HostingCon 2006 Gets Underway

The second annual Hosting Convention got off to a great start at the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The convention, which ends on Wednesday, experienced a bigger turnout that anticipated.

“It’s definitely bigger than last year,” says George Roberts IV, executive director of HostingCon 2006. “There are many familiar faces in the exhibit hall, but there are also many companies who are new to the event. Things have been good today so far so we’ll see how things turn out.”

Several companies were using the convention to debut new services, products and applications, and numerous giveaways, sweepstakes and games were also being held. Visitors to the convention were treated with live demonstrations, educational classes and the chance to meet with actual software and hardware vendors.

##

Microsoft Rolls Out Hosting 4.0

Microsoft rolled out Hosting 4.0 at HostingCon 2006 on Tuesday. According to the company, Hosting 4.0 will allow companies to, “rapidly launch new services, target developers of Web applications and increase operational efficiency in their business through best practices, tools, scripts and code samples.”

“There is a significant trend toward commoditization at the lower end of the Web hosting market, driving service providers of all sizes to seek new ways to add value, increase revenues and lower costs,” says John Zanni, director of worldwide hosting at Microsoft. “With the added support for updated Microsoft products SQL Server 2005 and ASP.NET 2.0 in version 4.0 of the Solution for Windows-based Hosting, we’re giving service providers the ability to easily host software-as-a-service applications and target the developers who are building them.”

The company also stated that, “The new version also enables service providers to offer profitable managed services to their customers and resellers, including database hosting with SQL Server 2005 and security update management.”

##

A Phishing Spree

MarkMonitor, a firm specializing in corporate identity protection, announced that phishing is experiencing a significant rise, putting millions of people and thousands of companies at risk.

“Our study showed that the Web address is used more than any other indicator – including ‘https’ in the address bar, a padlock icon, or a certificate – to determine whether a website is legitimate or not,” said Harvard’s Rachna Dhamija, a co-author and lead researcher of the study. “Therefore, it is not surprising that phishers are manipulating the domain name as a strategy for scamming more people.”

The company stated, “domain-based phishing attacks now represent 73 percent of all attacks, up from 35 percent just 18 months ago. The impetus behind this rapid increase is illustrated in a recent independent study by several researchers from Harvard University and University of California, Berkeley, titled ‘Why Phishing Works,’ which showed that 36 percent of participants rely primarily on the domain name, in addition to website content, to determine a site’s legitimacy. It also found that participants were less suspicious of a website displaying a recognizable domain name versus a numerical IP address.”

##

Affinity Joins Forces with WebUnited

Affinity, a provider of hosting solutions, announced that they have partnered with WebUnited, another hosting provider. The partnership will allow WebUnited customers the ability to use WebUnited’s hosting plans, coupled with Affinity’s ecommerce and interactive medial resources.

“Affinity is committed to providing the most complete web service packages in the industry, and partnerships such as this, will enable small business owners to reap the benefits,” says Steve White, director of sales for Affinity Internet. “Adding a trusted leader of colocation and connectivity to our roster of industry partners furthers the value of Affinity’s offerings.”

The partnership should help Affinity cement their position as a company that is offering some of the best and comprehensive services on the market, according to industry analysts.

##

HostICan Launches New Affiliate Program

HostICan, a provider of various hosting solutions, announced that they have launched a new affiliate program for their customers. Their new program differs from many competitors by combining prize rewards with actual cash for each sale.

Each referral will earn affiliates $85 and they will be eligible for iPod giveaways, music cards from iTunes and other prizes. In addition, all affiliates will be entered into the company’s sweepstakes, “2006 Toyota Scion TC & Free Gas or $20,000 in cash.”

“With HostICan, affiliates can feel confident that they are sending their traffic to a recommended host,” says Brian Lim of AffilateFuture. “Every referral earning $85 CPA commission, the company’s growth pattern since 2003 and a great reputation for competitive pricing, affiliates will find HostICan offers an unbeatable web hosting offer.”

##

Helm Beta Now Available

WebHostAutomation, the company behind the popular Helm control panel, announced that Version 4.0 of the panel is now available for beta use. In addition, the panel will debut at 50% off in October.

Adam Saunders, Co-Founder and CTO of Webhost Automation, the company which created Helm, said that Helm 4 offers features never before seen in the industry. He said: “These include faster, more secure communications, better backups, cross data support without the need for VPN, a single point billing system and superior notifications to customers.” However, he said that the extremely flexible nature of Helm 4’s modular design gives the ability to include incredibly powerful new features with minimal development.

“On a practical level, this means that hosting companies can create and provide unique and new services for their customers, as well as for their own business. Helm 4 will make it possible for us or developers to easily add new modules, so that webhosts can quite literally control anything from their control panel. This gives the webhost more to sell or the ability to add massive value to end users – both of which increase profitability.”

Mark Hall, Co-Founder and COO of Webhost Automation, said “We’ve always geared Helm towards helping webhosts reduce their costs, increase their profitability and grow fast – which is what every webhost wants.”

##

HostDepot Offers New Rollover Bandwidth Plans

HostDepot, a provider of hosting solutions, announced on Monday that they are now offering special “roll-over bandwidth” plans for their customers. All customers will be given a “bandwidth bank,” which will accrue each month’s unused bandwidth. This amount will then be added to their monthly total allotment of data transfer.

The company estimates that this new program could save small business owners as much as $700 per year in hosting costs. All of the bandwidth accrued must be used over the course of 1 year however. The company also stated that all of their existing customers will get two months of bandwidth deposited into their bandwidth banks absolutely free, as a way of saying thank you.

“The Rollover Bandwidth program is designed to help small businesses better manage their operations by banking unused bandwidth for future use, much the way any business owner would manage cash or control expenses,” said Mark Erskine, President & CEO of Host Depot. “We see many companies that underestimate their true annual bandwidth needs by choosing a low-cost plan with limited capacity, only to be hit up for overage fees when they go beyond their bandwidth capacity limits. We believe that our program will quickly deliver positive, demonstrable and bottom-line effects for many SMB web sites especially the e-commerce site on a shared hosting plan.”

##

netZentry Launches New Partner Program

netZentry, a provider of network security and DDOS protection tools, announced that they have started a new partner program. netZentry stated that, “the Partner PROFIT Program turns distributed denial of service protection into a revenue-generating service, rather than a cost of doing business.”

“We are proud to be launching the Partner PROFIT Program to Web hosting service providers that need better solutions to prevent DDoS attacks,” says Rangaswamy Vasudevan, CEO of netZentry. “Not only will our partners be able to bring additional security and value to their clients, they can also expect to generate, on average, an additional 20 percent in revenue from each client that signs up for increased DDoS protection services.”

##

Listen Now.

Prefer to listen in your browser? Just click the arrow on our player below to listen to this week’s show.

Show Notes

Questions and Answers

This week we answered a question on moving SQL databases.

Related Resource Articles:

Databases Explained – What They Do

Databases Explained – How to Use Your Database

Got a question for next week’s show? Send us an email!

Have you visited our new blog yet? Check it out!

Hosting News Wrap-Up – This week we featured stories from our daily hosting news industry briefings. Get them here!

Featured Hosting Company

This week, we featured Daily Razor Hosting.

Full Review

Brand New Segment! Our new Hosting Deal of the Week finds the best hosting deals to save you time and money!

For our deal of the week, we have a special from BoundGrid.net.

Their Host300 Plan is currently priced at $5.96 per month and offers free set-up, a seven day trial, instant activation, 900 megs of storage, 20 gigs of monthly data transfer, and support for ASP 2.0. This hosting company was recently voted one of the top NT hosting companies by its customers and with all the available options, low price and great support, it’s easy to see why.

Wrap-Up

See what’s planned for next week’s show – Stay tuned! Happy 4th of July!

Site5 Offers Domain Name Registration

Site5, a provider of hosting solutions, announced that they are now offering domain name registration services for their customers. Pricing for domains through the company will begin at $8.88 per year for a one year registration.

According to the company, they “decided to offer this service because profit margins on domain names were next to nothing, especially with some companies going so far as to give them away for free, so it seemed like an opportunity Site5 couldn’t afford to pass up. In addition, Site5 feels that the simplified interface part of its Backstage Account Manager software will allow clients to both purchase new domains and transfer old ones through a seamless process.”

“Sure, we realize you can buy domain names from anyone for almost nothing nowadays,” says Rod Armstrong, president of Site5. “But why would you do that when you can easily buy them through Site5’s revolutionary, fancy-looking AJAX-based Domain Manager?”

Related Resource Article:

WHI’s Guide to Domain Name Appraisal Services

##

XRamp Offers Free SSL Certificates

XRamp, a provider of digital SSL certificates, announced that they are planning a $100,000 SSL giveaway during HostingCon 2006.

According to the company, “The promotion is open to all current cPanel customers, and will run until $100,000 worth of XRamp ‘Basic SSL’ certificates are given out or August 31st, 2006, whichever comes first. cPanel customers need to visit the booth #326 at the conference where they will be given a free redemption card to use online at any time. An online form will validate and verify the customer’s current cPanel account prior to them receiving their certificate.”

“XRamp is excited to be participating at this year’s HostingCon as a Gold Sponsor, so we decided to do something to celebrate our partnership with cPanel,’ said Scott Harris, President of XRamp. “As one of our strategic partners, cPanel is the industry standard for control panel technology, and this contest is simply a way of saying ‘thank you’ to their customers for our combined successes.”

##

MIVA Partners with SWSoft

MIVA, a well known provider of ecommerce solutions, announced that they are partnering with SWSoft, a provider of automation software. The partnership will allow SWSoft to resell MIVA services through their popular Plesk control panel.

“MIVA is excited to offer Plesk users an opportunity to quickly and easily build an online store,” said James Harrell, Vice President and General Manager of MIVA Small Business. “As Plesk is a leading control panel for Windows and Linux, and SWsoft has a proven track record of performance, we expect this will be a long and productive relationship.”

“MIVA has increased the simplicity and adoption for small- and medium-sized businesses to successfully growing their online stores,” said Kurt Daniel, Vice President, marketing and alliances for SWsoft. “The addition of a leading e-commerce package like MIVA Merchant™ 5 and MIVA Merchant Fast™ Track will provide our customers a comprehensive solution including integrated credit card processing, advanced catalog, customer and order management systems.”

##

C I Host Increases Security

C I Host, a hosting company, announced that they have increased security measures for all of their servers. All of their servers are now PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliant. In order to accept credit cards, ecommerce site managers must host their sites on servers that have been certified as PCI compliant.

“This is huge for e-commerce sites, which must be able to assure their customers that they can use credit cards safely and not fear that the information they provide might be put to fraudulent use,” said Christopher Faulkner, CEO of C I Host. “If a business is hosting its data on a server that isn’t PCI compliant, the firm’s merchant account provider can shut the account down and refuse to allow the firm to take credit cards.”

In addition to these measures, CI Host is also employing a full-time security guard at their data center to ensure that their customer’s data is protected around the clock.

Related Hosting Review:

C I Host

##

GlobalWebBrands Premiers New Prices

GlobalWebBrands, a provider of hosting services, announced that they are now offering new low prices on some of their hosting plans. The new plans are geared both towards personal site owners and business site owners.

Pricing starts at $1.88 per month and customers are allowed to design their own plan through the company’s various al a carte options. According to the company, this allows site owners the ability to control their monthly hosting costs, without scrimping on necessary services.

“We feel our new approach to the Web hosting market is both unique and innovative,” says Daniel J. Briere of GlobalWebBrands. “Clients benefit because of the power they now have in choosing the features they need at a price level they can afford, and we benefit because we have happier clients.”

##

BeePaw and Pegasus Join Forces

BeePaw, a provider of guest check services, announced that they have formed a new partnership with Pegasus Ventures, a company specializing in web design. The two companies will be working together to form a new hosting venture as well as design, domain registration and more.

“We are excited to offer this new service on the guestchecks.us Web site,” says Beepaw president Robert Dewey. “We continue to look to partner with other companies that provide inexpensive services to restaurant owners and Pegasus Ventures brings experience and fantastic customer service we are glad to offer on the Web site.”

The unique hosting plans will start at $329 per year and will include hosting, domain registration, free updates, email and unlimited page design. According to the company, updates can be performed by email or over the phone.

##

CrystalTech Offers Free Hosting

CrystalTech, a hosting provider specializing in NT and Unix based hosting, announced that they are now offering free hosting for their customers. The summer promotion will allow CrystalTech customers the ability to enjoy free hosting until 2007.

“We’ve always strived here at CrystalTech to provide top-of-the line, feature-packed hosting plans that not only offer the utmost in service and support but provide the best value to our customers as well,” said Robert Cichon, CrystalTech’s Chief Operating Officer.

The company stated, “customers can order a new shared hosting plan and receive five months of hosting for free when they pre-pay for the first month and setup fee. Customers can take advantage of this sale on any new shared hosting plan priced $7.95/month and up by using the ‘SUMMER2006’ promotional option when ordering at CrystalTech’s website before July 31st.”

##

IceWeb Partners with CompUSA

IceWeb, a provider of hosted exchange services, announced that they have partnered with CompUSA, a well-known technology retailer. Their new agreement states in part, “that CompUSA will resell IceWEB’s products including IceMAIL Hosted Exchange email and collaboration service through its business services web site and at the business services counters nationwide. IceWEB Office Suite, which includes IceMAIL, allows small businesses to securely communicate by sharing email, calendar and contact information.”

John R. Signorello, Chairman and CEO of IceWEB stated, “This is a great opportunity for our company. IceWEB’s IceMAIL is the first Microsoft Hosted Exchange product available through an established retail channel. Having CompUSA’s 1,100 small business sales representatives pushing our product through more than 240 stores and the business services Web site, will be a huge boost for our product and brand. CompUSA’s substantial presence amongst the small business marketplace makes this agreement a great match for selling our products since this is IceWEB’s primary market.”

“Technology is critical for small businesses,” said Brian Woods, Executive Vice President and general merchandise Manager for CompUSA. “Business owners can rely on CompUSA for comprehensive technology solutions, including products like IceWEB that allow business owners to increase productivity and focus on the bottom line.”

##

XO Communications Reaches Milestone

XO Communications announced that they have reached a very important milestone for their company – ten years in business. XO is a telecommunications company specializing in delivering communication services to small businesses.

The company was formed in 1996 as one of the first “competitive local exchange” carriers under the fledgling Telecommunications Act of 1996. The company now has over 265,000 customers and brings in an annual revenue of over $1.4 billion.

“Ten years ago XO brought competition to the telecommunications market, helping to deliver more choices, innovation and better services for the millions of businesses across the country,” says Carl Grivner, CEO of XO Communications. “Our focus on innovative services and customer service has earned us the reputation for being more nimble and more focused on providing what customers actually want.”

##

AIT Offers Security Suite to Customers

AIT, a provider of hosting solutions, announced that they are now offering a new security suite to their customers. According to the company, the suite will include, “enterprise level firewall, intrusion detection and protection, a server scan, and upgraded anti-spam and anti-virus software.”

In addition to this suite, the company stated that they “also offer intrusion detection & protection, server monitoring, scanning service that scours machines and networks for flaws and exploits, then follows up with recommended patches or service packs and surf report that tracks employee Internet activity and lets administrators set parameters so resources are not abused.”

“A lot of companies treat security issues with an ‘it won’t happen to me’ attitude; then something happens to them,” said Clarence Briggs, AIT’s Chief Executive Officer. “That’s why we have put a premium on products and services that stop attacks before they can spread through a network.”

Related Hosting Review:

AIT Hosting

##

HostColor Adds More Customer Help Options

HostColor, a web hosting company, announced that they have added two new support lines for their customers. The company stated that, “the new numbers 718-878-3070 for NYC and 416-548-4736 for Toronto GTA are aimed to better serve the local markets by avoiding call waiting that usually happens when consumers call the Toll-Free phone lines.”

“We see the development of both NYC and Toronto local markets as a top priority for our company and we are looking forward to better serve our customers there,” says Alexander Avramov, the Customer Service Manager of Host Color.

The company hopes that the new toll numbers will assist their customers in NYC and Toronto in receiving faster service when they need tech support.

Related Hosting Review:

HostColor Hosting

##

Cirrus Hosting Adds a Site Builder

Cirrus Hosting, a hosting company specializing in both Windows and Linux hosting, announced that they are now offering a new site builder for their customers. The new tool will be available on all of Cirrus Hosting’s plans.

The company stated that the new tool is called, “the WiseNav site building component. WiseNav is a software development package that automates much of the creation, management and publication processes for rich media content including images, text, animations, video and audio.

WiseNav uses an object-oriented approach that allows users to build Web sites, kiosk interfaces and other multimedia applications through a simple drag-and-drop, point-and-click process. The program also allows users to manage multiple projects and automate the publishing of their content to their Web sites.”

##

ASPOne Sees 45% Increase in Customers

ASP-One, a provider Exchange hosting services, announced that they have had an increase of 45% new customers over the period of six months. The company is now home to 20,000 Exchange users.

The company stated that, “it has achieved a 45% increase in subscribers in the last six months. Over the last year, we have experienced a significant increase in the number of customers moving from an in-house solution to our outsourced model. The company claims provides customers who have limited, internal resources and staff with improved IT capabilities, service flexibility and scalability. ASP-One delivers Exchange Hosting and Hosted SharePoint to the burgeoning SMB market.”

“SMB organizations now truly understand the clear advantages of hosted application delivery for software solutions like Microsoft Exchange,” said Alex Yevelev, Vice President of Web Direct Sales for ASP-One. “Over the last year, we have experienced a significant increase in the number of customers moving from an in-house solution to our outsourced model.”

##

WebCinch Officially Launches

WebCinch, a new hosting company, announced that they have officially launched their new website, after the original planning phase took six months. The company’s servers will be residing in Texas, a location that was hand picked by the company’s founder.

‘’With over 12 years of experience in the industry, I’m in a position to point WebCinch in a direction that will ensure our ability to not only grow and stay competitive, but also to offer our clients the superior level of service that they expect,’’ says Eric Barbaglia, founder of WebCinch.

According to the company, they offer, “a wide range of real-time customer support methods, including video tutorials, a download library and a user Knowledgebase. Live server monitoring data has also been posted on the WebCinch Web site. All company sales and technical support representatives, including Barbaglia, may be reached directly by customers via MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Skype and ICQ instant messaging.”

##

ModernGigabyte Launches ModernBill 5.0

ModernGigabyte, the software company behind the widely used application ModernBill, announced today that they have released version 5.0 of the popular billing tool.

“We developed ModernBill Version 5.0 completely from scratch in order to build a solid product that enables companies of all sizes to begin billing their customers using an online, automated billing system and provides a foundation for developers to integrate or build their own applications using the MBAPI,” said Jon McCarrick, Vice President of Sales at ModernGigabyte.

The company stated that, “Developers can use the SDK, exclusively available to ModernBill customers, to integrate 3rd party applications into the ModernBill 5.0 core engine, also known as the MBAPI. Developers also have the ability to develop their own applications using the MBAPI engine. Major features of the new ModernBill 5.0 include multiple language, currency and tax capabilities. It extends support to larger companies requiring more powerful databases including Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle. It also uses the Smarty template engine to allow complete customization of the administration, client and order system.”

##

EDS Provides CMS Site Support

EDS, a provider of IT solutions, announced that they are now offering hosting solutions for Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (cms.hhs.gov) outward facing Web sites. The contract is worth a reported $41 million.

This new contract is the second task order that was issued to EDS through the CMS Enterprise Data Center $1.9 billion Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contract. The goal of the project is to consolidate operations.

“This task order will allow CMS to cut data center costs and improve responsiveness to the millions of users of Medicare services,” says Don Picard, VP of EDS Civilian Healthcare. “The work performed by EDS under these task orders begins CMS’ first step toward consolidating the agency’s mid-tier applications into an EDC environment.”

##

Intermedia Offers New SpamStopper

Intermedia, a provider of hosting solutions, announced that they have added SpamStopper to all of the hosted Exchange plans. SpamStopper includes content filtering capabilities to further reduce the amount of spam. The company already uses Antigen for Exchange to protect their clients, and feels that the addition of SpamStopper will work well with this program.

SpamStopper was developed specifically for Intermedia and is based on the popular open source program, Spam Assassin. Customers of Intermedia who wish to add this capability to their Exchange plans will need to pay an additional $1 per month, per mailbox.

“Spam can be a serious drag on business productivity,” says Serguei Sofinski, CEO of Intermedia. “With the new SpamStopper product, customers of our industry-leading hosted Exchange can enjoy sophisticated spam protection built in to their service, with almost no management required on their part.”

##

4Domains Launches New VPS Plans

4Domains, a provider of domain name registration and hosting services, announced that they have added VPS hosting to their current hosting line-up. The company’s other brand, Bluehill.com will also offer this capability.

The new VPS plans will be available as Linux or Windows, depending on the customer’s preference. The company is currently completely the transition and expects to have the new changes up on their site very soon.

“We are excited to offer this new VPS product offering to our legacy VPS customers and that of new potential customers,” said Chuck Steinberger, CEO of 4Domains, a wholly owned subsidiary of SEInc. “We have already migrated and upgraded many legacy customers and so far the feedback is very positive on the new Virtual Private Server features.”

##

Hackers Go After Banking Sites

Goldleaf Technology, a provider of hosting services, released information that a phishing attempt was made by hackers in an attempt to exploit several banking companies that use their hosting solutions.

The company stated, “its 600 client bank sites were affected by the security compromise for periods from nine to 91 minutes on May 25 between 1:35 p.m. and 2:50 p.m. CST. Goldleaf Technology says when customers logged onto the banking Web sites, they were redirected through a server in Madrid, Spain, and from there, customers were redirected again to servers in several countries. However, many customers felt suspicious as the phishing site didn’t resemble the official bank sites.”

“How [do] we prevent this in the future? Unfortunately, ... this type of activity will not stop,” says Scott Meyerhoff, executive VP for parent company Goldleaf Financial Solutions. “We will remain vigilant to safeguard our customers. Having security personnel on staff and fully reviewing the system on a regular basis will ensure we have the safest environment possible.”

##

RegisterFly.com Starts New Reseller Program

RegisterFly, a provider of domain name registration services, announced that they have begun a new reselling program for their customers. Under this plan, resellers will be able to offer domain names for $6.50 each.

The company stated, “A XML-based API is provided that includes the most common domain management functions and even incorporates URL Redirection at no additional cost. Within the coming weeks additional domain name extensions, free privacy protection, SSL certificates and products will be available within the reseller channel.”

“A large number of our customers approached us about creating a reselling plan that did not require an excessive deposit,” states Terry Kocek, Vice President of Sales for RegisterFly.com, inc. “In addition to no deposit required, we also established the lowest reseller pricing in the industry at only $6.50 each. The response to the reseller program exceeded our expectations; over 10,000 resellers have signed up within the past four weeks alone.”

##

Listen Now.

Prefer to listen in your browser? Just click the arrow on our player below to listen to this week’s show.

Show Notes

Questions and Answers

This week we answered a question on the benefits of managed hosting.

Related Resource Articles:

The Basics of Running a Dedicated Server

What You Need to Know to Run a Dedicated Server – Part One

What You Need to Know to Run a Dedicated Server – Part Two

Got a question for next week’s show? Send us an email!

Have you visited our new blog yet? Check it out!

Hosting News Wrap-Up – This week we featured stories from our daily hosting news industry briefings. Get them here!

Featured Hosting Company

This week, we featured GetaVPS.

Full Review

Brand New Segment! Our new Hosting Deal of the Week finds the best hosting deals to save you time and money!

For our deal of the week, we have a special from Beachcomber.

Beachcomber.net is offering 50% off the first month for their hosting packages. Make sure to use coupon code 50%off-h so that you can take advantage of their offer. They have several hosting plans that start at $3.99, but my favorite is their Power Premier Plan, priced at $14.95 a month. This plan offers 1.5 gigs of disk space, 50 gigs of monthly data transfer, unlimited MySQL databases and a whole lot more.

Wrap-Up

See what’s planned for next week’s show – Stay tuned! Happy 4th of July!

Actinic Offers New Design Tools

Actinic, a UK based provider of ecommerce solutions, announced this week that they are now offering a new set of design tools for their customers. The suite includes, “Actinic Designer and is supported by Actinic Catalog Client and Actinic Business Client.”

The company states that Actinic Designer, “has a new design interface, integrates with Dreamweaver and offers Web designers a cost effective, flexible tool set for producing multiple e-commerce sites for clients.”

“Web designers have told us that they want more control over the design and functionality of the e-commerce sites they deploy, and they want to brand them as their own,” says Phil Rothwell, Actinic managing director. “With this new range of products, we are providing Web designers with what they need to produce the sites their clients require, at a price they can afford.”

##

Layered Technologies Launches Gaming Division

Layered Technology, a provider of hosting services, announced that they now have a new gaming division for their customers. The division is called LayeredX and can be accessed at LayeredX.com.

According to the company, the “new division will provide on-demand managed servers to game-server providers, gamers, teams, clans and communities. The system behind LayeredX combines multiple Tier 1 backbones into one blended network, and runs only on premium HP servers. LayeredX will also offer xCommand, a Web-based user interface allowing complete and flexible control over the gaming server.

“Few in the industry understand gaming as well as LayeredX,” says Andrew Mitcham, manager of gaming solutions with LayeredX and founder of DeathMatch*United. “LayeredX is committed to keeping gaming what it is supposed to be: fun, as well as technically robust.”

In celebration of their new division, the company is temporarily waiving set-up fees for all new orders.

##

DiscountASP Adds New Security Tools

DiscountASP, a provider of Windows-based hosting solutions, announced that they have improved the security of their network by adding the Tipping Point IPS to their arsenal.

“With the TippingPoint IPS we can provide a proactive security solution, and by offering the most reliable and secure ASP.NET hosting available, we further differentiate our hosting service in the marketplace,” says Takeshi Eto, VP of marketing for DiscountASP.Net. “While TippingPoint’s security professionals focus on protecting our network and hosting infrastructure, we can focus on innovating our ASP.NET hosting product and services.”

DiscountASP also stated that they are using, “the TippingPoint Digital Vaccine real-time inoculation service, which automatically updates the TippingPoint IPS with new filters, to block the latest security threats and exploits.”

##

Offshore Web Hosting Company Hit by Fire

Sealand, a large WWII missile platform and home to a secure data facility, experienced a fire this week that required the intervention of the RAF. The fire, which is believed to have started in the main power generation facility, is estimated to have caused around $1 million in damages.

The data center on the platform is owned by HavenCo, an American company. The company had formerly billed their facility as, “the world’s most secure managed servers in the world’s only true free market environment.”

One man was rescued from the platform, which declared sovereignty in 1967, and hospitalized after suffering smoke inhalation. It is believed that the man was a security guard on the platform. The fire was contained and has since been extinguished. HavenCo did not comment further on any damage that their facility may have suffered.

##