Dotster Web Hosting Provider announced Daniel Frechtling as the new chief marketing officer and  Ross Johnson as the vice president of business development.

Web hosting provider and Domain registrar Dotster announced that Daniel Frechtling has been  appointed as chief marketing officer and Ross Johnston became VP of business development.

“Dotster is proud to welcome Daniel Frechtling and Ross Johnston to our executive management team. Both have stellar track records in helping to elevate and grow successful Internet services and other leading businesses. We look forward to Daniel and Ross helping Dotster further achieve its aggressive business goals in the marketplace,” said Clint Page, CEO of Dotster.

Frechtling  duties is to help develop Dotster’s strategic marketing image and to grow the company revenues; he will also guide the company’s market research and analysis, marketing communications, product management, direct marketing and sales. Frechtling’s most recently held position was as senior VP of marketing and business development for Knowledge Learning, an early education company, and he has over 15 years of marketing and management experience.

Johnston duties is to facilitate Dotster’s various platforms to acquire new customers by developing new strategic partnerships within the US and internationally. He joins the Dotster team with close to twenty years of business development and marketing experience, most recently serving as senior director of business development for CNET Networks.

The Planet web hosting provider has announced the results of the “six-month trial to reduce power consumption and increase data center operating efficiency”. The result was server loads increased by about 5% at the period and power consumption (related to cooling) decreased by about 31%. The results shows also a 13.5% ‘across-the-board’ reduction in consumption as a result of a “broad range of improvements”. So they predicts some cost savings at its six data centers to exceed one million dollars in 2008.

“With six data centers that house more than 50,000 servers, it’s important that we operate at peak performance to meet the demands of our 22,000 customers,” explained The Planet’s Vice President, Facilities, Mr. Jeff Lowenberg. “At the same time, our goal is to conserve energy and drive operating efficiencies since power is a premium in every corner of the world. Ultimately, when we operate more efficiently, our customers reap the benefits since we’re able to spend capital on products and services that will enhance the customer experience.”

The Planet has around 150 30-ton computer room air conditioning units. After initiating its green measures, the company can now turn off 4 of the units at one center. And the cooling requirement on the other two units was also reduced to about 50% of its capacity, while the other nine systems operate at 25 percent of its capacity. The company also extended the return air plenums on all of its down-flow CRAC units to optimize efficiency. In some cases, The Planet staff was able to increase CRAC unit temperature settings by about 10 degrees while still meeting the thermal guidelines for data processing environments set by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).

Aplus.Net web hosting and Internet solutions provider, announced that they have re branded the line of dedicated web hosting servers to better accommodate clients.

Aplus web hosting states that the change make a shift to a better hardware-based naming, as the names of dedicated webhosting plans are based on each server’s CPU. Aplus website has been redesigned to show these updated names, and also to show the web servers in three new categories: Single-Core, Multi-Core and Multi-Processor Servers.

“As with our efforts in rebranding our shared hosting services last month, we’re taking the necessary steps to ensure that our consumers understand exactly what they’re getting when they shop for an Aplus.Net dedicated server,” commented Ryan Elledge, Aplus.Net’s Chief Operations Officer. “That means more clearly defining the way our servers are named, categorized, and presented on our website.”

Digital Realty Trust, Inc., an owner and manager of corporate and Internet gateway data-centers, announced that Hosted Solutions will establish a mission critical data-center in Digital Realty Trust’s 125 North Myers Street facility in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company states that the site encompasses over 15,000 square feet of space, including over 7,500 square foot of raised floor Turn-Key Data-center™ space, with adjoining shell space for expansion. This will significantly increase Hosted Solutions’ data center capabilities to meet demand for its managed services from customers in Charlotte, upstate South Carolina and nationwide.

“We are very excited to announce the opening of our second Charlotte datacenter,” said Rich Lee, Founder and CEO of Hosted Solutions. “The opening of this datacenter is a testament to Hosted Solutions’ commitment to grow strategically in our current markets while giving our customers the personal relationship of a small company and the resources of an enterprise organization. Digital Realty Trust’s state-of-the-art facility is the ideal environment to support our customer’s needs, and it has been a valued partner in the process of establishing this new datacenter.”

“Hosted Solutions was seeking a premiere facility with advanced security, cooling and power systems, and our facilities in Charlotte fit all of the company’s technical requirements. The facility is a major hub for communications infrastructure in the Southeast, making it an ideal environment for managed services companies like Hosted Solutions that want a wide range of connectivity options,” said Chris Crosby, Senior Vice President of Digital Realty Trust.

AlphaSSL.com, a provider for 256 bit SSL Certificates, announced a new Midweek crazy offer. AlphaSSL.com says that tomorrow the 13th of February 2008, it will issue, free of charge, fully valid one year SSL Certificates to 250 customers that apply first.  The offer is a first come, first served. AlphaSSL.com says that it will consider running further Midweek Madness offers on subsequent Wednesdays.

AlphaSSL.com also explains, the free AlphaSSL Certificates are fully trusted by all popular browsers, applications and mobile devices and valid for twelve months. This offer will be open to existing AlphaSSL.com partners and new customers and is a perfect way to be introduced to AlphaSSL.com and the online security services it offers. For clients to qualify for a free AlphaSSL Certificate, they must simply apply on the Midweek Madness day.

Easy CGI web hosting, a Microsoft Partner, said that it has become one of the first web hosting providers that started to offer Windows Server 2008 webhosting for all shared webhosting plans.

The company states that Windows Server 2008 webhosting features IIS 7 which builds upon the previous IIS 6 release can provide an enhanced security with performance for webhosting. The new server platform also allow hosting customers to have the flexibility to set up their hosting plans on Windows 2008, or Windows 2003.

Microsoft says that IIS 7 is the most ambitious Microsoft Web server it has yet offered and by having such features as FastCGI, which runs powerful PHP applications at high performance levels, and feature delegation, which lets users modify many website settings quickly through the web.config file. By offering more and better controls to developers, Windows Server 2008 enables them to develop applications locally, and then transfer them to the live server, without having to make updates to the server site.

“Easy CGI is proud to be one of the first providers of Windows 2008 hosting” said Ted Beckwith, vice president of Easy CGI. “As a Microsoft Partner, EasyCGI has the ability to learn, implement, and deploy new Microsoft technologies before other providers. We then use this expertise to offer optimal web hosting products and support to our customers.”

“Windows 2008 and IIS 7 have many new features that will reduce total cost of ownership and improve manageability; these benefits will be passed on directly to our customers” said Dan Richfield, President of Easy CGI. “For example, technologies such as FastCGI pre-compile an image of the PHP script being used. This gives our customers the ability to develop robust PHP applications that will perform at the highest level and not cause to much overhead on Easy CGI’s servers. It’s a win – win situation for both.”