“This capital investment represents a huge vote of confidence in our secure hosting solutions for SMEs and our ever-growing enterprise customer base, including several Fortune 50 and many Fortune 500 companies,” said Chris Drake, FireHost founder and CEO.

Looking Back

Since day one, our goal has been simple – provide the most secure hosting solution available to businesses of all sizes. Not an easy task, but with a security-minded ethos and dedication to customer support, we’ve met the challenge and opportunity with brute force.

We’ve experienced triple-digit customer growth year-over-year and successfully secured tens of thousands of web applications in the process. Within the last eight months, we’ve made numerous improvements to our MyFireHost customer portal, including Security View, and the gratifying initiative of launching the industry’s first PCI-DSS 2.0 compliant public cloud. Strangely enough, we believe this merely scratches the surface of our capabilities.

Looking Ahead

This infusion of capital enables us to continue investing in secure infrastructure, increasing our market share in the hosting space, and focus on delivering exceptional security to our customers.

In the coming months, you can look forward to improved:

• Convenience: Easier and more efficient management of your secure cloud hosting environment through our customer portal and API
• Control: Additional security controls, transparency and advanced reporting in the customer portal
• Service/Support: Increased staff to ensure a high level of service and support is maintained 24x7x365, as we grow
• Redundancy: Hosting facilities in the United Kingdom will provide a European version of our Secure Cloud Hosting environment as well as a global disaster recovery option for our U.S. hosted customers.
• And much, much more.

It is a very exciting time to be a part of FireHost, (so join us, we’re hiring), and we look forward to future growth as the disruptive force in the hosting industry.

Thank you to our investors, partners, vendors and the growing community of supporters. Most importantly, thank you to all of our customers.

The Origin
The latest PCI Data Security Standard announced in Q4 2010 addresses security and virtualization and all the controversy surrounding these two topics. As a participating member of the PCISSC, we decided to take the Council’s challenge head on by achieving PCI 2.0 compliance for ourselves and creating a secure, public cloud offering unlike anything else in the industry.

The Outcome
Secure Cloud Servers take the scalability and autonomy that makes public clouds so great a step further by providing:

• High availability for every customer
• Up to 8 processors
• Up to 84 GB RAM
• Unlimited storage available
• Managed backup snapshots with 14 day retention
• And more (of course)

Compare us to other public cloud solutions, and you’ll see we’re worlds apart. Factor in exemplary protection, reliable performance and fully managed support synonymous with the FireHost brand, and you have what many consider an unbeatable combination.

We are very proud of this offering and feel this marks a new milestone in the hosting industry.

Months in the making, our new corporate office embodies FireHost’s stance on security and takes our commitment to secure, contiguous support a step further. The following precautions contribute to the facility’s mission critical infrastructure and hospital-grade redundancy, designed to help us serve our customers to the very fullest under a variety of circumstances.

• Fully operational internal data center
• Backup generators
• Multiple Internet providers
• Secure keycard access with role based control
• Video surveillance

The new headquarters provides a solid foundation for us to provide unwavering, managed support 24x7x365. “This space is locked down tight and impervious to power outages. It’s comfortable, functional, and it will help us serve our customers more reliably,” explains Chris Drake, FireHost CEO.

Demand for a larger, more industrial corporate office is driven by our recent growth. The new facility has capacity to accommodate our current team and the new, FireHost employees we anticipate hiring over the next several years.

Here’s a few pictures of the new FireHost HQ.

With that, we’re pleased to announce our expansion into a new data center facility in April 2011. The new facility is located in Richardson, Texas and represents FireHost’s third data center footprint in the US. The new facility brings a serious set of top-notch security, connectivity and redundancy features that will not only benefit our new customers, but also our existing customers who will migrate from our current Dallas facility.

Here are some of the major benefits you’ll experience with our data center expansion:

Redundant Connectivity Infrastructure

• Diverse fiber entry and intra-building fiber paths
• Fully redundant internal network distribution
• Multiple 10 Gbps connections from multiple premium carriers

Redundant Power Infrastructure

• Complete 2N Electrical Infrastructure
• Redundant Utility Feeds
• Redundant Transformers in Ring Configuration
• Redundant Power Distribution Units (PDU)
• Redundant 2,000 kw Diesel Generators
• 72+ hours fuel supply onsite with priority re-fueling status

Safe Environmental Infrastructure

• N+1 Centrifugal Chiller Cooling
• VESDA (Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus) throughout
• FM-200 Fire Suppression System
• Dry-pipe pre-action sprinkler system
• Full electrical monitoring
• Under the floor water detection system
• Control and Monitor 32,000 points in the facility

Secure Premises

• On-site personnel 24/7
• Biometric and card security system
• CCTV video surveillance system with DVR recording
• Man-trap entry and badge-only access
• SAS70 Type II Certified
• PCI Certified
• ISO 900:2001 Certified

These features also lay the foundation for providing our HIPAA compliant, PCI DSS compliant, and high-availability customers an even more robust infrastructure upon which to build their critical disaster recovery plans.

We’re nothing short of thrilled with the new facility, and are looking forward to expanding the security, connectivity and redundancy we provide to every customer.

All existing FireHost customers will be receiving more details over the weeks, days, and hours leading up to the scheduled expansion. As the scheduled expansion nears, you can follow the progress by visiting our public status page or by logging into MyFireHost where you can communicate with our engineers directly.

With events across the nation, SecureWorld Expositions provide the platform and venue for leaders and “doers” in information technology and security to collaborate and make strides toward the end goal of comprehensive, globally unified security policies. All while earning 16 CPE credits that may be applied to your CISSP.

Chris Davis, Director of Security and Compliance at FireHost will be part of an industry panel attacking the difficult issue of Effective Compliance Management in Today’s Workplace. The best security minds from ArcSight, Shavlik, and Tripwire will participate in the hour long conversation scheduled for November 3rd in Dallas as well.

FireHost is proud to help lead an event that provides such broad reach on a global topic, and we invite you to use discount code “FIREDAL10″ when registering to receive a significant savings off the published rates. If you can’t make it to Dallas next month, perhaps one of SecureWorld Expo‘s future events will fit your schedule.

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