Today there are more than 30 million cloud and virtual private servers in use, and most are vulnerable to attack because their built-in security stacks such as the host firewall are too difficult to manage.  Dome9 makes cloud server security manageable by delivering a GUI-based firewall management service to secure an unlimited number of Windows and Linux servers in any virtual private, cloud, collocated, and hosted environment.

Now, for the first time, developers and administrators can get secure, instant access to any server in any cloud with just the click of the new Dome9 Instant Access button within their Google Chrome browser.  Simply by clicking the Dome9 button in Google Chrome, customers instantly get secure, time-based access to any defined set of services and servers in any cloud, based on their allowed cloud access rights.  The Dome9 Chrome App is now available at the Google Chrome Web Store free of charge at

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pllcajgadpihiapjmmihiplboigglmfo.

“The Dome9 solution is fabulous – it saves us an enormous amount of time in setting up secure server access for clients, and it also provides us usage audit trails,” said Jonathan Hunt, president of FundNET Design, a provider of communication and information technology for the financial services industry.  “Dome9’s integration with Chrome saves even more time, because it gives us instant secure access to our servers, and saves us from another login.  Dome9 and the new Instant Access saves us time, makes us more secure, and increases our efficiency.  It pays for itself every day.”

Customers pair the Dome9 Chrome application with their Dome9 account using their unique API key available within their Dome9 account.  Once securely paired, Dome9 Instant Access allows users to select the servers, services, and time period for default access, and instantly get secure access only to those servers they are authorized to access.  While each authorized developer and administrator has secure, instant access to their servers, there is no added complexity or cost – it’s all done with just the click of a button, directly in each users browser.  For more information, see http://www.dome9.com/instant-access.

“Our new instant access app for Google Chrome makes it unbelievably easy to get secure access to any server, on-the-fly,” said Zohar Alon, Dome9 Co-Founder and CEO.  “It installs in less than a minute, and incorporates our patent-pending Secure Access Lease technology with new auto-notifications and lease extensions.  This new functionality marries security and simplicity to make any server virtually invisible to hackers, yet accessible when, for whom, and only as long as is needed.”

Dome9 Instant Access is included in the Dome9 Business Cloud, and for the first 30-days is included in the Dome9 Lite Cloud.  The recently announced Lite Cloud is a powerful new free cloud security service that provides centralized firewall management for an unlimited number of servers and clouds in virtual private, cloud, collocated, and hosted environments.

About Dome9 Security

Dome9, the leader in cloud security management, automates and centralizes cloud firewall management across all servers and clouds.  Available for both enterprises and hosting providers, and as a free offering, Dome9 supports clouds, VPS, dedicated servers, and Amazon’s EC2 Security Groups, across all major operating systems and service providers.  Dome9 is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, with U.S. offices in San Mateo, Calif., and is venture backed by Opus Capital Ventures.  For more information, visit: http://www.dome9.com/.

Dome9 Introduces One-Click Server Access

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Web hosting companies to this day respond to this demand by loading up their dedicated server plans with as many goodies as they can to lure in more fish.  But which ones should you bite at, and which ones should you swim by?  Here is a list of some common dedicated server options, and how much they actually give you.

Bandwidth

A lot of at-home users have been hit with throttling or bandwidth usage charges for playing their World of Warcraft or downloading just a few too many Transformers movies.  The reason your ISP doesn’t let you slide on this is that they are just as crunched on costs for it as you are.  Bandwidth costs are one of the most inelastic of all services that any host can offer.

So if one host is giving you a much better deal on it than another, and you think there’s a good chance that you might actually need that much, you can strongly consider going with them on the basis of that alone.  The chances that a host will let you “slide” for going over are slim, no matter how good your reputation with them is.

Advertising credits

The important thing to remember with advertising credits that come with a hosting account is that the dollar values that you receive aren’t “real” values in any way.  They are just the cost of a certain type of advertising block on that site.  If, say FaceBook, were to double all their ad rates tomorrow, many hosting companies would likely follow suit by doubling, or at least increasing their offerings.  You would still be getting about the same advertising placement…mostly.

Saying this does neglect the fact that if FaceBook did do this, less people would be able to afford it, and you’d wind up with a higher listing by attrition.  That does highlight the ambiguity with this service, though.  Major web sites seldom release the algorithms they use for how someone gets a higher page rank or ad frequency rate.  Worse, these algorithms can often change without notice.  Your $ 50 might get you page 1 with Google today, and page 42 tomorrow.

This should not imply that advertising credits are worthless.  A lot of webmasters plan on advertising on these sites anyway: for them, these credits can’t hurt.  How much it will help, though, is the great unknown.  If you do want one good rule of thumb, it’s better to have your advertising credits spread out.

Uptime Guarantees

We’ve covered this one before but it bears repeating: this is all shine.  It’s not that most hosts won’t actually achieve this, assuming that they haven’t set the bar ludicrously high with a parade of 9′s.  It’s that life is simply too chaotic.  As the old proverb goes, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”

No host would survive long if your site went down much as it is.  Customers don’t need a calculator in front of them to know that their host is reliable.  On the other hand if a comet struck a web host, few would blame them for taking just a second to get your site back up while they looked for a broom.

Backup recovery

This, on the other hand, is one that you want to place a high value upon.  If you would believe it, there are still plenty of hosts that take the view that your backups are your responsibility.  If your machine dies, oh well.

Then there are also hosts who realize the kind of business that the above hosts are losing and want to claim them for their own.  There are a wide variety of ways that hosts will guarantee this.  They are all good.  Look especially for speed of recovery, redundant data centers, and manual recovery options as things that are worth the extra buck.

24/7 support

This one is only worthless because no host at this stage would be without it.  True, there won’t be someone staring at a process chart for your server all night, and you may not be able to necessarily get a hold of a tech support worker for basic questions.

But what goes on with your machine could be going on with the rest of the network.  Furthermore, even if they are not guaranteeing support, if they see your server down, your host knows full well that taking 30 seconds to walk over and hit the reboot switch because they “just happened to see it was down” is a great way to keep your loyalty.

Root access

We’ll close our list with one that you will not see often.  If you do, take it, but with a grain of salt.

Root access is great for you.  You don’t need to be told the functionality that this gives you.  If you find out about a serious software bug or need some kernel recompiled fast, you don’t have to wait for a tech worker, and you don’t have to hope that they do it right.  The back and forth that you get from this kind of a problem as you quote error messages to each other can be a true pain and time waster.

However, if your host does offer it, step back and take a look at them.  Do they look like a fly-by-night host, or are they around for the long term?  When a company allows this they are opening themselves up to danger if the customer doesn’t know what they are doing.  If they look like they are established enough and organized enough to handle it when a customer does something that makes the network hiccup, then this is a good thing.  If they look like someone who will be chasing their tail trying to find the problem, this means that this service could negatively affect you even if it’s not you who used it recklessly.  Not being affected by other users was the whole point of getting a dedicated server in the first place.

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The courses include Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Training, Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases Training, Developing Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases Training, Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Training, and Implementing Data Models and Reports with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Training.

The courses are live, instructor-led, hands-on training with a mix of lecture and labs.
The courses on SQL Server 2012 are offered throughout North America using Intertech’s Online Instructor Led training technology.

Intertech’s SQL Server 2012 Training covers SQL Server 2012 planning, installation, and configuration; using SQL Server logs; backups; recovery; import/export; permissions; SQL Server Audit; SQL Server Agent; database mail and alerts; SQL Profiler; SQL Trace; SQL Server Virtualization; DMV’s; and SQL Server 2012 performance troubleshooting.

“We’re excited to be out in front delivering cutting-edge SQL Server 2012 courses for our customers,” stated Dan McCabe Intertech Partner and Director of Training.

About Intertech

Founded in 1991 by local entrepreneur Tom Salonek, Intertech, Inc. has grown from a one-person shop to the largest combined software developer training company and research-supported consulting firm in Minnesota. Intertech designs and develops software solutions that power Fortune 500 businesses along with teaching these and other organizations including mid-sized companies and state government.

Intertech works with NASA, Wells Fargo, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Intel, and other major companies around the United States helping them learn and use technology. Intertech is a Microsoft Gold Partner, a Microsoft Inner Circle member, a seven time winner of the Best Places to Work in Minnesota award, a finalist in the Wall Street Journal’s Winning Workplaces award, a multi-year winner of the Inc. 500 and the Inc. 5000 awards for company growth, a winner of the Forbes ASAP growth award, and a winner of the Minnesota Fast 50 growth award. Intertech has been featured in Inc., Forbes, Upsize magazine, the Star Tribune, the Business Journal, the Pioneer Press, the Hudson Star-Observer, Minnesota Business, and Twin Cities Business Monthly.

Intertech Unveils Microsoft SQL Server Courses

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WebMatrix is a free tool which brings together a web server, a database, and programming frameworks into a single, cohesive experience. WebMatrix allows users and developers to code, test, and deploy both ASP.NET and PHP applications. It also integrates with all versions of Visual Studio for enhanced developer control.

With the integration of WebMatrix into the Public Cloud, Server Intellect customers can now generate and download a single XML file which contains the database. FTP and IIS Manager settings for their website for use with editing within WebMatrix. From there, they can then upload and publish further changes immediately using one single program, rather than managing multiple applications to develop a single site.

”We are very excited to support the WebMatrix platform on our public cloud service.” said Adam Cady, Chief Operating Officer of Server Intellect, “As a Microsoft focused hosting company we have always enjoyed supporting the .NET community and I believe this reaffirms our commitment to that community.”

Since its launch in summer of 2010, the Public Cloud has been one of the most stable and reliable web hosting platforms, and was developed in-house by Server Intellect engineers. With the new addition of WebMatrix into its feature set, it will continue to keep Server Intellect as one of the front runners in the web hosting market.

About Server Intellect

Server Intellect, located in downtown Orlando, Florida, assists businesses and individuals worldwide in achieving their internet technology goals. By offering cloud server hosting, dedicated servers, private cloud servers and complete cloud services coupled with world-class customer service, Server Intellect has become a world-recognized leader in the global web hosting market.

Server Intellect Integrates WebMatrix

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The availability follows a September event in which Microsoft previewed the software.

Microsoft’s Bill Laing, Corporate VP of the company’s Server and Cloud Division recently discussed the matter on the Windows Server Blog saying the Beta release was intended to let those in the IT and development community evaluate and provide feedback concerning the release.

“Now is the time for you, IT professionals in organizations of all sizes, to get your hands on this new release, discover the new capabilities and contribute to the development of what we call the cloud-optimized OS,” stated Laing regarding the matter.

In addition to simply introducing the software, Laing also outlined some of Windows Server 8’s primary features. Included among them are enhanced virtualization through Hyper-V and better disaster recovery. Another primary feature includes the user’s ability to better manage multiple machines via the platform’s Server Manager along with enhanced automation.

Microsoft’s Windows Server initially launched with Windows 2000 in late 1999. The last stable release was Windows Server 2008 R2, unveiled in July of 2009.

While the new release is out, Laing emphasized that it provides “just a brief taste of the hundreds of features and capabilities you will find in the beta.” The beta is available to download through Microsoft.com.

The introduction of Windows Server 8 Beta comes as the company also revealed a highly anticipated consumer preview of Windows 8 in Barcelona, Spain at Mobile World Congress. Microsoft initially began to provide more information regarding Windows 8 when Microsoft Windows Division President Steven Sinofsky started the Building Windows 8 blog nearly six months ago. The next generation OS is expected to feature more compatibility with mobile and tablet devices. For more information regarding Windows Server 8, go here (Microsoft.com).

Microsoft Unveils Latest Windows Server in Beta

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