The Planet Blog

Over the past few months, several thousand customers have already started using The Planet’s new customer portal – Orbit 2.0. Orbit 2.0 consolidates and improves upon our legacy ServerCommand and Orbit 1.0 portals by providing a functional superset of features and controls, along with an improved user interface. Thanks to the continued testing and valuable feedback from our Orbit 2.0 beta customers, we are ready to release the new customer portal to our entire user base.

Today, ALL CUSTOMERS have full access to Orbit 2.0.

Because we want to ensure you have plenty of time to get acclimated to the new portal, the transition to Orbit 2.0 will span two months. During this time, you can access both Orbit 2.0 and the legacy portals.

On August 17, 2009, we will terminate access to Orbit 1.0 and ServerCommand.

We are committed to making this transition as painless as possible and to ensuring that it will not impact your servers hosted at The Planet. If you’re interested in learning a little more about the transition to Orbit 2.0, here are the answers to the common questions we expect.

What is Orbit 2.0?

Orbit 2.0 is a new version of our customer portal. Orbit 2.0 features an improved navigation structure and layout, allowing easier access to commonly used features:

• Home Tab: By default, this page contains your current account balance, a view of recently opened tickets and any announcements from The Planet.
• Account Management Tab: Provides detailed views of statements, current billable services and payment methods, along with a full interface for managing users and sub-users within Orbit.
• Hardware Tab: Accesses all of the critical management features for your hosted servers, as well as products and services like load balancers, backup and Storage Cloud.
• Domains Tab: Manages your domains, SSL certificates and DNS.
• Network Tab: Allows you to view the health of our overall network, along with bandwidth utilization graphs for your individual servers.
• Tickets Tab: Provides an interface to manage all of your sales and support tickets.
• Orders Tab: Serves as the launch point for you to order additional products and services

How do I log into Orbit 2.0?

You can access Orbit 2.0 at https://orbit2.theplanet.com with your current username and password.

How long will I be able to access my current portal (Orbit 1 and ServerCommand)?

You will be able to access Orbit 1 and ServerCommand through August 17, 2009. On that date, we will terminate access to the legacy portals.

How do I get support for Orbit 2.0?

Orbit 2.0 is our production portal. Support is available through all standard support channels (phone, ticket and chat).

What do I do if I find an issue or have a suggestion for Orbit 2.0?

If you find a bug or have a suggestion, you can contact support or simply press the “Report Portal Issue” link at the top of every page of Orbit 2.

I am an Orbit 1 user, how will I migrate?

No migration is required. Simply log into Orbit 2.0 and use it. You can use both portals interchangeably through August 17, 2009.

I am a ServerCommand user, how will I migrate?

All features, except DNS management, are available in both portals simultaneously. No migration is required for those features, and you can use both portals interchangeably through August 17, 2009. DNS administration is available either through ServerCommand or Orbit 2.0, but not both. Our support team will help you migrate your DNS zones to Orbit 2.0 to allow for the exclusive use of Orbit 2.0. Migrations are not expected to have any DNS downtime, and access to the portal should not be interrupted.

If you have any more questions about the transition to Orbit 2.0, please visit our Orbit 2 Launch Announcement.

Welcome to Orbit 2.0!

-Urvish

Do you remember how you felt as the school year came to a close and summer peaked over the horizon?

For me, it was a strange combination of exhilaration, anxiousness and terror. The catalyst for those emotions was always a singular nemesis: the report card.

Being a bit of a nerd (please keep the commentary about this to a minimum, thank you), my report card was generally regarded as my life’s unequivocal barometer of success. My two or three months of summer could be made or broken by that piece of paper, and I have to admit that I didn’t always do well:

Yes, that is an A-. No, it is not a typo. An entire class boiled down into a single grade. How arbitrary and unfair can you get? … The other three grades were clearly thoughtful and accurate. What’s was the International Finance professor’s problem?!

No, I’m not actually that vain.

That’s an actual excerpt from my college transcript, and the grades weren’t arbitrary … I worked hard and prepared for class day-in and day-out, so my benchmark validated the time and effort I invested in each class … even International Finance.

It turns out grades are often directly correlated with preparation, and they can be extremely useful in personal development and business development if you ask the right questions.

Over the past few months, The Planet has been working with Microsoft, SmallBizTechnology.com, Nine Lives Media Inc., SMB Nation, Small Business Trends, HostSearch, Yankee Group and Georgia’s Kennesaw State University to put together a survey tool aimed at asking the right questions to small- and medium-sized businesses.

Welcome to the ITEI

The Information Technology Effectiveness Index (ITEI) is a survey that evaluates the effectiveness of an SMB IT infrastructure.

The vast majority of research from analyst firms focuses on large enterprise-type organizations with deep pockets and vast IT resources to support their businesses. In contrast, SMBs are largely ignored, despite the fact they drive our economy.

After taking the survey, you immediately receive your grade, along with prescriptive guidance and recommendations on how you can improve your IT effectiveness.

With questions about everything from business continuity and disaster recovery to change management and budgeting, the ITEI is has been built to provide relevant, helpful feedback and best practices to the SMB market.

As we gain critical mass, you can receive research on how they compete against others in your peer groups and in comparison with other types of SMB companies. We will run the survey throughout 2009, issuing periodic news on what we learn. In December, the partnership will issue an annual report about the state-of-the-state of IT effectiveness.

The survey is 12 questions long and only takes about 10 minutes to complete. So what are you waiting for?

Go get your ITEI grade!

-Kevin

Drum roll, please … it’s a momentous day for The Planet!

This morning we’ve launched an awesome new Web site that will make it far easier for you – our customer – to learn about and purchase The Planet’s products and services. We’ve made the site easier to navigate, backed by a wealth of new features for visitors who aren’t certain which services are best for their business.

Prominently featured is our messaging based on “The Power to Choose.” We offer the broadest range of options in the industry. Whether you’re looking for dedicated servers, management services, fully managed hosting or colocation, you’ll find a solution that meets your needs.

You may have noticed advertising from The Planet on many new properties, as well as a new campaign that has The Planet ads showing up many places you have never seen us before, based on your having visited our site in the past … and this is just the beginning.

Go ahead and take a test drive through the new site and let us know what you think!

-Steve

Today, we’re excited to announce a few big changes at The Planet!

Planet Northstar Managed Hosting

First, we’d like to tell you about Planet Northstar Managed Hosting, the first and only managed hosting service to leave behind the reactive support attitudes of the past and present a proactive vision of the future.

Our goal with Planet Northstar Managed Hosting is to turn your current perception of reactive support in managed hosting on its head. By introducing you to the Anticipation Advantage — a visionary way to help you grow and leverage technology — that utilizes a proactive, best practices methodology for everything from architecting systems to change management, security by design, to reporting results and more. Executed by a designated team of certified and seasoned professionals who know your name and your business, you’ll always know who you’re working with because they are all personally accountable for your success.

Here’s what Mark Schmulen, co-founder of Nutshell Mail says about our new service: “Our Planet Northstar support team has been incredibly proactive managing our IT systems so we can focus on growing our business. I would recommend Planet Northstar to anyone looking for managed hosting services.”

Planet Alpha Dedicated Servers

Along with the introduction to our managed hosting division, we’ve been working so hard on our dedicated server business that it has become a new entity: Planet Alpha Dedicated Servers.

There’s a powerful force behind the birth of our Planet Alpha Dedicated Servers division: it’s the power to choose. Your dedicated hosting provider fits the needs of your business model instead of the other way around, and we agree. You’ll see that Planet Alpha has added new Ready To Go server choices, Virtual Racks with Gigabit connectivity — and most important — a new set of “a’ la carte” Alpha Advanced Services for monitoring and security that you can use either solo or bundled in any combination.

See for yourself by visiting our transformed Web site and be sure to check out our new shopping cart, along with lots of new dedicated server specials.

Special Launch Promotions

We are celebrating this new era in IT hosting with a constellation of great offers, and it starts with a Big Bang of Savings. Try our new Alpha Advanced Services server monitoring for only $12.50 for your first month or add our server security module for only $20 for your first month. Save 25% off our latest dedicated servers. Get incredible deals on our Data Protection Servers (formerly “Dedicated Backup Servers”). Check out our Planet Alpha Server Specials to see how much you can save.

What About “The Planet”?

Keep in mind that our new stars — Planet Northstar and Planet Alpha — still orbit around The Planet, our corporate core of management and infrastructure that powers and sustains our success as a world leader in IT hosting. Our core infrastructure and processes have been designated as SAS 70 Type II certified: this includes in-depth studies in each of our six data centers, our network, provisioning systems, operations, physical and environmental security, and problem management through our customer portal. Visit the The Planet Corporate section of our Web site to learn more.

Join us on this unique journey through a new universe of IT hosting. Remember that you can contact us at any time through Live Chat on our Web site at www.theplanet.com or call us at 866-325-0045.

Welcome to the new world of IT hosting. It’s made possible by your input, your loyalty and your energy.