Hosting Industry Analysts Teir1 Research Featured Fuscan Linux Cloud

Feb 17, 2010

"Cloud enabler SingleOS lands first hosting partner, targets others", this is the title of a presentational article written by Mr. Philbert Shih and distributed to the customers of the Tier1 daily news release.

"Hosters continue to build cloud infrastructure service offerings, and there are increasingly more vendors popping up that are trying to help with those efforts. Tier1 Research and our parent company, The 451 Group, have come into contact with many of these vendors in our research", says Tier1 Research.

"SingleOS is basically a cloud infrastructure-enabling technology. It is built on the Red Hat Cluster Suite with a kernel-based VM virtualization layer. On top of this, there is an automation piece – named Fuscan – that manages the cloud infrastructure through a control panel interface and enables pay-per-use billing", explains the industry analysts.

The Tier1 REsearch also says that "another layer of technology makes use of Virtuozzo containers, enabling service providers to run virtual environments on top of the redundant, high-availability architecture".

According to the analysts the SingleOS technology "is designed for service providers and enables them to build a cloud platform that is similar in concept to something like Rackspace's Cloud Sites, with automated redundancy".

"The company claims the platform also seamlessly scales, and this would be a capability that could give it a chance to draw some attention in the marketplace. The technology will be ideal for high-traffic websites and content publishers. The platform runs on Linux and does not support Windows", wrote Philbert Shih.

He adds that SingleOS, with close ties to the hosting sector, is looking to license this technology to other hosters. "The platform currently supports the cPanel control panel, which provides a familiar interface for both hosters and customers".

Tier1 Research also adds that the first licensee is Cloud.bg. The cloud service is being hosted at an Interoute facility in Bulgaria, and recently passed a 45-day beta test. Mr. Shih also says that the licensing fees for the use of Linux Cloud "are charged on a per-server basis – both annually and monthly".

T1R quick take

Shared and dedicated hosters continue to look at how they can get into the cloud, and SingleOS is another potential option. It is a developing market, but one that is quickly becoming crowded as both vendors and hosters reselling their clouds compete for this opportunity. In the bigger picture, the key impact is that there continues to be growing demand and need for infrastructure that is more robust, scalable, redundant and flexible than traditional shared or dedicated hosting.

This translates into more growth for the VPS, virtual servers and cloud segments. Hosters need to get into this game or risk not being able to serve a growing part of the market, and just as importantly, not being able grow with customers as their needs change.