FlexiScale is a utility computing

Utility computing

Utility computing is the packaging of computing resources, such as computation, storage and services, as a metered service similar to a traditional public utility...

 platform launched by XCalibre Communications in the summer of 2007, and subsequently acquired by Flexiant. Launched shortly after Amazon's EC2 service

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud is a central part of Amazon.com's cloud computing platform, Amazon Web Services . EC2 allows users to rent virtual computers on which to run their own computer applications...

, it was Europe's first and the world's second cloud computing

Cloud computing

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....

 platform. Users are able to create, start, and stop servers

Server (computing)

In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...

 as they require allowing rapid deployment where needed. Both Windows and Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

 are supported on the FlexiScale platform.

FlexiScale uses the open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 Xen

Xen

Xen is a virtual-machine monitor providing services that allow multiple computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware concurrently....

 hypervisor

Hypervisor

In computing, a hypervisor, also called virtual machine manager , is one of many hardware virtualization techniques that allow multiple operating systems, termed guests, to run concurrently on a host computer. It is so named because it is conceptually one level higher than a supervisory program...

. Backend storage comes from a highly redundant SAN

Storage area network

A storage area network is a dedicated network that provides access to consolidated, block level data storage. SANs are primarily used to make storage devices, such as disk arrays, tape libraries, and optical jukeboxes, accessible to servers so that the devices appear like locally attached devices...

, although the level of redundancy was called into question in August 2008, with more than 2 days of downtime resulting from an engineer mistake. The storage system previously consisted of a dual head NetApp storage array

NetApp filer

In computer storage, NetApp filer, known also as NetApp Fabric-Attached Storage , or NetApp's network attached storage device are NetApp's offering in the area of Storage Systems. A FAS functions in an enterprise-class Storage area network as well as a networked storage appliance...

 with the disk shelves connected to both heads. This was replaced with the launch of FlexiScale 2.0 in June 2010 with an "Amber Road" based storage solution from Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

.

There have been a few revisions of the FlexiScale platform, from publicly available information the first version was based around the Virtual Iron

Virtual Iron

Virtual Iron Software, was located in Lowell, Massachusetts, sold proprietary software for virtualization and management of a virtual infrastructure...

 VM

Virtual machine

A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". Modern virtual machines are implemented with either software emulation or hardware virtualization or both together.-VM Definitions:A virtual machine is a software...

management software. The second revision (called FlexiScale v1.5) of the platform was based on a in-house developed VM control system, now known as Extility. The most recent release (called FlexiScale v2.0) contributed an extensively revised User Interface.

External links

• FlexiScale main website
• Flexiant main website