The new natural language search functionality is just one of hundreds of feature enhancements added in Ubersmith DE Version 1.8 in order to maintain the company’s position as the leader in streamlining data center operations and improving the efficiency and automation of service providers across the lifecycle of datacenter operations, assets, and customers.

Other Feature Enhancements in Ubersmith DE Version 1.8 include:
•    New support feature for “Level 2″ credit card processing helps merchants save money on transaction fees: This new features sends tax details along with each transaction to help merchants accept more credit cards and qualify for the best rates.  Merchants with large numbers of customers and high transaction volumes (such as government and large corporations) will benefit by getting higher approval percentages and more favorable rates.
•    System-wide and Support Manager User Interface (UI) enhancements help better manage large numbers of data, especially support tickets, by adding usability improvements and time-saving data correlation on the support screens, as well as the screens to manage billing, client accounts, orders, permissions, and reports and monitoring.
•    Integrated device support has been expanded to new switch and rebooter/PDU models, adding to the hundreds of specialty datacenter switches, servers and appliances that Ubersmith already supports.
•    Expanded virtualization features to manage cloud and hybrid offerings via the Virtuozzo API.
•    Several new API calls, including support for tags, enhancements to IP management handling and order queue interaction
•    SSL certificate provisioning enhancements
•    Plus, over 200 bug fixes, speed and usability improvements.
Hosting companies, managed services provider (MSPs), public cloud vendors, SAAS providers and enterprises can now manage multiple areas of the operations and business faster and more effectively, including: billing automation, management and provisioning of devices, support and trouble ticket resolution, customer relationship management (CRM), usage and alert monitoring and integrated financial and business reporting.

Ubersmith DE 1.8 is designed to fit the needs of all sizes of service providers, from startup cloud providers all the way to the largest ISPs and enterprises and is available starting from a low, monthly base rate.  Each installation of Ubersmith comes with comprehensive migration assistance and full 24/7 support from Ubersmith’s team of expert engineers. Upgrades are performed by contacting customer support.

About Ubersmith.
Ubersmith is a pioneer in Web-based automation for the global web hosting, data center and service provider industries and the market leader in automated data center management tools among businesses generating $1 – $20 million in revenue from cloud, virtual hosting, and dedicated servers offerings.  Founded in 2003 and based in Troy, NY, the privately-held company was the first to offer automated billing and monitoring of server usage to the IT infrastructure industry. The company is the only company serving a significant share of the market with a single-platform workflow solution offering real-time billing of bandwidth and overage usage, alongside mission-critical features to automate device lifecycle management, customer relationship management (CRM), support and trouble ticket resolution, real-time performance monitoring, and advanced profitability evaluation and business reporting. Please visit our website at www.ubersmith.com.

Source: Ubersmith Adds Brand New Advanced Search Tools

Aflexi’s CDN Management services and CDN software is targeted towards service providers who want to quickly, easily and cost-effectively provide CDN services.

“Our new site is tightly focused on the services and software that Aflexi offers to small and medium size service providers who need CDN functionality in order to compete on an international scale,” said Whei Wong, CEO of Aflexi. “Web hosting companies can now provide content providers and publishers with all the bandwidth and POPs they need without having to pay the exorbitant rates charged by the major CDN suppliers.”

The Aflexi CDN software provides automated installation and software upgrades for CDN server deployment as well as intuitive account management, bandwidth management, CDN server management and Publisher migration process. The Aflexi CDN solution supports commonly-used webhosting control panel systems and comes bundled with software that can improve CDN performance or experience

FlexiMart, Aflexi’s new and unique Bandwidth Exchange platform, enables web hosts to share infrastructure by allowing them to buy, sell and trade capacity, in real time and on the fly, both at a fixed price and via auction-like bidding. FlexiMart includes a powerful search engine that enables an Aflexi CDN operator to quickly discover all available bandwidth within specific regions offered by other CDN Operators. This allows buyers to enhance traffic performance at desired locations and time periods by purchasing region-specific bandwidth instead of global bandwidth.
About Aflexi
Aflexi develops and provides content delivery solutions for ISPs and content distributors worldwide. The Aflexi CDN software optimizes website traffic across various ISPs and their POPs. The intelligent Aflexi back-end system scrutinizes traffic patterns and visitor profiles, and can make the necessary adjustments in real time to ensure the highest possible delivery speeds and data quality. If a specific server or network becomes overloaded, the Aflexi system automatically reroutes incoming and outgoing traffic to the next available ISP, server or POP.

Source: Aflexi Launches New Web Site

Tony Chu, CEO of Hosting Metro stated, “By acquiring Drupal Value Hosting, we looked increase our support of Drupal and its corresponding community by integrating the knowledge and brain share of Drupal Value Hosting’s development team into our already reliable infrastructure. As a hosting company who specializes in application support, this is something that our customers have been asking for and with more than 1% of the web running on Drupal there is a still a lot of room for growth.”

Amit Ghupta, former CEO of Drupal Value Hosting has agreed to stay on with the new company and will continue to provide development and consultation services dedicated to the Drupal community. “Hosting Metro is a great company, and I am very confident that they will exceed the needs of their customers by delivering outstanding support and I have been especially impressed with their solid infrastructure that is focused on delivering the most reliable uptime in the industry.”

About Hosting Metro
Hosting Metro is dedicated to developing innovative services and providing exceptional technical support to meet the Web hosting needs of its customers. As an independent company, they have 13 years of experience in the web hosting industry, and work to integrate emerging technologies and provide comprehensive, integrated solutions to their hosting clients. With their innovative Campfire Support system, Hosting Metro moves beyond standard domain hosting to provide leading technical support and a range of hosting solutions that are focused on improving productivity, increasing profitability, and empowering their clients’ to achieve their goals. For more information go to: www.hostingmetro.com or visit their forum for the latest news.

Source: Hosting Metro, Inc. Acquires Drupal Value Hosting

• Double your ad forum offers with a Corporate Membership
• How to use web hosting forums

Read the entire “Thank you from the WHT booth at HostingCon 2010″ edition of the Web Hosting Talk Insider

LinuxMagic will incorporate the Open-Xchange software in its MagicMail offering that is designed as a turn-key solution for ISPs and telcos with 2,000 to 200,000 users. MagicMail comes with integrated anti-spam protection and support from LinuxMagic, one of the foremost experts in e-mail and spam security, as well as a stable redundant infrastructure built on Linux technology.

“Our customers have trusted us to provide the best-of-breed e-mail and anti-spam solutions, and Open Xchange will be a terrific value-add to our MagicMail and other e-mail solutions,“ said Michael Peddemors, president and CEO, LinuxMagic. “The Open Xchange collaboration software and support for mobile devices is the perfect complement to our LinuxMagic carrier-grade e-mail and anti-spam offering. We’re giving our clients the best combination of features to, in turn, offer their customers.”

“Our collaboration software and support for mobiles are a natural extension of features that LinuxMagic can add to its portfolio,” said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange. “Together, we’re delivering additional value to ISP and telco users who now have these new features as an integrated offering with the same high level of support.”

Open-Xchange software integrates e-mail, calendar, contact and task management with advanced groupware features such as information management and document sharing. Productivity is enhanced through unique teamwork features, like team view, single-password document sharing, and shared calendars, contacts, tasks and documents. With mobility support, users can have access to their data anywhere, anytime and with virtually any device.

LinuxMagic uses Open-Xchange Hosting Edition, the only groupware specifically designed to meet the needs of SaaS (Software as a Service) providers. Open-Xchange can be easily integrated into existing infrastructures without changing the existing authentication, user setup, system administration, provisioning and billing tools.

About LinuxMagic, makers of MagicMail
LinuxMagic is a market leader in messaging, e-mail and anti-spam, focused on the ISP, telco and hosting markets. The company leverages its status as a premier Linux development company to provide technology and products specifically targeted towards customers looking for simpler integrated solutions for e-mail and messaging servers. Based in Vancouver, Canada, the company is also recognized for its contributions and reputation in spam protection, IP reputation and other related technologies. For more information, visit www.linuxmagic.com.

About Open-Xchange
Open-Xchange is the innovator of scalable and integrated open source e-mail and collaboration solutions for enterprises, academic institutions, and government authorities. The company provides on-premises versions called Open-Xchange Server Edition and Open-Xchange Appliance Edition, along with Open-Xchange Hosting Edition, which enables web hosting companies to provide an easy-to-use and feature-rich application delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS).

Open-Xchange AG is a privately-held company headquartered in Nuremberg, Germany with offices in Olpe, Germany and Tarrytown, N.Y. For more information, visit www.open-xchange.com.

LinuxMagic and MagicMail are both registered trademarks of Wizard Tower TechnoServices Ltd.

Source: MagicMail Partners with Open-Xchange

Nexus Media Events, the organizer of the exhibition, confirmed that Google will hold two industry market seminars at the event and will add to the widening range of organizations involved as popularity increases year-on-year.

Google Senior Manager of Production Network Engineering and Architecture Vijay Gill will present a session on the role of packet-optical in interconnecting Warehouse-Scale Computers (WSCs) while Senior Network Architect Bikash Koley will discuss 100GbE and beyond for WSC.

Both seminars fit into five key topic areas agreed by the ECOC 2010 Advisory Committee for this year’s Market Focus, which is sponsored by Oclaro and held during the exhibition at the Lingotto Congress and Exhibition Centre in Torino, Italy, from September 20 to 22. The session topics are: 40 and 10Gbit/s systems; mass-market broadband fibre access; optical backhaul for 3G and 4G mobile networks; optical network agility and packet optical transport.

“We are thrilled to welcome Google as industry speakers as part of what we feel is our most prestigious line-up to date,” said Nexus Media Events Group Event Manager Beverley Lucas.

“Their involvement demonstrates the convergence  and importance of the Market Focus, which is increasingly seen to be a key part of the ECOC exhibition and enables a dedicated discussion platform for trends and emerging technologies in optical communications.”

FTTH Council Europe, JDSU, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Verizon, Cisco, Oclaro and Huawei are among other leading names confirmed to hold technical and business-driven presentations at this year’s Market Focus.

The ECOC Market Focus is now in its fifth year and broke all records in 2009, with nearly 900 leading industry executives taking part. It has previously featured speakers from the Broadband Forum, ADVA, Ciena, Tellabs and Ovum.

Visitors wishing to attend the Market Focus and ECOC 2010 can register at www.ecocexhibition.com.

Source: Google to Make Market Focus Debut

More than 90 percent of the U.K. recycling industry has already signed the new code of practice, developed by the Telecommunications Fraud Forum (TUFF), government and police – which hopes to put an end to the estimated 100,000 stolen mobiles that are being sold to recycling companies without their knowledge.

While most mobile phone handsets reported stolen are blocked across all U.K. networks within 24 hours, they can still be used abroad. Some recycling companies export their phones after buying them, therefore giving criminals a loophole to make money for their stolen goods.

Recyclers that sign the new agreement will check every mobile they’re being offered against the National Mobile Phone Register. If the phone ends up being stolen, they will refuse to buy it and hand over the information to police.

So far the recycling industry has been more than cooperative at curbing criminal activity. The website Compare and Recycle, which lists dozens of mobile phone recyclers (along with recyclers of digital cameras, laptops, mp3 players and several other electronic items), ensures that that their companies use best practice when recycling mobile phones or anything else. Reusing and properly disposing of phones and their parts are what the companies on Compare and Recycle’s website do in an eco-friendly manner.

Companies that sign up for the TUFF agreement also help increase consumer confidence with those sites. To find out more about Compare and Recycle and the companies they work with, visit www.compareandrecycle.co.uk

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/mobile_phone_recycling_companies_refuse_to_buy_stolen_phones.html

“As our customer base expands, we continually upgrade our high-performance and fully-redundant network infrastructure,” said Jeff Biggs, the senior vice president of operations and engineering at Peak 10. “This strategy includes upgrading the capacity of our network backbone and further positioning our data centers for peering directly with each other. This peering design provides additional bandwidth to both customers and Peak 10 and allows for rapid implementations of our customers’ network requirements.”

Peak 10’s network infrastructure provides customers with reliable connectivity, high performance, and includes around-the-clock monitoring, notification and reporting. In addition, each data center facility deploys multiple carrier-agnostic connections for maximum dependability and redundancy.

“Our network enhancements allow for an increase in the number of external peering relationships available to each Peak 10 market, as well as the flexibility for Peak 10 to assimilate and add data centers in both existing and future markets,” said Ronnie Frames, the director of network services for Peak 10. “They also bolster Peak 10’s already unprecedented level of customer service and allow our expert engineering team to respond to high volume Internet service requests quickly and efficiently out of our high-bandwidth peering centers. We will continue to enhance the performance and resilience of our network infrastructure.”

Peak 10’s managed IT and data center services improve performance, reliability, lower costs and maximize internal resources for customers while keeping their valuable information technology assets close to the business. The company combines its secure, private network and enterprise-class data centers with world-class engineering and support to serve market-leading companies nationwide. As a managed services leader, Peak 10 offers a wide range of technology services, including virtualization, managed hosting, and cloud-based services in a cost-efficient and reliable platform for its customers. The company owns and operates data centers in 10 key markets that include Cincinnati, Ohio; Atlanta, Ga.; Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C.; Tampa, Jacksonville and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Nashville, Tenn.; Louisville, Ky.; and Richmond, Va.

About XO Communications
XO Communications, a subsidiary of XO Holdings, Inc. (OTCBB: XOHO), is a leading nationwide provider of advanced broadband communications services and solutions for businesses, enterprises, government, carriers and service providers. Its customers include more than half of the Fortune 500 companies, in addition to leading cable companies, carriers, content providers and mobile network operators. Utilizing its unique combination of high-capacity nationwide and metro networks and broadband wireless capabilities, XO offers customers a broad range of managed voice, data and IP services with proven performance, scalability and value in more than 75 metropolitan markets across the United States. For more information, visit www.xo.com.

About Peak 10 Inc.
Peak 10 is a managed services company with world-class data centers. It delivers scalable, economical and reliable solutions for hosting and managing complex information technology infrastructure. The company’s expert team embraces the industry’s evolving technologies by adopting and tailoring solutions such as virtualization and cloud-based services as part of its robust managed services offering. Its strong customer focus, financial stability, geographic diversity and technical strength attracts market-leading companies such as LendingTree, Global Knowledge, Pergo, Healthways, Churchill Downs and The Fresh Market. Peak 10 is SAS70 Type II compliant and helps companies meet the requirements of various regulatory compliance acts such as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), HIPAA, PCI and Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLBA). For more information on data center solutions from Peak 10, visit www.peak10.com.

Source: Peak 10 Enhances Network with Added Capacity and Connectivity

Increasing opportunities to self-distribute on the Internet allow established producers like Beverly Peterson a new venue to explore topics like Workplace Bullying that are not ordinarily on a programmer or funder’s radar. “The hardest part of this project,” says the award-winning documentary filmmaker, “has been to make others understand that these heart-wrenching stories are credible and deserve to be heard.” Bullying bosses are rarely held accountable for indiscriminately targeting one employee after another to destroy careers and lives and it’s hoped a law will change that. Almost three years ago Peterson began filming the grassroots activists in their struggle to pass broader harassment legislation and in 2009 launched her video blog, THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW: NoJobIsWorthThis.com. “The site evolves constantly with new chances to tell people’s stories through YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress etc,” says Peterson. “If I had to stop and raise the funding to do this project for broadcast I never would have been able to accomplish all that I have so quickly.” Last month she presented her website and videos at the prestigious 7th International Conference on Workplace Bullying & Harassment in Cardiff, Wales. “I told them that normally I premiere my work at a film festival, museum or on television – but for this topic I was delighted that their venue would serve that purpose.”

For Peterson, this New Media exhibition format has changed the way she looks at producing videos. Site visitors can click the RESOURCES page to find updated links to free HR Policy Templates, Gov’t & Non-Profit Orgs offering counseling and help, a News Archive, Research papers, Books on this topic and more. New videos are uploaded regularly throughout the site and users can click FEATURED VIDEOS to witness victims stories from all across the country. Unlike traditional documentaries, this cutting edge approach lets viewers hit the pause button while watching a video and just “click” on a link to get important information and answers whenever they want. “It’s an editor’s dream – immediate, intimate and powerful,” says Peterson. The DEFINITION page can help victims put words to what they or a loved one may be going through and the BLOG contains alternative commentary and updates on this topic. A newly added feature is a “take action link” to the International Educational Coalition on Workplace Bullying that Peterson helped form. The coalition brings together Researchers, Practitioners, and Victims to share free resources, ideas and global dialogue.

**Beverly Peterson’s documentaries have been broadcast internationally, and screened at major festivals including; HBO, PBS The Sundance Channel,The Sundance Film Festival, Human Rights Watch, Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art,The Walker Art Center, The Warhol Museum, The Kitchen. 71 West Broadway: Ground Zero, New York, NY was selected as part of the memorial presentation at the Library of Congress, which has included it in the national 9/11 film archive. Portions of Invisible Revolution, were featured on ABC’s 20/20, Dateline, and HBO specials on domestic terrorism.

Source: YouTube Video Features Effort to Pass Workplace Bullying Law

Juniper University is a monthly series of side by side comparisons of Juniper products to their Cisco counterparts. This is Great Lakes Computer’s third installment of their Juniper University series.

2010 Juniper University Course Schedule:
May 19th – Juniper SRX vs Cisco ASA
June 15th – Juniper EX2200 vs Cisco Catalyst 2960G
July 20th – Juniper EX4200 vs Cisco Catalyst 3750G
August 17th – Juniper EX3200 vs Cisco Catalyst 3560G
September 21st – Juniper EX8200 vs Cisco Catalyst 6500
October 19th – Juniper SRX for the branch vs Legacy Cisco 3 box architecture
November 16th – Juniper JUNOS vs Cisco IOS
December 14th – Juniper J-Care vs Cisco SmartNET
GRAND FINALE – A case study of a 100% Juniper network

Juniper University: EX4200 vs. Catalyst 3750 – The results
Layer 3 stackable switch comparison

The findings are nothing less than remarkable. With prices starting at under $4,000, Juniper’s EX4200 line is available in 24 and 48 port 10/100/1000 densities, both PoE and non-PoE. They also include either 1Gb or 10Gb modular uplink connectivity. Another cool feature is the standard hot swap power supplies, while most of Cisco’s 3750 switches come with a single non field serviceable power supply.

Cisco’s 3750G, E, and X Catalyst switches come in over 70 different models, and it can be overwhelming figuring out exactly what model to order without having to go through a myriad of technical, feature and pricing comparisons. Juniper makes it easy, offering one model with the same or better performance in several categories than all of Cisco’s 3750 series switches. Better yet, Juniper’s J-Care support can be as much as 75% less than Cisco’s Smartnet.

One of the most important factors in choosing a Layer 3 stackable switch is the actual performance of the stack. An independent study found Juniper’s EX4200 Latency is always lower when the switches are in a Virtual Chassis configuration. Coincidently enough, Cisco doesn’t publish latency rates of their stackable solution. Virtual Chassis configurations recover from hardware and software failures in milliseconds and operate at 30-Gbit/s rates in each direction between switches.

So in a side by side comparison between the Juniper EX4200 and the Cisco 3750G, E and X, it was no contest. We chose the Juniper EX4200. The savings offered by Juniper Networks are just the beginning. From now through September 30, you can get great discounts due to promotions being offered on the EX4200. Refer to the attached documents for product comparisons and promotional details.

People interested in learning more about Juniper Networks can visit Juniper University, where you can request remote virtual product demos in our “Juniper Lab”, or request hands on Juniper demo units. To sign up for the Juniper University series, visit the Great Lakes Computer or call 1-800-488-2587.

Source: Juniper EX4200 or Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series Switch Compared