Posts Tagged ‘event’

We love startups and entrepreneurship communities that help startups become successful. Startups are usually all about innovation and approaching existing problems in a new way … And if you’re familiar with SoftLayer’s “Innovate or Die” motto, you know that we’re cut from the same cloth. We’ve partnered with incubators like Tech Wildcatters to provide up-and-coming companies with a year of $1,000/mo hosting credits along with a little SoftLayer expertise sprinkled in for good measure, and we are happy to support community partners like non-profits and user groups where new ideas are born every day.

Given our commitment to the startup community, when we heard that a sponsorship opened up for the September 13 WebInnovatorsGroup quarterly meeting, we jumped on the chance to get involved. WebInno events are fueled by a long-standing community of Internet and mobile entrepreneurs founded by David Beisel, and while I could tell you everything I know about what they’re doing in Boston, the best person to hear from is David himself:

Boston + Entrepreneurs + Technology + Beer … It was a no-brainer for us to be a Gold Sponsor of WebInno31.

Visit WebInnovatorsGroup.com to learn more about the WebInno community or head straight to the WebInno31 registration form to reserve your spot at Royal Sonesta Cambridge on Tuesday, September 13, at 6:30pm.

-Kevin

P.S. If you have a startup community or an ongoing event like WebInno that SoftLayer can be involved with, leave a comment on this blog or let us know on Twitter: @SoftLayer

In my “HostingCon, Here We Come!” blog post, I promised that SoftLayer would be Bigger, Better and Badder at HostingCon 2011, and we made some pretty ambitious plans to be sure that was the case: Six conference panels and speaking sessions, SoftLayer’s biggest expo hall presence ever, in-booth presentations about everything from Portal 4 to Social Media, our infamous Server Challenge, and the biggest party in HostingCon history … Heck, we even let PHIL attend to do some “research” for PHIL’s DC. We pulled out all the stops.

Now that the dust has settled and the sunburns have started to heal, I can share a glimpse into SoftLayer’s HostingCon experience with anyone who wasn’t able to make it to San Diego last week.

HostingCon Expo Hall

When you walked onto the conference floor, you saw SoftLayer, and if you managed to miss our 20′x40′ two-story booth or the commotion around it, you were probably in the wrong hall. Each person on our team had a chance to speak with hundreds of attendees, and at the end of every conversation, we gave some swag as parting gifts: Switch balls, foam rockets and limited-edition “Robot” T-shirts:

Our in-booth theater was the venue where Marc Jones showed off the private beta of our new Flex Images for dedicated servers, Jeff Reinis talked about how customers can take advantage of our international expansion, Stephen Johnson gave a tour of Portal 4, Kevin Hazard shared some tips and tricks to managing social media, and Phil Jackson dove into the API.

Take a virtual stroll around the conference center with us:

And as you can tell from the pictures, the Server Challenge was a big hit.

The Server Challenge

If you bring a cabinet of servers to a conference full of server geeks, you’re going to get some attention. Challenge them to a hardware competition, and you’ll be inundated with attendee traffic. If you aren’t familiar with the in-booth activity, Kevin’s blog about the Server Challenge at OSCON is a perfect place to get your crash course. If you already know all about it (and if you’ve competed in it), you’ll be even more interested in seeing some of the action from the show floor:

At 3:07 in that video, you can see the eventual winner of the HostingCon Server Challenge complete a run on Day 1. His iPad 2-winning time was 1:01.77, and he beat some pretty stiff competition for the title of Server Challenge Champ.

Geeks Gone Wild

Put SoftLayer, cPanel and Resell.biz in a room, and you have a party. Add free drinks, a thousand of our closest friends, The Dan Band and a legendary venue, and you’ve got yourself the biggest party in HostingCon history:

If you took part in any or all of the above shenanigans, thank you! We owe a great deal of our success at HostingCon to you. Once everyone finally catches up on the sleep they missed last week, we’ll get the wheels turning to figure out a way to go even bigger next year in Boston … Speaking of which, does anyone know where I can get a boat that was in the Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773?

-@gkdog

On August 8, the hosting world will converge on the San Diego Convention Center for HostingCon 2011. I’d say that SoftLayer will “be there with bells on,” but a better way to put it would be that we’ll “be there with megaphones.” There are times to blend in and participate, and there are times when you follow Winston Churchill’s advice:

“If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.”

This year, SoftLayer will be Bigger, Better and Badder in the conference sessions, on the expo hall floor and at the biggest HostingCon party ever.

Conference Sessions
We’re honored to have SoftLayer employees speaking in six different sessions at HostingCon 2011:

Over the next few weeks, you can keep an eye on the HostingCon Blog for more information about these sessions. To kick off the fun over there, they posted a preview to my session: “Setting Cloud Expectations Before Creating Cloud Strategy”

Expo
When you’re not learning from one of our SLayers in the conference sessions above, we hope you’ll swing by Booth #421 in the Expo Hall to chat with our team, get some SoftLayer swag and try your hand at the infamous Server Challenge. We’ll have live video coverage of all of the action at our booth, and given the geek credentials of HostingCon attendees, we’re expecting record-breaking times … so start studying and training now to give yourself the best possible chance to win the iPad 2 we’re bringing for the Server Challenge Champion!

HostingCon Party
Since you’ve read so attentively to this point about the ‘work’ side of HostingCon, it’s time for some ‘play.’ At 9pm on August 9, SoftLayer, cPanel and Resell.biz will hosting the biggest HostingCon Party in history. 1000 lucky attendees will come together at 4th & B for networking, food, drink and THE DAN BAND!

Attendance will be strictly limited, and you watch the tickets dwindle before the event sells out at http://hostingconparty.com. SoftLayer customers, leave a comment on this blog or contact us via Twitter (@SoftLayer) and we’ll hook you up with a promo code that comps your registration … But remember, even if you’re our best customer ever, you need a ticket to get in the door, so please register while you can!

Yes, Mr. Churchill, SoftLayer is bringing the pile driver to San Diego.

-@gkdog

As Chief Scientist (or Chief Boffin, if you like), I spend a significant amount of time participating in industry, partner and customer events alike. This week is a great example, as I will be speaking at both All About the Cloud and the Citrix Synergy event in San Francisco. I will be covering similar ground on both occasions: the general idea is that the world does not revolve around “the cloud.” In fact, “the cloud” tends to be good for certain things and not so good for others. The challenge is that many customers seem to think that cloud is a panacea, solving all of their problems. Often, customers come to us with a blurred idea of why they want cloud, sometimes defaulting to, “The CEO says we need some cloud.”

My presentation at the All About the Cloud event is going to focus on the cloud question by trying to understand what each tool does well and so you can deploy accordingly to ensure needs are met. I’ll provide a backdrop market growth and then dive into dedicated, virtual and hybrid (cloud + dedicated) solutions with an eye to understanding each solution in broad terms … As an aside, I wanted to show up with a drill, a nail and a chunk of 2×4 to demonstrate this: I was going to pound the nail into the board with the drill, and then I was told this would be a bad idea. I may yet show up with some tools – all I need is a Home Depot close to the Palace Hotel!

The Citrix presentation is not quite so bold – well, it did not involve props in its initial incarnation. For the Synergy crowd, I’ll speak to a few case studies that leverage hybrid solutions to best meet their needs. Specifically, I will discuss companies that have deployed cloud + dedicated, SoftLayer dedicated + someone else’s cloud (the horror!) and an enterprise example with a mix of internal data center assets and SoftLayer assets.

The enterprise example is an interesting one and it is timely given what Citrix is up to. Part of the challenge with most enterprise customers is the fact that many have invested significant capital (both dollars and the human variety) in their own infrastructure. This often means that an additional level of complexity is introduced as the enterprise must consider how to bridge the gap between their own infrastructure and another, external (hopefully a SoftLayer) environment.

Citrix is about to launch Cloud Bridge which will help to manage through some of this – the offering enables customers to transparently connect their own data centers with an off premise cloud environment. SoftLayer can make this happen in two ways. Cloud Bridge will sit within Netscaler Platinum offering that we support and customers will have the ability to deploy themselves should they choose to.

I will follow up on this blog with some depth that covers both presentations, as I think this is a conversation worth continuing. In the meantime, I am off to find a Home Depot …

-@nday91

If you’ve been watching @softlayer and @softlayer_news for the past week, you’ve probably seen a few mentions of a SoftLayer Mystery Event. In the words of Winston Churchill, “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”

The hints got more and more revealing as the week progressed, and any geek worth his/her salt could probably have used some Google-fu around Hint 6 to figure out what was going down. If you consider that a challenge, here are the clues we posted. Try to figure it out without peeking past this image:

Did you figure it out or did you just scroll down here to get the details on the event? Well tehe wait is over: SoftLayer is sponsoring NAMM JAM. Headliner: Megadeth.

This Friday, January 14, SoftLayer joins some of the biggest names in the music industry to co-present a face-melting 34th anniversary party for presenting sponsor Dean Guitars at The Grove of Anaheim.

If you live in Southern California and you’re interested in having your socks rocked off on Friday night, stay tuned to @SoftLayer and @SoftLayer_News for your chance to score a pair of VIP tickets to the event. The tickets are going to go to the folks who want them the most, so get ready to prove your love for SoftLayer and metal!

-@khazard

UPDATE: Phil and I are featured in a YouTube video about the event:

So this blog may be a tad bit delayed, seeing that it is about HostingCon, but better late than never. Right?? During HostingCon, at the SoftLayer Happy Hour, we filmed customers, random followers, and employees to see Why SoftLayer Rocks. Here are the responses we got….

Why Does SoftLayer Rock? Because……

“I get 100% uptime with them and they make sure all my servers are up”

“They offer the best cloud storage in the business”

“They are the ambassadors of the industry and help our business grow”

“My server has never gone down”

Now the most common responses were from the random guests at the Happy Hour. Go figure!

“Cause they throw great parties”

“When you mix alcohol and weapons that could potentially poke an eye out (SoftLayer Rockets)….It’s always in good fun” But… I think the best responses came from the employees….

“Because it is the best company to ever exist” Why is that? “The automation, technology, innovation, and the COO” –Sam Fleitman

“Cause we have a butt ton of cool customers” – Steve Kinman

“The bald guy makes a lot of very cool people happy” –Sean Charnock

There are many reasons Why SoftLayer Rocks and we could ask everyone and will get a different answer. Now if you ask an employee most likely they will eventually mention in their statement “because of me”. Here is why I think SoftLayer rocks….

SoftLayer is one of the fastest growing private companies (Inc 500/5000). SoftLayer offers customers everything at their fingers tips, especially now with the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android mobile apps. Besides everything that SoftLayer offers to customers, they are extremely good to their employees. Oh and another reason Why SoftLayer Rocks ‘because of ME!’

Lets here what more people have to say Why SoftLayer Rocks….Post a comment and tell us!

No matter what industry you are in, a key to a successful business is always being one step ahead of your competitors. Look at Blockbuster, who just filed for bankruptcy. Netflix came along then RedBox, Blockbuster couldn’t keep up. Blockbuster tried mimicking these two versions of video/game rental, but failed. Now you can order Netflix off your Xbox 360. There is a RedBox on almost every corner of the Metroplex or at least at every drug store. There is also video on-demand for almost every cable or satellite provider.

I went to a luncheon recently. The topic was “The Next Generation of IT Delivered Through Innovations.” The speaker was Scott Garvey, Director Enterprise Solutions from Microsoft. Scott brought up a good statistic; most companies only survive on “top”, nowadays, for about 12 years when the timeline used to be 75 years. He spoke about the different ways Microsoft plans to stay one step ahead of their competitors. He stated that his company spends billions of dollars on Research and Development a year. While SoftLayer is not quite to the point of spending that much, it still made me think about how we are keeping one step ahead of our competitors.

We are constantly rolling out new features, certifications, products, and partnerships. While we are not quite on top yet, we will get there. We are only three months into this year and we have already rolled out five new features, one certification, and two new partnerships. This is one reason we are growing so fast; but, even better, we are staying one step ahead of our competitors.

To register for one of these luncheons go here .

Recently I had the chance to attend the annual Beyond Budgeting Round Table (BBRT) conference to help me keep up on my CPE credits. Those darn accounting licenses have to be maintained, ya know.

I was pleasantly surprised at the conference that SoftLayer was already doing the crux of what this group preaches – namely, that assembling an annual budget and trying to live by it is a colossal waste of time!

One speaker pointed out that budgeting originated back in medieval times long before the Industrial Revolution. During those days, the feudal system was the order of the day. Landowners allowed people to live on their land and raise crops. Once per year, when the harvest came in, the landowners received payment from the people living on the land in the form of a share of the crops or a share of the gold for which the crops were sold. Since the landowners were paid once per year, they had to plan how to make their annual payday last for a whole year. You guessed it – this plan was called “the budget.”

Unfortunately, most companies and organizations today use this horribly outdated financial management technique to run their business in the fast-paced information age economy of today. In most cases, this just flat doesn’t work.

For example, one of the speakers was the CFO of a very large healthcare organization. He said that back in the days when they produced an annual budget, there were 240 budget managers that spent 90 days of full-time effort to produce the annual budget. That equates to 60 man-labor years of total time to produce that budget. If you assume that each of those managers averages $50K per year in compensation, the cost of producing that budget is $3 million. What’s worse is that the CFO said it was worthless before the final version was printed because it was built on stale fundamental assumptions that were several months old.

Once these obsolete documents are produced, they become static financial contracts. They limit spending for each department, and this isn’t always a good thing. Some departments may see some fantastic market opportunities develop halfway through the year, but they can do nothing to take advantage of them because they would exceed their budget. On the other hand, some departments can be allotted too much money, so they go on wasteful spending sprees at year end to be sure and use up their budget or else lose that funding next year. People often ask for permission to exceed budget, but usually no one gives back any unused budget dollars. Even worse, management compensation is often tied to these obsolete financial contracts. Business schools are awash with case studies of bad business decisions that were made to maximize bonus compensation in relation to the budget.

From the beginning, SoftLayer realized the futility of producing an annual budget. In the rapidly developing business of web hosting, the landscape can dramatically change much more quickly than an annual cycle. So we implemented the policy of maintaining a rolling forecast that is updated to the best of our current knowledge each and every month. This practice has served us well, and is one of the “best practices” adopted by the BBRT.

Another best practice recommended by BBRT is to maintain multiple forecast scenarios that factor in macroeconomic possibilities. Then as reality develops, you have a better handle on the tactics to implement because you now know what most of these decisions should be in advance. At SL, we will be implementing the multiple scenario practice over this summer.