vCloud Express September 2010 Feature Release
Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:07:00 GMT | Add Comment
Valued vCloud Express customers,
We are happy to announce that we are preparing for our September 2010 feature release for vCloud Express, tentatively scheduled for production availability on Wednesday September 1st. This release contains some new enhancements that will become active immediately upon production availability. The following is a summary of the changes contained in the vCloud Express September 2010 release:
New Feature:
Enhance User Security
During the Registration process, all users will be required to answer
more security questions, which will consist of both canned questions
created by Terremark and custom security questions created by each
user.
New Feature:
Prevent Registration using Domains Known to Be Security Risks
Users will not be allowed to
complete the registration process using an email
address with a domain that is known to be a security risk.
New Feature: Capture Source IP During Forgot
Login Credentials Process
During
the Forgot Login Credentials process if the user enters the wrong
answer for any of the security questions the system will
capture
the user's IP Address which will be displayed on the User Audit Log.
New Feature
: Email/Console
Notifications for Credit Card Expiration
With
this new feature, all billable customers will receive multiple
notifications by email and in the console, when the credit card used
for vCloud Express billing is
about to expire or has expired.
New Feature:
Threshold Credit Card
Processing
Billing
for vCloud Express will now take place when accounts reach a certain
amount in
usage or at the end of the month, whichever comes first. Users will be
able to see a running total of usage for the month as well as any
charges in the Payments/Adjustments section on the My Bill tab.
Enhancement: Show More Details for Credit
Card Processing Failures
The
system will display user friendly error messages in the event of a
failed credit card transaction for all email and on-screen notification.
Enhancement: Forgot Login Credentials Limit
During the Forgot Login Credentials process, all users will have
limited
attempts to enter the right answers for the randomly selected
security questions. Once the user has successfully answered the
Security questions, an email notification will be sent to the user
with instructions/Token on how to complete the “Reset Password”
process.
Note:
If the right answer(s) to the security questions is not provided within
a certain number of attempts, the user will be notified by
on-screen/email
notification that the account has been “Disabled.” In order to
“Activate” the account the user will have to contact the Terremark
Support Team.
Bug Fix: Append Customer
Account to Virtual Machine (VM) when adding Disk(s)
For support purposes the customer’s account number will be appended to
all additional disk(s) added to a VM. The account number will be listed
before the VM name (example: 35478_TestServer).
If you have any questions about the features contained in our September
2010 release please don’t hesitate to post your questions or feedback on the
vCloud Express Product Q&A section of our Community
(https://community.vcloudexpress.terremark.com).
On behalf of the entire vCloud Express team I want to thank you for
your continued business.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Denson
vCloud Express Community Manager
vCloud Express June 2010 Feature Release (Updated)
Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:18:00 GMT | Add Comment
We are happy to announce that we are preparing for our June 2010 feature release for vCloud Express, tentatively scheduled for production availability on Wednesday June 9th. This release contains some new enhancements that will become active immediately upon production availability. The following is a summary of the changes...
...(read more)
vCloud Express April 2010 Feature Release
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:59:00 GMT | Add Comment
We are happy to announce that we are preparing for our April 2010 feature release for vCloud Express, tentatively scheduled for production availability on Wednesday April 21st. This release contains some new enhancements that will become active immediately upon production availability. The following is a summary of the changes contained in the vCloud Express April 2010 release:
...(read more)
vCloud Express Developer Ecosystem Expands with CohesiveFT
Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:16:00 GMT | Add Comment
Terremark is pleased to introduce the newest member of our vCloud Express developer ecosystem, CohesiveFT. CohesiveFT is the leader in automated software assembly and a complement to virtualization and cloud computing solutions. With the help of the Terremark vCloud Express team CohesiveFT has successfully integrated their VPN-Cubed SSL and IPSec to Cloud products with the vCloud API to give our customers even more options for secure remote connectivity.
VPN-Cubed is the first commercial solution that enables customer control in a cloud, across multiple clouds, and between private infrastructure and the cloud. It provides an overlay network that allows a cloud customer control of addressing, topology, protocols, and encrypted communications for devices deployed to virtual infrastructure or cloud computing centers like Terremark’s vCloud Express.
VPN-Cubed SSL for Terremark vCloud Express (Free Edition) is a free development/test-only version of the VPN-Cubed overlay network that is a specially packaged version of the VPN-Cubed overlay networking product from CohesiveFT. It allows you to connect 2 VPN-Cubed Managers together to create a basic, highly available overlay network within Terremark. Your vCloud Express servers "plug into" the overlay network through the use of the OpenVPN software package. VPN-Cubed SSL for Terremark vCloud Express (Free Edition) creates an overlay network that uses the 172.31.1.x subnet and allows up to 10 client servers connections.
VPN-Cubed IPsec to Terremark vCloud Express (Free Edition) is a free development/test-only version of the VPN-Cubed overlay network that is packaged to work between a data center using IPsec extranet connectivity and Terremark. Your IPsec device connects to an IPsec gateway at Terremark running as a virtual appliance which routes to your VPN-Cubed overlay network subnet in Terremark. Your vCloud Express servers "plug into" the overlay network through the use of the OpenVPN software package.
We’ve also made a licensed VPN-Cubed solution available, VPN-Cubed Commercial Edition, for customers who are looking for more a more advanced feature set. The Commercial Editions include the VPN-Cubed SSL for Terremark Lite, SME, and Enterprise Editions as well as the VPN-Cubed IPsec to Terremark Lite, SME, or Enterprise Editions. Contact sales@cohesiveft.com for more information and pricing based on your topology and use-case.
You can find more information about the VPN-Cubed products at: http://www.cohesiveft.com/vpncubed/
vCloud Express March 2010 Feature Release
Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:23:00 GMT | Add Comment
Valued vCloud Express customers,
We are happy to announce that we are preparing for our March 2010 feature release for vCloud Express, tentatively scheduled for production availability on Wednesday March 3rd. This release contains some new enhancements that you will be able to take advantage of immediately upon production availability. The following is a summary of the changes contained in the vCloud Express March 2010 release:
New Enhancements
Sign-up Support for Most Major Countries - We are no longer restricting new user signups to just US and Canada based customers. Our signup and credit card processing forms now support most major countries.
Past Due Payment Notification - If you have a past due amount on your account you will recieve an account alert when you log into vCloud Express.
Windows License Key for Custom Servers - Customers are now presented with an option to enter a Windows Product Key when they copy a server that was custom built using the Blank Server feature.
Account Reset - The Terremark vCloud Express support staff now has a feature to reset account credentials when a customer is not able to reset their own account through the "Forgot Credentials" link on the signin page.
Bug Fixes
Console Connect Window Size in Internet Explorer 8 - The console connect feature within vCloud Express was not correctly rendering the viewable window size in Internet Explorer 8. This release will fix the bug.
If you have any questions about the features contained in our March 2010 release please don’t hesitate to post your questions or feedback on the vCloud Express Product Q&A section of our Community (https://community.vcloudexpress.terremark.com).
On behalf of the entire vCloud Express team I want to thank you for your continued business.
Sincerely,
Tony Savoy Director, Product Management
Terremark Helps Drive Adoption of vCloud API
Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:15:00 GMT | Add Comment
Terremark is actively working with key VMware vCloud partners to help drive adoption of the vCloud API, a key feature embedded in our vCloud Express platform. The availability of a standards based vCloud API allows us to accelerate the integration of open source projects for the developer ecosystem and provides a flexible, high performance, cloud computing environment to deliver highly valued solutions.
By working with VMware and the developer ecosystem Terremark is able to offer additional value to our vCloud Express users by layering these integrated solutions on top of our service. In a highly competitive market our goal as a service provider is to offer tools and solutions that improve the delivery of our customer’s applications and solutions to their end consumers; resulting in organic growth for both Terremark and its customers. Participation in the vCloud developer ecosystem makes this possible because it gives customers exposure to innovative new ideas and tools beyond the feature sets that are native to our vCloud Express product.
In recent months Terremark has partnered with VMware, Cloudera, and WebAppVM to kick start an ISV momentum program in an effort to drive new vCloud adoption. As seen in a recent press release from VMware (http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vcloud-api.html) Terremark has been successful working with each of these partners to make Open-Source Java and Python SDKs available for the VMware vCloud API. Cloudera is an active libcloud contributor and uses libcloud in its Hadoop offering for vCloud Express, and WebAppVM leverages jclouds for its vCloud Express solution.
The Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop allows users to store, integrate and analyze data inexpensively and easily by leveraging vCloud Express and the vCloud API to dynamically provision resources, process jobs and deprovision resources.
The WebAppVM solution enables users to configure and scale a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering on vCloud Express so they can rapidly on-board and monitor cloud-based applications. These solutions are currently available through Terremark’s vCloud API and will be available as global deployment templates by the end of January 2010.
Terremark expects to keep the ISV momentum program going and will continue to help drive adoption of the vCloud API by working with VMware and the developer ecosystem. Please don’t hesitate to share your interaction with our vCloud Express product by posting your experiences to the Developer’s Corner Forum in the vCloud Express Community (https://community.vcloudexpress.terremark.com/en-us/discussion_forums/f/60.aspx).
Sincerely,
Tony Savoy
Director, Product Management
vCloud Express December 2009 Feature Release
Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:28:00 GMT | Add Comment
Valued vCloud Express customers, We are happy to announce that we are preparing for our December 2009 feature release...(read more)
Blog postings and a Community update
Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:22:00 GMT | Add Comment
Cloud Computing Blogs
I thought I'd share a little bit of the interesting blog content that I've found while looking around the web these last three months. A few of these guys are my old standbys from years back, and a couple of them are people who became prolific bloggers just after I left VMware. What I will try to do with this blog posting is launch you into the varied and interesting universe that is the VMware blogging scene.
VMware technology (and cloud computing because of it) has a very healthy blog scene, partially because of the community-centric mindset that VMware has always had. The community outreach guy, John Troyer (@jtroyer on Twitter), is the man of the hour at VMware, making sure their blog has a healthy contribution rate and many contributors. He writes a blog posting himself now and then too. From the main VMTN blog page, there are many employee as well as other virtualization related blogs. You can find the VMTN blog aggregate at:
One of the main contributors to the VMTN blog has his own blog site as well. One of the most prolific bloggers about VMware I think I've ever seen, Duncan Epping (@DuncanYB on Twitter):
Jason Boche (@jasonboche on Twitter) is a nuts and bolts guy with a lot of experience with VMware and virtualization technology. He's been around since the early days of ESX Server:
One of the cloud computing blog aggregates that I find really useful (although I don't read every article, they come out quite fast):
Those are just a few to get started on blog reading. There are countless other blogs out there dedicated to virtualization and Cloud Computing in general. Those four links will launch you straight into the center of virtualization blogging on the VMware side of things. From there, the sky's the limit.
Community Update:
This community site has been live for about four weeks now, and in that short time I have collected a lot of feedback, both positive and negative, about the community site. Some of the feeback has caused me to act from time to time, including making major page changes. This week, a lot of changes were made to the community site, most of which were suggestions from people who want the community to be as easy to use, and useful to navigate, as possible. The changes that have been made this week include:
-We removed the "status update" messages from all pages. These updates were not as useful as we thought they might be, and in fact caused longer page load times in a lot of cases.
-I got a lot of feedback that the vCloud Express Blog didn't really look like a blog. Some amount of wrangling with the administrative tools later, it looks a whole lot more like a blog than it did. There is still some room for improvement, but I will have to do a customization in order to make it happen.
-I got a decent amount of feedback that the forum area was too difficult to navigate. We removed some of the less-useful elements from this page, and put a navigation box in the right hand sidebar. We also put an aggregate of all forum postings across forums on the forum index list, to make looking at the most recent thread or comment a very easy clickthrough.
-The Wiki-style Documentation area has been cleaned up significantly. Page elements were removed to the point where most of what remains is documentation, and an area to comment on documentation if the solution or advice didn't help you. In a month or so, we'll be moving the table of contents over into the right sidebar so that there's more space to actually read documents. Stay tuned.
For those that do come back to this site often, thanks for coming back! One of the things I'm working on for you is to stir up a little bit more discussion in the general Cloud Computing forum. I'm going to start posting news stories from around the cloud, and commenting on them myself. I'm hoping that stirs up a bit more of the cloud computing discussion that I think would really contribute to a healthy community feel.
Thanks for reading folks. I will post another blog update soon!
vCloud Express Launch: A Success Story
Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:44:00 GMT | Add Comment
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Now that VMworld 2009 has come and gone I wanted to share some of our highlights and recent buzz. The event was a huge success for Terremark and proved to be the ideal venue for launching our new cloud computing platform, vCloud Express. With a captive audience, executive exposure from VMware, and an impressive trade show booth, VMworld 2009 will likely go down in Terremark History as one of our most compelling product launches to date. |
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For those of you that attended the event you are probably aware that Terremark's vCloud Express platform was showcased during the opening keynote speech delivered by VMware's CEO, Paul Maritz. Paul and the VMware team provided a demo of our new product to more than 8000+ people and exposed how quick and simple it is to deploy and manage vSphere Virtualized servers using our platform. It was an honor to have our technical leadership recognized by one of the industry's thought leaders at such a key time during the event. |
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The Terremark booth saw a constant flow of traffic by people eager to learn more about our new vCloud Express product. The buzz after Paul's speech lead to countless conversations, plenty of live interaction from our 8 demo stations, and numerous people signing up for Terremark's vCloud Express while at the event. The hot topic was of course vCloud Express but quickly expanded into other areas such as Terremark's advanced security services delivered by our SIS team and disaster recovery solutions for virtualized platforms - all capabilities that Terremark has been recognized as an industry leader in. |
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Following the keynote address our CEO, Manny Medina, was invited to participate in a conference for industry analysts and the press. Moderated by VMware executive, Dan Chu, the conference panel was assembled to discuss the Cloud Computing industry at large. Manny was accompanied by other cloud computing leaders from AT&T, Savvis, Verizon, RightScale, and Springsource and gave persuasive insight about the future of virtualization and what it means to Terremark. Jason Lochhead, CTO of Managed Hosting, also took center stage to provide a full feature demo of our vCloud Express product. |
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Moving past VMworld our product launch is now starting to cause a "buzz-wave" of press annoucements, media coverage, interviews, and blog and Twitter followers. Terremark, our vCloud Express product, and our partnership with VMware can be seen in print and online publications such as Forbes, InformationWeek, PC World, ZDNet, MarketWatch, Fox Business...and the endless list continues. |
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This is a very exciting time for Terremark and goes to show how far you can take a product with one of the most talented development and virtualization teams in the industry and the vision to deliver the types of services that consumers like you deserve. |
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Regards, Tony Savoy |
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All Aboard
Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT | Add Comment
On behalf of everyone at Terremark, I’m delighted to announce the launch of our new cloud computing platform, vCloud Express. Virtualized by VMware, vCloud Express delivers flexible, high-performance computing the way you need it, when you need it by giving you the control to configure resources exactly the way you need them – and pay for only as much capacity as you use.
Complementing our Enterprise Cloud platform, vCloud Express delivers flexibility and power through a no-term, no-minimum, pay-as-you-go model; all while leveraging the same high performance infrastructure powering some of today’s most demanding cloud applications. We think it’s a great platform for development teams, interactive media firms, departmental needs and anyone looking to harness the power of cloud computing right now in an accessible, no obligation manner.
A brief post as most of our team is out in San Francisco at VMWorld 2009 for today’s official product launch, but watch this blog for updates on the product and analysis of all that’s going on in the cloud industry. Explore the whole community, which includes forums for cloud discussion as well as product support. If you’re out in SF this week, swing by and see us at booth 1514.
For more information please visit the new vCloud Express website and sign up to become a member of the vCloud Express Community.
