OnApp

OnApp Cloud and OnApp CDN software

Developer(s)	OnApp Limited
Initial release	2.0 2010-07-19[1]
Stable release	2.3
Platform	Hypervisors (Xen, KVM)
Type	Private and Public cloud computing
Website	http://www.onapp.com/

OnApp is a company that develops cloud management and CDN software for the hosting industry.

Its OnApp Cloud software enables IaaS^[2] for hosting providers: using OnApp Cloud, a hosting company can create its own cloud infrastructure, presenting heterogeneous server and storage devices as a single pool of resources for their clients to purchase. OnApp has also been described as "Cloud On-Ramp" software^[3].

As well as creating cloud hosting infrastructure, OnApp Cloud software provides functionality for the management of cloud resources, including virtual machines, hypervisors, SANs and networks; end user accounts, including permissions and limits; pricing and billing calculations for cloud resources; and failover between different hypervisors in the cloud.

On 8th August 2011 OnApp launched OnApp CDN^[4][5], a federated CDN that uses spare capacity in OnApp-powered clouds to provide a global CDN platform for hosting companies. OnApp CDN combines software and services from OnApp and Aflexi, which became part of OnApp^[6] on the same date.

Software overview

OnApp Cloud software uses hardware virtualization/paravirtualization methods to enable the deployment of multiple types of cloud hosting infrastructure: public clouds, private clouds, hybrid clouds and VPS clouds. It also allows hosts to offer traditional VPS hosting with local storage. OnApp describes its software as a multi-tenant tool with multi-cloud and multi-hypervisor support, and multi-OS support for virtual machines. The features of OnApp Cloud include^[7]:

• Rapid IaaS enablement: cloud infrastructure can be deployed "within a day or two"^[8]
• Simultaneous hosting of multiple variants of x86 and x64 Windows and Linux virtual machines
• Rapid virtual machine deployment using templates (a template in OnApp is a preconfigured OS image)
• Xen and KVM hypervisor support
• A GUI management interface, used by administrators to manage the cloud, and by customers to order and configure cloud resources
• Automatic hypervisor failover
• Utility (hourly) billing for CPU, RAM, storage, bandwidth, IOPS and IP resources, as well as plan-based billing (e.g. monthly)
• Integration to popular hosting billing software, including HostBill, WHMCS and Ubersmith^[8]
• A detailed permission, limits and user roles engine
• Support for any storage that presents a block device, including RAID, LVM, iSCSI, Fiber and local storage
• Hypervisor, data store and network zones, which can be used to create private clouds and availability zones
• A RESTful xml and JSON API

Version 2.2 of OnApp Cloud was announced on 21st July 2011. Version 2.2. added integrated autoscaling, load balancing, and support for virtual machines based on the FreeBSD operating system.^[9] Version 2.3 was announced on 7th October 2011. It introduced IPv6 support, the ability to migrate virtual disks between SANs, and the integration of OnApp CDN.^[10]

OnApp CDN combines software and services from OnApp and Aflexi, which recently became part of OnApp. It has three main components: the OnApp CDN Stack, which is edge server software that deploys as a virtual appliance managed by an OnApp Controller server; OnApp CDNaaS (CDN as a Service) which is a global DNS redirection service for the OnApp CDN platform; and the OnApp CDN Federation, which is a marketplace where hosting providers can buy CDN bandwidth from Points of Presence around the world, in order to build their CDN, and sell CDN bandwidth to other hosts.

References

1. ^ http://onapp.com/press-releases/article/onapp-launches-version-2.0-of-groundbreaking-cloud-hosting-software/
2. ^ Neovise, IaaS enabling platforms - http://www.neovise.com/node/101>
3. ^ Tier 1 Research/The 451 Group: CloudScape Cloud Codex, January 2011, p25
4. ^ http://onapp.com/press-releases/article/onapp-launches-cdn-platform-for-hosting-providers
5. ^ .net, Content Delivery Networks, November 2011, p128
6. ^ http://onapp.com/press-releases/article/leading-cdn-software-provider-aflexi-joins-the-onapp-family
7. ^ http://onapp.com/press-releases/article/onapp-2.1-extends-leadership-in-cloud-management-software-for-hosts/
8. ^ ^{a b} Web Host Industry Review magazine, October 2010, p30
9. ^ http://onapp.com/press-releases/article/onapp-launches-version-2.2-of-the-leading-cloud-management-software-for-hos/
10. ^ http://onapp.com/changelogs/log/onapp-cloud-2.3/

External links

• Official OnApp website