website Daily

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Streamline.net, a leading UK provider of web hosting, has revealed two sets of new research that shows a worrying number of firms could be taking their foot off the Internet pedal. The company’s latest ‘Small Business Bytes Survey’ of 2400 UK firms* finds that only 10 per cent of small firms are updating their websites on a daily basis with 1 in 3 firms admitting that updates are being done‘infrequently’.

A further study of 400 UK firms** finds that over half of Britain’s small companies are now building and maintaining their website themselves. However, the data reveals that many time-strapped business owners are limited to using their evenings to address their web presence. Whilst businesses clearly see value in the web, the research suggests that many could be losing revenue by cutting corners with their web presence.

The survey carried out by Streamline.net, which specialises in providing value web hosting, also found that many small companies with a website struggle to maintain a compelling web presence. Despite two thirds of those surveyed having had a business website for 2 years or more, only 1 in 10 firms succeed in making updates on a daily basis. 1 in 4 companies admit to updating their websites on a monthly basis. Over half (54 per cent) admit to making technical tweaks only ‘infrequently’. In general, investment in the web is modest. For example, one third of companies surveyed use only a single domain name, and three quarters own less than 6 domains.

It appears that for many firms online marketing is an area that can be neglected. Alarmingly, nearly half of firms (48 per cent) are not currently advertising on search engines. 1 in 3 (34 per cent) are unable to quantify the popularity of their website as they do not look at their visitor numbers. For many companies, the web is still not performing as strongly as traditional methods of generating new business. At present, ‘word-of-mouth’ is viewed as the most important driver, with the company website ranking third after printed advertisements in second place.

Claire Lewis, Marketing Manager at Streamline.net, said: “Important elements like Search Engine submission and website measurement can transform the return from a website. There are now easy-to-use and affordable tools for achieving these to suit all budgets, so every company should check they have these bases covered.”

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Fasthosts Discovers Firms At Risk From Over-Reliance On External Web Professionals

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A new Fasthosts Internet Ltd survey* has revealed that British firms may be placing themselves at risk through an over-reliance on IT or web consultants who look after their website.

The study* found that many firms do not have simple arrangements in place to retain basic control or in some cases even legal ownership of their website and domains.

Ever broadening consumer expectations for the web has led more firms than ever (43%) to opt for using the services of skilled web professionals to help create and maintain their website. 92% of these companies rate their external web consultants positively, with 38% reporting a ‘good’ return on investment. However, the Fasthosts ‘SME & the Web’ study found that many UK companies may be risking revenue and reputation as a result of weaknesses in their workflows with such third parties.

Issues can occasionally arise between companies and external web partners. During the past 2 years, 1 in 4 firms paying for an external web professional have had their website off-line as a result of a problem related to the other party. 1 in 5 businesses incurred delays to projects caused by their external partner, and 17% reported losses of both staff time and sales revenue over £1000 as a result. For 14% of respondents, an external advisor or agency had gone out of business.

A large number of small companies are failing to take basic steps to safeguard the continuity and protection of their web presence. In the event of an issue with their external partner, 56% of firms have no way of making any changes or additions to their website themselves and 80% have no facility for switching their website on/off independently. For these businesses, the link to their external web professional is a single point of failure in their online presence. Whilst UK firms invest millions in professional web design each year, 70% of those using a web designer do not retain a back-up copy of their website themselves.

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Fasthosts Launches Online Storage Service

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Fasthosts Internet Ltd, a leading web hosting provider, has launched a brand new online storage solution especially designed for archiving valuable business data. The service provides secure off-site storage space within a state-of-the-art UK data centre.

The online storage solution is designed for all levels of business user, with multiple methods of uploading data, and functionality for sharing documents between teams on and off the premises. ‘Cloud-based’ services, such as Fasthosts Secure Online Storage, offer businesses substantial cost, scalability and security benefits. Significantly, new research of 209 UK firms conducted by IDC on behalf of Fasthosts, shows 60% are still not leveraging any cloud-computing and missing out on important benefits.

Fasthosts Secure Online Storage addresses the challenge businesses face in coping with the off-site storage of increasing amounts of valuable electronic data. The solution uses a highly scalable ‘cloud-based’ model to deliver easy-to-use, fast and highly secure storage on demand. Users can utilise the storage as a primary file store, or as a location for back-up copies. Storage capacity is selected according to requirements and can be increased dynamically from 50 Gigabytes to a massive 2 Terabytes. As a cloud solution, the user is not limited to specific hardware for utilising the service and can upscale or downsize at any time and pay only for their required usage.

All data is transferred using SSL, backed-up automatically and stored securely. The solution offers flexibility in how data is uploaded – Drive Mapping, web browser access, and FTP access. Furthermore, the solution enables users to effortlessly share documents across teams and locations. All storage packages feature the same high level of quality and 100Mbps connectivity and customers are offered flexible contract options and significant discounts for annual payment.

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Waveform Technology Provides Marian High School with Fastest Private School Internet Access in Michigan

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For the 2010 school year Troy based Internet Service Provider Waveform Technology is completing new fiber optic construction to provide gigabit Internet access to Marian High School in Bloomfield Hills, along with Brother Rice High school and St. Regis School. Gigabit Internet access is more than 160 times faster than Marian High School’s old Internet connection and 650 times faster than a T1, giving Marian High School faster Internet access than any other private school in Michigan.

The new Internet access is provisioned over privately owned fiber built by Waveform Technology. “This is as a pilot project for a larger community oriented construction schedule,” said Waveform Technology representative, Noel Montales.“Private schools don’t have access to the same purchasing power as public school districts. We want to see how we can help these schools overcome this and have access to the bandwidth they need in a cost-effective manner. Fifteen years ago we helped break the price barrier on T1 circuits, making Waveform Technology the first to provide always-on dedicated Internet access to private schools in Metro Detroit. We hope to do that again for extremely fast Internet access.”

Marian High School will use the faster Internet access to move to hosted solutions for both school management systems and educational resources. “This will allow us to access more state-of-the-art technology for schools,” said Mark Hallman, of Marian’s Technology department, “letting us explore video, simulations, and virtual educational technology opportunities.” Hallman also said he used to tell teachers to limit their Internet use in the class room for fear of bogging down the old connection, but now the access to additional bandwidth will allow more concurrent use of interactive resources.

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Rackspace Hosting Announces General Availability of Cloud Servers for Windows

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Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX), the world’s leading specialist in hosting and cloud computing, has announced the general availability of its Cloud Servers for Windows offering. The new service delivers a highly scalable environment ideal for Windows-based hosting, testing and developing applications and supporting the high levels of traffic required for launching online gaming platforms or the next social networking phenomenon.

Designed for small to medium businesses, .NET developers, system administrators, IT Pros, and current Rackspace customers, Cloud Servers for Windows features include:
– Custom configurations with full administrator access
– Ability to upgrade server size on-demand
– Add or delete servers on the fly
– Rescue mode
– Management via the Rackspace Cloud Control Panel and the Cloud Servers API
– Ability to add additional IP addresses
– Pay only for what you use with a utility payment model with hourly billing; no contracts or upfront costs
– Backups and Snapshots to Cloud Filesâ„¢ (coming soon)
– Enterprise-class SLAs
– Support for a broad array of the latest Microsoft Windows Server Images including:
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition 64-bit; Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Enterprise Edition 64-bit; Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Enterprise Edition 32-bit; Windows Server 2003 R2 Service Pack 2 Enterprise Edition 64-bit and Windows Server 2003 R2 Service Pack 2 Enterprise Edition 32-bit

“Microsoft is committed to delivering a broad set of enterprise-ready products and services that build on the existing capabilities and skill sets of service providers like Rackspace,” said John Zanni, general manager of Worldwide Hosting for the Communications Sector at Microsoft Corp. “As a long time partner of one of the industry’s top cloud hosting providers, we are excited that Rackspace’s Cloud Servers for Windows offering has exited beta and is now available to the thousands of businesses that have built their infrastructure around Microsoft Windows and Microsoft .NET technologies.”

SpaBooker, a SaaS scheduling and point-of-sale (POS) application specifically designed for the spa, salon and wellness industry, utilizes Rackspace’s hybrid solution by using managed dedicated servers in addition to their cloud computing solution, Cloud Servers for Windows. Daniel Lizio-Katzen, SpaBooker Managing Director, states: “When we set out to look for a cloud computing solution, we didn’t hesitate to look at Rackspace Cloud first as we’ve been very pleased with the high level of support received from their managed dedicated servers. Rackspace Cloud Servers has been the ideal solution to separate our actual application from our public facing website. We currently have our entire staging environment running on the Cloud Servers for Windows Beta and the overall ease of use has been phenomenal. The cost savings compared to traditional dedicated hosting are also substantial.”

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Rackspace Announces Plans To Collaborate With NASA On OpenStack Project

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Rackspace Hosting has announced the launch of OpenStack, an open-source cloud platform designed to foster the emergence of technology standards and cloud interoperability.

rackspaceNEWlogo.jpg (198×70)

Rackspace, the leading specialist in the hosting and cloud hosting industry, is donating the code that powers its Cloud Files and Cloud Servers public-cloud offerings to the OpenStack project. The project will also incorporate technology that powers the NASA Nebula Cloud Platform. Rackspace and NASA plan to actively collaborate on joint technology development and leverage the efforts of open-source software developers worldwide.

“Modern scientific computation requires ever increasing storage and processing power delivered on-demand,” said Chris Kemp, NASA’s Chief Technology Officer for IT. “To serve this demand, we built Nebula, an infrastructure cloud platform designed to meet the needs of our scientific and engineering community. NASA and Rackspace are uniquely positioned to drive this initiative based on our experience in building large scale cloud platforms and our desire to embrace open source.”

OpenStack will feature several cloud infrastructure components including a fully distributed object store based on Rackspace Cloud Files. The next component planned for release later this year is a scalable compute-provisioning engine based on the NASA Nebula cloud technology and Rackspace Cloud Servers technology. Using these components, organisations would be able to turn physical hardware into scalable and extensible cloud environments using the same code currently in production serving tens of thousands of customers and large government projects.

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Rackspace Hosts Over One Million Unique Visitors To South African Tourism Site

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Rackspace Hosting (NYSE:RAX), the world’s leader in the hosting and cloud computing industry, has announced that the new South Africa Tourism website is being hosted by Rackspace Hosting.

“As part of the successful 2010 Soccer World Cup event, the SA Tourism site is considered a critical component of its success,” said SA Tourism e-Marketing Manager William Price, “The number of site visitors sky-rocketed following the reconstruction of our new site rising to a total of more than 250,000 a month since June 2009. This reflects an increase of more than 600%. Our site availability is of paramount importance to SA Tourism and for this reason our organisation had no hesitation in approaching international hosting and cloud computing specialist Rackspace to host the site. The site’s objective of a 1-million unique visitor count this year has already been more than achieved.”

The SA Tourism website is comprehensive without being overwhelming and offers a wealth of information, neatly categorised and easily available. Hot buttons include Best of SA, Traveller, Business Tourism, Media, Research, Plan your trip and About SA. Other information-rich features include Adventure & Sport, Wildlife & Safari, Culture and Heritage, Natural & Scenic and Entertainment & Leisure.

“Rackspace has been extremely responsive to our needs,” added Price. “They are indeed fanatical about their customer service and very proactive. Rackspace provided highly professional assistance with our migration and their proactive approach has pre-empted possible problems. Support of this calibre makes our user experience as smooth and rewarding as possible and is vital for our consumer-centric approach. We cannot tolerate site downtime and hence we have a 100% network uptime guarantee with Rackspace.”

Ongoing hosting service from Rackspace helps enable SA Tourism to achieve its objectives of being the authority on South Africa travel information and meet the overall needs of first-time English-speaking visitors to South Africa.

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Fasthosts Counted Among Top Finalists For 2010 Microsoft Partner Awards

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Fasthosts Internet Ltd, a leading web hosting provider, announced it has been selected as a finalist for the Microsoft Partner Awards in the Hosting Solutions Partner of the Year award category.

Steve Holford, Marketing Director of Fasthosts Internet Ltd. said: “We are delighted to be recognised in this significant award. Microsoft products have always been a popular choice with our customers. However, in recent years we have gone further to investigate and develop new ways to apply Microsoft server technologies and as a result have seen excellent performance and usability benefits for the end-user.”

Awards will be presented in a number of categories, with winners and finalists chosen f r o m a pool of almost 3,000 entrants worldwide. The Hosting Solutions Partner of the Year Award honours partners who have demonstrated solution innovation and a commitment to engaging with Microsoft. This award recognises Fasthosts for teaming with Microsoft to address their customer needs through identifying new market opportunities and using technology innovation.

“Congratulations to the 2010 Partner Award finalists for delivering such creative and superior Microsoft solutions and services,” said Allison Watson, Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp. “It’s incredible to see the level of expertise our partners continue to exhibit as they create and deliver innovative solutions and services to grow their businesses, meet customer needs, and drive down costs.”

Fasthosts has long been regarded as an expert in Microsoft hosting, having offered Microsoft-driven web solutions since 2002. Fasthosts’ award nomination follows the company’s recent launch of innovative new Virtual Servers that use Hyper-V (hypervisor based) technology, the latest in Microsoft server virtualization, to harness the full power of the hardware. All Fasthosts users can also benefit f r o m the most advanced Microsoft Server operating system yet – Windows Server 2008 R2.

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Streamline.net Reveals Business Owners Consider Making Money From Hobbies

According to research released by Streamline.net, a leading provider of value web hosting, the challenging economic climate has caused many business owners to consider raising income from their hobbies or pastimes.

The study of 1400 business owners* found that 42% have considered creating an enterprise from their hobbies or recreational skills in order to increase earnings. The down-turn in the economy has led more than half of SME owners to reconsider their work-life balance in general. 1 in 3 owners believe that since the recession they are more likely to launch a business unrelated to their primary business activity. For many, earning their living from a recreational pursuit is now seen as most likely to provide long-term happiness. The internet is seen by two thirds of owners to be the first port of call for launching an enterprise from a hobby or pastime.

Streamline.net’s study of British small and local businesses found that economic pressures over the past 2 years have led many to reconsider how they earn their living. 42% admit that the recession has directly led them to consider options for earning money from their hobbies or pastimes (such as sports, crafts or travel) whilst 23% report that they can already do so. 56% of firm owners would consider starting a new venture related to their hobbies rather than their professional capabilities.

Launching an internet-based business is seen as the most feasible, with 66% of owners saying they would focus their sales efforts online. Nearly all of those that currently make money from hobbies or secondary skills (22%), use the internet as the main means to source this income.

The data reveals that the recession has prompted 53% of small business owners to re-think their work/life balance, and 90% have reconsidered what motivates them about work. It appears that many have concluded that earning an income from hobbies or skills unrelated to their main business activity offers the most potential for happiness. The ability to earn a living from hobbies or pastimes is viewed as the most desirable scenario for 48%. 40% would still see the earning of maximum income from their existing business as the best route to happiness.

Steve Holford, Marketing Director at Streamline.net, said “Britain’s small business owners have weathered challenging times, however, the data suggests that the entrepreneurial spirit is very much alive. More owners are keen to start out in a totally new direction, and creating a hobby-based business is a common ambition. Plus with simple and affordable web hosting solutions it is easy to get a business online without the need for any technical expertise or significant investment.”

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Streamline.net Unveils New Value Hosting Packages

Streamline.net, a leading UK provider of value web hosting, has unveiled its new range of packages that once-again drive the standard for value-for-money in the hosting market.

The new web hosting range is suitable for both consumer and small business customers alike and features a new entry price equivalent to £1.75/month including VAT. In addition to its low pricing the packages also feature sizable web space, inclusive tools to build and promote a website and unlimited website traffic. Streamline.net is also launching a Pay-As-You-Go option for its hosting, which is ideal for individuals wishing to experiment with an idea on the Internet. Furthermore, new customers signing up to eligible packages will receive 1 free .COM domain registration for 1 year. The new range is designed to address the growing UK market for low cost web solutions.

The new Streamline.net hosting range comprises 4 package types. Both the Starter hosting package (500MB web space) and the Personal hosting package (3GB web space) are packed with features and benefit from instant set-up and unlimited website traffic. Both solutions include Streamline.net’s, easy-to-use 10 page SiteBuilder tool for creating a professional looking website within minutes. The Plus package (10GB web space) also includes 1 free .UK domain name, 1 MySQL database and 5 anti-virus and spam protected mailboxes.

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Rackspace Named IT Operator of the Year at the Green IT Awards

Rackspace, the world’s leader in the hosting and cloud computing industry has been announced as the winner of the coveted title of IT Operator of the Year in the prestigious Green IT Awards

“We’re absolutely thrilled to be recognised as IT Operator of the Year by The Green IT Awards,” said Rackspace Managing Director Brian Thomson. “We’ve worked hard not only to make our customer offering sustainable, but also introduce internal initiatives such as employee education and recycling. We’re also very proud of our energy efficiency technology in our Slough data centre that uses energy efficient measures including dual-core AMD Opteron processors and ambient cooling technology. We plan to continue to introduce even more initiatives over the coming years and work harder than ever to be green.”

Over 75 organisations were nominated for The Green IT Awards and winners were selected by readers of the Green IT magazine and its website. The Green IT Awards are a benchmark by which IT companies are measured for environmental performance. The awards also showcase the role played by green marketing and sustainability communications in informing people about green issues, products and lifestyle choices, and provide examples of excellence and best practice in communicating sustainability and green issues.

Rackspace’s overall ‘green’ activity is designed to support its commitment to contributing towards the larger environmental solution. The company believes that “green” activity makes business sense as well as environmental sense. Rackspace has adopted several initiatives over the past two years to help reduce its environmental impact:

– The Slough data centre (DC), designed to use energy efficient technology, provides 55,000 square foot of net technical space, and has been built to help ensure efficient use of energy. Cooling is a key element of energy use in all data centres and Rackspace has deployed ambient cooling technology

– Through International Tree Foundation (ITF), Rackspace has agreed to have a tree planted for every new customer, as a way to mitigate some of the carbon generated through its hosting solutions.

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Rackspace Urges UK Businesses To Update Legacy IT To Stay Ahead

Rackspace, the world’s leader in hosting and cloud computing, has released the findings of its latest commissioned research which indicates that UK businesses may be missing opportunities around new approaches to technology and continuing to over-invest in legacy IT.

Rackspace Urges UK Businesses To Update Legacy IT To Stay Ahead

The research, surveying over 400 IT decision makers, including 218 from the UK, revealed that 93% of the UK companies surveyed do not believe that they have a cutting-edge approach to adopting new technology.

The survey also highlighted that less than a third (28%) believe they are ‘early adopters’ of new technology approaches, such as on-demand computing, which may indicate a need for better education on the benefits of moving to new IT systems. This finding is reinforced by Forrester’s report* that around half of IT software budgets are spent on maintaining or upgrading old solutions. Therefore, it appears that companies are not investigating how new technologies can support and evolve their business.

Brian Thomson, EMEA Rackspace Managing Director commented: “Organisations are under intense pressure to innovate, but the majority simply don’t have enough time to do this. IT staff seem to be tearing their hair out, with almost half (48%) of the (UK) survey respondents keen to get involved in more proactive, strategic initiatives, but UK respondents indicated that less than a third (27%) of their IT team’s time is spent on them. However, we are starting to see an evolution in the way IT is managed for everything from servers to social media, with many organisations looking to external experts to free up time that will enable them to focus on developing the business.

“Our business is a good example of this evolution in outsourcing servers, where we deployed more than 2,000 servers in the last three months of 2009, taking the total number of servers we manage to almost 57,000.”

When considering server solutions, respondents stated reliability (78%) and utilisation (76%) as the most important, indicating that uptime and efficiency are top of today’s server management needs.

Almost half of the UK IT decision makers (41%) stated a lack of knowledge or experience as the biggest concern when calling IT supplier helplines, followed by time taken to access support (36%) a lack of overnight assistance (36%), and rude, unhelpful staff (30%). This indicates a real need for IT organisations to review the level of support they are providing, which can help to avoid customer churn.

Brian Thomson concluded: “These findings indicate to us that organisations are being hindered by in-house IT systems and that there is a real need to focus on strategic initiatives to help the business. We believe this means a new approach to technology is on the horizon as organisations look to hosting, cloud computing and SaaS to power corporate computing and boost competitive edge.”

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Waveform Technology Applies to SolarCurrents Utility-Owned Program

Waveform Technology, a leading Metro-Detroit Internet service provider and data center operator, announced today their application to Detroit Edison’s SolarCurrents Utility-Owned Program. Detroit Edison is looking for multiple businesses with suitable rooftops or level ground area to provide space for solar power generation plants. Waveform Technology is one of several applicants to the program.

If selected by Detroit Edison to participate, Waveform Technology will allow Detroit Edison to install a solar power plant on the roof of Waveform’s Troy, Michigan Data Center. Waveform Technology plans to use the SolarCurrents program to increase the amount of renewable energy used to power the Michigan Data Center, one of Metro Detroit’s largest public data centers.

“American businesses are increasingly reliant on Internet services which need data centers: f r o m E-Mail and websites to mobile applications and disaster recovery,” said Waveform representative Noel Montales. “The problem is that we need a tremendous amount of electrical energy to power those services, and more often that not that electricity comes form ‘dirty’ sources, like coal and oil.”

“If Detroit Edison chooses the Michigan Data Center as one of the sites for the SolarCurrents Program then we’ll ensure that a fair portion of our electricity comes f r o m a completely clean and renewable source: the sun,” continued Mr. Montales. “It makes us greener, but more importantly, it makes the IT departments of our clients a whole lot greener!”

SolarCurrents is one of the largest distributed programs in the country, and Detroit Edison will generate 15 megawatts of renewable electricity through the Utility-Owned portion. More information about the SolarCurrents program is available at http://www.dteenergy.com/solar.

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Fasthosts Launches New Hosting Packages

Fasthosts Internet Ltd, a leading web hosting provider, has launched a brand new range of premium-quality shared web hosting packages that represent the company’s latest step in its drive to raise the standard of UK web hosting. The new packages combine huge quotas of web space with new professional-quality web building and monitoring tools, and Fasthosts’ unlimited website traffic. As the market for hosted solutions continues to grow apace, the new hosting range is designed to exceed the growing technical demands of businesses and IT professionals alike.

Fasthosts’ new range of Personal Hosting packages comprise the Standard package (5GB web space), and the Premium package (25GB web space). Both solutions include all the tools needed to maintain a professional-quality website with free SiteBuilder, Blog tool and MatrixStats. The Premium package boasts 10 FTP accounts, 10 x 1GB anti- virus/SPAM mailboxes and 1 free .UK domain.

Fasthosts’ new Business Hosting Packages are the Business Standard package (25GB web space), and Business Premium package (50GB web space). The flagship Business Premium delivers unlimited FTP accounts, up to 10 MYSQL databases and Load Balancing – which shares visitors over multiple web servers to maximise the uptime and speed of a website. All hosting packages are available in either Linux or Windows at no additional cost, an approach unique to Fasthosts.

Via EPR Network
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Waveform Technology Installs Metro Ethernet Service for Macomb County

Waveform Technology, a leading Metro Detroit area commercial data center operator and Internet service provider, is now supplying fiber optic Internet access to Macomb County. The new connection serves both Macomb’s 2,500 County Employees and MACnet, the county’s own private network, by providing redundancy to the current Internet circuit.

Macomb County is among the first customers to connect to a recently constructed expansion of Waveform Technology’s southeast Michigan fiber optic network.

Macomb County chose Waveform Technology for numerous reasons, but primarily because Waveform’s metropolitan fiber optic network provides complete path redundancy from the county’s primary Internet connection. “Owning our own network allowed us to meet the specific route stipulations that Macomb Country required,” said Waveform Technology representative Noel Montales. “It provides us more flexibility than
other ISPs that are just reselling local phone company assets.”

Price was also an important consideration, and Waveform’s independent network allows for Internet connections, and other metropolitan data services, for a fraction of the cost that other carriers charge.

Waveform Technology provisioned a 100Mbps fiber optic Metro Ethernet circuit for Macomb County. Metro Ethernet was chosen for its versatility and simplicity of design.

Via EPR Network
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Fasthosts Debuts Virtual Server Range

Fasthosts Internet Ltd, a leading web hosting provider, has introduced a new range of virtual servers that combine high-speed performance, scalability and resource monitoring.

Fasthosts Debuts Virtual Server Range

Designed to scale with the changing needs of businesses and their customers, RAM, CPU, disk space, and IP addresses can all be determined by the user and dynamically adjusted. The Virtual Private Servers deliver dedicated resources, the latest Windows 2008 R2 operating system and full remote access and resource monitoring as well as fullVirtual Private Server control.

Fasthosts Virtual Servers are based on Microsoft Dynamic Data Center architecture, meaning that resources are dedicated but also adaptable dynamically and can be upgraded or reconfigured easily without losing data or functionality. Fasthosts customers can select f r o m a range of suggested configurations or design a server by choosing capacity, processor power and control settings at order, and are free to modify these at any point in time. By re-adjusting their server, the user only pays for the resources they need and so saves money and helps the environment.

All servers receive the power of Intel Xeon Quad-Core processors and dedicated RAM. Fasthosts has used Hyper-V (hypervisor based) technology, the latest in Microsoft server virtualization, to harness the full power of the hardware. All users can benefit f r o m the most advanced Microsoft Server operating system yet – Windows Server 2008 R2. Furthermore, Fasthosts provides free Resource Monitoring via the user Control Panel. Customers can measure CPU, RAM, disk space and network usage in real-time, and so keep an accurate check on their requirements. For business users and IT professionals alike, the ability to adapt to peaks and troughs in demand with speed and at low cost, makes the task of managing a server far simpler and improves ROI.

Steve Holford, CMO Fasthosts Internet Ltd., said, “As a long-standing expert for Microsoft web hosting, we have taken our time to invest in and develop a range of virtual servers that deliver the performance and strength traditionally only seen with dedicated server hardware. Microsoft Hyper-V virtualisation is well suited to our robust network and connectivity. For even the most demanding pro users, we expect virtual servers to be a popular choice”.

Fasthosts Virtual Servers benefit f r o m greatly increased redundancy, built-in. Clustered servers provide automatic fail-over and combine with RAID disk arrays to enhance reliability. Users have full access to their server via remote desktop connection, and can apply the powerful Parallels PLESK 9 Control Panel, for effective deployment and server management. Packages also include Windows Platform Installer 2.0 which provides effortless implementation of the latest Windows compatible applications.

Via EPR Network
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