HostSearch interviewed Jason Baker, Chief Technical Officer of VISI, on our cloud computing initiative. Read the full article to learn more about VISI’s cloud computing platform that we’ll be launching in December.

We will be providing a live demo of our new platform at our Cloud VISION event on October 21st.  If you haven’t already registered, we still have seats left.  Advanced registration is free.

We’re excited to announce that our CEO, Mike Sowada, has been named a Tekne Awards finalist by the Minnesota High Tech Association! Mike is one of three finalists in the category of Technology Executive of the Year for Small and Growing Businesses. The MHTA will reveal the winner on October 22nd at the Minneapolis Convention Center, only one day after VISI’s cloud computing seminar. Congratulations Mike!

Dan Haugen with the Twin Cities Business Magazine wrote a special focus story on cloud computing for September’s issue.  The write-up includes a story about a local company (Flyspy) that saved $200,000 in hardware costs by going with a cloud hosting provider.  Not only did they eliminate upfront costs — they are now able to scale up their resources and immediately scale them down when they are no longer needed.  Jason Baker, chief technology officer at VISI, was quoted a few times in the article.  You can read the full article online.

If you’re interested in learning more about cloud computing and VISI’s cloud platform, you can register to attend a free breakfast seminar on the topic to be held on October 21st, 2009.

Thanks to all who attended our webinar on cloud storage presented by Jason Baker. For those of you unable to make it, some of the highlights included Jason’s characteristics of cloud storage, various use cases, cloud storage trends and a description of VISI’s forthcoming cloud storage product. The PowerPoint presentation is now available to download in PDF form. Please feel free to leave a comment regarding your thoughts on the webinar, or topics you’d like to see covered in future webinars.

After performing in-depth testing including acquiring and testing competitive products, VISI has recently announced their using ParaScale’s software to enable our cloud storage service. Their software will allow us to create a flexible cloud storage product with multiple access methods: API, drive mounts and HTTP.

We look forward to your feedback as we finalize cloud storage.  Our cloud storage beta launch will begin later this month with the general availability release in October.

We also still have seats available at our free cloud computing breakfast seminar (Cloud VISION) which will be happening next month at the Metropolitan in Minneapolis. It is not too late to reserve your seat for beta testing or Cloud VISION.

I am thrilled to be involved with something that will radically change the way storage is purchased and provisioned.   I’ve been working with a team of VISI hosting and network engineers for the last couple months – and I’m really starting to see the results.  We’re getting very close to announcing the availability of our new Cloud Storage product.

What is cloud storage?  Cloud storage allows users the ability to scale their platforms up and down as their needs change.  This allows you to essentially ‘pay-as-you-go’ –  changing the amount of data stored on a day to day basis as needed… or  remaining static.    Cloud storage provides elastic storage for a wide variety of use cases and can be accessed via standard drive mounts, http and API protocols.

Next Wednesday (September 2nd), VISI will host a free webinar on Cloud Storage which will provide you with ample information on this new technology as well as inform you on ways to leverage our cloud storage platform. Our chief technology officer and cloud expert, Jason Baker, will lead the webinar. You can register online to reserve a virtual seat.

We will begin beta testing cloud storage in mid-September.  If you’re interested in volunteering to help us test our new product, it’s not too late to sign up.  We’d love to hear your valuable feedback to help make our launch in October as successful as possible.