News
18/03/2009
A-Server launches DAAS.com; First Cloud Infrastructure to include Sun Microsystems Platform
Three year development program provides Cloud Computing for Service Providers built around technology acquired by Sun Microsystems earlier this year
Lochristi, Belgium - March 03, 2009- A-Server, a specialist in datacenter virtualization, has become the first company to offer a fully productised Cloud Computing platform in DAAS.com including Sun Microsystems technology. On March 18th, A-Server will unveil its fully configured and installed cloud rack solution to service providers offering rapid deployment of reliable, flexible and cost effective cloud computing.
"When Sun acquired Q-layer in January, we were immediately concerned as we had just finished the final beta test of our Datacenter-as-a-Service product," comments Arvid Fossen, Director of Product Management and DAAS.com , "We have had a good relationship with Q-layer over the last few years prior to its acquisition and we were assured that our agreement would be honored. In fact, the acquisition has been beneficial as it has allowed us to expand our relationship with Sun and has helped speed up the qualifying of Sun Hardware for our DAAS.com offering."
DAAS.com will be delivered on Sun hardware including all the technology items that build up the DAAS.com infrastructure cloud: 100% redundant storage technology, High Performance Computing Cloud Infrastructure, Cloud Software, S3 Compatible Storage web services, InfiniBand, Xen and Virtual Box. "We believe that many service providers and even end customers will be pleased that DAAS.com is built on Sun - this provides a level of reliability and quality that will help to establish our solution as credible and viable for the long term." Fossen comments.
DAAS.com has begun the process of migrating its European data centre to Sun hardware and the first deployments of its DAAS.com platform to external service provider partners is due to commence imid March based on Sun hardware.
"The Sun Platform is an important element to DAAS.com and is the heart of the provisioning and management system," explains Fossen, "Where we have built added functionality is in how to implement the theory and toolset into a real data centre environment that requires 100% availability, low management overheads and scalability - this is not an easy process but from day one, our partners will launch with a real world solution and not a 'beta' product."
Using the DAAS.com interface, service providers allow end clients to buy capacity of three basic commodities: compute power, storage and connectivity. Alongside these "raw" materials, are a selection of pre-built services or soft appliances such as firewalls, network management services, VoIP servers, QoS engines, load balancers and a growing number of third party add-ons.
Using a browser based "canvas" application either the service provider or end user can create diagrams of how they want the different raw materials to be defined and linked together which the service engine can build instantly or, with help from technicians at the data centre, within the hour.
DAAS.com uses Intel architecture to provision Windows, Linux and Sun Solaris servers with the built-in Xen and Virtual Box hypervisors. It also includes integrated KVM technology to streamline the installation and configurations of applications and operating systems. There are no restrictions on the type of applications installed within DAAS.com and each server can be assigned both primary and secondary storage plus a range of add on features such as replication and recovery services.
At the network layer, DAAS.com users can create and implement virtual firewalls, encryption devices, network bandwidth and quality of service schemes; with complete control over internal IP addresses and signaling. All private data centre structures can scale as required, with DAAS.com providing 24/7 hardware maintenance and support.
Service providers using DAAS.com will be charged a monthly fixed fee based on the size of the infrastructure they have either built within their own private datacenter or hosted within the A-Server's datacenter.
Detailed pricing on either full or half rack DAAS.com on/offsite installations utilising Sun hardware is available to service providers on request. DAAS.com also has remote test accounts available to qualifying service provider partners for evaluation purposes. For more information, please visit www.DAAS.com
"Earlier today, Sun announced its strategy and roadmap for its public cloud computing service. With cloud computing, IT is shifting towards a whole new computing model and Sun aims to be a thought leader and provider of technologies, products and services for open clouds. Sun has a proven track record fostering communities of partners and is creating a robust community supporting cloud computing - including cloud management solution providers, SaaS providers, PaaS providers, Service Providers and cloud consulting companies. We're very pleased to have taken these first steps with A-Server as a cloud partner and are looking forward to building out the relationship towards the future.", comments Paul De Decker, Managing Director of Sun Belgium & Luxembourg.
