Mark Rogers, Director of Cloud Services at Microsoft Corp., will deliver one of the keynote addresses, according to Interjuncture Corp.

HostingCon 2008 is the only conference and tradeshow, focused exclusively on the hosting industry. As companies and individuals continue to expand usage of hosting services and hosted applications, hosting providers have new opportunities to provide valuable services to customers.

George A. Roberts IV, Executive Director of HostingCon 2008 noted, ”HostingCon 2008 will be a great place to learn about how cloud services will impact your hosted services business and how you can take advantage of those trends. It will also be a wonderful opportunity to network with others in the industry and get their thoughts and ideas on how they’re transforming their businesses to thrive in a cloud services future.”

The emergence of the Web as a business and consumer platform presents many new possibilities for the hosting industry, as well as a new set of challenges. While hosted services providers are rightly concerned with a new competitive landscape that includes Microsoft and others, cloud services hold the key to a bright future. Mr. Rogers spends his time talking to the industry about the choice between on-premise software and cloud services, and the important factors to consider when determining and investing in models for software and services.

Mr. Rogers explained, ”Hosting providers are contemplating the challenges and opportunities cloud computing represents. At HostingCon 2008, I look forward to sharing the exciting technology developments taking place, and initiating a dialogue about the potential concerns and opportunities for hosting service providers.”

In addition to Mr. Rogers’ keynote address, HostingCon 2008’s conference program will contain a number of sessions discussing cloud computing and its impact on hosted services providers. Attendees will be able to learn how to help their customers feel comfortable with cloud services, how software as a service and open source software work together and how to employ virtualization in your infrastructure.

HostingCon 2008 will feature a full three days of conference sessions, intended to allow hosting professionals the ability to expand knowledge in business, shared services, enterprise, data center, and application hosting.

HostingCon is the largest conference and trade show for the hosted services industry, this year to be spread over 56,000 square feet reserved specifically for the event, with approximately 20,000 net square feet of booth space in an easy to navigate floorplan. The exhibit hall will feature over 70 vendors displaying products and services, offering demonstrations and activities related to the hosted services industry.

To learn more about HostingCon 2008, please visit: www.HostingCon.com.

Editor’s note: TechPad Agency (parent company of The Hosting News) will be exhibiting at HostingCon 2008 in booth #418.

The Total Site Solutions (TSS) exhibit showcases the company’s unique ability to deliver resilient infrastructure solutions for mission-critical facilities. The company will be exhibiting in Booth R. TSS will present their capabilities with an emphasis on Greening: Optimizing Energy-Efficiency Without Compromising Reliability.

Companies and executives responsible for building and managing data center operations feel a growing responsibility to advance toward a more energy efficient and environmentally friendly footing by implementing a Green Data Center. TSS will discuss practical steps that can be taken to advance green initiatives in the data center without negatively impacting reliability. TSS will exhibit both broad approaches as well as specific areas of focus that will yield benefits to the data center manager who is considering a move toward a greener facility.

The Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations and Management Summit Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations and Management Summit 2008 is the most focused event of its kind designed to help IT organizations prepare not only for today’s continuing demands, but also tomorrow’s emerging requirements. The Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations and Management Summit offers guidance in terms of operational best practices examines the impact of pervasive virtualization and looks at how to strategize for and manage technologies that are beginning to find their way into the IT infrastructure.

Total Site Solutions (TSS) plans, designs, builds and maintains specialized facilities such as data centers, trading floors, call centers, laboratories, medical facilities, network operation centers, communication facilities, and secure facilities. For nearly 30 years, the TSS team has pioneered building robust and scalable infrastructure into mission-critical facilities. The firm offers unsurpassed expertise in the infrastructure systems (electrical, mechanical, telecommunications, security, fire protection and building automation) that are the critical facility’s lifeblood. TSS’s comprehensive portfolio of services and multi-disciplinary expertise provide customers a highly respected single source for critical services that bridge the gap between IT and facilities.

Headquartered in Maryland with offices throughout the US and in Dubai, TSS provides complete turnkey facility services from the initial planning stages, to construction, to ongoing maintenance of the completed project. Its clients include the world’s most demanding mission-critical organizations, including Fortune 500 firms and US government agencies.

To learn more about Gartner, please visit: www.gartner.com/us/iom.

For more information about Total Site Solutions, please visit: www.totalsitesolutions.com.

Mr. Vashi explained, ”As the hosting market matures, our resellers frequently discuss with us their strategies for adding dedicated hosting to their portfolios. We have seen some of our most successful resellers grow through a combination of both shared and dedicated hosting offerings, and a number of our customers attend the cPanel Conference since it is one of the most popular control panels among resellers.”

The conference was held at the Westin Oaks Houston. The conference agenda covers topics related to the cPanel server control panel, including sessions on the new cPanel Server Suite and its improvements to Windows-based hosting operations. The Planet is also a featured exhibitor at the conference.

Also of note, Vice President of Facilities at The Planet, Jeff Lowenberg, was recently been awarded with the first-ever ”Data Center Manager of the Year” award from SearchDataCenter.com. The award recognizes excellence in data center project management, according to senior site editor Matt Stansberry. Mr. Lowenberg was recognized for his work that will save the company over $1 million on energy costs in 2008 alone, based on the implementation of new ”green” data center efficiencies.

Mr. Lowenberg conducted a six-month trial to reduce power consumption and increase data center operating efficiency. Initial results demonstrate that while critical server loads increased by 5 percent, power used for cooling decreased by 31 percent. Overall, the company experienced power reductions of up to 13.5 percent through a broad range of improvements. The new green initiatives were conducted across its six world-class data centers.

Armin Heinlein with Panalpina Group was a runner-up, followed by finalists Ben Stewart with Terremark and William Stewart with Sempra Energy.

The Planet operates more than 150 30-ton computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units across its six data centers. In one data center alone, the company was able to turn off four of the units. The cooling requirement on two of the units was reduced to 50 percent of capacity, while another nine now operate at 25 percent of capacity. The company also extended the return air plenums on all of its down-flow CRAC units to optimize efficiency. In some cases, The Planet team was able to increase CRAC unit temperature settings by as much as 10 degrees while still meeting the thermal guidelines for data processing environments set by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).

Across the board, the company evaluated both its data center footprint and recommended guidelines from the Site Uptime Network, an invitation-only consortium of companies that operate data centers around the globe. The Planet also evaluated standards for air conditioning efficiency from ASHRAE to optimize operating performance. Among these improvements are the following:

• Rearranged floor tiles to better manage cold airflow
• Installed seals and grommets in the ceilings, walls and floors to reduce bypass airflow
• Installed blanking plates in server cabinets to direct airflow more efficiently
• Sealed power distribution units to reduce bypass airflow

Last month, The Planet added an automated recovery solution, which is now available on all of its new and existing servers within the company’s extensive offerings. The Automated Rescue Environment (ARE) allows customers to self-restore and repair their servers directly from The Planet customer portal in the event of a critical software failure.

Ultimately, The Planet endeavors to provide the following:

• High level of network capacity and speed to deliver peak performance
• Instant scalability to handle even the largest spikes in network traffic
• Parallel, redundant, multi-tiered network routing and switching architecture to assure reliability and stability
• Multiple layer network security that prevents Delayed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks from harming businesses
• Knowledgeable experts with a passion for excellence and a commitment to operate the best networks in the business

The Planet is a leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 22,000 small and medium size businesses and 6.7 million web sites worldwide, using the best choice of servers, software tools and support, backed by state-of-the-art facilities and network connectivity.

For more information about The Planet, please visit: www.theplanet.com.

Slated to discuss the future of hosted services, Mr. Beloussov will deliver the address at the tradeshow and conference, scheduled to take place from July 28-30, 2008, at the historic Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois.

George A. Roberts IV, Executive Director of HostingCon 2008 noted, ”HostingCon 2008 will be a great place to learn how to optimize your hosted services business through automation, virtualization and standardization. It will also be a great time to meet with your peers and find out how they’re implementing these technologies in their business.”

In addition to the keynote address by Serguei Beloussov, HostingCon 2008’s conference program will contain a number of sessions discussing cloud computing and its impact on hosted services providers. Attendees will be able to learn how to help their customers feel comfortable with cloud services, how software as a service and open source software work together and how to employ virtualization in your infrastructure.

The hosting market has matured and continues to grow and present new opportunities such as the adoption of Software as a Service. Parallels is partnering with hosting providers and ISVs to facilitate an ecosystem which will better serve customers and increase service provider revenues. Serguei Beloussov will discuss the need to automate, virtualize, and standardize in order to deliver optimized computing for hosted services providers that is critical for enabling service providers to profit from and adapt to changes in the hosting market.

HostingCon is the definitive conference and tradeshow for the hosted services industry. HostingCon 2008 will be held July 28-30, 2008 at Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois. Hosted services professionals around the world gather to learn more about the industry, network with their peers and vendors, and help grow their business. HostingCon is produced by Interjuncture Corp., a Crystal Lake, Illinois-based producer of technology-related tradeshows, conferences and events.

The HostingCon 2008 website is located at http://www.hostingcon.com/ and is the best source for the most up to date information on the conference program, exhibitors, and special events.
Parallels (formerly SWsoft) is a worldwide leader in virtualization and automation software that optimizes computing for consumers, businesses, and service providers across all major hardware, operating system, and virtualization platforms. Founded in 1999, Parallels is a fast-growing company with 900 employees in North America, Europe, and Asia.

For more information about HostingCon 2008, please visit: www.hostingcon.com/2008.

To learn more about Parallels, please visit: www.parallels.com.

Presentations will compare and contrast web application virtualization solutions such as WebSphere Extended Deployment and hardware virtualization solutions. In addition, discussions concerning systems may be combined to provide the most flexible web application hosting environment, will be offered.

The Virtualization Faculty will include such distinguished speakers as: Al Aghili (Managed Methods), Andi Mann (Enterprise Management Associates), Ariel Cohen (Xsigo Systems), Ben Rudolph (Parallels), Bob Lozano (Appistry), Bob Quinn (3Leaf Systems), Brian Martin (IBM), Carlo Innocenti Ph.D. (DataDirect Technologies), Chris Shayan (Ashna Samane), Doc D’Errico (EMC Corporation), Domenic Alcaro (APC), Etay Bogner (Neocleus), George Pradel (Vizioncore), Geva Perry (GigaSpaces), Gordon Hunt (Real-Time Innovations), Gordon Jackson (DataSynapse), Gregory Brail (Sonoa Systems), Harry Petty (Brocade), Hubert Yoshida (Hitachi Data Systems), Ian Thain (Sybase), Jacek Kruszelnicki (Numatica Corporation), Jeremy Geelan (SYS-CON Media), Joe McKendrick (WebServices.org), John Goodson (DataDirect), John Senor (iWay Software), JP Morgenthal (GXS), Keith Swenson (Fujitsu), Ken North (Computing, LLC), Kenon Owens (VMware), Kevin Epstein (Scalent Systems), Koen Aers (Red Hat/JBoss), Kyle Gabhart (Web Age Solutions), Lance Urbas (Certeon), Mario Dal Canto (SIMtone), Mark Davydov Ph.D. (Blue Cross Blue Shield), Mark Hapner (Sun Microsystems), Mark Milligan (VirtualLogix), Matt George (Fidelity Investments), Michael CareyPh.D. (BEA Systems), Michael Gorman (Whitemarsh Information Systems), Mike Pizzo (Microsoft), Miko Matsumura (Software AG), Nikita Ogievetsky (Morgan Stanley), Paul Lipton (CA), Paul Rivot (IBM), Peter Manca (Egenera), Phil Morris (Sun Microsystems), Pierre Fricke (Red Hat / JBoss), Ravi Gururaj (VMLogix), Rich Lechner (IBM), Rich Schreiber (Nastel Technologies), Richard Mark Soley (OMG), Robert Steward (DataDirect), Ron Williams (Tivoli Software), Sean Derrington (Symantec), Shai Fultheim (ScaleMP), Simon Crosby (Citrix), Stephen Herrod (VMware), Stephen Pollack (PlateSpin), Tom Bishop (BMC Software), Tom Woteki (Cisco), Ursula Sinkewicz (Fidelity Investments), Vern Brownell (Egenera), Victoria Livschitz (Grid Dynamics), Yakov Fain (Farata Systems), Zoran Cakeljic (Virtual Iron).

The Conference is sponsored by the following companies:

• DataDirect (Diamond Sponsor)
• Intel (Platinum Sponsor)
• Red Hat (Platinum Sponsor)
• Green Hills Software (Platinum Sponsor)
• Fujitsu (Gold Sponsor)
• Novell / Platespin (Gold Sponsor)
• Ceedo (Gold Sponsor)
• Software AG (Gold Sponsor)
• 3PAR (Silver Sponsor)
• APC (Silver Sponsor)
• Certeon (Silver Sponsor)
• Web Age Solutions (Silver Sponsor)
• WSO2 (Silver Sponsor)
• Stoneware (Silver Sponsor)
• AppStream (Expo Sponsor)
• Astaro (Expo Sponsor)
• Composite Software (Expo Sponsor)
• Grid Dynamics (Expo Sponsor)
• InstallFree (Expo Sponsor)
• Nastel (Expo Sponsor)
• Managed Methods (Expo Sponsor)
• Farata Systems (Expo Sponsor)
• Splunk (Expo Sponsor)
• Xsigo Systems (ExpoSponsor)
• DataSynapse (Expo Sponsor)
• Mellanox Technologies (Expo Sponsor)
• Marathon Technologies (Expo Sponsor)
• MQ Software (Expo Sponsor)
• RingCube (Expo Sponsor)
• Reflex Security (Expo Sponsor)

International Virtualization Conference and Expo faculty alumni include such notable speakers as: Brian Stevens, CTO of Red Hat; Stephen Herrod, CTO of VMware; Vern Brownell, founder and CEO of Egenera; Simon Crosby, founder and CTO of Citrix XenSource; Hubert Yoshida, vice president and CTO of Hitachi Data Systems; Jeffrey Nick, CTO of EMC; David Greschler, director of Virtualization Strategy for Microsoft; Hal Stern, vice president and distinguished engineer for Sun Microsystems; Andrew Hillier, founder and CTO of CiRBA; Alex Vasilevsky, founder and CEO of Virtual Iron; Jack Zubarev, founder and COO of SWsoft; Stephen Pollack, founder and CEO of PlateSpin; Brett Adam, founder and CEO of rPath; Kevin Brown, founder and CEO of Kidaro; Bob Lozano, founder and CEO of Appistry; and Harry Ruda, founder and CEO of Desktone.

To inquire about sponsorship and exhibit opportunities please contact Carmen Gonzalez at 201-802-3021 or by email at events(at)sys-con.com. Currently, a limited number of sponsorship and exhibition packages with multiple sponsorship discounts are available for the following international events:3rd International Virtualization Conference and Expo 2008 – East

Other events include: the 4th International Virtualization Conference and Expo 2008 – West, scheduled for November 20-21, 2008, San Jose, CA, and the 5th International Virtualization Conference and Expo 2009 – Europe, scheduled for January 26-27, 2009, in London, England.

To learn more, please visit: www.VirtualizationConference.com

Alex Bouzari will speak about Content-Rich, Web 2.0 Storage Dynamics, from the perspective of the company’s data infrastructure for the most extreme, content-intensive environments in the world — including the largest online gaming and music sites, social networking applications developers and photo and video sharing services.

Mr. Bouzari will discuss how explosive growth in next-generation digital content — such as video-on-demand, Web 2.0 environments, digital broadcasting and post production and digital video surveillance — is creating explosive demand for the next generation of data storage. Bouzari will discuss how monolithic, cache-centric storage architectures are not designed for the content explosion taking place today — an explosion which requires real-time, purpose-built platforms designed for massive throughput and scalable capacity. Bouzari will highlight the types of next-generation storage platforms required to support the consistent, massive streams of large image files and unstructured data driving the content explosion and how such platforms enable users to thrive in their extremely competitive markets.

The presentation is to take place on Tuesday, May 20 at 9:20 a.m. Eastern Time, at the Westin Boston Waterfront Boston, Mass. (Advance registration with JPMorgan is required).

DataDirect Networks has over 150 petabytes installed worldwide, counts over 400 broadcasters and post production facilities as its clients and has global partnerships with Dell, IBM and Sony. Alex Bouzari brings more than twenty years of experience in the storage industry and a wealth of knowledge in running profitable, fast-growth technology companies.

Prior to co-founding DataDirect Networks, Mr. Bouzari served as CEO of Personal Writer, Inc., and DataDirect Networks’ predecessor, MegaDrive Systems, Inc. Mr. Bouzari holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Engineering and Economics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), with graduate studies in Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford University.

For more information, visit http://www.datadirectnet.com or http://www.jpmorgan.com/pages/jpmorgan/investbk/global/na/usconferences/tec h08 About DataDirect Networks DataDirect Networks is the leading provider of scalable storage platforms for performance and capacity-driven applications.

The 36th Annual JPMorgan Technology Conference hosts more CEOs than any other technology investor conference. The company will offer selected webcasts. As the longest running event in the high tech industry, it is considered one of the cornerstones of growth in building the technology community. As the premiere conference of its kind, the three-day event offers unparalleled corporate access for investors to companies that shape the technology business community.

More than 200 presenting companies will be featured. The conference will cover Hardware and Software to Semis, Semicap Equipment, Telecom, to Internet. Questions and answers will be provided by over 90% of the conference presenters, who are CEOs. During the conference, executives will also participate in more than 1,800 individual meetings and analyst-hosted fireside chats.

DataDirect Networks’ S2A Silicon Storage Architecture technology is designed to enable modern applications such as video streaming, content delivery, modeling and simulation, backup and archiving, cluster and supercomputing and real-time collaborative workflows that are driving the explosive demand for storage performance and capacity. DataDirect Networks’ S2A solutions solve today’s most challenging storage requirements, including providing shared, high-speed access to a common pool of data, minimizing data center footprints and storage costs for massive archives, reducing simulation computational times, and capturing and serving massive amounts of digital content.

To learn more about DataDirect Networks, please visit: www.datadirect.com.

ISPCon Spring 2008 will be held at the Donald E. Stephens (Rosemont) Convention Center in Chicago, Illinois from May 13-15, 2008. The event brings together 2500+ internet industry professionals including ISPs, webhosting providers, VoIP providers and numerous other internet industry professionals to discuss all facets of internet business including ways to increase revenue and develop new business opportunities.

Ravi Agarwal, groupSPARK senior executive officer, will speak to attendees on Thursday, May 15, 2008 on ways for ISPs and the service provider community to successfully compete in the expanding hosted services arena. His presentation titled SaaS vs. Software + Service: How You Can Survive Microsoft’s Entry into the Hosted Services Market, will speak to the trepidation now felt by resellers of hosted services worldwide regarding Microsoft’s decision to enter the market with their own hosted services offerings. Mr. Agarwal will address the explosive growth in the market and offer strategies resellers can employ to stand apart from the competition and provide value added products and services to their small and mid-size business customers.

“The hosting industry is growing dramatically as more and more SMBs discover that they can pay a small monthly fee and achieved the same level of productivity as large companies by using enterprise class messaging and collaboration tools in a hosted environment. As a result, resellers are looking to take advantage of this trend and offer these services to their customers. However, the recent press surrounding Microsoft’s entry into the hosted Software as a Service market is making many resellers reconsider their decision as they are unsure whether they will be able to compete,” said Ravi Agarwal, senior executive director, groupSPARK division of mindSHIFT Technologies, Inc. “This fear is completely unfounded. There are many ways resellers can differentiate themselves and continue to thrive in this rapidly growing market. There is enough room for everyone to be successful.”

One of the ways that groupSPARK continues to thrive in a competitive market is to offer a full breadth of private label hosted software services through their reseller channel to SMBs who would otherwise be unable to deploy the applications in-house due to their significant cost. Services include hosted Exchange Server 2007, hosted SharePoint Services 3.0, and hosted Dynamics CRM as well as 2-way wireless synchronization with BlackBerry Enterprise Server®, Windows Mobile and Good Mobile Messaging. groupSPARK also offers all resellers live 24 x 7 technical support via phone, email and online chat which is staffed by experts based in the United States.

About groupSPARK

Located in Burlington, Massachusetts, groupSPARK, a mindSHIFT company, is a leading provider of SaaS services, such as Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services v3.0, and Dynamics CRM, which can be completely private labeled and resold by partners as a part of their own product offerings saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in development and support costs.

Its partners utilize groupSPARK’s turnkey private label platform to provide hosted services to their users in minutes. Partners are able to address scalability and uptime concerns by leveraging groupSPARK’s 100% uptime SLA, private label 24×7 U.S.-based support and proactive hardware and software monitoring capabilities. For additional information, visit www.groupSPARK.com.

ISPCon Spring 2008 will be held at the Donald E. Stephens (Rosemont) Convention Center in Chicago, Illinois from May 13-15, 2008. The event brings together 2500+ internet industry professionals including ISPs, webhosting providers, VoIP providers and numerous other internet industry professionals to discuss all facets of internet business including ways to increase revenue and develop new business opportunities.

Ravi Agarwal, groupSPARK senior executive officer, will speak to attendees on Thursday, May 15, 2008 on ways for ISPs and the service provider community to successfully compete in the expanding hosted services arena. His presentation titled SaaS vs. Software + Service: How You Can Survive Microsoft’s Entry into the Hosted Services Market, will speak to the trepidation now felt by resellers of hosted services worldwide regarding Microsoft’s decision to enter the market with their own hosted services offerings. Mr. Agarwal will address the explosive growth in the market and offer strategies resellers can employ to stand apart from the competition and provide value added products and services to their small and mid-size business customers.

“The hosting industry is growing dramatically as more and more SMBs discover that they can pay a small monthly fee and achieved the same level of productivity as large companies by using enterprise class messaging and collaboration tools in a hosted environment. As a result, resellers are looking to take advantage of this trend and offer these services to their customers. However, the recent press surrounding Microsoft’s entry into the hosted Software as a Service market is making many resellers reconsider their decision as they are unsure whether they will be able to compete,” said Ravi Agarwal, senior executive director, groupSPARK division of mindSHIFT Technologies, Inc. “This fear is completely unfounded. There are many ways resellers can differentiate themselves and continue to thrive in this rapidly growing market. There is enough room for everyone to be successful.”

One of the ways that groupSPARK continues to thrive in a competitive market is to offer a full breadth of private label hosted software services through their reseller channel to SMBs who would otherwise be unable to deploy the applications in-house due to their significant cost. Services include hosted Exchange Server 2007, hosted SharePoint Services 3.0, and hosted Dynamics CRM as well as 2-way wireless synchronization with BlackBerry Enterprise Server®, Windows Mobile and Good Mobile Messaging. groupSPARK also offers all resellers live 24 x 7 technical support via phone, email and online chat which is staffed by experts based in the United States.

About groupSPARK

Located in Burlington, Massachusetts, groupSPARK, a mindSHIFT company, is a leading provider of SaaS services, such as Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services v3.0, and Dynamics CRM, which can be completely private labeled and resold by partners as a part of their own product offerings saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in development and support costs.

Its partners utilize groupSPARK’s turnkey private label platform to provide hosted services to their users in minutes. Partners are able to address scalability and uptime concerns by leveraging groupSPARK’s 100% uptime SLA, private label 24×7 U.S.-based support and proactive hardware and software monitoring capabilities. For additional information, visit www.groupSPARK.com.

Sponsors represent some of the world’s leading technology companies, including Platinum sponsor Microsoft, Gold sponsor Intel, and Silver sponsors spreed, Open-Xchange, e.pages, Mesh Solutions and SoftLayer. The annual event will also include hands-on technical labs for Parallels solutions, sponsored by HP.

Kurt Daniel, Senior Vice President of marketing and online, Parallels noted, ”We are pleased to see so much interest in the Parallels Summit 2008 among registrants and sponsors that include an impressive group of globally recognized industry leaders and innovators. This event gives business and technical professionals a unique opportunity to network with their peers and share insights on important computing trends such as virtualization, software as a service, ‘green’ hosting and more.”

The Parallels Summit 2008 features keynotes by industry leaders and innovators, as well as in-depth product, strategy and networking sessions for business and technical professionals. The event is scheduled for May 19-20 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. and is free for Parallels customers, partners and anyone interested in learning more about how virtualization and automation software can optimize their use of technology.

John Zanni, Director of Worldwide Hosting at Microsoft Corp. remarked, ”The Parallels Summit represents an important opportunity for industry leaders to discuss the evolution of web hosting technologies and exchange information on key topics such as delivering end-to-end solutions, understanding the software as a service ecosystem, and differentiating with customized and value-added solutions. Parallels is a valued Microsoft partner, and we are proud to support the Parallels Summit this year as the Platinum sponsor.”

The Parallels Summit 2008 begins Monday, May 19 at 9 a.m. with morning sessions followed by the opening keynote at 1:30 p.m. The Summit program concludes on Tuesday, May 20 at 5 p.m. following a closing ceremony that is highlighted with giveaways from Apple, Microsoft and Magellan. There will also be three evening networking events for attendees. A detailed agenda of planned sessions and activities is available at www.parallels.com/summit/agenda.

Parallels (formerly SWsoft) is a worldwide leader in virtualization and automation software that optimizes computing for consumers, businesses, and service providers across all major hardware, operating systems, and virtualization platforms. Founded in 1999, Parallels is a fast-growing company with 900 employees in North America, Europe, and Asia.

To learn more about the Summit, please visit: www.parallels.com/summit.

For more information about Parallels, please visit: www.parallels.com.

The cloud computing technology and utility computing services, were developed as a flexible solution, empowering customers to build and run large-scale applications in the cloud without compromising their choices of operating system, middleware, security, location, architecture and vendors.

Cloudware is based upon technology proven in 3Tera’s award winning AppLogic grid operating system. The Cloudware architecture incorporates the fundamental building blocks used in developing today’s most popular applications: storage, computing, connectivity, security, and how they all relate to each other in a far reaching architecture for building an open cloud computing system. Cloudware is intended to be vendor agnostic so that any third party vendor’s software can be incorporated in a Cloudware-enabled system. The new architecture will initially support the most popular operating systems – Linux, Solaris and Windows – and is targeted toward clients who want to explore the extreme scale and flexibility of cloud computing infrastructures quickly and easily.

Some of the upcoming features include adding support for Solaris and Windows to the existing support for Linux; choice of multiple data centers worldwide, pre-built MySQL clusters, database replication appliances and NAS integration with third-party storage solutions.

Peter Nickolov, President and CTO, 3Tera, Inc. noted, ”The Web has succeeded by allowing each individual or company to add their own unique capabilities to the system. Cloud Computing should develop the same way, and 3Tera is demonstrating that there are no architectural obstacles to doing so. Giving developers the ability to write and design their applications and services with whatever software and architecture they choose is at the heart of Cloud Computing without Compromise.”

Barry X Lynn, Chairman and CEO, 3Tera, Inc. remarked, ”With Cloud Computing without Compromise, small shops can have the most modern, world-class IT infrastructure and can grow dynamically as their businesses grow. Enterprises can always have available the resources they need while only paying for what they consume.”

Todd Abrams, COO and President, Layered Technologies, a 3Tera hosting partner commented, ”With the introduction of Cloud Computing without Compromise, hosting your application in the cloud just became incredibly easier. Customers not only have the ability to choose their own operating system, middleware, security, vendors, location, etc., they also get their own personally customized virtual private datacenter.”

James Staten, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research in a recent report stated, ”If you have vast data center resources, and application deployment is a core competency of your business, leveraging cloud architectures can help make your IT shop more responsive to business needs. Is Cloud Computing Ready For the Enterprise, Forrester Research, Inc., March 2008. Many hosting providers – and several enterprises – are building clouds using 3Tera AppLogic, a grid engine that has evolved into full-blown cloud computing infrastructure software. This technology works across physical and virtualized servers (sitting below the OS) and has built-in high availability, virtualized storage, and per-use reporting.”

3Tera is currently working with major hosting providers and data center operators in USA, Europe, Japan and Australia to offer together a choice of multiple locations worldwide for the Cloud Computing without Compromise architecture.

Oliver Hurst-Hiller, CTO of DonorsChoose.org, a nonprofit teaching organization added, ”We’re looking forward to moving our Web system to the highly scalable and flexible Cloudware platform. As a small organization, it can be a challenge to manage the up-front costs and technical complexity of traditional infrastructure technologies when you need to scale rapidly, especially in response to the spikes in Web traffic that often result from media coverage. 3Tera’s AppLogic gives us cost-effective agility and control of our computing infrastructure so we can move at the speed of the teachers and donors we serve.”

3Tera, Inc. is a utility and cloud computing developer, simplifying the deployment and scaling of web applications. Named ”Cool Vendor in IT operations, 2008” by Gartner Group and one of the Top 20 Companies to Watch in 2008 by Linux Magazine, 3Tera offers the AppLogic grid operating system that enables the first true utility computing services to completely remove the cost and complexity associated with infrastructure. The operating system converts commodity servers into scalable grids on which users can visually operate, deploy and scale transactional Web applications without any modification of code. Software-as-a-Service providers, Web 2.0 companies, enterprises and open source developers can now get new online services quickly to market by utilizing resources from commodity hosting providers on a pay-as-you-go basis, while maintaining complete control of applications including visual operation, scaling and on-demand resource provisioning.

To learn more about cloud computing, please visit: www.3tera.com/cloud-computing.

For more information about 3Tera, please visit: www.3tera.com.