Is Joyent Inching Towards Giant Clouds?
Joyent is a provider of high-end cloud infrastructure for web and mobile apps. They pride themselves on the fact that they offer the only solution that is specifically built to power applications in real-time. Though they are still a relatively unknown provider, their latest version of their cloud management platform, called SmartDataCenter 7, is a distinct step towards challenging private-cloud solution providers like Microsoft, VMware and OpenStack. The platform was originally tried for public cloud service providers, but it didn’t gain traction. Therefore, SmartDataCenter 7 is specially designed to be able to support both public and private clouds.
Bryan Cantrill, Joyent’s Chief Technology Officer said, “Despite all the hype, private cloud hasn’t meaningfully made its way into the data center because the options are limited. Operators have to choose between a kit cloud that requires the team to spend months researching every decision before they see a result, or legacy enterprise software that views ‘cloud’ as a mere re-branding opportunity.”
This new platform builds on the lesksons Joyent has learnt previously after building its public cloud. “We have a very opinionated stack because it reflects our experiences about operating a public cloud,” he told InfoWorld in an interview last week. “We operate a public cloud, we have our own software stack, and we have a huge opening for an on-premises stack that works and reflects the wisdom of running a private cloud…. Folks developing OpenStack have not actually put their own butts on the line by operating an OpenStack-based public cloud.”
Cantrill is extremely proud of Joyents newest product, he said, “SmartDataCenter 7 is a complete product, and was designed from the ground up to provide the scalable, elastic, service-oriented infrastructure that today’s developers have come to expect. Its architecture reflects our own experiences running the Joyent public cloud, and our customers find that it is refreshingly easy to install and operate within the enterprise.”
SmartDataCenter 7 was designed with four areas of focus that they hope will put them in the league of the competition. These are all centered on the ease for: deployment, operation, scalability, and upgradability, at minimal inconvenience to the users.
This is also exciting news for those Joyent users who experienced an outage last month that had been attributed to an administrators “Fat finger”.
