News

The European Union (EU) has selected a revolutionary cloud platform developed by Flexiant, the UK leader in cloud computing, as a test bed for a seven million euro pan-European technology project. The project, code-named Optimis, results from a highly competitive selection process which brings together Europe’s leading experts in cloud computing.  The consortium of industrial and academic partners, including ATOS Origin, SAP and British Telecom, will create the software tools needed to run the next generation of cloud platforms.

Optimis was conceived to provide organisations with the capability of working beyond the inherent limitations of local cloud capacity by allowing workloads to be moved between clouds, whether public or private. Optimis is conducted under the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) for research and technological development. FP7 bundles together all research-related EU initiatives and plays a crucial role in achieving the goals of growth, competitiveness and employment.

Flexiant developed Europe’s first cloud computing platform, FlexiScale and is one of only three independent public cloud providers in Europe and five worldwide. Flexiant’s ground breaking technology, Extility, allows service providers and data centre operators to deliver a cloud computing service to their own customers.  Flexiant will use its Extility technology to provide a robust proving ground for the EU project, demonstrating that the Optimis tool set is able to run in a real public or private cloud environment.

Cloud computing allows businesses to lease computing power as and when they need it, rather than having to buy expensive equipment.  Businesses use the internet to access computing resource from hosting providers who provide a platform to collect, store and process data. The net effect is to drive down operating and capital expenditure while significantly reducing the carbon footprint of each transaction and providing infinite scalability.

Alex Bligh, Flexiant’s CEO says:  “The evolution of cloud computing is moving at breakneck speed and we are delighted our cloud platform is being used to help develop the tools needed for a new generation of cloud platforms.  It is a privilege to work with the EU at this level beside Europe’s information technology leaders.”

Flexiant, the cloud software and services company, announced today it is to offer CohesiveFT’s cloud overlay, VPN-Cubed®, on Extility, enabling secure virtual private clouds.

CohesiveFT’s product suite, developed from decades of enterprise management experience within a cloud-oriented engineering organization, directly addresses the needs of the cloud user. VPN-Cubed will provide Flexiant customers with enhanced networking tools including static addressing, end-to-end communication encapsulation and encryption; as well as the use of normally cloud-prohibited protocols, complete topology security and control in third party infrastructure.

Traditionally launching on the cloud meant giving up control over addressing, topology, protocols and communication to deployments was carried out over the public internet. With VPN-Cubed users take control with static addressing for virtual machines using VPN-Cubed managers as virtual routers or switches, allowing use of popular enterprise protocols for service discovery, and encrypting all communications between virtual machines and the datacentre using the user’s existing extranet device.

Tony Lucas, Founder of Flexiant comments:  “We are delighted to be partnering with CohesiveFT – we have a great deal of respect for this innovative company and the products it has developed. The core technologies of both companies complement each other and combined provide an end to end cloud computing solution that is pragmatic and agile, providing a real opportunity for data centre owners to drive down operating costs and reduce capital expenditure.

“VPN-Cubed offers everything Amazon Web Service’s Virtual Private Cloud (AWS VPC) does but addresses its key weaknesses by offering customer control and market interoperability.  Additionally, VPN-Cubed has been developed from a software rather than hardware perspective meaning more rapid feature development and easier integration with existing systems.”

One of only three independent public cloud providers in Europe and five world wide, Flexiant launched Europe’s first cloud platform, Flexiscale, in 2007. Extility, Flexiant’s licensed virtualised cloud platform, launched earlier this year effectively enabling hosting providers to compete on an even playing field with global market leaders of proprietary rapid provisioning infrastructures.

Extility offers a viable alternative to the cost of developing a cloud computing platform in-house. Licensees generate substantial savings and reduced energy consumption slashes operating costs and shrinks carbon footprints.

All the benefits of real-time server estate management are delivered to end users through Extility’s unique user interface and API.  Users can shape server requirements to meet fluctuations in demand, allowing provisioning and reconfiguration of servers in seconds or minutes rather than hours or days.

Extility’s licensees see substantial capital expenditure savings, streamlining of technical resource and progressive efficiencies in server utilisation, allowing them to achieve business acquisition and profitability targets. This in turn enables them to offer Extility’s unified platform at a realistic cost.

Importantly, in times of challenging margins and market fluidity, sales gestation periods are dramatically shortened through accelerated delivery timescales, so reducing time to invoice and to attaining positive, profitable cash flow.

CohesiveFT has been providing enterprise-grade virtualisation and cloud products since 2006 (Elastic Server® and VPN-Cubed).  Its early participation in the market provides it with the expertise to help enterprises understand the real benefits of cloud computing from assessment through to deployment. Elastic Server, a multicloud virtual server, will also be available soon  on Extility.

for more information: http://www.cohesiveft.com/vpncubed/ Continue reading »

Flexiant has been accredited as “Vanguard” by the influential Info-Tech Research Group in its latest vendor landscape for the category of Cloud Infrastructure. The report sees Flexiant poised to emerge as market leader and competitor to providers like Amazon and Rackspace.

Flexiant is a software and services company with a hosting heritage that stretches back over a decade to 1997. In 2007 it was behind the launch of Europe’s first, the world’s second, cloud platform and today it is one of only three independent public cloud providers in Europe and five world wide.

Robert Karssiens, Sales and Marketing Director comments: “It is enormously gratifying to be recognised by Info-Tech Research Group and we are delighted to see our work acknowledged in this way. The coming months will see us move forward strongly to cement our position in this fast growing marketplace.”

The company licenses its pioneering cloud platform, Extility, to web hosting businesses, data centre operators, and telecoms companies, enabling them to offer cloud computing based services to their customers.

Servers provided using Flexiant’s Extility technology can be provisioned or removed within seconds instead of days or weeks. Spare resources can be shared between servers with a corresponding drastic reduction in capital investment.

The resultant reduced power consumption allows hosting companies to slash their operating costs and reduce their carbon footprint, whilst being able to invoice their customers earlier.

Flexiant’s pay as you go public cloud, Flexiscale 2.0, a complete rebuild of Europe’s first cloud platform is powered by Extility software and allows start-ups and SMEs to grow from one server to one thousand servers in seconds – critical for organisations offering streaming video, social networking or SaaS.

Cited by Info-Tech Research as by far the most affordable solution in the EU, Flexiant is on target to achieve its aim of revolutionising the hosting market by allowing hosting providers to offer highly scalable services at realistic prices.

This prestigious report recognises companies that provide quality products and services to their clients, and helps enterprise IT decision-makers identify a short list of vendors for their IT programs.

Flexiant was one of nine vendors assessed in the recent vendor landscape research note called “Select the Right Cloud Infrastructure Service Partner.”

The Vanguard category exists to identify vendors which provide excellent service to niche markets. They often have specific company strengths, or product innovations, that act as their competitive advantage in unique sectors.

Flexiant is delighted to be sponsoring the Cloud Circle event on July 8th, 2010.

On 8 July 2010, The Cloud Circle will hold its 2nd Forum event to help address the challenges raised by our members.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to join over 200 end-user practitioners from the UK, all pre-qualified to a level of seniority and actively involved in Cloud Computing across all vertical markets.

At The Cloud Circle Forums we focus on the Cloud ‘reality’ through providing practical case studies and real-life examples of Cloud deployments. Invited experts and members are also encouraged to share their Cloud experiences, challenges and success stories in an open and relaxed environment.

The Cloud Circle’s 2nd Forum ‘Getting to grips with the business critical fundamentals of Cloud Computing’ on 8 July 2010 include :

1. Cut through the hype surrounding Cloud Computing to the business reality
2. What does Cloud Computing really mean?
3. Gathering the business critical information you need to be able to evaluate and make informed decisions before moving your business onto the Cloud
4. Manage and mitigate your risk – Discover the realities of Cloud Computing from CXOs who are actually deploying solutions in their organisation
5. Compare and assess the myriad of technologies and solution providers for deploying Cloud-based Services to your organisation and identify the right option for your organisation
6. Ensure you have the building blocks in place for a successful Cloud deployment

More information can be found here:

http://www.thecloudcircle.com/event/2nd-cloud-circle-forum-8-july-2010

Or contact Robert Karssiens

rkarssiens@flexiant.com

Look forward to welcoming you on the day.

Flexiant is proud to announce we are  sponsors of the Hosting & Cloud Transformation Summit by Tier 1 Research.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Hilton London Tower Bridge Hotel
London UK
Do Not Miss The Hosting and Cloud Transformation Summit Europe!

The Hosting and Cloud Transformation Summit – Europe is the premier forum for executives in the hosting, cloud computing, datacenter and Internet infrastructure sectors. Corporate leaders, industry visionaries, senior IT architects and financial professionals come together to learn, network and map out strategies for today’s rapidly changing marketplace. The program at the Summit provides a complete overview of the opportunities and challenges facing the hosting and cloud industries in a power-packed one-day format, covering areas such as hosting and datacenter infrastructure, enabling technology, customer expectations, partnering, and mergers and acquisitions.

We are very proud of our association with Tier 1 Research & the 451 Group and look forward to welcoming you at the Summit.

For more information, please visit

http://www.hostingtransformation.com/eu/2010

or contact Robert Karssiens on

rkarssiens@flexiant.com