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Elastic Server

CohesiveFT Adds Ubuntu 9.04 SE and Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 to its Elastic Server Platform

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CohesiveFT today announced the addition of both Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition (Jaunty Jackalope) and Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 (Lenny) operating systems to its Elastic Server platform, the company’s web-based factory for real-time virtual and cloud server assembly. The Elastic Server platform lets users assemble custom virtual and cloud servers using a point-and-click, self-service interface. The addition of the most recent stable versions of Ubuntu and Debian as operating system options gives users the ability to assemble and deploy their custom Ubuntu or Debian Elastic Servers to numerous virtual and cloud environments including Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).

Ubuntu is a widely popular operating system distributed freely by Canonical based on GNU/Linux. Ubuntu is available under the GNU/GPL but is commercially supported by Canonical. Debian is also an extremely popular operating system based on GNU/Linux. Debian is not supported by a commercial enterprise but by an independent decentralized organization of developers.

The Elastic Server platform is a complement to virtualization and cloud offerings. Users assemble custom servers by choosing from a library of popular components. Once assembled, these custom application stacks can be configured to a variety of virtualization and cloud-ready formats, downloaded and deployed in real-time. There are over three thousand users of the service who have assembled more than seven thousand Elastic Server images for public and private use. The addition of Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope and Debian Lenny operating systems highlights CohesiveFT’s platform momentum following recently introduced support for Eucalyptus, Fedora Core 10, ElasticHosts, and KVM.

CohesiveFT Adds KVM Format To Its Automated Elastic Server Platform

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CohesiveFT today announced support to automate the deployment of Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) servers via the Elastic Server web-based factory. Elastic Server is an automated “factory” that allows IT professionals to assemble, deploy, and manage virtual servers using a simple point-and-click interface. Beginning today, customers can assemble custom servers for deployment to the Kernel Virtual Machine format.

KVM is a Linux kernel virtualization infrastructure licensed under the GNU GPL.  It provides a mechanism for splitting a single physical computer into multiple virtual machines.  KVM’s approach differs from other virtualization formats in that it requires no patching of the kernel and takes advantage of performance improvements available on hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V).

The Elastic Server platform is a complement to virtualization and cloud offerings. Users assemble custom servers by choosing from a library of popular components. Once assembled, these custom application stacks can be configured to a variety of virtualization and cloud-ready formats, downloaded and deployed in real-time. Completed server stacks can be distributed through the Elastic Server platform. There are more than two thousand community users contributing nearly five thousand Elastic Servers to the market. The addition of KVM follows CohesiveFT’s recent addition of Virtual Iron, support for Amazon EC2 in Europe, the Ubuntu operating system, and the industry’s first commercial cloud security solution, VPN-Cubed.

CohesiveFT Elastic Server Now Supports Virtual Iron

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Virtual Iron is now available as a download option for CohesiveFT‘s Elastic Servers.

CohesiveFT functions as an automated “factory” that allows IT professionals to assemble, deploy, and manage virtual servers (i.e., virtual appliances) using a simple point-and-click interface.

More information is available both at the CohesiveFT blog and the Virtual Iron blog.

“CohesiveFT has created a compelling platform that reduces the complexity of creating production-ready virtual servers comprised of multi-sourced components,” said Chris Barclay, director of product management at Virtual Iron. “Now, with the addition of Virtual Iron within Elastic Server, our customers can easily take advantage of existing Elastic Servers or create their own custom servers. CohesiveFT’s create once, run anywhere platform simplifies deployments and gives customers choice of virtualization vendor. This is yet another way that Virtual Iron customers can do more with less.”

CohesiveFT Updates Elastic Server Manager, Includes Open API

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CohesiveFT has announced an update to its Elastic Server Manager service, a lightweight administration and monitoring tool that provides a consolidated view of virtual server-related activities such as logs, configurations, administrator permissions, and the ability to start and stop services. The new release includes an open API for developers who want to connect additional web service-enabled programs to the management features that are automatically built-in to every Elastic Server at time of assembly.

The new Elastic Server Manager API is accessible via SOAP and REST. Utilizing Elastic Server rubberbands, small software components that connect all or part of an Elastic Server to monitoring systems or other enterprise frameworks supporting activities like license or inventory management, organizations can connect their own services to Elastic Server Manager, consolidating control of their application components. In addition to a newly redesigned interface, as well as the open API, the Elastic Server Manager uses the MindTerm secure remote access client for SSH access to the user’s Elastic Server. The Elastic Server Manager tool is free for account holders.

The Elastic Server platform lets users assemble custom servers by choosing components from a library of popular software stacks. Once assembled, these custom application stacks can be configured to a variety of virtualization and cloud-ready formats, downloaded and deployed in real-time. The Elastic Server platform features a dashboard that highlights the most popular user-selected components as well as an overall view of community activity. Users can also distribute their finished servers through the Elastic Server platform. There are currently more than a thousand community users contributing nearly three thousand Elastic Servers to the market.

Cohesive Flexible Technologies

CohesiveFT Adds Elastic Server Support for Amazon EC2

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Tomorrow, CohesiveFT, makers of the Elastic Server platform, will announce support for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) large, extra-large and high-CPU instances.

This is an expansion beyond the company’s existing support for standard instances on Amazon EC2’s 32-bit platform. Developers interested in defining software components for real-time deployment to Amazon EC2 can use the Elastic Server platform to build, test and deploy their Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) to a variety of virtualization and cloud-ready formats.

The Elastic Server platform lets users choose their components from a library of popular software stacks. The platform also allows any individual, team or company to import their software offerings, a crowd-sourced practice that ensures the library continually reflects evolving market preferences. Once assembled, these custom application stacks can be configured to a variety of virtualization and cloud-ready formats, downloaded and deployed in real-time. Support for the full spectrum of Amazon EC2 formats follows the company’s recent support for the Flexiscale cloud environment, the Skytap Virtual Lab, as well as its ongoing support for the VMware, Parallels, and Xen formats.

The Elastic Server platform features a dashboard that highlights the most popular user-selected components as well as an overall view of community activity. Users can also distribute their finished servers through the Elastic Server platform. There are currently more than a thousand community users contributing nearly three thousand Elastic Servers to the market.

Cohesive Flexible Technologies

CohesiveFT And FlexiScale Partner Up For On-demand Cloud Computing

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CohesiveFT, providers of the Elastic Server Platform, an on-demand service for dynamic assembly and deployment of virtual machines, and FlexiScale, a provider of on-demand Cloud computing, today announced a technology partnership to enable deployment of CohesiveFT’s Elastic Servers to FlexiScale’s Cloud.

FlexiScale

CohesiveFT

The integration of technologies from CohesiveFT and FlexiScale aim to enable true on-demand application stack assembly and deployment on a pay-as-you-go Cloud. This partnership will also allow ISVs, application developers and QA teams to dramatically increase their productivity throughout the development lifecycle. These teams will not be dependent on resource constrained operations departments to provision development and testing  environments and will be able to change their application stack definitions with the click of a mouse.

Initially, Elastic Server-branded virtual machines will be available from FlexiScale’s Control Panel as templates built in a Xen virtual format for deployment into Virtual Dedicated Servers (VDS) in FlexiScale’s Cloud. The Elastic Server templates will feature application stacks as prebuilt virtual machine images of popular components . Users will have access to these custom images on demand, eliminating the typical administrative overhead of assembling virtual machine images “by hand”.

FlexiScale’s and CohesiveFT’s collaboration intends to enable full dynamic connectivity between the Elastic Server platform and FlexiScale’s Cloud in the near future.