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January 7, 2009 -- Bolstering its cloud computing initiatives, technology firm Sun Microsystems has acquired Belgian cloud computing company Q-layer, which specializes in automating cloud deployment and management.

We want to make sure everyone out there knows about the first of our upcoming series of WHIR networking events, particularly those of you in Toronto. First off, the registration link is right here. The first event takes place in just a few weeks in Toronto, Ontario on January 29, 2009. These events are going to be modestly sized, so we expect them to fill up fast. Register as soon as you can (right now, for instance) to make sure you have a spot at the event. Our plan with the events is to provide a venue in which you can do business, make contacts, learn about some of the colleagues operating in your local area and have a little fun while you’re at it. These events are financed by sponsors (in the case of the Toronto event, GigaPark), which means they are free to attend, and that food and drinks will also be free. The Toronto event will be held from 7:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. at Maro, a very nice spot in Liberty Village. Click here for more info on the venue and schedule, including a map. We hope to see you there. Make sure you sign up as soon as possible to reserve your spot. For info on future WHIR Networking Events, click here.

Houston, Texas - (The Hosting News) - January 6, 2009 - Privately held dedicated web hosting company, The Planet, has released a new promotion, including a free month of service, coupled with free customized migration assistance from its Advanced Services team.

The Planet's Advanced Services experts will assess the customer's environment and develop a customized migration plan that includes a 'migration checklist' detailing IP address changes, DNS redirection and control panel reconfiguration, among others. The month of free service is good for the new customer's entire hosting solution. It includes any type of dedicated servers, private or virtual racks, and add-on products such as storage and data protection, firewalls and load balancers.

Douglas J. Erwin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at The Planet remarked, ''In today's difficult economic climate, customers have expressed concerns about the quality and long-term viability of their hosting providers, particularly with their entire business resting in the hands of companies that could collapse under financial pressure. We've recently announced both a $45 million credit facility and a new 86,000 square foot data center that will open in May to accommodate our colocation and complex systems businesses. We are well positioned to provide the increasing demand we are experiencing for new and existing services. Backed by our world-class data centers and network, we have a well-earned reputation as the best company for one-stop IT infrastructure shopping for the small- and medium-sized business.''

Ultimately, The Planet's goal is to provide:

• High levels 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 the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 25,000 small and medium size businesses and 14.1 million Web sites worldwide. The Planet Alpha division provides the widest array of self-managed dedicated servers and advanced services backed by 24x7x365 support. The Planet Northstar Managed Hosting division combines a proactive methodology and seasoned IT experts to deliver a fully managed hosting solution, with the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class support, backed by state-of-the-art facilities and an enterprise-class network.

To qualify for the offer, new customers must present a recent invoice from a competing hosting provider. For more information, please visit the Web site at the following address: www.theplanet.com/dedicated-servers/server-specials/?id=MG090101.

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

Dallas, Texas - (The Hosting News) - Jauary 6, 2009 - Managed hosting provider and online backup company, FireHost, Inc., is making available an enterprise-level secure hosting solution, designed for SMBs, including best practices, policies, hardware and software.

Chris Drake, Founder of FireHost remarked, ''While we believe developers should secure their websites and applications as much as possible, it's not reality. That's why we made it our responsibility to inspect every kilobyte of traffic to and from our customers' sites and enforce policies as needed for our customers and their site visitors' protection.''

Within the last year, Internet security threats have completely changed their style. In the past, port vulnerabilities and services exposure were the biggest concerns. Firewalls solved those holes by simply blocking access to all unused ports. Now, the biggest vulnerability utilizes port 80 and 443. These ports can't be blocked as port 80 is required for non-SSL website traffic and port 443 is require for sites with SSL. Hackers are attacking websites from the website themselves and companies without application security are having theirs and their customers sensitive data stolen and sold on the black market.

In addition to data theft, the most common attack is SQL Injections. According to security vendor Sophos, 16,000 new websites are hit by the attacks every day. Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, .NET, classic ASP, shopping carts, Community Server, PHPBB websites have all been hit with SQL Injections. FireHost's Blog (www.fireblog.com) has a video available to see the impact of a SQL Injection that affected BusinessWeek's website.

FireHost protects their customers from SQL Injections, Cross Site Scripting, Path Traversal, Bad User Agents, DOS attacks, and more. Customers receive automated reports for their protected websites and applications from all the allowed and blocked traffic. Application protection is available for both Managed Shared Hosting customers and Managed Dedicated Server customers.

FireHost also provides continuous website vulnerability monitoring from within the FireHost network ensuring the site is getting tested without protection. All vulnerability testing is done in a manner that's non-destructive to websites and databases.

Ken Richardson, Security Engineer at FireHost remarked. ''The only true way to test vulnerabilities is to attack the website from within the security zone. Doing this provides our clients the piece of mind that we're finding their websites' weaknesses.''

For qualified businesses who are concerned that their website is vulnerable, FireHost provides a Hacker Report for no charge.

FireHost, Inc. is based in Dallas, Texas and focuses on delivering enterprise quality fast and secure managed web hosting to SMBs. Specializing in website security and high traffic needs, FireHost's engineers ensure all customers are not only protected but that their website or web application is delivered as fast as possible.

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