3Tera released a new version of the Cloud operating system we use and Agathon Group got some prominent mentions in the press releases (e.g., here and here)!

The gist of it is that this newer version of the operating system offers levels of self-healing, diagnostics, and failover capabilities found in no other private Cloud software. Feel free to contact us if you want to find out more!

No, this isn’t a post about acid rain. It’s a post highlighting a new article by Chris Thorman at Software Advice that talks about all of the environmental benefits that SaaS provides over on-premise hosting. The gist of this well-written article is that SaaS generally provides both tangible and intangible “green” benefits over maintaining “in house” hardware and software.

It’s no stretch to extend this specifically to cloud computing and the green benefits pile up even higher. In addition to the points that Chris highlights, cloud computing has been shown to more effectively utilize server resources, versus traditional hosting. And a more efficient use of server resources leads to lower overall power consumption.

To illustrate this, you might need four physical servers to run your web site: one load balancer, two web servers, and a database server. The power supplies in those four servers might be rated at a total of 2000W. In comparison, running your web application on one of our private clouds could get you the same computing power, only with two servers rated at a total of 1200W. That’s a power savings of 40%… and running your web application on our shared cloud (which is an example of what Chris calls a “multi-tenant architecture”) could help you reduce your carbon footprint even more. Even if the “green” benefits of saving power don’t excite you, saving some “green” on power (the price of which is only ever increasing) ought to at least get you interested!

Saving money and being good stewards of the environment, all while maintaining (if not surpassing) performance and flexibility… it’s clear that cloud computing (and SaaS in general) is a major “green” win.

Recently, 3Tera announced IPv6 support for their AppLogic cloud computing platform. This was just another in a long list of innovations and firsts from 3Tera in the cloud computing marketplace, but is particularly interesting for Agathon Group. Not only did we receive a mention in the press release, but because of our robust infrastructure and relationship with 3Tera, we are one of the few cloud providers in the world that can offer IPv6 support for our Cloud Applications and Private Clouds right now!

Read the entire press release, or read more about IPv6 as well as why it’s so important. Then contact us for more information on how you can make IPv6 and cloud computing work for you today!