Roundup: Amazon, Rackspace, Level 3, Riverbed

Here’s a roundup of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:

New Features for Amazon CloudFront CDN. Amazon announced three separate changes to CloudFront, their AWS content delivery network.  The first change is the addition of HTTPS support. As one of the more requested features CloudFront HTTPS can be used to transfer inherently sensitive objects to your users, to avoid security warnings that some browsers present when viewing a mix of http and https content.  Pricing for HTTPS requests start at $0.01 per 10,000 requests. They also announced that pricing for regular HTTP requests are reduced by 25 percent and start at $.0075 per 10,000 requests. The third announcement is the opening of a new edge location in New York City to make performance even better for users from New York and the northeast U.S.

Rackspace and Ingram Micro partner.  Rackspace (RAX) announced that it has signed a distribution agreement with Ingram Micro Inc. (IM) to bring managed hosting and cloud computing offerings to the distributor's growing base of North American chanel partners through the new Seismic Cloud Conduit Program.  “By teaming with Rackspace, we are enabling our channel partners to take advantage of the new business opportunities cloud computing brings to the table and raise the bar when it comes to delivering affordable managed IT services," said Justin Crotty, vice president, services at Ingram Micro. The agreement makes Rackspace the first to offer its portfolio of hosting options to Ingram's Managed Services Providers (MSP) and Value Added Resellers (VARs).

Level 3 launches new Vyvx local switching services. Level 3 Communications (LVLT) announced significant updates to their local video switching offering, enabling its Vyvx customers to transmit - or "switch" video feeds between two local loops within a single market.  The local switching will support HD loops in a number of markets, and be available in over 50 markets. The same local switching rates apply in all U.S. markets, as well as London.  “Level 3 has a leg up on the competition in this area in that we have the largest number of fiber-video television switching centers in the U.S. We invite broadcasters to make the switch and take advantage of our superior connectivity,” said Peter Neill, senior vice president of Content Markets.

New Release of Riverbed Optimization System.  Riverbed (RVBD) announced the release of version 6.1 of the Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS).  Primary to this release are advanced acceleration for cloud services and enterprise applications including Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange.  Additionally RiOS 6.1 includes enhancements for intelligent storage networking protocols to optimize disaster recovery performance.  As CIOs turn to centralized IT models to reduce costs, WAN optimization is an increasingly critical tool required to maintain performance and ensure that distant employees remain productive," said Cindy Borovick, vice president at IDC.