When we began building Contegix, we realized it was always about the applications.  No one buys a server (physical or virtual) to run a ping and get some ICMP packets.  The Internet has, and always will be, about the applications.  Therefore, we made the application infrastructure the core of our management and focus of our hosting services.

As we build out cloud templates, we want to extend this belief into the templates themselves.  It can not be about just the operating system.  Each template has been built “The Contegix Way”.  These are built using the components and deployment methodologies that have served our customers for years and continue to do so today.  Some of these target developers, some for system administrator implementors, and some target application users.  Below is our list, but we want your feedback.

For developers:

• Linux 64-bit with Apache HTTPd + Jetty
• Linux 64-bit with Apache HTTPd + Apache Tomcat 6
• Linux 64-bit with Apache HTTPd + Apache Tomcat 6 + Grails 1.2 (well, we can hope 1.2 will be done soon  )
• Linux 64-bit with Apache HTTPd + Phusion Pasenger + Ruby Enterprise
• Linux 64-bit with Apache HTTPd + Django

For system administrators / application implementors:

• Linux 64-bit with MySQL 5
• Linux 64-bit with PostgreSQL 8.4
• Linux 64-bit with MongoDB (probably… working on it!)

For application users:

• Linux 64-bit with MovableType
• Linux 64-bit with WordPress + MySQL 5

Yet, we want to hear – what do you want to see in a cloud template and ready to deploy in less than 5 minutes?  Please leave comments.

Contegix is proud to announce that effective September 29th, 2009, Contegix has been certified as compliant with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s U.S.-European (EU) Safe Harbor Framework.  Contegix is committed to protecting our customers’ privacy, and to continually demonstrating that security, privacy, and data protection are important core values for our organization.  By adhering to the Safe Harbor Framework Contegix is not only able to provide services to European businesses which require compliance, but is able to provide peace of mind to non-EU organizations who are concerned about privacy and data protection.

To help guarantee adherence to Safe Harbor principals, Contegix utilizes the services of TRUSTe, an industry leader in privacy services.  TRUSTe’s EU Safe Harbor certification program is one of the most trusted and rigorous in the business, and they will monitor Contegix’s privacy practices continually to ensure full compliance.

Contegix’s will continue to show dedication to security, privacy, and data protection by maintaining annual reviews and renewals of our Safe Harbor Framework compliance and SAS 70 Type II audit, and Contegix will always make it a mission to protect the private information of our customers.

We have been chatting about our cloud computing platform (known internally as Project Zeus but to be official named later) a fair amount in the past few months.  We have talked about our features and it being truly designed for the enterprise – small and large.  We have not talked about how it was built.

Earlier this week, our development team at Relevance put up a blog post on their work on the web and mid tiers for the project.  This promises to be the first in a series on how to build a cloud computing platform.  At least, how Contegix built a cloud computing platform designed around our principles and requirements.

Read the post, and one will find a number of interesting jewels.  One thing might stick out as very interesting. While we are known for our Java hosting, our cloud was built using Ruby and Rails.  Relevance used JRuby in the mid-tier for  numerous reasons, including the VIJava library for VMware.  The web tier is pure Rails 2.3.2.  Since Contegix is one of the largest managed Rails hosting companies and has been for quite awhile (anyone miss the Apache+fcgi days?), this was a natural infrastructure for us to support.

More information coming about our cloud late next week.  Launch is quickly approaching!

Cloud computing, as we currently know it, is broken.  Data isn’t always persistent,  instances are unstable, pricing is confusing, and professional management is nowhere to be found.  Although we will tip our hats to bringing cloud computing to the masses, the cloud model needs a reboot.  It often seems like each month another company releases a cloud computing offering, but nobody ever takes the next step in maturing the delivery mechanisms, stability, or business model.  It is for these reasons that Contegix is proud to introduce Zeus, a managed cloud computing platform aimed at providing consumers with the power and flexibility of virtual systems coupled with the management support that only fully-managed data centers can provide.

Zeus is a unique cloud service that will provide persistent storage, reliable uptime, and managed support.  Based on VMWare ESX, fronted by high-end network gear and physical level 4-7 load balancers, and backed by true SAN storage and advanced monitoring, customers of the Zeus platform will be able to build powerful architectures that scale reliably.  Furthermore, with a 100% network and 100% power uptime SLA, security and compliance audits available for viewing, and the option of including Contegix’s world-class management support, cloud computing is now ready for the enterprise.

Another feature of Zeus that we’re excited about is the use of templates.  Zeus will come with virtual machine templates for several different common configurations.  If you want an Apache box, spin one up.  If you want a MySQL box, spin one up.  And it all happens in about 5 minutes.  If our templates aren’t meeting your needs, or you need to replicate the same instance over and over, simply upload your own template.  Better yet, convert your physical boxes with P2V and upload your enterprise.

Stay tuned for more information on Zeus.  Private beta is targeted for availability at the end of June, with full production availability at the end of July.

Here at Contegix we take pride in the superb team of technical engineers we have on staff.  We have a great team of dedicated engineers who truly enjoy the work they do each and every day for our customers.  We have a team of superstars, and we thought some of our customers might be interested in learning a bit more about what makes our engineers really tick.   Therefore, we give you the opportunity to “Meet the Contegians” through Q&A sessions with our engineering staff.

First up, Mark Rogers, technical support lead.

Mark, where we you born?

St. Louis, MO

What is your favorite open source project?

Pylot, www.pylot.org.  I’m pretty biased though, considering I’ve contributed code to it in the past, and I am listed as a contributor.  It is a sweet load testing application that works in Windows or Linux though.  It is definitely worth checking out if you ever need to do some load testing.

What is your favorite Linux tool?

There are a few items in the land of Linux that firmly cement me in my operating system of choice.  Some I can get elsewhere I suppose, but I can’t live without Klipper, Grep, and BASH.  Sure, I can get most of these in OSX, except for Klipper.  I know there are knock-offs available, and that I could install the KDE stack if I had to, but it’s just not the same.  Klipper managing my clipboard is the best tool I’ve ever used.  With how much copying and pasting I do in my day-to-day life, it’s nice to see the last 300 or so items that I’ve highlighted on a whim.  It comes in handy just way too often.

What is your favorite operating system?

I’m a big fan of Ubuntu.  It’s stable, has deep repositories, and has a ton of community support.  At work I need a distro that is stable, but I also need to be able to install random, off-the-wall packages at times for the various needs I have at work.  Plus, I love to play with new applications all the time as well.  The chances of finding an RPM seem to always be small, but finding Debs is generally easy.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

Well, I blog www.f4ntasmic.com and like to write code.  My personal language of choice is Python, and thus I’ve been playing with Django a LOT lately.

Any personal projects you are currently working on that you would like to talk about?

Well, when I was learning Python I decided to write an application that wraps the Confluence Remote API’s xmlrpc calls.  It is actually handy at times since just about anything you can do in Confluence; you can do via this application remotely.  You can add users, remove users, update posts, add new posts, and so on.  This can all be done without ever loading a browser.  You can find it at Confluence Remote Manager.

What are you currently running system-wise?

I’m running an Acer Aspire right now.  Specs are as follows:

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHZ
3GB of RAM
250G hard drive
Nvidia GeForce 9500 (I think.  I could be wrong, but its’ nice.)

What books, magazines, and journals are you currently reading?

I’ve had a subscription to PC Gamer for about five or six years now, so I’m always reading that.  Even though it’s recently jumped the shark in my opinion with this new EIC.  Bring back the editorial columns please!!!  Not really reading any books right now.  I have a stack of Ruby books I need to read, along with some stuff on PyGame.  They’re just staring at me, begging to be read.  If only I could just suck the knowledge out via osmosis or something.

What was the last book you read?

Python Web Development with Django.  It was a decent read, and it got me rolling with Django.  The online docs for Django are great and all, but I learn so much better from books.  Plus, this was one of the few books already updated for Django 1.0.

What is your favorite book of all time?

Fahrenheit 451.  Amazing book, terrible movie.  I personally feel everyone should read the book at least once, so that they can see the dangers of law by opinion and censorship in general.

What music and movies do you enjoy?

I enjoy all sorts of music genres like rap, death metal, hair metal, anything from the 80’s, a bit of country, some pop, and other random stuff.  My favorite bands in rotation right now though are the White Stripes, 3OH!3, and Mindless Self Indulgence (only their first CD.)  Movie –wise I enjoy most of the David Lynch films (Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway), and other movies that tend to make me think.  That’s not to say I don’t love mindless comedies and action flicks though.  I’m a huge fan of parody movies like Scary Movie, Airplane, Naked Gun, etc.

What was the last movie you saw?


Yes Man with Jim Carrey.  Pretty funny overall.  It’s Liar Liar, but this time he has to say, “Yes” to everything instead of not lying.  Incredibly original and creative.  ☺

What is your favorite movie of all time?

That’s tough.  It’s one of three:

SLC Punk
The Jacket
Pulp Fiction

I don’t think I could pick just one.

What was the last concert you attended?

It’s been awhile since I’ve been to a concert.  I think the last one might have been Nine Inch Nails like eight or nine years ago.

What is your favorite band of all time?

If I had to pick just one, it would be Nine Inch Nails.

What do you like most about working at Contegix?

I get to play with random cool technology just about every single day.  I never know what the day has in store for me, and for the most part, no two days are the same.  It helps keep life rather interesting.

What do you like most about our customers?

That’s a tough question.  Customers are so unique, that it is hard to find a global reason on why I like all of them.  We are home to some major open source projects and players, and I love that.  I love to see customers building a business with open source software, and to contribute to the open source community in the process.  We also have customers that are building applications that you can see the potential in, and that I find myself browsing at times.  I guess I just enjoy that a lot of our customers are very creative and seem to be living the dream of doing what they enjoy.  I’m glad to be a part of that in whatever capacity that might be.

The winners were not supposed to be announced until May 1st. Yet, you can not keep the publisher and the USPS from their missions…

We are very proud to announce that our customers and the readers of the Linux Journal have selected Contegix as the top linux-friendly web hosting company, ahead of some of the biggest names in hosting. The June 2009 issue of the Linux Journal features the results of the Annual Reader’s Choice awards, where the Linux community votes on top products, tools, and services in the market. Contegix had a higher percentage of votes than any other hosting company included in the survey. We are proud to share the “favorite” distinction with many other excellent Linux products, such as Ubuntu – the “favorite primary Linux distribution”, Apache – the “favorite web server,” and Python – the “favorite programming language.”

From the article:

Talk about a meteoric rise, Contegix went from one write-in vote in 2008 to champion of the Favorite Linux-Friendly Web Hosting Company category in 2009. Otherwise, four well-known names have remained among your perrenial favorites for years, namely Rackspace, GoDaddy.com, DreamHost and 1&1. Of the four, only Rackspace broke the 10% barrier this year for Honorable Mention, while the other three were just shy of the mark. GoDaddy.com was category winner last year, and DreamHost and 1&1 were the two Honorable Mentions.

Everyone here at Contegix would like to thank our customers, our partners, and the members of the Linux community who voted for us. This award would not have been possible without your support. You trust us everyday to manage your infrastructures. We are grateful for that privilege and the award you bestowed upon us. You are the reason we do what we do.
Finally, we would like to thank the Linux community in general for continuing to develop the technologies that we know and love and that make us passionate about being the best Linux hosting company we can be.

(Picture of Phil Jacobs from StyleFeeder who sent us our first congrats tonight.)

Contegix is proud to announce our platinum sponsorship of Atlassian’s upcoming user conference, Atlassian Summit.

Summit is Atlassian’s first ever user conference, designed to provide information to developers, users, managers, and anyone else interested in the Atlassian suite of collaboration and development tools.  Some of the agenda points include:

• the future of collaboration and dev tools
• roadmaps, feature previews and demos
• how-tos on deployment, tuning and mods
• in-the-code labs on plugins and APIs
• presentations from your peers
• “meet the engineers” workshops

As the platinum sponsor for Summit, Contegix hopes to show the Atlassian user community our dedication to Atlassian’s products and customers, and how users can pair Atlassian’s software with Contegix’s hosting and management for a truly powerful collaboration and development environment.

Summit is being held at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco from May 31st to June 2nd.

For more on Summit, visit Atlassian’s Summit homepage.

NR Notify is a simple ruby based notification tool for New Relic RPM. With NR Notify you can add email and SMS notifications to your Ruby on Rails and Merb applications. By using the the New Relic API, NR Notify provides email and SMS notifications based off of your “Traffic Light” settings within New Relic.

Features:

• Multiple Email Support
• Multiple SMS Support
• Adjustable Alert Escalations Policies
• Supports Multiple Rails Applications
• YAML Configuration
• Adjustable Update Interval

New Relic Notify is easy to setup. All you need to do is adjust the config.yml to your liking and run the included Ruby script. However it is recommended that NR Notify is ran under a service manager such as daemontools or runit. This also requires a SMTP server to deliver the emails.

For more details on NR Notify please visit our project home:
http://code.contegix.com/wiki/display/NRN

For the project source please visit:
http://code.contegix.com/svn/NRN/trunk

Back in December when things slowed down a bit we were asked to try to use the free time to catch up on documentation.  One of the specific areas of documentation that is usually neglected is that of what is on the servers.  My first thought when I saw the request was “why isn’t this happening semi-automatically”.  In order for us to document a server we run commands and then format the output to be understandable and pretty.   There is little or no reason why these commands could not be put into a script and ran automatically.

So I started out writing a bunch of little scriptlets to do the different parts of the documentation procedure.  When Mark saw what I was doing he suggested that we take this a step further by having one big script that does all the documentation and outputs it in wiki-markup that could go straight to confluence.  So we collaborated on building a big documentation script.  Then through work on another project to build a tool that would allow engineers to copy files to a customers server through the central midpoint server I realized we had the potential to push and pull this documentation with little effort.

Meanwhile Mark was working on a program that would allow an engineer to post a document to confluence from the command line.  With this program and the copy program the workflow was complete.  By building a wrapper script using some of the logic in the copy program I could push the documentation script up to a customers server then pull the output back, remove the litter files on the server then push the output document up to confluence all in one easy command.

Once things were working as intended it struck me that our initial attempt at the documentation script was not nearly detailed enough.  So I went back and rewrote the hardware section to use the Dell utilities or fall back on standard Unix utilities if the Dell software isn’t present.  Then I started to rework the J2EE application section.  So far the J2EE section has grown over ten fold in size and the documenting of Tomcat containers is almost finished.  There is much work to be done yet on getting better information for the other containers and applications within them.  After that will be a rework on the apache vhost documentation.

A sample screenshot of magic documentation

Contegix has been hosting the initial meetings of the Gateway Groovy Users, a group dedicated to Groovy and Grails.  The first two meetings were on the small side ( 6 people ) but they were productive.  Plans are underway for our first “big” meeting.

Contegix is the natural place to host a group for Groovy and Grails, since both of these open source projects are part of codehaus.org, which is hosted at Contegix.  Attendees to our meetings have the unique privilege of being in the hallowed halls that house the main source code repository of the tools they love!

If you are already using Groovy or Grails (or Griffon) or are interested in these technologies, please join us at our next meeting on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 6:30pm.  We will be having a presentation on developing desktop GUI applications with Groovy.  Then, for those who want to stay, we will be starting on a group project.  It promises to be a great learning experience and a lot of fun.

Hope to see you there!