According to a Tuesday report from eWeek Europe, TalkTalk customers discovered that IP addresses from TalkTalk subsidiary Opal Telecom were following all the websites they visited — in what was identified as a stalking tactic.

TalkTalk has admitted to the monitoring allegation, explaining that it was a necessary procedure in the testing of an upcoming anti-malware system, being provided by Chinese vendor Huawei.

“We are developing some really exciting new security and parental control services, which will be based deep within our network infrastructure, to provide our customers with greater protection for all the devices they connect to their broadband line with,” reads TalkTalk’s statement on the subject. “We’ve had considerable feedback from customers that PC-based software only deals with part of the wider security problem facing today’s Internet users, so we’ve developed these new services to help improve our customers online experience with us.”

Further, a company representative told tech news site The Register that personal activity was not gathered, but the purpose was rather to make basic lists of all Web pages passing through TalkTalk’s network.

It is not unusual for ISPs to monitor customers’ Internet use — especially for the purpose of prioritizing Web traffic in what is known as “traffic shaping” or “packet shaping.” Many customers, however, are either unaware of this practice or find it startling. Last month, for instance, the European Commission launched a consultation regarding net neutrality — essentially the concept that neither ISPs nor governments should be allowed to influence what content Internet users view or what applications. The European Union, according to sources, has made clear its desire for an open and neutral Internet.

According to The Register, political leaders have called on ISPs to take a more active role in protecting users from online threats. In this sense, TalkTalk’s effort to develop such a solution is commendable in an industry that has been known to avoid regulation. Still, its lack of transparency has some critics worried about what other processes are secretly running.

“We’ve a sneaking suspicion that customers will now also have sneaking suspicions,” writes TechEye.net’s Dean Wilson. “What other things could it be doing behind customers’ backs?”

Source : web-hosting-news.org

ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise is also the go-to tool for enterprises ready to move beyond virtualized infrastructure management towards a hosted or private cloud model.  With an extensive cloud management feature set, which includes multi-tenant security, delegated control, scheduled provisioning, resource limiting, and many more, ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise enables IT organizations to offer infrastructure-as-a-service, while ensuring full isolation and compliance with corporate policies.

“We’ve implemented a variety of virtualization platforms over the years and managing them all – especially the open source hypervisors – has always been the single biggest pain point,” said Steven Scoleri, Principal Architect at GSI Commerce, a leading provider of e-commerce and interactive marketing services. “Our beta test of ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise has gone very well and we think it just may be the game-changer we’ve been looking for. We no longer need experts on hand at all times to complete simple virtualization tasks. We look forward to further exploring ConVirt’s capabilities and using it to manage our entire open source-based virtual data center.”

“Until now, any organization that wanted a complete solution for managing and automating a virtual data center was locked into expensive and proprietary solutions like VMware vCenter,”,” said Arsalan Farooq, CEO of Convirture. “That changes today as ConVirt 2.0’s advanced automation, private cloud management, enterprise scalability and datacenter integration features now meet or exceed what’s available from proprietary platform vendors. With ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise, organizations considering Xen or KVM as open source alternatives to commercial virtualization platforms are no longer forced to compromise on manageability. ”

About ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise
ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise supports all of the features available with the ConVirt 2.0 Open Source product including:

- Server pool-based management
- Templates-based provisioning
- Monitoring and configuration management
- Comprehensive virtual machine administration
- Highly scalable, 3-tier, standards-based architecture

In addition, ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise delivers scalability, automation, and private cloud management features that were previously available only for proprietary virtualization platforms, including:

-  High availability: ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise ensures that mission-critical applications are always up and running by delivering a comprehensive high availability feature set, including virtual and physical machine failover;
- Backup and recovery: A full backup and recovery feature set ensures successful recovery from planned and unplanned outages. Scheduled and on-demand backups are supported. Restore modes can be for the most recent state or any earlier backup. Both virtual machine state and storage are captured, so virtual machines are brought up in a consistent state.
- Private Cloud Management: A data center that has been virtualized can be turned into a private, infrastructure-as-a-service cloud in a scalable and secure way, with support for full multi-tenant security, delegated control, scheduled provisioning, resource limiting and the ability to create virtual appliances that comply with corporate standards and publish them effortlessly to cloud users.
- Storage and network automation with ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise significantly streamlines the error-prone and time-consuming tasks of configuring network and storage in a virtualized environment. Storage configuration standardizes storage across a server pool by automating configuration of all storage types, including NFS, iSCSi, AOE, Fiber Channel and LVM. Network integration provides a centralized interface for managing virtual networks.
- Enterprise Integration: ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise provides a full suite of integration capabilities, including an open repository, command line interface, and programmatic APIs.

About Convirture
Convirture was founded in 2006 to help organizations effectively manage open source virtualization platforms. More information is available at www.convirture.com.

Source : web-hosting-news.org

SiteGround is a leading provider of web hosting services, with more than 250,000 domains worldwide. The company offers shared hosting, reseller hosting, managed dedicated hosting solutions and now cloud hosting.

“We were early beta participants in The Planet’s Server Cloud testing, which provided us with opportunities to offer feedback on the platform,” said Tenko Nikolov, CEO of SiteGround. “Our customers rely on us to provide them with the best options to support their businesses, so we’ve thoroughly evaluated cloud options on the market. We were looking for pricing predictability and ample bandwidth allocations, in a no-surprises package for our customers. The Planet Server Cloud behaves like a dedicated server by guaranteeing our fair share of space, traffic and CPU, at a cheaper cost. It’s great for small and big sites that want to cut costs while at the same time get a reliable service.”

“Server Cloud was expressly designed for our existing customers, with a platform that’s purpose-built for web-based businesses,” said Carl Meadows, senior product manager for Cloud Services with The Planet. “For resellers like SiteGround, their customers operate websites that depend on platform stability. They’ve got to be up and running around the clock, providing the performance guarantees that keep their customers coming back.”

About The Planet Server Cloud

The Planet Server Cloud provides a broad range of features for customers looking to expand their hosting profile:

Dedicated Resources: All resources for The Planet Server Cloud are 100% guaranteed. Customers receive completely dedicated CPU, RAM, storage and network capacity, which ensures performance isn’t negatively affected by another customer’s usage.

Sun SAN Backend: The Planet Server Cloud is powered by a high-performance, high-availability Sun Storage Area Network (SAN). Many cloud solutions operate on local disks from the host server, leaving customers vulnerable to hardware failures that can result in down time and even data loss. Server Cloud is always available, since computing and storage resources are separate and independent. In the event of a complete host server failure, data is always protected.

Seamless, Rapid CPU, RAM Upgrades: Customers buy only what they require to get started and grow their performance seamlessly as demand expands. A single system reboot from the server host recognizes any added resources.

Enterprise-Grade Infrastructure: The Planet Server Cloud is powered by the latest technologies. From the Sun Microsystems SAN, to network gear supplied by Juniper and Cisco, and Dell servers equipped with Intel’s fast Nehalem processors, the company has developed this robust platform to be resilient under the most difficult loads.

Operating System Support: Customers can select operating system support from both Linux and Windows platforms, including Windows Server 2008 R2.

Managed Services: The Planet offers a full array of service upgrades, including managed server monitoring and remediation, server security management and managed backup.

Next-Generation Virtualization: The Planet built its Server Cloud on the Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) Hypervisor, the primary platform supported by both The Linux Foundation and the top Linux distributions, including Canonical’s Ubuntu and Red Hat. KVM supports the latest virtualization technologies, including live migration, RAM de-duplication, para-virtualized storage and network capabilities, which combine stellar performance and efficiency. While other offerings require operating system (OS) modifications, KVM does not. Customers run unaltered/native versions of their chosen OS without any requirement for development modifications. As a result, they benefit from better security since new patches and updates are immediately available without the requirement for load development intervention.

To learn more about The Planet’s Server Cloud, visit the Web site at http://www.theplanet.com/cloud-hosting/.

About SiteGround

SiteGround.com is a leading provider of web hosting services that hosts more than 250,000 domains worldwide. The company offers shared hosting, business hosting, reseller hosting, managed dedicated hosting solutions and cloud hosting. SiteGround offers a powerful system infrastructure and superior 24/7 technical support that guarantee reliability, uptime and quality of service. For more information about SiteGround, visit the company’s website at http://ww.siteground.com.

About The Planet

The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 18,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 12 million Web sites worldwide. Customers have the power to choose from the broadest range of hosting solutions in the industry, from dedicated servers, Managed Dedicated Servers, Managed Hosting and data center colocation, all backed by 24×7×365 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. For additional information, visit http://www.theplanet.com.

Source : hosting-news.org

BlackSun Inc is a leader in web hosting, domain registration, ecommerce systems, and spam and virus free email solutions. Call BlackSun for all of your webhosting needs, large or small.

Source : web-hosting-news.org

The announcement introduced new key features in Parallels Automation 5.0, including support for delivering Microsoft Exchange 2010, unified communications with Office Communications Server 2007 R2 services, improved cloud syndication capabilities, customer on-premise directory integration, as well as over 100 other features.

“With the competition to attract small businesses to the Cloud heating up, Service Providers need to deliver profitable Cloud services to market at an ever-increasing pace,” said Serguei Beloussov, CEO and Chairman at Parallels. “Adding Microsoft Exchange 2010, Office Communications Server and customer directory integration to Parallels Automation 5.0 allows Service Providers to increase average revenue per user, reduce operational costs and attract new customers.”

Beloussov added, “Service Providers can now be amongst the first to offer their customers Hosted Exchange 2010 email. It also enables them to increase ARPU and decrease churn by cross-selling the latest Microsoft unified communications services.”

This release of Parallels Automation 5.0 also significantly improves Open-Xchange-based services capabilities for business class email providing an additional source of revenue for Service Providers.

“One of the advantages of the Parallels platform is that it has allowed us to dramatically expand our product portfolio and ultimately be a single vendor of choice for our customers’ business communication and collaboration needs,” said Chris Damvakaris, Vice President of Sales and Business Development at Apptix. “On top of being able to offer Hosted Exchange, Hosted SharePoint, and VoIP, Parallels Automation allows us to roll out Web conferencing, secure IM, online backup, DNS hosting and Web site hosting.”

The release of PA5.0 also includes Parallels Business Automation 5.0 (PBA) which boasts PCI Payment Application DSS certification. This simplifies PCI audits for Service Providers that require PCI DSS compliance.

“Parallels Automation provides a carrier-class tool with robust features and the ability to integrate new services such as BlackBerry and GoodLink – but its interface is simple enough so that mobile customers can manage their own accounts through a Web-based control panel,” said David Grantz, Chief Technology Officer at ExchangeMyMail.

About Parallels

Parallels is a worldwide leader in virtualization and automation software that optimizes computing for consumers, businesses, and Cloud Services Providers across all major hardware, operating systems, and virtualization platforms. Founded in 1999, Parallels is a fast-growing company with more than 700 employees in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Source : hosting-news.org

DediPower is committed to delivering Public Cloud that uses only best of breed hardware and dedicated support normally associated with bespoke Private enterprise solutions. To support this, it offers a solid Service Level Agreement which ensures 100% uptime and high availability; utilises high speed fully redundant SAS SAN for storage; and includes ISO 27002 compliant security separation, firewalling and enterprise calibre back-ups as standard.

Craig Martin, CEO of DediPower, states, “Hosting companies have fallen into the trap of developing cloud platforms to be ahead of the curve. This is not their key strength. Consequently, they have tried to solve the problem from every angle, leading to unsupportable architectures and inconsistent pricing. We aim to challenge them and provide a new benchmark for the industry by using premier, proven hardware; architecture developed on our top-end servers; and solutions built using VMWare Hypervisor, the industry leading virtualisation platform.”

He continues, “We believe organisations looking to migrate to Public Cloud don’t want low costs if it means an unreliable platform that cannot service their needs. They want a risk-free solution that accommodates their growth and is robust enough to respond to market demands and future growth strategies. At DediPower, we believe 100% availability and solid support is still a prerequisite for hosting – no matter how small the client, its web traffic or its investment. Value is what counts – and we aim to deliver that throughout.”

DediPower Public Cloud incorporates VMWare Hypervisor which runs on the latest Intel Nehalem Hardware. There is no over-allocation of RAM, CPU and storage is provided using high-performance SAS SAN hardware with suitable QoS levels on disk I/O. Costing models are based on Virtual Cloud Data Centres which are sold as blocks of RAM with storage split into virtual machines.

About DediPower Managed Hosting

A leading UK provider of managed hosting and data centre solutions, DediPower makes internet and eBusiness innovation a reality and delivers outstanding ROI for organisations of all sizes. Current clients include Sony, Virgin, ITV, NHS and The BRIT Awards. Focused on delivering service excellence through its Support with Passion® philosophy, DediPower’s enterprise class data centres offer 100% availability and accredited data security to support business critical, data-rich, ecommerce, interactive and web-based applications. It provides bespoke managed hosting, managed private cloud, virtualisation, multi-server clusters, and co-location services. DediPower is a winner of numerous hosting awards and is a Microsoft Gold certified partner and RedHat Ready hosting partner. DediPower’s headquarters is located in Reading Berkshire, UK.

Source : hosting-news.org

Data centers consume large amount of energy. Studies indicate that data centers alone consume 0.2% of the total electricity production in the world. A single data center consumes as much energy as consumed by nearly thirty thousand houses. As it consumes, so it emits! Data centers emit large amount of carbon into the atmosphere. Carbon emissions by web hosting services and its data center is a major topic of discussion amongst environmentalists. Leaving carbon footprints in air may lead to enhanced risk of global warming.
Majority of the web hosting services rely on conventional sources of energy to generate power. Facebook, a popular social networking site, was in news recently because of its new data center in Oregon utilizing coal to generate power. Environmentalists protest against this as it may lead to huge carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Coal, oil, gas etc. have the largest carbon footprints as they burn these fuels during operation. It is advisable to use renewable energy sources for data centers’ operation in web hosting services. Main renewable sources of energy for power generation are as below:
* Hydropower can reduce CO2 emissions considerably in web hosting services data centers. In this process, energy from flowing water is converted to electricity through turbines and generators. The flowing water can be derived from two sources – Storage and Run-of-river. Storage use dams. Run-of-river use turbines placed according to the natural flow of water in rivers. Hydropower emit very little CO2 as compared to the conventional sources of energy.
* Wind can also be used as a source to generate low-carbon emitting energy. Wind mills can be seen at many places. As the blades of a windmill turn, the central shaft spins a generator. Electricity is thus produced. Datacenters of web hosting services may use wind energy to generate electricity. Wind energy is the world’s fastest growing energy technology.
* Geothermal energy source can also be used to generate electricity. It emits less CO2 as compared to the conventional sources of energy. Geothermal power uses natural source of heat inside the earth. Steam or hot water from beneath the earth’s surface is utilized to generate electricity. This source of power generation is environment friendly and efficient.
Apart from these, data centers may also make use of biomass, solar power, and nuclear sources of energy to produce electricity. Web hosting services are facing criticism from around the world for increasing pollutants emission. Web hosting services are under pressure from environmental groups to reduce carbon footprints from data centers. Global warming is a direct consequence to high carbon emissions from data centers. It has become extremely important to reduce energy inefficiency. This, in turn, may also reduce the overall expenditure in data center management.

Source : hosting-news.org

Source : hosting-news.org

Digiweb chose Cloudmark’s CloudFilter solution because of its innovative technology and industry-leading reputation. CloudFilter will allow Digiweb to offer its customers a professionally hosted, managed and secure email service, and will be the first in a proposed suite of cloud-based solutions that Digiweb plans to roll out over the course of 2010. Digiweb has already signed up numerous customers to the service and anticipates that demand will continue to be high.

The CloudFilter solution enables web hosting and email providers to offer premium email services, backed by industry-leading messaging security. CloudFilter delivers zero-hour protection using carrier-grade sender reputation data, advanced content filtering and proven messaging policies to rapidly detect and eliminate messaging attacks and threats before they reach the customer’s mailbox.

Dan King, hosting manager at Digiweb, said of the partnership: “It is crucial for us to protect our customers from large volumes of spam, phishing and viruses. By working with Cloudmark we are able to offer businesses of any size complete protection from messaging abuse, in an easy-to-use and cost-effective way.”

“Spam is a serious issue for hosting providers and their customers, taking up significant time and IT resources,” said Jamie de Guerre, chief technology officer at Cloudmark. “By using our CloudFilter solution, hosting providers such as Digiweb can ensure the security of customers’ email infrastructure, improving the user experience and delivering real peace of mind.”

About Cloudmark

Cloudmark, Inc. is a global leader in carrier-grade messaging infrastructure and security solutions, delivering the industry’s fastest, most accurate and most scalable messaging platform for fixed, mobile and social networks. The Cloudmark suite of carrier-grade solutions simplifies and advances the management of messaging abuse, increasing network utilization and reducing infrastructure costs. Cloudmark’s patented solutions combine Advanced Message Fingerprinting™ technology based on innovative, highly efficient algorithms, a Global Threat Network™ consisting of trusted reporters across the globe, real-time, automated analysis of traffic and content patterns, along with security research expertise, to provide real-time security intelligence and filtering across carrier networks. Cloudmark solutions protect more than one billion subscribers for the world’s largest networks, including AT&T, Comcast, MySpace, NTT, Swisscom and Time Warner Cable. Cloudmark is a privately held company headquartered in San Francisco with offices in London, Paris, Tokyo, Beijing and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit http://www.cloudmark.com.

Cloudmark and the Cloudmark logo are registered trademarks of Cloudmark, Inc. in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

About Digiweb

Digiweb is one of the UK and Ireland’s leading telecoms and Internet Services Providers, offering wireless and fixed broadband, telephony, and web hosting services. Digiweb was the 2007 Irish Telecommunications Company of the Year, and 2007 Irish ICT Company of the Year, and has been growing steadily since then with recent acquisitions of Smart Telecom, Internet Ireland and TalkTalk customer bases in Ireland and Belgium, having been successfully integrated into its operations. Digiweb is a leading provider in the Ireland and UK broadband markets having established an extensive wholly owned telecoms network, operated from its carrier-class facilities in Dublin. The company employs 150 staff across Ireland, and is currently recruiting to support its future growth. The company also services clients throughout Europe for satellite broadband and managed services.

Media Contact
Hotwire
David Atkinson, +44(0) 207 608 4684
David.atkinson@hotwirepr.com
or
Digiweb
Fintan Lawler
Mob: +353 1 256 9200
Sales & Marketing Director
flawler@digiweb.ie

Source : hosting-news.org

Outsourceserver.com have launched their new service providing server administration, maintenance and web hosting support. Major purpose of this service is to help people in administering and maintaining enterprise or small scale servers.
Speaking at the launch of the new service Mr. Rajesh Kumar, the CEO said that, “Outsourcing is right choice for many to maintain the high standards of service levels to exceed the expectations of clients. But at the same time by not compromising on the quality of server support and the security of servers.”
The outsourced server support is classified into the following categories like Server Administration, Server Management, Server Monitoring, Server Hardening, Hosting Support, Server Setup, Installations.
Outsourceserver.com takes up any thing related to server right from installation to advanced maintenance of servers. Customer has the choice to combine the packages for server administration along with server support on pay per ticket basis for hosting customers from their own helpdesk.
When asked  about the cost and time advantage in outsourcing the server support the CEO said that, “By outsourcing the web hosting servers or other server management and administration can free a lot of time and effort put towards these activities. In turn the time and manpower can be used for other core business activities like sales and promotion of business.”
Technologies are changing very fast especially in the information technology sector. So this issue of technology advancement can be addressed by outsourcing the server management and administration to experts in server management process for a long time.
Mr. Rajesh Kumar also added that, “This outsourced server support initiative can be seeked either for periodic administration and maintenance or for specific server issues as when required on a pay per issue basis”
One of the reporters asked about the infrastructure in place, he said that, “Already we have update to date servers and technologies for our hosting customers, so same infrastructure and support will be available for people outsourcing their servers to us. We also follow the international security and process standards in server support”.
As a final word to the reporters the CEO said that, “By outsourcing the administration, maintenance, support tickets to us can get a good reputation with customers”.

Source : prlog.org