In the not so distant past an idea was born to do an online video within the marketing department and the road to production has been one of blood, sweat, and tears.       One of the ongoing debates during the planning sessions was how long it would actually take to go from zero to first video.  I made the bet that it could not be online before 2009.

While I am enjoying my large slice of “humble pie” I would like to introduce to you Episode 1 of LayeredTech TV.

If you have a few moments be sure to help spread the word of this video via your favorite social media outlet. We of course look forward to your feedback and if you have ideas for the show please email news@layeredtech.com and our production team will add them to the growing list of episode ideas!

This new backup product is based on CDP for Data Centers from R1Soft and will be managed in-house by the administrators at FastServers.Net.  CDP for Data Centers includes all of the same functionality in our current Arsenal Digital offering, and initially our aim is to migrate all customers to the new environment and simply replicate the existing functionality.  After this has been completed, we have some exiting new features coming down the line.  These features include MySQL and control panel integration on Linux environments and perhaps most compelling, bare-metal restore functionality.

You may be wondering what you have to do to sign up for this new backup service.  If you are currently utilizing our Arsenal Digital service, the answer is nothing.  Over the coming weeks we will be migrating all customers to this new backup service.  There will be no change in pricing at this time.  Servers housed in our Cedar Falls facility will be migrated first, with the Fremont and Chicago facilities following shortly thereafter.  Expect to receive an e-mail from our support department when it is time to transition your server to the new backup environment in order to keep you in the loop.

For servers running Linux, no service interruption will be necessary to install to install the new backup software.  For Windows hosts, a reboot will be necessary and one of our technicians will schedule a brief maintenance window with you to install the new backup agent software.  As always, if you have any questions about this process you may open a support ticket through https://pentagon.fastservers.net or contact our support department via phone.

The first major change was the revamp of the current FastServers.Net Affiliate Program, now called The Agent Program.

The History of the Agent Program

Over the last 4 years FastServers.Net has internally provided an application for affiliates and agents.    To date this program has right around 500 users.   The reality is this is not a traditional affiliate program and was more geared towards VAR’s, referral partners, and consultants that wanted the ability to work one on one with our Sales Team and refer clients to us.    The original mix included both one on one engagement with Sales Engineers and some traditional banners.      The payouts for this was a 10% recurring commission. The program will still exist and will be called “The Agent Program“.   We will leave the overall linking in place and as continue supporting this just as we have over the past.      A few minor changes might take place but they will be geared towards helping existing and new agents with marketing of our products and services.

The new “Hosting Affiliate” program has been launched in direct conjunction with our friends at Share A Sale.   This program allows direct access to our two brands under one program.    Affiliates will enjoy a series of banners, videos, text links, and data feeds that will provide them countless opportunities to promote, sell, and earn money based on new customer sign ups.   The major difference will be the focus on providing marketing materials via well know affiliate provider and payouts will become a one time fee instead of a recurring based commission.

To celebrate our new affiliate program we will be working hard in the month of December and January to promote this with some higher payouts, bonuses, new banners, videos, updated data feeds, and both internal/external marketing of this program.

Signing up for the affiliate program takes less than 2 minutes and their is no risk involved.    If you decide to start actively promoting the products and services Share A Sale will want you to submit a simple tax form to get paid.

If you have an interest in seeing what we have brewing for the month of December/January use the link below and sign up.

Sign Up Now

Which program best meets your needs?

If you are are hands on type of organization that wants to refer clients, be part of the sales process, and openly announce your partnership with us - The Agent Program is a good fit.    In the past successful agents either introduced us to potential new business or handled the proposal process on behalf of their client.

Website owners, customers, or bloggers that want to promote via videos, banners, text links without getting involved should use the Affiliate Program.     This program is hands off and results in driving traffic to our site and direct signups without involvement of the referring website.    It is very simple and most importantly very easy to implement.

We look forward to working with you and if you have questions please do not hesitate to let us know by sending and email to: affiliate-manager@fastservers.net

With a few extra dollars in your pocket I wanted to discuss my involvment with PubCon, what PubCon is and what I will be speaking about in Vegas.
Wednesday November 12, 2008 I will be positioned in Las Vegas, NV to speak at PubCon!

PubCon Discount Code : ph-99220

What is PubCon?
WebmasterWorld’s PubCon is an educational conference and industry trade show programmed specifically for web professionals and website site owners. Although our center piece is Search Engine Marketing, Whether your primary role is in web site marketing, corporate IT development, or as a technology business management, you will find something of value at PubCon (aka: Publishers Conference). It is also designed to be fun and entertaining with ample opportunity for quality networking.

Check out www.pubcon.com and www.webmasterworld.com

Brett Tabke happened to moderate a panel at HostingCon that centered around the marketing of hosting services.   Following the panel he recriuted the speakers to bring the show on the road and join him at PubCon 2008.

PubCon will bring a new audience and the focus of the panel will be much different than HostingCon.   Partaking in the moderated panel are 3 superstars all from various backgrounds.

Webhosting Industry Overview (our topic of discussion)
A Web site cannot exist without hosting, yet this has remained a choice that is infrequently researched and the importance of which is often overlooked. This session will review the Web hosting industry and key hot topics such as shared hosting, shared IPs, DNS issues, uptime, speed, reliability, dedicated servers, server farms, redundancy, backup options, e-mail options, and other value added services.

Ben Fisher is a long time web hosting industry marketing guru and Vice President of TechPad Agency. TechPad Agency is the creator of the world’s best game called “ServerMania” which pit’s fellow “web hosting providers” against each other in an all out battle for lower churn and more customers.

Amy Armitage brings some brilliant affiliate marketing and organic growth strategies to the conferance, she is Director of Business Development, Lunarpages Web Hosting.  With years of background in the shared hosting industry she will provide key insights into questions about hosting providers.

Aaron Phillips (that’s me) hails as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for FastServers.Net (A Layered Tech Company) and has been involved with the industry for 10 years.    Aaron has both a technical and marketing based background in managed hosting, dedicated server, cloud computing, and virtualization.
As a moderated panel we encourage you to bring any and all questions you have about web hosting, service providers, search engine optimization, and industry related topics to the 45 minute session and Ben, Amy, and Aaron will work hard to provide you the insight that could make or break you when it comes to partnering with a web hosting provider!

I am sure Brett didn’t mean for this to be included “as is” but I thought it would be good to release it to the public!

You guys are old pros at this, so lets cut to the chase:

Below is a 20% off coupon to PubCon Las Vegas that you can offer your peeps. You earn 10% every time it is used.

PubCon Discount Code : ph-99220

Just tell people to use the coupon code when registering. We will contact you as to where to send your affiliate check after PubCon.

Promote it on your site, your clients’ sites, social sites, Twitter, FaceBook, your forum, or your blog.  Here are some banners, buttons, and promos to help get the job done.

Fine print notes

we do not endorse any unethical activity with our affiliate coupon codes.
coupon works for full conference passes only.
can not be retroactively applied to previous registrations.
can not be combined with other offers.
on any disputes, our word is final.
offer expires Nov 5 at 5pm central.

Hopefully you will enjoy additional funds I have saved you and if you want to learn about web hosting come check us out.

Managed GRID Hosting takes the features of virtualization and adds the layers of FastServers.Net exclusive DEFCON Management Services.   With this new offering hosting applications, databases, blogs, and resellers can enjoy the true benefits of 24×7 monitoring, security patches, priority support, and service level agreements that have only been available to full dedicated servers.

As our engineers have been hard at work to tie in various services the Managed Grid offering that is now available also includes some of our most popular operating systems, control panels, backup services, anti-spam services, and managed DNS services.   This all inclusive product provides a great platform for software developers, reseller hosting providers, bloggers, and is a perfect solution to host 1,000’s of open source applications.

This exciting announcement is scheduled to happen on the eve of BlogWorldExpo in which Layered Tech will be exhibiting.    The introduction of this service at Blog World Expo will introduce professional bloggers with the latest in grid hosting and management services.   Professional Bloggers, Application Providers, and Web 2.0 organizations have great insight into the world of vritualization and this offering will allow them to experience both the technology, customer service, and management services that are needed to run a worry free website.

As part of the Launch Layered Tech will have an exclusive offer for attendees at Blog World Expo. Visitors, exhibitors, and speakers will be able to stop by booth #220 to visit with technology evangelists about Grid Hosting, Management Services, and validate if this offering makes a good match for their application or website.

The Managed Grid Offering is available right now through the month of September with “Free” Plesk or cPanel.   To jump on this offer visit : https://www.fastservers.net/orders/index.php?pid=36.

In the coming months fully managed virtual data centers, consulting, and larger dedicated grid deployments will become available.

If you are an open source provider and have interest in mass deployment or entering into the software as a service realm, please contact me and we can discuss customization of deployment templates and a partnership.

As many managed hosting providers offer great services the potential problem is actually getting your website, applications, databases, and special server configurations up and running.   This process can take weeks or months even if you have a technical group in charge.   The FastServers.Net team collaborated and conquered this with the new offering now available for both current and new customers.    I wanted to take a few minutes and put up some general information and let the world know that it will soon be published on the website!

Enterprise Migration Services Overview
The Enterprise Migration Services (EMS) is an important service offered to client of FastServers.Net and provides a “special project” team to perform server migrations.    This hybrid service pulls together an assigned team of engineers that will evaluate, plan, and execute the migration of your current server to the new server.

More Than Data Transfer
The goal of the Enterprise Migration Services is to fully migrate applications, databases, configurations, and website in working order to their new site.    This process includes the review of the current setup and then estimates the overall time needed to make the migration happen.    Once the process is started an assigned engineer will work one on one with your organization to evaluate your technology and provide ongoing communication through the process.

Your Responsibilities!
The most important items you will be responsible for during the migration are as follows:

Scheduled phone calls to discuss the migration and coordination and if available any technical engineers that have participated in your current server administration.

Review and acceptance of the Enterprise Migration Quote

Final Testing of Website, Applications,  and databases – followed by approval

Final Name Server (DNS) Updates

Enterprise Migration Costing
Each Enterprise Migration service is a custom quotation and proposal and based on the estimated number of hours associated with the project.   After the initial phone call and the ability to review your current server, a final project quote will be sent out.    This final quote will be the fixed price you pay for your Enterprise Migration and is derived from the total number of hour’s experience engineers will require to make it happen.    The final proposal you receive will be the final price of the project with no risk of overages!   Our teams are that confident in their ability to properly evaluate all aspects of an Enterprise Migration!

How to Get Started
Your Account Manager will help start the process.    Direct administrator level or root level access will be required for the proposal.      A project help desk ticket will be generated and sent to our Enterprise Migration Team who will evaluate and schedule a call with you.    After the initial call the final pricing will be delivered to your Account Manager and a proposal developed.    Once this proposal is completed you will be able to process the order online for the execution of the migration.    The Enterprise Migration Team will receive notification and schedule a date and time to complete the project.

The setting was once again The Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois and HostingCon 2008 brought some familiar faces and new faces to the event, which provided an unusual surprising and great event for those that attended.   This year also brought prizes, giveaways, drawings, and even a board game that was introduced by TechPadAgency last year called “ServerMania“.

HostingCon started it’s pre-show game show by announcing that it had been acquired by iNET Interactive.  iNET Interactive is the company behind such properties as WebHostingTalk.Com, Hotscripts.Com, and a series of other tech related properties.    The show was sprinkled with iNET Interactive staff members and I was informed that next’s years show will be held in Washington DC.    I am speculating that the keynote will be either Obama or John, but only time will tell.     I recently read, Obama loves to hang out on WebHostingTalk to keep up on the latest trends in the Web Hosting Industry and his plan for offshore drilling, might also include some offshore data centers!

As expected a line up of super star speakers took the stage with a change in theme.   Last year at this time the buzz of the industry was Software As A Service and a shift has taken place to discussions centered around Cloud, Grid, Elastic, and Virtualization platforms.    John Pozadzides, CMO of LayeredTech spoke on these technologies with a session called “Every Cloud Has a Silver Linking” and booth #301 engaged with ongoing conversations about this technology.

A few companies stepped up the schwag wagon with Nerf guns, game console giveaways, champaign, root beer floats, cash money, beer tickets, and even a chance to win a Harley Davidson motorcycle.    The conference hall was filled with WII’s, Playstations, and XBoxes with live games including RockBand, Basketball Shootouts, and WII Sports.      LayeredTech also brought some a console, which consisted of a Live Grid Demo, and giving away the best prize of all:  KNOWLEDGE (just a quick plug and opinion here).

For the second year in a row the night ended with a rooftop networking event that included fireworks and yet more games! My night ended with a very competitive game of ServerMania, a board game focused on acquiring the most money and highest number of servers possible.    While I was defeated in my quest to conquer the board game as I had the least amount of servers and money, I did notice that the winner seemed to have a distinct advantage over his competitors as he CREATED the game!

This year “Booth #301″ will be stocked with something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.

Something OLD, Something NEW…

Returning to HostingCon for the 4th year in a row (OLD) will be some familiar faces from FastServers.Net. However, they will have a new-found image and a glitzy new booth sporting the (NEW) LayeredTech brand. Combined, you’ll see the latest “hosting vendor of choice” providing both self-managed and fully-managed hosting solutions as well as innovative virtualization and utility-based offerings.

Something BORROWED, Something BLUE…

Leading the way in technology innovation focused on virtualization (BORROWED term) is LayeredTech’s primary focus. In conjunction with our standard hosting solutions, we’ve been deemed the pioneers in on-demand virtualization offerings including Grid computing, Hyper-V, Citrix, Sun Solaris, as well as many others. All this taken into account, LayeredTech’s recent rebranding efforts include a new (Yes, BLUE) logo which reflects the layers of products, services and innovation being offered today. So stop by and CHECK IT OUT!

Witness the power of the GRID with a live demo!

Booth 301: The Grid is ready. Are you?

Stop by Booth 301 and learn more about LayeredTech’s unique “GRID/CLOUD” computing solution, the ultra reliable multi-server configuration that is scalable, affordable, reliable and yes, simple to use. Come by, ask questions, see a live demo and let’s talk about the technology that can enable your organization to offer GRID/CLOUD Computing.
Wed 8:30am Presentation: “Every Cloud has a Silver Lining” by John Pozadzides, CMO, Layered Tech

Have you ever wondered how Cloud Computing is going to change this industry? If yes, then grab your coffee and come listen to John Pozadzides, CMO of LayeredTech, who will be presenting WEDNESDAY from 8:30am to 9:15am. He will bring to light key trends in hosting virtualization. After this AM session, you’ll walk away smarter and more stimulated (ahhh coffee!). If you miss it, stop by Booth 301. We’ll be happy to answer your questions.

We’re looking forward to this event - seeing friends old and new. If nothing else, stop by, say hi and pick-up some of our cool free schwag.

If you are not attending HostingCon 2008 and want educate yourself on GRID/CLOUD computing you can schedule a web demo and one of our highly trained GRID Experts will walk you through the features and benefits.

Schedule a GRID DEMO NOW!

Spread the Word: Click below to share this with the rest of the world

The time has come again for us to make our annual review of all our environments and on the docket: Fremont, CA. Therefore, beginning August 1, 2008, and throughout the entire weekend ending August 3, 2008, FastServers will be performing mandatory datacenter floor maintenance to our Fremont facility. These activities will consist of the realignment of all FS-owned and operated servers, switches, and routing cores within the hosting facility in question. The purpose of this dispatch is to alert all of our Fremont customers, dedicated or co-located, of these planned events occurring at the beginning of August 2008.

It is imperative that all customers are aware of this maintenance as there will be multiple outages that will occur during our planned maintenance within this facility. At this time we cannot schedule around any particular customers’ server operations, nor minimize the amount of downtime for a specific client; it is almost impossible to say when, precisely, we would handle a client’s server during this operational window. FastServers will do its best to ensure that any downtime that occurs due to our mandatory maintenance shall have the least amount of impact on customers’ hosting environments.

Customers who are interested in migrating to one of our other facilities, to ensure operations stay online for their hosting needs, should speak with a sales representative immediately to begin collectively working on a migration plan for their hosting needs. Our sales representatives will provide all of the necessary elements for customers wanting to upgrade/migrate to another facility to continue operations before this maintenance period is upon us. Please note that that if you choose to migrate to one of FastServers’ other facilities, existing IP allocations will *not* be portable. This means that new IP addresses will need to be distributed to your solution within a new facility. Again, this is only for customers housed within our Fremont datacenter: by receiving this email, it’s apparent that you have one or more servers housed within our Fremont hosting environment. In addition, customers running outdated operating systems, control panels, etc., will be *required* to upgrade to the latest releases supported by FastServers; co-location customers excluded, if a migration to an elsewhere facility is preferred.

If you have any additional questions about the migration, please contact a support representative who will forward your request to a FastServers.Net administrator for further clarification. If you are interested in migrating your solution prior to the outlined maintenance, please speak with a sales representative immediately.

If you have any questions regarding the FastServers.Net forums or this maintenance, open a ticket with our support department, and we will be happy to assist!