FireBlog by FireHost

Scheduled Scaling: More Resources When You Need Them, Less When You Don’t

FireHost Evangelist — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:30:51 +0000

Do you need to adjust your server resources for an event tomorrow, next week, or next month? Expecting a spike in traffic, but just for a few days? Scaling resources up and down on your Secure Cloud Servers just got more convenient. We’re excited to announce that scheduled scaling is available today.

FireHost now offers three ways to adjust your cloud server resources through the customer portal.

Manual Scaling: Resources can be adjusted up or down manually, anytime
Auto Scaling: Usage thresholds can be set in advance that will automatically add resources to accommodate an increased load should an unexpected spike in activity occur
NEW Scheduled Scaling: Resource adjustments, whether up or down, can be scheduled in advance to automatically occur on your predetermined days and times

“Startup Weekend is non-profit that is growing quickly in part because of recent media coverage. Every time we have a media hit we see a spike in traffic, which brings both rewards and technical challenges to our business. FireHost’s scheduled scaling feature helps us prepare for these events. Knowing we can schedule our servers to scale up when we need the resources, and back down when we don’t, is great peace of mind.” – Joey Pomerenke, CMO Startup Weekend

It’s our passion to provide the most secure, scalable, and high performance cloud hosting solution available. If you have any additional suggestions, requests, or questions feel free to call 877.262.3473 or open a ticket.

If you’re not a FireHost customer and want to know more about Secure Cloud Hosting, chat with us now or visit FireHost.com to learn more.

Looking Back On 2011, We Thank You

FireHost Evangelist — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:32:45 +0000

As we approach year’s end, we recount the milestones that our FireHost team has been able to accomplish thus far in 2011. Firstly, and above all else, it is our amazing customers that have made 2011 so great. We appreciate each and every one of you and look forward to our continued relationships as we move into 2012, a year that will undoubtedly put FireHost on the global map.

With team members this week covering the world from Le Web in Paris to the Mobile Health Summit in D.C. to Drupal on the Bayou in New Orleans we take this time to look back on the past 12 months. You can see a full recap in this press release, but here are the highlights:

50 Million blocked hack attempts to our customers websites and applications
Launched the first ever PCI DSS 2.0 compliant public cloud hosting environment, which a significant number of our customers are now taking advantage of
More than doubled our customers base, which include many Fortune 50 and Fortune 500 companies
Completion of a $10 Million in Series B funding round to help our expansion into the global cloud hosting market

As we move into the new year with our global expansion plan currently underway, we want to again thank all of our customers and partners who help us continue to innovate and entrust their most important online assets to FireHost. It’s been a record-breaking 2011, and we look forward to bringing you the next round of secure cloud hosting innovations in 2012.

Mobile Payment Security & Compliance

FireHost Evangelist — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:33:09 +0000

There isn’t much we can not do with our smartphones anymore, is there? Making mobile payments is no exception. There’s a coming wave of new apps and technologies that allow consumers to purchase everything through their phone, literally eliminating the need to carry an actual wallet (almost). FireHost senior security engineer Chris Hinkley wrote a guest article for SecurityWeek on the safety of mobile payments and PCI compliance implications.

You can check out the full article to learn more about why mobile payments are still vulnerable, how the PCI Security Standards Council is tackling the issue, and what the next year will bring for this popular consumer trend.

“There is vagueness around the safety of consumers’ credit card numbers when they are transmitted through mobile applications. A website that’s been modified for a mobile platform is presumably safer than an actual mobile application, making the latter considered not compliant according to the PCI DSS Council. If your business is working on a payment app to make transactions easier or more convenient for customers, you must consider this before deploying the app into the iPhone, Android, Blackberry or other marketplace.”

Check out the entire article on SecurityWeek.

Major Storage Upgrade – Improved Speed and Stability

FireHost Evangelist — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:19:40 +0000

Over the past year FireHost’s secure hosting environment has experienced tremendous growth as customers increasingly demand the scalability and control of the cloud in a secure hosting environment. In our effort to continually strive for industry-leading performance, we are excited to announce the official launch of our new enterprise Dell Compellent SAN + Brocade Fibre Channel storage platform. This new platform provides the highest level of stability and performance required by both our customers and ourselves.

Here are a few highlights regarding our latest high performance storage environment:

4X Increase in Speed and Performance
300% increase in IOPS
400% increase in throughput
1250% increase in storage bandwidth
Initial writes sent directly to Solid State Drives (SSD)

What does this mean for you?

Peace of mind – an even more stable and high performance secure hosting environment
No additional costs associated with this upgrade
No downtime during migration to the new storage environment
New features including more options for file level restores and storage based Disaster Recovery are coming soon

Migrations are currently underway and all secure cloud customers will automatically be upgraded before the end of the year. It’s our passion to provide the most secure, scalable, and high performance cloud hosting solution available. If you have any questions about the storage platform upgrade, please call 877.262.3473 or open a ticket in our secure customer portal.

New Features in the MyFireHost Customer Portal

FireHost Evangelist — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:17:24 +0000

Whether it’s a suggestion in a ticket, twitter, chat, email or a phone conversation, we’re constantly soliciting feedback and looking for ways to improve the secure hosting experience for you – our customer. Today, as a result of your great suggestions, several new features are live.

Below highlights some of the new additions we believe will provide greater convenience, transparency and control over your cloud hosting account, the very next time you login:

Faster, Easier Cloud Server & Account Management

Condensed, sortable and searchable server, ticket and user list view
Efficient management of servers, tickets and users directly from the list
Quick visibility into each cloud servers performance and threat level
Custom tagging for faster, more granular identification
Data Center location displayed for each cloud server

Consolidated Network Tab & Pooled Bandwidth

Bandwidth billing now based on outgoing transfer ONLY
1 TB of outgoing bandwidth included with every account
Pooled bandwidth usage and reporting available at an account level
All IP addresses allocated for your account identified by server
Premium bandwidth carrier status available in real time

Performance Increases, Streamlined Invoices & Improved Load Balancer Options

Increased performance and faster response times across the entire portal
Streamlined invoices for simpler review with the ability to the expand details
More invoice export options to better fit your workflow and record keeping
More load balancer options to better fit your applications’ performance needs
Add and/or clone Load Balancers on demand through the portal

Login now to experience the next level of convenience, transparency and control over your Secure Cloud Servers. If you have any additional suggestions, requests or questions, feel free to call 877.262.3473 or create a ticket.

If you’re not a FireHost customer and want to know more about Secure Cloud Hosting and the MyFireHost customer portal, chat with one of our engineers today or visit FireHost.com to learn more.