FlexiScale is a
utility computing platform launched by XCalibre Communications in the summer of 2007, and subsequently acquired by Flexiant. Launched shortly after
Amazon's EC2 service, it was Europe's first and the world's second
cloud computing
Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...
platform. Users are able to create, start, and stop
servers as they require allowing rapid deployment where needed. Both
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
are supported on the FlexiScale platform.
FlexiScale uses the
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
Xen
Xen (pronounced ) is a type-1 hypervisor, providing services that allow multiple computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware concurrently. It was
originally developed by the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory an ...
hypervisor. Backend storage comes from a highly redundant
SAN, 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 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, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
.
There have been a few revisions of the FlexiScale platform, from publicly available information the first version was based on the
Virtual Iron
Virtual Iron Software, was located in Lowell, Massachusetts, sold proprietary software for virtualization and management of a virtual infrastructure. Co-founded by Alex Vasilevsky, Virtual Iron figured among the first companies to offer virtualiz ...
VM 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.
blog post
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References
External links
FlexiScale
main website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flexiscale
Web services
Cloud infrastructure