Bytemark is a server hosting and datacentre provider headquartered in

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

, United Kingdom. It was founded in 2002, and was the first provider of

virtual machines In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization or emulator, emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide the functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve ...

and cloud hosting through

User-mode Linux User-mode Linux (UML) is a virtualization system for the Linux operating system based on an architectural port of the Linux kernel to its own system call interface, which enables multiple virtual Linux kernel-based operating systems (known as gu ...

in 2003. In 2012, the company launched BigV, a public cloud platform designed in-house using

open source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

. In 2013, it moved into a £1.2 million datacentre and headquarters in York. In 2017, their BigV platform was renamed Bytemark Cloud. In September 2018, the company was acquired by iomart Group plc. On 2 February 2023 Bytemark announced that it would cease to support BigV on 30 April 2023.

Environmental and ethical policies

Bytemark's datacentre uses fresh-air cooling, not common in the UK, and was shortlisted for Innovation in Medium Data Center at the DatacenterDynamics Awards EMEA 2013. Each of its servers is built using efficient power supplies as certified by the

80 Plus 80 Plus (trademarked 80 PLUS) is a voluntary certification program launched in 2004, intended to promote efficient energy use in computer power supply units (PSUs). Certification is acquirable for products that have more than 80% energy effi ...

scheme, which requires power supplies to be at least 80% efficient at up to 100% rated load. To reduce the bias found in traditional recruitment processes, the company developed their own anonymous recruitment process in 2015.

Awards

In 2014, Bytemark was named one of the Top 50 Fastest Grown Tech Companies in the North at the Northern Tech Awards with revenue growth of 44%. Financially, the company turned over £2.5 million in 2013. In 2014, this grew to £3 million. In 2015, the company was awarded the

Fair Tax Mark The Fair Tax Mark is an accreditation awarded by the Fair Tax Foundation Limited, a not-for-profit community benefit society, incorporated 18 February 2014, company number IP032308. It was developed developed by a collaboration of tax justice, co ...

Support of open-source projects

Bytemark has a history of contributing to and supporting

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

. They support

LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source office productivity software suite developed by The Document Foundation (TDF). It was created in 2010 as a fork of OpenOffice.org, itself a successor to StarOffice. The suite includes applications ...

through provision of a build server. In 2009, the company became a supporter of

XBMC Kodi (formerly XBMC) is a free and open-source media player and technology convergence software application developed by the Kodi Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium. Kodi is available for multiple operating systems and hardware pl ...

with the same. In 2012, they started supporting

Cyanogenmod CyanogenMod ( ; CM) is a discontinued open-source operating system for mobile devices, based on the Android mobile platform. Developed between 2009 and 2016, it was free and open-source software based on the official releases of Android by Goog ...

with build servers. In 2013, the company contributed hosting services worth £150,000 to the

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

project, having used Debian since the company was founded. The company also supported

OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap (abbreviated OSM) is a free, Open Database License, open geographic database, map database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveying, surveys, trace from Ae ...

with

DNS The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed name service that provides a naming system for computers, services, and other resources on the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various informatio ...

services and servers to support version control, mailing lists and help pages. The company also support projects for social good, including sponsoring servers for

mySociety mySociety is a UK-based registered charity, previously named UK Citizens Online Democracy. It began as a UK-focused organisation with the aim of making online democracy tools for UK citizens. However, those tools were open source, so that th ...

, who operate

FixMyStreet FixMyStreet is a free and open-source software framework by mySociety which enables anyone to run a website for aggregating and reporting street problems, similar to FixMyStreet.com. The United Kingdom FixMyStreet inspired similar sites in other ...

TheyWorkForYou TheyWorkForYou is a parliamentary monitoring website operated by mySociety which aims to make it easier for UK citizens to understand what is going on in Westminster, as well as the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd and the Northern Ireland Assem ...

and

WhatDoTheyKnow WhatDoTheyKnow is a site by mySociety designed to help people in the United Kingdom make Freedom of information in the United Kingdom, Freedom of Information requests. It publishes both the requests and the authorities’ responses online, with ...

References

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External links

Bytemark
Companies based in York Companies established in 2002 Cloud computing providers Cloud platforms Data centers Web hosting