Congratulations to Dave Harms of CoveComm Inc. on winning the iPad in our e-mail giveaway!

What? You didn’t know we were giving out an iPad? Well, sign up for The Planet’s mailing lists and get in the know!

We have several types of communications to choose from, each one keeping you up-to-date on everything The Planet:

1. The Satellite Newsletter – Company news, events, blog highlights and new product announcements
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4. Deal Alerts – Last-minute special deals

Click here to sign up for any or all of these newsletters so that you don’t miss your chance to be a part of our next big giveaway!

-Ali

You’ve had the weekend to mentally prepare yourself for the first “workout” in our UNIX Sysadmin Boot Camp, so now that you’ve finished stretching your hammies, we’ll jump right into training. In Welcome to the Jungle, I talked about the command line as a fantastically powerful resource, so my goal is to help you wield that power.

Before you can do any actual wielding, you’re going to need to know how to find this exotic “command line” we’ve already talked so much about. Unless you managed to sneak your way through the layers upon layers of security and into your server’s data center, you won’t be able to plug a keyboard and monitor directly into your server. You do have access to the next best thing, though: the Secure Shell – or SSH – network protocol. SSH allows data to be exchanged securely between two networked devices, and when the “network” between your workstation and server is the Internet, the fact that it does so “securely” is significant.

Instructions to SSH into your server are included in your introductory information from The Planet, as well as in your Orbit interface. You can use a third-party client such as PuTTY, WinSCP if your workstation is Windows-based, or if you’re on Linux or Mac, you can access SSH from your terminal application: ssh user@ipaddress. Once you’ve gotten into your server, you’ll probably want to find out where you are, so give the pwd command a try:

user@serv: ~$ pwd/home/useruser@serv: ~$

It’s as easy as that. Now we know we’re in the /home/user directory. Most of the time, you’ll find yourself starting in your home directory. This is where you can put personal files and documents. It’s kind of like “My Documents” in Windows, just on your server.

Now that you know where you are, you’ll probably want to know what’s in there. Take a look at these commands (extracted from a RedHat environment, but also usable in CentOS and many other distributions):

You’ll notice many similarities to the typical Windows DOS prompts, so it helps if you’re familiar with navigating through that interface: dir, cd, cd .., cd /. Everything else on the other hand, will prove to be a bit different.

Now that you’re able to access this soon-to-be-powerful-for-you tool, you need to start learning the language of the natives: bash. In our next installment, we’ll take a crash course in bash, and you’ll start to get comfortable navigating and manipulating content directly on your server.

-Ryan

One of my all-time favorite movies is Grease. The classic love story between Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson still resonates with me. So when I started writing a blog about all the great summer plans The Planet has lined up, the song “Summer Nights” began to run through my head. So naturally, I started improvising a few conference-related verses to the song. Because I can’t deprive you of the organic masterpiece that resulted, this blog features the song written just for you about our crazy summer plans to the tune of “Summer Nights.” If you aren’t familiar with the classic duet from Sandy and Danny, click the link to play the video in the background as you sing along:

Summer sellin’ having a blast
Summer sellin’, it’s happening fast
We traveled to Web Expo in May
The show was great, as you’ve heard us say

Summer days driftin’ away to uh-oh those summer shows

Tell me more. Tell me more. Was it like a bazaar?
Tell me more. Tell me more. Like, did we raise the bar?

It was great, we stayed out late
Structure’s in June, and we might all just swoon
We’ve got a new look, and we’re SF bound
Carl’s talking about Cloud, making us proud

Summer sun, something’s begun, but uh-oh those summer shows

Tell me more. Tell me more. Well, it’s all on our site.
Tell me more. Tell me more. Can I get an invite?

Takin’ it all to the Lone Star State
HostingCon is next on the slate
Try it out, Server Challenge
I bet there’ll be times to avenge

Summer heat won’t slow us down, but uh-oh those summer shows

Tell me more. Tell me more. Will there be a big bout?
Tell me more. Tell me more. The winner will shout!

We’ll hit New York, just as we planned
Affiliate Summit will be quite grand
There are partners to meet, new friends to greet
We smiled all we could, you know what I mean

Summer heat, updates to Tweet, but uh-oh those summer shows

Tell me more. Tell me more. How much swag did we send?
Tell me more. Tell me more. We’ll be sad when it ends.

It turns colder, but that’s not the end
There are still fall shows to attend
Now I know you’re wondering how …
We got you to sing this out loud

Summer days: dreams and extremes,
But oh …
Those summer shows

Please forgive me for this foray into show tunes on our blog. I simply couldn’t resist!

In case you didn’t catch it all in my musical format, we hope to see you at some of our summer events below!

-Sherry

You’ve got a ‘nix box set up. For some reason, you feel completely lost and powerless. It happens. Many a UNIX-related sob has been cried by confused and frustrated sysadmins, and it needs to stop. As a techie on the front lines of support, I’ve seen firsthand the issues that new and curious sysadmins seem to have. We have a lot of customers who like to dive head-first into a new environment, and we even encourage it. But there’s quite a learning curve.

In my four-month tenure at The Planet, I’ve come across a lot of customers who rely almost entirely on control panels like cPanel, Plesk and Parallels Small Business Panel to administer their servers. While those panels simplify some fairly complex tasks to the touch of a button, we all know that one day you’re going to have to get down and dirty in that SSH (Secure Shell) interface that so many UNIX server newbies fear.

I’m here to tell you that SSH can be your friend, if you treat it right. Graphical user interfaces like the ones used in control panels have been around for quite a while now, and despite the fact that we are in “the future,” the raw power of a command line is still unmatched in its capabilities. It’s a force to be reckoned with.

If you’re accustomed to a UNIX-based interface, this may seem a little elementary, but you and I both know that as we get accustomed to something, we also tend to let those all-important “basics” slip from our minds. If you’re coming from a Windows background and are new to the environment, you’re in for a bit of a shell shock, no pun intended. The command line is fantastically powerful once you master it … It just takes a little time and effort to learn.

Bookmark The Planet Blog and come back regularly to get the latest installments in our “UNIX Sysadmin Boot Camp” series. We’ll start slow and address some of the most common pain points for new sysadmins, and as we move forward, we’ll tackle advanced topics. Set your brain to “absorbent,” and visualize soaking up these UNIX tips like some kind of undersea, all-knowing, Yoda-like sea sponge.

Tune in on Monday when we’ll start our UNIX training with a crash course in SSH.

-Ryan

I recently worked on an application that required we mirror content and configuration across multiple web servers running IIS 7.5 on Windows 2008r2. Because the server configuration in IIS for this application is relatively complicated, doing it over and over would not only be tedious but it would probably introduce some human error. While the possibility of human error is mitigated by the application’s detailed documentation, I looked for a more automated approach to the process.

Using IIS 7’s shared configuration management, it’s possible to replicate the content and configuration folders between web servers. As I worked through the steps of mirroring the content and server configuration for our application, I took notes on the process to create this guide for you to use the next time you approach a similar project.

You will need a domain account – or local account on each web server if your web servers aren’t joined to an Active Directory domain – which will be used to access the shared configuration. The account only accesses this configuration and a file share to store the configuration. Your web applications continue to run under whatever application pool identity you’ve set.

Assuming you’ve configured your IIS-based web server, we can start by exporting the configuration:

1. On the first web server that will host the shared configuration, create a directory and share it with full share and ntfs permissions to the service account you create. All other permissions should be removed.
2. In IIS manager, click on the server node in the left pane, then open “Shared Configuration” in the right pane.

   

3. Select the”Export Configuration” option on the right, store the export in the directory you created in step 1.

   

4. Create an encryption key. This key should be recorded, as it is needed for all nodes accessing the shared configuration.
5. After the configuration is exported, tick the ‘Enable shared configuration’ box, and enter the UNC path to the configuration and the username, domainserviceaccount and password for that account.

   

6. Press apply, and you will be prompted for the encryption key created in step 2.

   

7. Restart the server or run an iisreset to apply configuration. Check to ensure that IIS is still functioning and the IIS manager can be accessed.

After completing those steps, your web server will be running from the shared configuration, so the next step is to replicate the web content and configure all other web servers to work from the same configuration.

There are several ways of replicating the physical content, DFSR is one option, however I chose not to use it. The content on this application’s web servers is static, so frequent updates to the other nodes is unnecessary. Instead, I used robocopy – a built-in feature since Vista / Server 2008 – to mirror the content from the configured server to all others. This was executed on the web server receiving the content:

robocopy \configuredwebserverc$inetpubwwwroot c:inetpubwwwroot /MIR

Once the file content is in place, two quick steps are required to configure IIS to use the shared configuration:

1. In IIS manager, click on the server node in the left pane, then open “Shared Configuration” in the right pane.
2. Tick the ‘Enable shared configuration’ box. Enter the UNC path to the configuration as specified on the first web server.

   

3. Enter the username, domainserviceaccount and password for that account. Press apply and enter the encryption key.

   

4. Restart the IIS server to apply configuration, and check to ensure that IIS is still functioning and the IIS manager can be accessed.

You’re done. You’ve replicated all application pools and IIS configurations. If you have ODBC data sources – things external to IIS which your web applications are using – you will need to find a way to replicate these settings as well.

If the shared configuration is unavailable for any reason, IIS may act up. In Server 2008 (not R2), if the configuration disappears, IIS will essentially stop. In R2, the server will detect this, continue working and reconnect when the configuration source comes back online.

To safeguard against connectivity issues, enable offline files by following these steps:

1. On the web server, in “Control Panel,” open “Offline Files.”
2. In the Offline Files dialog box, click Enable Offline Files. Do not reboot the machine yet.
3. Ensure that the cache is set to read only by running the following command:
   REG ADD "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC\Parameters" /v ReadOnlyCache /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
4. Reboot the Web server.
5. Browse to the shared configuration folder on the web server. Right click and select “Always Available Offline”.
6. Go back to the “Offline Files” in “Control Panel” and select the “Schedule” option.

   The sync center option is available on Windows 2008 server only when Desktop experience is enabled. KB 951043: You cannot start Sync Center from Windows Explorer on a Windows Server 2008-based computer.

7. Schedule offline file sync every day or per your requirements. Even without setting up any scheduler, the moment I change anything in applicationhost.config file, it is reflected on the web server.

Hopefully this method should save you from a few headaches and give you another option when setting up multiple IIS 7 web servers. Being able to use the same configuration minimize deployment time and makes administration a breeze.

Let me know if you have any questions or would like any additional details about the process.

-Marlin

Five weeks, five shows, four states and a few thousand frequent flyer miles have come and gone since Sherry posted the trade show teaser, and we made it back to the office safely … for the most part. Our only major casualty: The Dell PowerEdge 1950 server chassis we used for the Server Challenge will never serve again.

After being disassembled and speed-assembled by more than 300 people over 800 times at ad:tech, Interop and Web 2.0 Expo SF, the hardware was worn and torn quite a bit. With a few replacement pieces, some elbow grease and a little bit of luck, the box “survived” the torture — meaning that it still generally looked like a server when we were done with it. When it comes to whether or not the survival extended beyond the server’s appearance to its functionality, you can judge for yourself:

In all honesty, the server wasn’t doing much serving before we stole it from the warehouse – a point made clear by the absence of processors. The chassis was set to be recycled, so before it passed on into the great data center in the sky, we gave it one last hurrah as the featured server in the Server Challenge. For a device that typically lives behind locked doors and thick walls, this was quite a way to say goodbye.

Its fate is a cautionary tale to those of you looking to train for your next chance to compete in The Planet Server Challenge. If your server works and you want it to keep working, don’t try this at home.

While the idea to offer conference attendees the ability to reassemble a few parts of a dead server didn’t seem like a groundbreaking idea, the results suggest otherwise. At all of the Server Challenge’s appearances, we heard praises for the activity and gratitude for the opportunity to engage. Even if attendees lose the collateral they received at our booth, they’ll have their YouTube videos and pictures from our booth that remind them that when they think about servers, they should think about The Planet.

In addition to the excitement of the competition, having the server in our booth also started some great conversations. One of my favorite questions from the show floors was whether we did this very often in day-to-day operations. The answer is a resounding “No.” As you can see by the video above, when you start factoring people into the equation, you run the risk of breaking things.

When it comes time to provision a new server for a customer, we have an automated provisioning (AP) system that will select the available server in our fleet that meets or exceeds the orders specs so the order can be processed as quickly as possible. In general, our DC technicians never have to touch a new customer’s server, and when they do, it’s usually just a matter of adding a hard drive or a stick of RAM. The AP system does the heavy lifting so a new order can brought online quicker and will be less likely to suffer a build-related failure.

As you’ve heard from Duke and Stephen recently, we have a few projects in the pipeline to continue our push toward automation. We’ll do our best to update you with all the good news as it becomes available, so stay tuned.

-Kevin

P.S. The Server Challenge winners at ad:tech and Interop graciously let us record videos with them, and we’ve uploaded them to our YouTube channel. Check out Katie’s presentation of the ASUS Eee PC to ad:tech winner Robert Murkofsky and Nick Foster’s incredible winning build at Interop.

Whether you’re a technology junkie or you just know someone who is, you have to admire the number of diverse applications that have exploded onto the scene over the last several years. Clever, inspiring — and sometimes useful — apps on Apple devices capture our attention, while countless other Internet (aka Cloud) services from companies like Google and Microsoft expand the palette of possibilities available to the talented artists who craft such wonderful software. You have to appreciate the amount of thought put into these creations.

At The Planet, when it comes to providing software systems and tools, our goal is simple: Create software experiences that delight our customers. To that end, we are making several changes to our approach to software development. First, we’re getting back to the basics, like aligning with your needs and striving to enable you with tools that are both relevant and reliable. We’ve talked with many of you about specific capabilities that exist today in Orbit and other killer features that should be there. One thing is clear: our customers provide amazing feedback. We are excited about implementing a new medium for capturing suggestions so that all of our customers can participate in the development process. We have some big ideas and want to get your feedback as we prioritize them.

The next step in our new approach to developing world-class software is retooling our process. While our audience is smaller than the likes of Google and Yahoo!, our developers still have tens of thousands of users that interact with our software every day, so creating tools that our customers love to use is very important. Early on, our systems were built by folks who genuinely had passion to deliver cool tools for both customers and fellow employees. After a while, our approach to building software became a bit stuffy and cumbersome, so we’ve made some big changes to reenergize the group.

As a development organization, we are adopting the Agile methodology for building software by fostering empowered, passionate, and inspired teams to create innovative software filled with features valued by our customers. The Orbit for iPhone web application is one of the first products we’ve released that was built with this new approach, and we plan on impressing you with new releases we have planned for the future.

-Stephen

P.S. If you’ll be in the Irving area tomorrow, swing by the NYLO Hotel to check out the Rally Software Agile Success Tour. I’ll be on a panel at 9:30 a.m. CDT to discuss how the implementation of the Agile approach has produced great results for The Planet.

If you’re a regular blog reader, you might know that The Planet gets incredibly pumped about a little thing called the Dragon Boat Festival each spring. If you’re wondering what the heck a dragon boat is, you’re not alone.

Two years ago, The Planet headquarters competed in our first dragon boat festival, fielding two teams – one of senior-level managers, another with, well, the rest of us. It’s probably no surprise that the younger, more agile non-manager team took the race.

This year, we tried something a little different – entering one team from headquarters and one team from Dallas in the Houston race. No strangers to dragon-boating themselves, the Dallas office would prove to be tough competition, fresh off their Corporate Division victory in the 2009 DFW Dragon Boat Festival.

It was a pretty hot day for the competition on Saturday, climbing up to 87 with a humidity index in the 90s … And no, it wasn’t raining. That’s Houston for you.

We started early, gathering at the race site at 8 a.m. The first win of the day was erecting our 10×20 pop-up tent. It took about 30 minutes of trial and error, with many a misplaced part. Knowing I could not add any value, I looked on encouragingly while clutching my cup of coffee. When the guys were finally victorious, the raising of the tent was met with cheers and applause.

The Planet tent in all its glory.

And so the day began. The Houston team was the Hosting Rockstars, with the clever tagline of “We rock hosting, not boats.” (Our own creative genius Kevin Hazard came up with that one.) We decorated our tent with all types of rock paraphernalia: Props included blow-up microphones, rocking foam fingers and guitar-shaped sunglasses.

The Planet “ground crew” rocking out.

The Houston team competed in one of the first races of the day, and we got off to a rocky start, posting a time of 1:28 in the 250-meter race. Yikes. Dallas raced after us with a time of 1:22. For a little perspective, a team of local competitive dragon boaters, the Houston Heat, posted a time of 1:10. Our head-to-head match-up was next, and I’ll let you see how it turned out (Houston: Boat 2, Dallas: Boat 3):

Ah, the bitterness of defeat. Even though it was a close race and we improved our time significantly, it just wasn’t enough to beat the battle-tested Dallas. Even our bedazzled bandanas and cool shirts couldn’t save us.

But we looked good, no?

For the record, Houston matched Dallas’ Heat 1 time of 1:22 in the head-to-head competition. They inched us out with an even better time of 1:20.

Dallas pulling ahead of Houston for the win. Doug Erwin cheering us on.

The competition will continue, as the Houston team travels up to Dallas on May 16 for the DFW Dragon Boat Festival. Will Dallas demoralize us again? Or will the Houston underdogs prevail? Stay tuned …

Check out our flickr stream for more photos from race day.

-Katie

Previously on “As The Planet Tours,” we caught up with our globetrotting team at Interop Las Vegas. One short week later, we find a new ragtag group of server experts from The Planet wandering the streets of San Francisco again – this time for Web 2.0 Expo SF.

This show wraps up one heck of a busy month for us, and we plan to finish strong. Attending five shows in four different states since Sherry’s “April Showers” post hasn’t slowed us down a bit, and we have a full schedule of activities planned for the folks making their way into Moscone West this week.

The expo hall opens at 10:30 a.m. PDT, and we’re hitting the ground running. In booth 708, we have a great group of account managers and engineers available to answer all of your hosting related questions, and if you take a little time to chat with us, you might walk away with one of our popular “refreshing approach to hosting” water bottles. Because this conference is geared toward web-based entrepreneurs, we expect the topics of discussion in our booth to differ greatly from the ones we had at Interop, Cloud Expo and even ad:tech. A few of our 20,000+ customers are big names in the world of Web 2.0, so we’re excited to share some of their success stories and why those success stories are relevant to the hosting decisions being made by Web 2.0 Expo attendees.

On Tuesday, May 4, 2010 at 10:45 a.m. PDT, the Kevin Hazard (yours truly) will be presenting a 10-minute session in the expo’s solutions showcase theater titled “You care about hosting, even if you don’t know it: The Siren Song of The Planet Server.” You might be surprised to know this, but I have the inside track on what we’re going to cover, and it’s safe to say that the content is amazing. Stop by the theater as you make your way into the expo hall!

In booth 708, our trusty Dell PowerEdge 1950 server chassis is making a curtain call for its final Server Challenge. While its components have seen better days, the server still looks beautiful … I wouldn’t be too confident in plugging it in, but it looks nice. The fastest server rebuilder at Web 2.0 Expo SF will walk away with an ASUS Eee PC netbook and a boost in geek pride, so if you want to blow us away with your techie prowess, be sure to stop by. You can compete twice per day, so visit early and often!

From the opening bell through the closing ceremonies, you’ll probably see quite a few friendly faces wandering the halls in The Planet’s witty T-shirts. When you do, make sure to say hello!

-Kevin

Have you ever had one of those home projects with so many constraints you just couldn’t finish it like you really wanted? I’ve had several. Just recently, we did some work to our pool. It had decades-old plaster that needed to be replaced. While we were at it, we thought we’d update the look of the pool since, like much of the house we had recently moved into, it was stuck in about 1987. Due to cost and size constraints, we didn’t execute our entire plan, and the “update” ended up being a simple “replace.” It actually looks great, but we didn’t update the fundamental shape, design or overall feel. Our kids don’t care, but to my wife and me, it feels like we spent a lot of time and money for very little change.

Orbit 2.0 feels a little like that to the development staff here at The Planet. It has good functionality and is a perfectly acceptable self-service portal, but its design is stuck somewhere in 2005. We spent a lot of time integrating several portals to get here, and like my pool upgrade, the most substantial changes aren’t very aesthetically evident.

The biggest benefit of Orbit 2.0 was freeing up resources inside The Planet. When we released the GA version of Orbit 2.0, we passed a key milestone for the company: Completion of the systems integration that began when The Planet and EV1 merged. For three years, as we continued to grow the company, the systems development group was forced to do double and triple development for every product addition and process change. Orbit 2.0 streamlined those processes.

Now, we can focus on improving the user experience. We have a dedicated staff focused exclusively on improving three key areas of our customer interface:

1. Self-service Portal
2. Mobile Applications
3. APIs

In this month’s release, look for a few improvements to our customer tools. We are going to deploy a new tool called The Wall, a site where you can give us your ideas and input. We’ll use your feedback to help us prioritize development activities. In addition to The Wall, we’ll deploy some additional APIs to the RESTful beta we began in April.

On a side note, specialists are now designing our user interfaces. As a developer, I always thought I had a great idea for the screen flow or the color scheme. Then one day someone trained in user-interface design reworked one of my screens. The updated results were so much better that I was converted immediately, and I’ve never tried to lay out another screen. We now have a few people who work exclusively on our UIs. You can see the benefit of our new discipline in this area with our iPhone Web App. It looks great and works like it should.

In the next few blogs, I’ll tell you about a few other projects we have underway. First, we’ll talk about server provisioning. Then we’ll move on to some new products we’re working on. After that we can circle back to our portal work and discuss those plans in a little more detail.

Until next time … engage …

-Duke

At Cloud Expo East, The Planet Vice President of Information Technology and Software Development Duke Skarda presented a general session about “the cloud” and how businesses should approach the decision to incorporate the technology. Because we knew the session would draw interest outside of the Javits Center walls, we recorded the presentation for your viewing pleasure.

He explained a few of the sticking points people run into when talking about the cloud. In his words, “The problem set is pretty broad, the promises are even broader, and the term is too loose. Simplicity and specificity is how you’re going to get value in the cloud.” He recommended several approaches to getting through the Gartner hype cycle’s “trough of disillusionment” as quickly as possible, and he incorporated several use cases – both simple and complex – to help the audience understand where their businesses might benefit from use of the cloud.

Here is the session in its entirety:

[See post to watch the Flash video]

How would you recommend businesses approach the cloud? Do you think we’re heading toward the “trough of disillusionment”? What are some other common cloud use cases that present different challenges and opportunities?

-Kevin

Quick, what does the puzzle below depict?

Do you get it?

Hint: Server + Pennies + Packages + Installation of a Large Pipe Upgrade … Get it now?

…

Answer: Superior value from The Planet!

Let me explain.

As if the widest array and lowest prices for high-quality servers wasn’t already enough, for a limited time, we’re adding 10 terabytes (TB) of bandwidth to all dedicated servers in our U.S. data centers through the end of April.

Our 10TB promotion has been exceptionally popular in the past, and to celebrate the growth of our network, we’re bringing the special back. With over 250 Gbps of transit and peering capacity, we can afford to provide our customers with gobs of premium, Tier-1 bandwidth at no additional charge.

That’s right, until midnight (CDT) on April 30, 2010, you can order up to 10 new dedicated servers with Symantec Endpoint Protection antivirus software, 10 GB of Cloud Storage, Parallels Small Business Panel control panel, free setup and 10TB of bandwidth absolutely free!

For the promotion’s details, visit http://www.theplanet.com/10tb-april/

I dare you to try to find a deal like there anywhere other than The Planet. If you want to save some time, you can trust me … I looked and you won’t find it!

First in the industry to offer Intel’s 5600 series processor … CHECK.
First in the industry to offer Intel’s 7500 series processor … CHECK.
Lots of bandwidth free with every server! … CHECK.

Like I’ve said before: Stay tuned … you never know what we’ll do next.

-Mark

Another week. Another state. Another show.

Today, our team is meeting and greeting folks in Interop Las Vegas 2010 expo hall. Interop touts itself as “the only event to give you a comprehensive and unbiased understanding of all the latest innovations – including cloud computing, virtualization, security, mobility and data center advances – that help position your company for growth,” so we’re in our element.

Led at the conference by our Chairman and CEO Doug Erwin, we’ve had a great time introducing The Planet to this technical audience. Our booth is abuzz with activity, and we’ve already chatted with hundreds of interesting people … And we’re not even through Day 1 yet. The Planet Server Challenge is also popular and is driving traffic.

The Server Challenge garnered a lot of attention at South by Southwest and ad:tech, so bringing it to a geek-dominated conference like Interop was a no-brainer. As you’d expect, crowds around the competition are inevitable:

We’ve already seen a sub-38 second time clocked in, so we’re expecting a miraculous time to win the ASUS Eee PC at the end of this show. Dell actually has a booth here, so we might challenge them to show off their home-server advantage.

If you’re wandering the Interop expo hall floor, make your way to booth 1851 to say hello. When you make it over here, you can try your hand at the Server Challenge and drop your card in our drawing for a Flip UltraHD!

-Kevin

I recently moderated a great panel at ad:tech about how businesses build communities for their brand online. I was joined by John Duncan, president of eSolutions, a digital agency; Alan Masarsky, vice president of marketing for Clipta, a video search engine; and Steve Koskie, CEO of Dipdive, a new media network that features and supports artists of all kinds.

The panel discussed the impact large social media networks – particularly Facebook – and newer technologies like video are having on the way the users experience the Internet. With the evolution of these two Web phenomena, user engagement becomes the key to online success. Each panelist brings a fresh perspective about what that means for businesses and how entrepreneurs can effectively create and engage communities of users:

[See post to watch the Flash video]

What I found most interesting was the agreement that traditional agencies must rapidly evolve or die. Older, integrated, non-specialized agencies are having a hard time accommodating the diversity of customer interactions online, given the changing metrics associated with customer engagement and the drive to move customers not just to loyalty but to advocacy.

The Internet is now a tangled web of interactions and opportunities. Companies like Dipdive, Clipta and eSolutions recognize the importance of targeting specific audiences and setting goals based on user engagement. Businesses should leverage the resources available to them when those resources serve a strategic purpose. If you rush to create a Twitter feed, YouTube channel, blog, Facebook page, etc. without considering how those tools enhance your message, you may do more harm than good.

Dipdive creates entire communities around artists, Clipta increases the visibility of the rich range of video on the Web, and eSolutions helps businesses create unique brands and communities. Each company brings a different approach to the table, and each of the approaches is proven to be successful. You won’t find a one-size-fits-all solution, so the key is to understand your needs and capabilities to produce the results you’re looking for.

I’d like to extend my personal thank you to the panel for your time and insightful comments … and your business with The Planet.

If any blog readers out there have thoughts on the topic of community building or the evolution of the Web as an engaging marketplace, please feel free to share them here!

-Lewis

Following the phenomenal success of The Planet Server Challenge at SXSW, we’ve lugged another server to the ad:tech San Francisco trade show floor. Based on some of the feedback we got from Slashdot, BoingBoing, YouTube, and here on The Planet Blog, we tweaked the competition.

The goal is the same: Rebuild a server faster than your conference peers and win an ASUS Eee PC netbook … the execution of the competition is quite a bit different now, though. Many comments suggested we replace the tower server for the challenge, so we brought a Dell PowerEdge 1950 1U rack-mount server. With the new chassis comes new challenges, and this video quickly explains the steps of the rebuild from the middle of the busy trade show floor:

The competition has been a huge hit at ad:tech with more than 50 attendees trying their hand halfway through the first day of the expo. In a trade show environment, exhibitors want to connect with attendees and feature their products and services. With those goals in mind, The Server Challenge has been an incredible tool for The Planet, and we’re excited to continue building and tweaking the competition.

ad:tech Server Challenge Details

The Goal: Reassemble our Dell 1950 server chassis faster than your ad:tech peers and win an ASUS Eee PC Netbook.

The Rules:

1. You may arrange the components as you’d like* before starting.

*Fans, Heat Sink, Hard Drives and RAM must be on the table outside of the chassis.

2. You may not be touching any components when time starts.
3. All components must be installed correctly for your time to be recorded.
4. Internal components can be installed in any order.
5. Components outside the server may only be touched one at a time.
6. You may attempt the build twice per day.
7. Time must be recorded by a representative from The Planet.

Your time ends when all components are installed and the server faceplate is attached.

8. The leader board in the booth will reflect the current “time to beat.”

A Successful/Complete Installation:

• Install heat sink, latch both latches
• Plug heat sink into motherboard
• Install four (4) fans
• Plug all fans into motherboard
• Install four (4) RAM modules (in any of the eight available slots)
• Install two (2) Hard Drives
• Install plastic component cover
• Attach faceplate

Do you think you have what it takes to get the best time? Swing by our booth (6240) and prove it. The current leader completed the challenge in under 44 seconds … We’re expecting the netbook-winning time to break 40 seconds.

What changes would do you recommend to make the competition even better?

-Kevin

While Duke Skarda and Carl Meadows led our Cloud Expo charge in New York City this week, another gang of employees is setting up shop on the West Coast for ad:tech San Francisco. The conference is one of the largest events geared toward online marketers, and we’ve supported it for a few years now. You may remember the impromptu “World News from The Planet” we recorded on the trade show floor in 2008 … I know Katie can’t forget it.

This year, we’re back at ad:tech with bells on: Expanding our expo hall presence, moderating a panel about successful approaches to integrating new and social media, and bringing back the now-famous Server Challenge.

Without further ado, here is a cheat sheet you can use to stalk us at the Moscone Center North.

Expo Hall: Booth 6240

Similar to our presence at Cloud Expo East, we have arranged for several of The Planet’s incredible representatives to hang out at booth 6240 and answer all of your hosting-related questions. As you’re wandering the expo hall floor, you may feel parched and need a sip of water from the “refreshing approach to hosting” water bottle you got from us, and it’s a good thing you can stay hydrated, since you might be running back to our booth every few minutes to see if your Server Challenge time has been beaten.

If the chance to rebuild a server isn’t appealing to you and you’re fresh out of questions about hosting, you can still swing by to enter your business card in our drawing for a Flip UltraHD camcorder.

Creating an Integrated Online Personality: Tuesday, 11 a.m. | Lewis Schrock

Join The Planet’s channel marketing manager Lewis Schrock and three stellar new media panelists – Clipta Co-Founder Alan Masarsky; Steve Koskie, CEO of DipDive; and John Duncan, president of eSolutions – as they take a look at the challenges of incorporating media-rich online strategies.

A brand used to simply be a name, a logo and a tagline … now it’s a personality complete with an online mayor. We’ll explore successful approaches to integrating new and social media in establishing web personalities. From evaluation of a project’s base IT infrastructure requirements to implementation of the strategy, most online marketers face hundreds of challenges. This panel is designed to be an interactive discussion, weaving real-world case studies and successes into practical moving-forward advice.

The Planet Server Challenge

The Planet Server Challenge at South by Southwest was an undeniable hit. Not only were we able to tell attendees about our products and services, we were able to show them. At ad:tech San Francisco, the Server Challenge is back and better than ever. We read all the comments about the competition on Slashdot, BoingBoing, YouTube and here on the blog, and we’ve made some significant changes to the process. More on that a little later, though …

For now, print this post and put it in your pocket as you head into the Moscone Center so you can track us down and say hello.

-Kevin

While Jay-Z may have impressed upon you that New York has streets that will make you feel brand new and lights that will inspire you, the fact that he cut his verse about The Planet’s participation in Cloud Expo East from “Empire State of Mind” means you might not know how to meet us at the Jacob Javits Convention Center this week. I’m tempted to provide the details in an exceedingly awkward rap over the song’s instrumental track. As I think about the sheer horror of that final product, this tried-and-true blog post is probably the best for all parties (especially you).

Expo Hall: Booth 118

If you’re an avid reader of The Planet Blog, you’ll remember the video we shot in the expo hall at the 2009 Cloud Computing Conference in Santa Clara, CA. That interview is probably the reason you decided to attend Cloud Expo East 2010, and we’re happy to have inspired you.

This year, you can find us in Booth 118 on the expo hall floor. Some of our hosting and cloud subject matter experts will be in attendance, and we’d love to share our experience and expertise with you. To commemorate your visit, be sure to snag one of our “refreshing approach to hosting” water bottles, and don’t forget to drop your business card in our fishbowl to enter our random drawing for a Flip UltraHD camcorder.

The Cloud’s Not the Revolution: Monday, 3:30 p.m. | Duke Skarda

Duke Skarda, our vice president of information technology and software development, is presenting a contrarian point of view about the significance of “the cloud” in a general session on Monday afternoon: The Cloud’s Not the Revolution: Cloud Usage Is.

It’s hard to read any technology news that doesn’t include an emerging technology or new products with the cloud moniker attached, so it’s no wonder technology professionals and IT teams are concerned and confused. The goal of the session to help you understand the ‘real’ adoption curve of these technologies and the ’silver bullets’ from days past. Duke will share several use cases where cloud adoption makes sense, and with those examples you should be more prepared to evaluate your own cloud decisions.

Finding Your Cloud Source: Wednesday, 8:20 a.m. | Carl Meadows

On Wednesday morning, our senior product manager Carl Meadows will share Five Steps to Sanity: Methodologies for Finding Your Best Cloud Source.

All clouds aren’t the same, and adoption hasn’t begun to lay claim to 1.0 adoption criteria. In this session, Carl will share a comprehensive five-step methodology for choosing the right cloud platform for your business. From profiling your applications to clearly articulating a capacity plan, defining security requirements and even hybrid options, he will provide the resources, considerations and questions companies should ask to be fully informed.

The Linux Foundation & The Planet Server Cloud

Not coincidentally, today is a banner day for our Server Cloud product. We were just announced as a new member of the Linux Foundation, and they have some great things to say about our cloud computing strategy. As Linux Foundation vice president of marketing and developer programs Amanda McPherson explains in a press release today, “We expect The Planet to be among the first companies to launch a large-scale public-cloud service on KVM and we applaud their foresight and vision,” so the pressure is on as our Server Cloud offering blazes a new trail.

We believe KVM is the future of Linux-based server virtualization, and our membership in the Linux Foundation reflects our commitment to the Linux development community. The Planet Server Cloud is currently in beta with more than 500 customers testing the new architecture.

Duke and Carl are two of friendliest and most engaging guys you’ll meet at the conference, so don’t hesitate to seek us out to ask questions and share your thoughts on our presentations. We are happy to talk to you about our involvement in the Linux Foundation, and we can share some great reasons for developing on the KVM hypervisor. In short, if you want to talk cloud, you should seek out The Planet.

Because a post that talks about New York and music isn’t complete until we get Ol’ Blue Eyes in the mix, “Start spreading the news, Cloud Expo’s starting today. We want you to be a part of it, in old New York.”

-Kevin

In an environment where everyone is always busy working on issues, we are able to find the time to have some fun – especially for birthdays.

Chris Valderrama is our technical support manager, and today just happens to be his birthday. Our goal as a company is to create the best customer experience possible and that task is made easier when employees work in a great environment. Chris has been instrumental in implementing changes that have helped us provide even better service, so with grateful hearts — and devilish grins — a few “anonymous” employees wanted to help him celebrate his birthday:

Just when you thought it was safe to have a birthday at The Planet … You come into the office to find Cookie Monster wallpaper and sea of balloons adorning your workspace. There are Real California Milk advertisements that say “Great cheese comes from happy cows. Happy cows come from California.” Using this impromptu birthday surprise as an example, I’d repurpose that quote to say, “Great services comes from happy support. Happy support comes from The Planet.”

-Chris

When Intel launched the new Xeon® 5600 processor series in mid-March, it generated the expected banter in the marketplace about who now has the best-performing mainstream server CPU. You can check for yourselves of course, but the overwhelming conclusion has been that it is a processor to be reckoned with and that it sets the new bar for performance. That’s not what I want to write about, though. Yes, processor performance is still one of the most important factors in server decisions, but it is getting harder and harder to find people who evaluate their server CPU on performance alone. We find that our customers increasingly value functionality, and what I mean by that is all the “stuff” that enables them to increase the value they can provide their customers and their companies. So, rather than dwell on the dramatic performance increase – which we think can be as much as 60% (and you can read all about it here and the notes our lawyers made us write) – let me draw your attention to a few things that deliver new capabilities.

Increasing the performance of the CPU is one thing, but being able to deliver that incremental performance while keeping the power consumption at the same level as the previous generation is yet another. The reason Intel is able to do this better than anyone else is because of our obsession with Moore’s Law. We can’t help ourselves – it is a law, and we are law-abiding (and you should be too). We keep refining the process used to make the processor’s silicon so that the circuits get smaller and smaller. We are now at 32nm (that’s nano meters), while the previous generation and most of the industry are using 45nm technology. We go about diligently scanning circuit by circuit looking to get rid of or reduce hot spots, and the result is that we save a pocket full of cash that you or your company would otherwise have paid your local electricity company. The money you save might mean a raise, some extra spending cash or a nice vacation with your wife, spouse, dog or cat. How romantic is that? Won’t your better half think of you as more capable? The next time you hear a server geek say nanometers, think vacation!

Next time I write, you’ll hear about a couple of other cool things you can do with this new processor. For now let’s use code words and call them TXT and AES-NI acceleration. Got that? Feel like James Bond? Good. Enjoy your vacation.

Oh wait, one more thing … If you need servers, ask the guys from The Planet – they know all about this server stuff and how it can help you. I’m told they are friendly too.

Ciao!

-Adarsh Sogal
Intel Corporation

About the Author: Adarsh Sogal is the Marketing manager for Cloud Service Providers in Intel’s Data Center Group. He has been with Intel for 10 years focused on serving the needs of the service providers in Telco, IT Outsourcing, and Hosting market segments from all over the world.

We pride ourselves on offering customers the widest selection of servers available in the industry, and today we’re extending that leadership by expanding our portfolio with 4-socket servers featuring Intel’s latest technology. The new Intel® Xeon® 7500 series processor was introduced just two weeks ago, and I am proud to say that through our deep partnerships with both Intel and Dell, we have some of the first units off the production line. The Planet is blazing a trail in the hosting industry, offering the latest technology and superior value – and that’s our commitment to customers.

So what’s all the fuss about the 7500 series?

The Intel Xeon 7550 is a 2.0 GHz processor with 18MB of cache that boasts eight cores. (Yes, you read that right … eight!) Housed in a 4-processor Dell™ PowerEdge™ R910 chassis, this server – packaged as the Quad Xeon 7550 – provides you with 32 cores. And if that’s not enough core density, when you enable Intel Hyper-Threading Technology, that count doubles to 64 cores in a single server. Include 2TB of bandwidth, 600GB SAS storage (2×300GB) and 32GB of RAM – expandable up to 2TB – and you have a package that takes on the most challenging workloads. Mission-critical, resource-intensive and virtualization applications are a breeze for this platform.

But, don’t take my word for it — try it out for yourself. And, as with all servers from The Planet, you’ll receive our bundle that includes Symantec Endpoint Protection, 10GB of Storage Cloud and Parallels Small Business Panel, free of charge.

So what are you waiting for? The Quad Xeon 7550 is available now in virtual and private rack environments.

First in the industry to offer Intel’s 5600 series processor … CHECK.

First in the industry to offer Intel’s 7500 series processor … CHECK.

Stay tuned … who knows what we we’ll do next.

-Mark