Seed YOUR Eucalyptus Cloud with Elastic Server

With the recent release of Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition comes the technology preview of the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) powered by Eucalyptus. Ubuntu releases are always good, but we are just a little more excited about this one. UEC gives you the Eucalyptus cloud infrastructure right out of the box! Just think how easily you will be able to build and launch your own personal Eucalyptus cloud environment with Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition. Call it what you will; private cloud, internal cloud, on-premise cloud, fog... regardless it's all right at your finger tips.

Got Eucalyptus, Now what?
Elastic Server will get your shiny new Eucalyptus cloud seeded in minutes. Don't worry about becoming an expert in Eucalyptus compatible machine images, leave that to us. Because Eucalyptus is interface-compatible with Amazon's EC2 (the gold standard for cloud computing, see API docs), deploying custom Elastic Servers to your Eucalyptus cloud is as easy as building and deploying to EC2. Just enter your credentials and your endpoint and we handle the rest.

Add YOUR Eucalyptus credentials to the Elastic Server factory and get building! This deployment option will be made available to all Personal and Professional Edition users shortly. In the mean time, Contact us and we'll get you up and running in minutes.

Ubuntu and Eucalyptus a good choice for a private cloud infrastructure?
Yes. Eucalyptus is an open-source software infrastructure built from open source components. Open-source means lots of innovation and Eucalyptus is well-guided by Rich Wolski and the guys at UCSB.

And now it has commercial support. Not only does the Ubuntu (see Canonical) release of this technology preview make it easy to create a Eucalyptus cloud, but it brings some much appreciated commercial support for the Eucalyptus open-source project. With commercial support and an open code base, Eucalyptus adoption is increasing. This will help keep the project going past the end of its current National Science Foundation funding. Commercial support, easy cloud creation, easy cloud guest image creation, and compatibility with Amazon's EC2 interface all point to a perfect start to your private or hybrid cloud solution.

Do you need help building, populating and managing your private Eucalyptus cloud? If so - give us a shout. Between CohesiveFT, Canonical, and the Eucalyptus team - we can give you the best cloudy day of your life.

Koala.

Fedora Elastic Servers Have Arrived

Our goal is to continually expand our component libraries, cloud and virtual deployment targets, and available operating systems. Today Fedora Core 10 joins our other Linux distros in the Elastic Server factory. Choice in today's IT environment is often lost when dealing with certain vendors. It's YOUR software stack, who are we to tell you what works in your DC or cloud? All we are concerned with is making it easier for you to create reliable and secure virtual and cloud servers with speed and quality, you make all of the decisions.

Building a Fedora Elastic Server
To start, bundles (remember software components) available for inclusion in Fedora Elastic Servers will be limited. As we continue to expand our build options to other operating systems and other packaging management utilities we are refining our own meta package management system. We will continue to expand the community and CohesiveFT component libraries available to our stylish Fedora users. Update messaging will be displayed in the top banner section of the Elastic Server factory pages show below.

We are still syncing the assembly portals but in the mean time all foundation technology you need to move your Fedora project forward is available now as Fedora-ready bundles via the Bundle Explorer. Using the Bundle Explorer search tool you can filter your results by OS. Just select Fedora Core 10 from the drop down menu, click 'search,' and select your components from the resulting list.

For more information on how to build an Elastic Server using the Bundle Explorer, check out our Bundle Explorer QuickTip walkthrough video.

I Want More!
Remember in the early stages of Fedora availability, the list of available bundles is limited. We are still completing some work on the new wing of the factory, so as new bundles come online we will add them to the Bundle Explorer and to certain Elastic Server Sites. You can always use the "BYO" (Build Your Own) Upload Feature to add Fedora specific components to the Elastic Server factory. Use the RPM package type option and make sure to mark your package and bundle as Fedora specific. Check out our "BYO" Quick Tip video for a quick walkthrough.

Final Thoughts.
Cambridge was the Red Hat project that went on to form Fedora Core and it was the release name for Fedora Core 1. With Fedora 10, Red Hat went full-circle giving it the nostalgic codename Cambridge. While FC 10 is available on the Elastic Server factory today, we will be working to bring you the upcoming release of FC 11 codenamed Leonidas (see THIS IS FEDORA!).

Stetson.

Elastic Server Factory Update Hightlights 4/2/09

We are constantly updating the Elastic Server Factory and while some of these releases fly under the radar we wanted to highlight some really cool new additions. These features and functions are aimed at making your Elastic Server life even easier. This post will be the first in a series where we will outline and exhibit new features that are not part of major releases.

On to the good stuff!
This release along with some minor housekeeping comes with three new features:

1. You can now make your own components (BYO) from Rubygems. Just upload a .gem file and we'll take care of the rest.


2. It's now easy to substitute a version of a bundle right from the server configuration page, making server rebuilds and remastering easy.


3. You can now mark packages as specific to particular OS'es, and search for them in the bundle explorer.

The above too small for you? Check out a larger pop-up version here.

Boomtown.