Canadianwebhosting.com has donated $5,000 to Union Gospel Mission (UGM), motivated by CEO Tony Chu’s loss of a family member. In addition to emergency and prevention assistance, UGM has alcohol recovery programs for both men (in Vancouver) and women (in Mission).

Mr. Chu remarked, ”I understand what our homeless brothers and sisters go through day after day. That is why we have chosen Union Gospel Mission as our charity of choice. I wish to thank UGM for their dedication and hard work as they help people get back on their feet and rebuild their lives.”

Founded in 1998, Canadianwebhosting.com is a privately-held web hosting company focusing on customer care. Canadianwebhosting.com provides 24/7/365 support through Toll-free telephone, email and live online chat. The company is based in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Union Gospel Mission has been reaching hungry, hurting and homeless men, women, youth and children for nearly 70 years. Through its 12 locations in Metro Vancouver and the city of Mission, UGM provides counseling, education, safe housing, and alcohol and drug recovery to those struggling with poverty, homelessness and addiction.

Environmentally conscious web hosting provider, AISO.net, has launched its new website and brand identity, as the first and only 100 percent solar-powered web hosting company.

The ‘Total Eco Web Server’ or TEWS, is the new brand identity, and symbolizes the company’s commitment to the environment.

Phil Nail, CTO of AISO.net remarked, ”Our new logo and brand identity shows the transformation from being just solar-powered to having a complete hosting ecosystem that is environmentally friendly. This new look reflects the values that AISO.net has been known for in the business community, while also representing our new strategic direction for a complete environmentally-friendly hosting solution.”

AISO.net is located in Romoland, CA, a few miles south of Riverside, CA, where the annual rainfall is minimal and the sun is out over 70 percent of the year.

Mr. Nail added, ”We have been able to power our office and servers without using the local energy grid via on-site solar power. Even cloudy days can collect the sun’s power and with the new TEWS setup we combine solar power, recycled rain water to cool the data center, air for Internet conductivity, virtualized servers, and other great eco-friendly technologies.”

AISO.net recently added four 2,500 gallon water tanks behind the data center to harvest the annual rainfall and nightly condensation. The tanks were installed 20 days ago and they have already harvested 6,000 gallons of rainwater. AISO.net has plans for adding four more tanks which will result in over 20,000 gallons of water collected. The water collected will be used for two things: landscaping and cooling the data center. Special air units from Coolerado use this recycled rain water which acts as a cooling agent to cool the hot desert air down to a cool 67 degrees all using less than 600 watts of power.

Mr. Nail added, ”To stay ahead of the industry we have to act and look like rock stars. That is why we chose Thunk to help with our re-brand and strategic business development. They get it. The IT industry is not a glamorous world but we believe our way is how data should move through the Internet. It’s logical and environmental, and that thinking has helped give us exposure. We are in a sweet spot right now because our infrastructure is built on solar panels so the more energy we can get out of 120 panels the easier it will be to scale – and we plan to scale. All it takes is another 120 panels and more efficient technologies and we keep staying ahead of the demands for data.”

James Tucker, founder of Thunk, Inc. in San Francisco noted, ”Solar web hosting is not a novelty, this is serious. There is no excuse for companies to use data centers and hosting providers that have old infrastructures and antiquated models with fancy websites that brag about buying energy credits. Consumers need to be smarter than that and realize that these data centers are sucking the earth dry of resources. I discovered this working on a rebrand for a large data center company and was inspired to shift my clients, company and mission to use alternative energy for web hosting. Fossil fuel hosting companies are going to need to make radical changes – and fast. This comes at a time where change is expensive but the consumer demands companies make the change or they will go somewhere that aligns with their business philosophy.”

Mr. Nail added, ”I am glad people choose us because we are a solar web hosting company, but in business, it has to go beyond that. We want people to come to AISO.net because of our service, reliability, uptime, and customer service.”

AISO.net also uses LED lighting, solar tubes, thin client computers and other unique green techniques which allow more capacity without having a large physical footprint housing hundreds of servers and cages. The dedicated servers offer high availability and are extremely scalable. All data resides on fiber drives and all data is backed up hourly. The servers utilize NetApp for the data storage and VMware to maximum server uptime. This same solution is used by 95 percent of all Fortune 500 companies.

Mr. Nail concluded, ”Companies like Discovery Channel and Indianapolis Zoo love our dedicated server solution because it gives them piece of mind knowing their data is secure.”

Thunk is an interactive team located in San Francisco that works with start-ups, agencies, marketers, and directors as a creative resource for web, application, print, video, and Flash projects. We specialize in information architecture, project management, content development, rapid prototyping, strategic lead generation campaigns, and branding.

AISO.net has been a trusted name in environmentally friendly web hosting since 1997, providing a level of service that is unmatched in the industry. All network and server hardware is fully redundant with 24×7-automated systems monitoring to ensure the highest possible uptime. Using solar panels to power its data center and network, AISO.net is the first and only 100 percent solar-powered web hosting company. Customers as far away as Kenya, East Africa, rely on the service and reliability offered by AISO.net

Global IT hosting firm, The Planet, has revealed plans for an first international data center, based on significant customer demand for both international and globally redundant hosted infrastructure, in the London area.

Douglas J. Erwin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at The Planet remarked, ”For the past 18 months, we’ve evaluated international markets that are of strategic importance to our planned global expansion, and Europe has been at the forefront of those discussions. We’ve had serious customer interest, which underscored that the time was right to move forward.”

The company initially will offer its virtual racks solution when its center opens in April. Preleasing begins immediately. The data center features up to 20kW of power per rack, backed by N+1 redundancy on generators, transformers and UPS systems. Customers gain access to a 10GB private fiber interconnect to The Planet’s core network through its Ashburn, Va., data center, as well as local connectivity to Tier-1 providers and the major European peering exchanges.

Mr. Erwin added, ”We’ve made substantial investments in our data centers and our network over the past two years, including the recent addition of new peering points on the East and West Coasts of the United States. Our storage cloud and CDN products also provide global access points. With 42 percent of our customers located in international markets, we expect considerable interest in this new operation.”

The Planet has forged a colocation agreement with London-headquartered TelecityGroup, which operates 20 network-independent data centers across seven European countries. Procedures in the new facility comply with ISO 9001:2000, which benchmarks quality processes for data center operations and management.

TelecityGroup is highly regarded for both its premium data centers and operational expertise. It is also taking the lead in driving energy efficiency in the data center in Europe as the first data center operator to sign up to the new “EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres.” It is also a member of the Green Grid.

Adriaan Oosthoek, Managing Director for TelecityGroup UK and Ireland noted, ”The Planet has established a strong reputation for delivering high quality, reliable hosting and Web services. I’m delighted that TelecityGroup will play a crucial role in supporting The Planet’s roll out into Europe, by hosting and maintaining their infrastructure in our new highly resilient and secure Powergate data centre. We continue to be the data centre of choice for leading U.S. businesses expanding into Europe.”

In December, The Planet announced plans for its seventh data center, a new 86,000 square foot colocation facility in Dallas. The first phase will open in May 2009.

TelecityGroup is a Europen provider of premium network independent data centres offering a range of flexible, scalable data centre and managed services. TelecityGroup specialises in the design, build, and management of highly connected and secure environments in which customers can house their technical, web and internet infrastructure. Each of its data centres acts as a connectivity and content hub facilitating the storage, sharing and distribution of data, content and media. Headquartered in London, TelecityGroup operates 20 network-independent data centres across seven European countries. The data centres are located in prime positions for commerce and connectivity, including London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Stockholm, Milan and Dublin. TelecityGroup is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Ultimately, The Planet endeavors to provide:

The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 20,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 15.2 million Web sites worldwide. Customers have the power to choose from the broadest range of hosting solutions in the industry, from dedicated servers, Alpha Professional Managed Dedicated Servers, Northstar Managed Hosting and data center colocation, all backed by 24x7x365 support. With the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class service, backed by state-of-the-art data centers and an enterprise-class network, The Planet turns IT into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to grow their businesses.

Provider of Enterprise Hosting and Application Services, NaviSite, Inc., has been selected by VerticPortals digital ad agency, to provide and manage its dedicated servers for the new Mariah Carey media effort for Sony BMG.

NaviSite was selected due to its reputation for providing secure, reliable, and always available high performance servers. VerticPortals provides media solutions to some of the world’s most prominent brands and entertainment companies. As they increase their worldwide presence by expanding into the United States, it was vital to select a trusted IT partner who can deliver a solution that is provisioned quickly, provides unquestioned reliability and can handle an immense amount of traffic. The website, www.mymariahballad.com, lets fans sample some of Mariah’s most famous ballads, record songs, send e-cards and watch popular Mariah videos. The site is highly interactive and supports multiple marketing efforts for Mariah’s new CD, ‘Mariah: The Ballads.’

Laurence Lipworth, Head of Sales and Business Development for VerticPortals remarked, ”VerticPortals is a company full of IT savvy professionals. We are familiar with hosting and understand the factors that drive vendor selection. We were very satisfied with NaviSite’s experience and ability to deliver all aspects of our hosting infrastructure needs. When you market brands such as Microsoft and Sony, you simply cannot choose a partner that is not a leading provider of hosting services to businesses of all sizes.”

VerticPortals has selected multiple servers to handle their needs and deliver a quality experience, including a Managed Windows Server running Windows Server 2008 and IIS 7.0 and a CENTOS server. VerticPortals benefits from NaviSite’s flexible dedicated hosting packages and servers that support Intel Quad Core Xeon CPUs (5410 and 5420) and robust SATA and SAS drives. VerticPortals’ unique client specific solutions demand a managed dedicated hosting provider like NaviSite to meet both infrastructure and budget requirements.

Sumeet Sabharwal, Senior Vice President of Dedicated Hosting noted, ”Modern day design agencies like VerticPortals need a provider who helps to extend the reliability and value that is part of their core offering. NaviSite allows companies with very demanding IT needs to focus on their project launches, knowing that their managed hosting deployments will be quick, smooth and reliable. Our managed dedicated hosting solutions can be counted on to deliver in the most demanding business environments.”

NaviSite’s dedicated server solutions feature the latest technology, including dedicated servers with full server monitoring and management, Intel Quad-Core CPUs, and a choice of operating systems including Red Hat, CentOS, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or 2003�. Advanced options include virtual dedicated servers (VDS), shared and dedicated Cisco firewalls, shared and dedicated load balancers, managed backup, SAN and NAS storage.

VerticPortals is a digital ad agency that provides comprehensive media solutions to some of the top companies in the world. VerticPortals’ award winning solutions are based on their unique ability to blend the core competencies of strategy, story telling, creativity, interactive design and in-depth understanding of content creation in pursuit of tangible business results.

NaviSite is a leading provider of enterprise hosting and application solutions. Over 1,500 customers depend on NaviSite for managed application services, application development, implementation and management on its web infrastructure platforms in 16 state-of-the-art data centers supported by more than 650 professionals. NaviSite provides customized and scalable solutions leveraging its broad range of application development capabilities, packaged software implementation expertise, deep portfolio of best in class technologies, and a full suite of web-hosting and internet infrastructure options.

NaviSite Dedicated Hosting Business focuses on providing hosting solutions to small and mid size businesses leveraging NaviSite expertise in serving its Enterprise customers. The solutions offered includes powerful dedicated servers and virtual servers which are optimized for small and medium sized businesses technology needs and budgets and could be easily configured and ordered through, NaviSite’s dedicated hosting portal.

SoftLayer Technologies has extended its portfolio of available server hardware options with the addition of solid state drives (SSDs). SSDs are an enterprise-level solution for reliable and secure storage. Unlike disk-based storage drives, SSDs have no moving parts. This decreases their power consumption, cooling needs, and performance latency. It also greatly reduces their risk of mechanical failure, making SSDs more durable than traditional disk-based drives.

“Our customers constantly need more from their storage, and not only more volume but also higher levels of performance and reliability,” said Joshua Rushe, Vice President of Data Center Operations for SoftLayer. “Offering solid state drives is yet another way that SoftLayer is meeting customers’ needs with an enterprise-class, leading-edge technology solution. SSDs provide greater performance and power efficiency, which can be leveraged to attain a higher margin of cost-effectiveness.”

Beyond the advantages of low latency and decreased power and cooling, SoftLayer’s solid state drive offering provides:

• Latest generation SATA interface
• 10 parallel NAND Flash channels equipped with single-level cell NAND Flash memory
• Native Command Queuing to enable up to 32 concurrent operations
• Sustained sequential read: up to 250 MB/s
• Sustained sequential write: up to 170 MB/s

SoftLayer is currently offering the following drives:

• 32 GB SATA Intel SLC Solid State Drive $50.00 per month
• 64 GB SATA Intel SLC Solid State Drive $100.00 per month

Go Daddy spokesman, Dale Earnhardt Jr., raced the No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet at the car’s season debut in the Sam’s Town 300 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Nationwide Series race took place at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and was broadcast on ESPN2.

In early January, Go Daddy anounced its return to NASCAR for the 2009 season with an expanded sponsorship of Earnhardt Jr., JR Motorsports and Hendrick Motorsports. This season’s Go Daddy sponsorship features Dale Jr. and prot�g� Brad Keselowski in both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series.

Go Daddy is the primary sponsor for 20 Nationwide Series races with Earnhardt driving the No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolets and Keselowski driving the No. 88 GoDaddy.com Chevrolets.

Go Daddy also sponsors Keselowski in the No. 25 GoDaddy.com Chevrolets for seven Sprint Cup Series races this season. This first race in that car could come this Sunday. Keselowski will attempt to qualify for Sunday’s Sprint Cup race in the No. 25 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet tomorrow at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who helped design the No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolets, became a Go Daddy spokesman after first being a Go Daddy customer. Earnhardt visited Go Daddy’s Scottsdale, Ariz. corporate campus last fall. Afterward, he remarked on his impressions of both the technology and the people.

Mr. Earnhardt Jr. noted, ”I consider myself quite knowledgeable when it comes to computers and the web. It’s fun to be able to bounce ideas off each other in making this partnership really click.”

This has been a tough year for NASCAR drivers in terms of sponsorships. Economic struggles have forced many longtime sponsors to pull out. Go Daddy, however, experienced unprecedented success in 2008 and, in turn, expanded this year’s NASCAR sponsorship.

Bob Parsons, CEO and Founder of Go Daddy remarked, ”When we talked about sponsoring Dale Jr., it was a no-brainer. He’s a great driver, NASCAR is non-stop action and it has the most fun-loving, loyal fans out there.”

Go Daddy’s foray into racing sponsorships started in 2006 with the company’s support of IndyCar’s Danica Patrick. That sponsorship continues this year as well. Patrick, a Go Daddy Girl and IndyCar’s most popular driver, made history last season as the first woman ever to win in the IndyCar Series.

Go Daddy offers a wide array of services far beyond domain name registration. The company is a world leader in web site hosting, new SSL certificates, as well as offering web site design, Quick Shopping Cart for online vendors and – new in 2009 – Go Daddy Marketplace, an online shopping mall where Go Daddy leverages the draw of its popular global Web site to showcase customer products.

Go Daddy is a leading provider of services that enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. Go Daddy provides a variety of domain name registration plans and Web site design and hosting packages, as well as a broad array of on-demand services. These include products such as SSL Certificates, Domains by Proxy private registration, ecommerce Web site hosting, blog templates and blog software, podcast packages and online photo hosting. The Go Daddy Group, Inc. has more than 33 million domain names under management. Go Daddy registers, renews or transfers a domain name every second. GoDaddy.com is the world’s No. 1 domain name registrar according to Name Intelligence, Inc. GoDaddy.com is also rated the world’s largest hostname provider according to Netcraft Ltd. During 2008, The Go Daddy Group registered more than one-third of all new domain names created in the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .mobi.