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Domain.com encourages startups at TechCrunch Disrupt to launch next great idea with its web hosting services

Domain registrar and web hosting provider Domain.com announced on Friday that its “Next Great Idea” challenge will take place at the TechCrunch Disrupt event in New York City this weekend.

The challenge, sponsored by Domain.com, encourages event attendees to take their idea, name it, build it and host it at Domain.com, according to the press release.

The event kicks off Saturday with a 24-hour hackathon, and will feature an exhibition floor, presentations, and the 2012 Startup Battlefield Competition. TechCrunch Disrupt challenges startups to compete for the Disrupt Cup and a $50,000 prize. MC Hammer will present the award to the winning startup.

With more than 1,500 attendees, the event will be ripe with early-stage startups, and provide an opportunity for web hosts and service providers to get an idea of what start-ups need from web hosting providers. Also, a lot of services that web hosts use today had success at Disrupt over the past few years including CloudFlare (co-founder Michelle Zatlyn is a judge at Disrupt this year), and CodeGuard, which gives web hosts an idea of what’s to come for the industry, and technologies they could deploy to set their business apart.

Domain.com has a booth in the Startup 411 section, and is giving away free and discounted domain names, t-shirts, and “pounds of candy for sustenance.”

“People think there are only a few choices when it comes to domain names and web hosting. The fact is Domain.com has been around since 2000, and we’re one of the largest domain and web hosting companies in the world,” said David Andrews, Marketing Director for Domain.com. “We don’t act like a big company though. Contact us on Twitter @domaindotcom and you’ll see how we love helping people launch their great ideas.”

On Wednesday, web host Peak Hosting partnered with technology accelerator StartEngine to launch the Peak Hosting Startup Program to provide free hosting credits to startups.

Talk back: Will you be at TechCrunch Disrupt? What are you most looking forward to? Let us know in the comment section.

Help us get better! Fill out our WHIR reader survey to let us know what works and what doesn’t. And enter to win a $100 Amazon gift card.

About Nicole Henderson

Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.

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Data center operator Equinix will acquire European colocation and internnection services carrier ancotel

Data center operator Equinix announced on Friday it will acquire European colocation and internnection services carrier ancotel, which adds a 6,890 square foot data center in Frankfurt, Germany to Equinix’s already massive footprint. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed in the press release.

The move follows Equinix’s recent acquisition of six data centers in Asia from Hong Kong data center firm Asia Tone.

But more importantly, it will expand its customer base and network in Europe by adding more than 400 network customers, which includes 200 new networks and 6,000 cross connects.

Expected to close in the third quarter, the acquisition will also provide new opportunities for customers, creating a network-dense colocation and connectivity campus in Frankfurt.

The campus will offer a broad combination of networks from Western and Eastern Europe and beyond, along with significant growth opportunities for customers looking to expand their data center footprint.

In addition to its Frankfurt data center and broad customer base, ancotel also has edge nodes in Hong Kong, London and Miami, giving Equinix additional points of presence in these markets.

ancotel customers will benefit from the global reach data centers and thriving ecosystems of Platform Equinix as well as access to its marketplace of more than 4,000 customers.

“The acquisition of ancotel significantly strengthens Equinix’s value proposition and capabilities both in Europe and globally,” said Eric Schwartz, president of Equinix EMEA. “Both companies enjoy strong reputations in the market and serve the world’s leading companies. The agreement will also grow the total number of network customers available at Equinix from 700 to 900.”

In March, Equinix partnered with enterprise cloud hosting provider Tier 3 to create an “enterprise-ready gateway to the cloud” using Tier 3’s infrastructure as a service cloud platform and Equinix’s data centers.

ancotel generated approximately $21.4 million in revenue in 2011, and has been growing at a greater than 20 percent CAGR for the past three years.

The valuation paid is in-line with Equinix’s current 2012 adjusted EBITDA trading multiple based on projections for the business. The ancotel business will not affect Equinix’s global objective to be adjusted free cash flow positive in 2013.

Talk Back: Have you acquired a colocation company in Europe for the purpose of expanding your data center network? Let us know in the comments section.

Help us get better! Fill out our WHIR reader survey to let us know what works and what doesn’t. And enter to win a $100 Amazon gift card.

About Justin Lee

Justin Lee has been a staff analyst with theWHIR since 2004. He writes about a range of web hosting and IT-related issues facing the industry on the WHIR website, as well the print version of the WHIR magazine. Follow him on Twitter @Justin_theWHIR.

Related posts:

1. Stream Data Centers Acquires Land for New Facility in Texas

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Moonfruit was acquired by Yell for $29 million cash

Online business directory Yell announced on Tuesday that it acquired UK website and ecommerce shop builder Moonfruit for $29 million in cash. Yell will pay retention bonuses of up to $8 million to key Moonfruit management after two years, if they remain exclusively employed by Yell.

Yell says the deal will help it transform from its position in providing print and online advertising for SMBs to develop a leading role in the local eMarketplace. The technology it acquires through Moonfruit will enable it to provide websites, mobile sites and light commerce services to 1.3 million SMBs.

The acquisition focuses not only on the technology of Moonfruit, but also the talent. By offering retention bonuses, it will ensure a smooth integration and transition through keeping the executive management team of Joe White, Eirik Pettersen and Wendy Tan-White.

Similarities can be drawn between the Moonfruit acquisition and last year’s acquisition of website builder and hosting provider Webs.com by printing services provider Vistaprint. Both Yell and Vistaprint focus on helping SMBs market their services, and in order to keep relevant in the online space and to help businesses create a more robust online presence, have acquired providers that already do so.

“We believe there are significant strategic, cultural and operating synergies between Yell and Moonfruit,” Mike Pocock, chief executive officer of Yell said in a statement. “The addition of Moonfruit’s services and team helps us provide competitive advantage to our global SME customers in connecting with consumers through digital, mobile and social.”

Launched in 2000 in the UK, Moonfruit helps small businesses create websites with one-click ecommerce, mobile, and Facebook store creation from a central platform.

With the Facebook IPO on Friday, the social network will have to set its sights on making more money for shareholders, so its Facebook stores may be revitalized despite criticism that retailers like Gap and JC Penney (which opened and closed Facebook stores in 2011) aren’t making money using the integrated storefront. Although larger retailers didn’t see success in the space, SMBs may be a better fit for f-commerce, and Yell through its acquisition of Moonfruit could be the provider to capitalize on this.

Today, more than 230,000 online shops, and nearly five million websites have been created with Moonfruit.

Before it partnered with shopping cart provider Ecwid and began offering its online presence builder platform to web hosting customers, WebsPlanet worked with Yellow Pages to help it retain its SMB customers by creating online business profiles. In the latest issue of the WHIR magazine, WebsPlanet executive vice president of international customers Dvir Ben-Aroya discusses how its Eclipse platform can help web hosting customers manage their website and social media presence.

On Monday, the WHIR posted a video demo of Moonfruit competitor Yola’s website building tool.

Talk back: Do you see acquisitions like the Yell/Moonfruit, Vistaprint/Webs.com, Deluxe/Hostopia deals becoming more popular? Why or why not? We’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment.

Help us get better! Fill out our WHIR reader survey to let us know what works and what doesn’t. And enter to win a $100 Amazon gift card.

About Nicole Henderson

Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.

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Space agency NASA is withdrawing its participation with OpenStack

Space agency NASA is withdrawing its participation with OpenStack, the open source cloud organization it co-founded with web hosting company Rackspace, according to a report by DatacenterDynamics.

Since launching two years ago, the OpenStack community of developers and cloud computing technologists have continued to improve on the open standard cloud computing software.

In more recent months, the open-source platform has seen a growing level of commercial adoption, drawing support from Dell, IBM, Cisco, HP, Yahoo!, and Red Hat.

In a presentation at Uptime Institute’s symposium on Tuesday, Karen Petraska, service executive for computing services at NASA’s CIO office, said the agency will scale back its development of the open-source platform now that it has started to see commercial adoption.

Petraska added that NASA is not interested in competing with commercial cloud companies, and would rather be a “smart consumer” of commercial cloud services.

In addition to reducing its work with OpenStack, NASA also said it will cease its developmental involvement with cloud infrastructure solution Nebula.

NASA’s move comes just a few weeks after its fellow OpenStack co-founder Rackspace revealed it will continue to build on its cloud investments like OpenStack to ramp up future revenues following a slightly disappointing first quarter.

Meanwhile, OpenStack continues to flourish in development, releasing its fifth version, Essex last month. The new platform is the culmination of contributions from  200 developers, and boasts 150 new features.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory website was breached last November, which resulted in hackers being able to install malware, delete or steal private information, and take control of user accounts to access privilege sections of the network

Talk Back: Do you think NASA’s leaving will have a negative effect on the future development of OpenStack? Do you agree with their decision in leaving? Let us know in the comments section.

Help us get better! Fill out our WHIR reader survey to let us know what works and what doesn’t. And enter to win a $100 Amazon gift card.

About Justin Lee

Justin Lee has been a staff analyst with theWHIR since 2004. He writes about a range of web hosting and IT-related issues facing the industry on the WHIR website, as well the print version of the WHIR magazine. Follow him on Twitter @Justin_theWHIR.

Related posts:

1. The Open Group Publishes Standards for SOA and Cloud Computing

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StraTech will provide CoLoCSX customers with backup and disaster recovery services

Colocation provider CoLoCSX announced on Friday that it will offer customers data backup and recovery services from managed services provider StraTech.

According to the press release, the companies have worked together since 1997 as StraTech provided support services and consulting for internal CoLoCSX technology projects. As customers needs have changed, the partnership has adapted to meet them.

A brand of Midas Medici Group Holdings, StraTech will provide CoLoCSX customers with its StratTech Remote Backup Service, RapidAlert Monitoring, and disaster recovery services.

CoLoCSX is based in Jacksonville, and since hurricane season in South Florida runs from June 1 to November 30, managed data backup and disaster recovery services are crucial for businesses in this area. In January, Colo5 expanded its Jacksonville data center.

“Partnering with StraTech allows us to offer colocation customers the highest standard in reliable, scalable managed services that address key IT challenges,” CoLoCSX general manager Ron Macomb said in a statement. “With these services, our customers can focus resources on core business activities while minimizing capital investments.”

StraTech says it provides its customers with IT risk assessment and IT risk management services to provide a custom approach to disaster recovery.

RapidAlert allows systems management staff to remotely access, troubleshoot and maintain thousands of heterogeneous devices through a single interface. It works 24×7 to monitor the day-to-day activities to keep business systems available. Its available for Solaris, Linux and Windows OS servers.

StraTech Remote Backup Service is powered by FIPS 140-2 certified agentless cloud backup solution that provides automatic backup of heterogeneous file servers as well as application and database servers with encrypted offsite data storage and rapid online restoration.

A year ago Midas Medici Group Holdings completed the acquisition of colocation provider Consonus Technologies.

Talk back: What backup services do your customers ask for? Do you partner with a managed services provider to offer the backup and disaster recovery? Let us know in a comment.

Help us get better! Fill out our WHIR reader survey to let us know what works and what doesn’t. And enter to win a $100 Amazon gift card.

About Nicole Henderson

Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.

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Cirrus Tech has launched a range of Windows Server Cloud Virtual Machine Hosting plans

Web hosting company Cirrus Tech announced on Friday it has  launched a range of Windows Server Cloud Virtual Machine Hosting plans.

The new Cirrus VM hosting plans come at a busy time for Cirrus Tech, who in the last six months has deployed ThreatSTOP across its entire network to protect its customers from malware, launched its CloudTO cloud hosting in Canada, and improved its VPS hosting services to provide private cloud environments, additional SaaS tools and new support options.

Starting from $15.99 per month, the new VM plans are designed for users looking for a bare-metal hypervisor solution and offer all the benefits of running a dedicated server with the benefits of virtualization such as lower costs, scalability, and high-availability.

Cirrus VM hosting services include guaranteed dedicated resources, a fully redundant infrastructure and the ability to manage, control and customize your environment.

The new services offer a greater amount of control and OS access than other options, allowing users to modify and update the OS as needed, whether installing patches or performing updates.

Unlike other Virtuozzo based VM solutions, the Cirrus offering allows administrators to install any Windows update, as the VMs are fully customizable with either full remote desktop access for Windows or SSH/Root Access for those on Linux.

Parallels Plesk Control Panel is deployed on every Cirrus VM hosting plan, enabling users to easily manage and automate web hosting activities.

All plans include an FTP server, mail server, web server, MySQL database, phpMyAdmin, and firewall with GUI.

Cirrus Virtual Machine hosting plans come with many options and features, enabling users to choose from Windows Server 2003 or 2008 Web, Standard and Enterprise Editions, enterprise Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and 2012 and other web and workgroup servers.

Each VM plan offers guaranteed dedicated resources for RAM, HDD, CPU and bandwidth as well as a fully redundant infrastructure including redundant power supply, HDDs and storage.

The redundant storage included in all Cirrus VM plans is unlike the default offerings of most cloud providers, providing two entirely separate copies of all data are kept on two storage units.

VM hosting also offers full scalability, which enables it to handle spikes in resource demand and allows for easy upgrades. In addition to instant provisioning for the VM set-up, upgrades are also provisioned in just minutes from the time of the request.

“Almost anything you can think of doing with a dedicated server, you can also handle with a Virtual Machine,” said Cirrus CEO Ehsan Mirdamadi. “We’ve built our VM hosting services from the ground up to offer a reliable, flexible and cost effective solution that can meet the hosting needs of any business, whether simple or complex.”

Talk Back: Are you currently offering your customers Windows Server cloud VM hosting plans? Are you seeing a demand for these hosting plans? Let us know in the comments section.

Help us get better! Fill out our WHIR reader survey to let us know what works and what doesn’t. And enter to win a $100 Amazon gift card.

About Justin Lee

Justin Lee has been a staff analyst with theWHIR since 2004. He writes about a range of web hosting and IT-related issues facing the industry on the WHIR website, as well the print version of the WHIR magazine. Follow him on Twitter @Justin_theWHIR.

Related posts:

1. The Open Group Publishes Standards for SOA and Cloud Computing

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UK2 Group’s Nick Nelson has launched the beta of his new website backup tool Comcure

Web hosting industry veteran and current VP of engineering at UK2 Group Nick Nelson has launched the beta of his new website backup venture Comcure.

The service provides automated website backups in three steps, and supports any website with FTP or STFP access including websites built on WordPress, Umbraco, Drupal, Windows Linux or Mac.

Nelson says Comcure is his “first adventure outside of hosting (if you can say outside).” Web hosts have partnered with services similar to Comcure to offer their customers a simple way to backup websites. In March, web hosting provider A Small Orange partnered with website backup provider CodeGuard to offer a similar service to its customers for free. Since Nelson has been working in the hosting industry for more than a decade, Comcure will likely have some kind of relationship with web hosts when it is complete.

“We couldn’t wait any longer – we’ve released Comcure as a beta product available to the world,” Nelson writes in a blog post. “Looking at our development queue right now, I do note there’s about 60 tasks pending, some may seem painfully obvious – such as welcome emails no being formatted, others are quite rare issues, but ones we want to squash now – such as websites hosted on 11 run into an issue due to how they do their temp files. Our guys are squashing these bugs left and right, but we’re relying on you to help us make Comcure great.”

Comcure is in two data centers now, and will be in five by the summer of 2012, according to its website.

Comcure offers website backups and restores for free, but will also have a professional account option. It is unclear if it will have a partnership option for service providers like web hosts when it launches officially.

Nelson says beta participants will be provided with additional domains, and free pro accounts.

Talk back: Do you offer your customers website backups? What service do you use? Let us know in a comment.

Help us get better! Fill out our WHIR reader survey to let us know what works and what doesn’t. And enter to win a $100 Amazon gift card.

About Nicole Henderson

Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.

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In the week ending May 11, 2012, web hosting company ServInt is offering 20 percent off its VPS Plans

In the week ending May 11, 2012, web hosting company ServInt is offering 20 percent off its VPS Plans, web hosting company 11 Internet is offering discounts on its hosting packages, UK web host UK2 is offering a promotion on its business hosting plan, and web hosting provider Hivelocity is offering several new deals on its dedicated servers.

Web Host ServInt Offers 20 Percent Off of VPS Plans

Web hosting company ServInt is offering 20 percent off the first 5 months of its Flex VPS packages. For a limited time, customers will receive 20 percent off the initial 5 months of service of its Essential, Essential+, Signature, Ultimate, and SuperVPS plans when they enter the promotional code “FLEXME” at checkout.

Web Host 11 Internet Provides Discounts on Hosting Plans

Web hosting company 11 Internet is offering new customers the chance to take advantage of all the Dual hosting benefits for a promotional price from now through June 30th. 11 Unlimited packages are $3.49 per month for the first year and 11 Business packages are $4.99 per month for the first year. These two packages include a free domain with private registration, domain specific email accounts, more than 25 MySQL databases, and unlimited Click Build Applications. Each are subject to a 12 month contract term and no set-up fee.

UK Web Host UK2 Launches Business Hosting Promotion

UK web hosting company UK2 is offering business web hosting plans from £4.95, which includes free Facebook integration, free SO tools, and Stats 2 analytics features as Google Analytics but comes with a few added features. Additionally, all businesses purchasing any business hosting package from UK2 will be entered into the prize draw to win a pair of tickets to the F1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Web Host Hivelocity Offers Deals on Dedicated Servers

Web hosting provider Hivelocity is offering several deals this month, including 100Mbps unmetered for $99 and 1Gbps unmetered port for $399 on select servers. It also offering the fourth month for free when customers prepay for a 3-month or alternative the 13th, 14th and 15th months free on a 12-month prepay. Finally, it is offering the option of adding a fully managed cPanel to any of its servers for $29 per month.

Help us get better! Fill out our WHIR reader survey to let us know what works and what doesn’t. And enter to win a $100 Amazon gift card.

About Justin Lee

Justin Lee has been a staff analyst with theWHIR since 2004. He writes about a range of web hosting and IT-related issues facing the industry on the WHIR website, as well the print version of the WHIR magazine. Follow him on Twitter @Justin_theWHIR.

No related posts.

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Quality Technology Services has constructed new solar power installations at its Richmond and Atlanta Metro Data Centers.

Data center operator and hosting firm Quality Technology Services announced on Thursday it has constructed new solar power installations at its Richmond and Atlanta Metro Data Centers.

The move to green energy is an important initiative that more web hosting companies are currently implementing. In addition to reducing energy consumption and power costs, “going green” also improves a web host’s reputation among prospective customers, which could translate into added revenue.

When fully operational, the two projects will provide a total of one megawatt of power generation capacity to the sites, increasing energy efficiency and reducing environmental impact.

QTS’ solar technology installations comes on the heels of its recent efforts to reduce the company’s carbon footprint through its Green Program.

QTS chief technology officer Brian Johnston announced the developments Wednesday at Uptime Institute Symposium in Santa Clara, California in an Environmental Defense Fund panel discussion alongside executives from Yahoo! and Cisco Systems.

Johnston also shared the news of QTS’ $10 million, multi-year energy efficiency investment.

“QTS is an enthusiastic proponent of solar energy’s ability to provide supplemental power to data centers,” said Johnston. “These developments are yet another step that the company is taking in furthering our multi-faceted QTS Green Program, an ongoing quest be an industry leader in reducing data center carbon footprints. Additionally, we will continue to strive for Leadership in Energy Efficiency and Design certification across our data center portfolio to achieve greater efficiencies and reduce the company’s environmental impact.”

The web hosting company has also committed to another year of participation in the Environmental Defense Fund Climate Corps Program, a summer fellowship program that places specially-trained MBA and MPA students in organizations to help drive energy efficiency.

QTS provides data center solutions and fully managed services  including custom data center, colocation and cloud services. The company owns, operates and manages more than 3 million square feet of secure data center infrastructure and supports more than 700 customers.

QTS’ data centers recently transitioned from auditing their processes and procedures via the SAS 70 auditing standard to the Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements No. 16, while its Atlanta Matro data center recently achieved LEED Gold certification.