Infrastructure-as-a-Service hosting provider OnApp extends the scope of its IaaS platform beyond public and private cloud to include dedicated servers. The new version of OnApp’s IaaS platform (v3.1), aimed at managed hosting providers and telcos, combines cloud automation with the performance of dedicated hardware.
OnApp now brings cloud, dedicated servers, VPS, a global CDN, DNS, storage, load balancers, autoscaling, templates and other IaaS capabilities together in one turnkey platform. With OnApp, managed hosting providers and telcos can make more efficient use of their infrastructure as a single pool of resource that can be provisioned at will, to suit a wide range of customer workloads.
The new version of OnApp (v3.1) is available as a free upgrade for existing customers. The company behind the IaaS platform was launched in July 2010 and has more than 120 staff across the EU, U.S. and Asia-Pacific.
New features in the OnApp platform include:
Smart servers – a new type of dedicated server that combines the performance and security of dedicated hardware with the automated provisioning, scaling and failover of a cloud server. Managed hosting providers and telcos (and their customers) can create Smart Servers through the OnApp control panel in just the same way they create cloud servers. Smart servers use a thin KVM virtualization layer with hardware pass-through to provide this combination of cloud automation and dedicated server performance.
Bare metal servers – which OnApp can provision automatically, on-demand. This saves manual configuration time for service providers and gives their customers more options for applications that demand 100% of the hardware available, or that don’t suit virtualization.
Recipes – a new way to automate and manage workflows for servers and apps with OnApp, making it easy for service providers to tailor services to the needs of their customers. Recipes can be used to tweak a configuration, prepare a server for a new customer, deploy custom OS/app templates without development, install apps and patches, and enable a full SaaS or PaaS environment. Recipes can be created easily using standard languages and shells such as Perl, Bash and PowerShell.
Blueprints – a new feature for VMware virtual server management in OnApp. A blueprint is a way to deploy a complete distributed application with a single click. For example, a web server, application server or database server. Blueprints are created from VMware vApps images running on ESXi hypervisors in vCenter. By combining those core applications with operating system, network and firewall configuration settings, OnApp enables service providers to deploy and redeploy ready-to-run application stacks for their customers.
Other new features in the OnApp IaaS platform include location groups, which allow managed hosting providers and telcos to manage CDN edge servers in multiple locations through one control panel; new failover algorithms; new tools for billing with template and bucket zones; a new HTML5-based console; and more control of overcommits with a new resource releasing system.
OnApp has also released a new control panel client for Android devices, which is available free from the Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onapp.onappdroid
