ElasticStack delivers cloud with SAN-resilient storage on commodity hardware

Cloud platform provider ElasticStack has refined its software to deliver a cloud platform with resilient storage using the same set of low-cost commodity hardware.

One of only a handful of cloud platform providers that enable businesses to build pay-as-you-go, scalable cloud infrastructure, ElasticStack claims to be the only one to eliminate the need for costly storage area networks (SANs) or dedicated storage clusters without compromising on resilience.

The latest version of ElasticStack uses distributed block storage technology across several physical machines to provide improved storage redundancy and performance, replacing the original peer-to-peer sharing of virtual disk images on a single machine.

"This means that for the first time businesses can make their clouds as resilient as they would be with a SAN, but without the associated costs of separate storage hardware," says Richard Davies, chief executive officer of ElasticStack.

Since launch in 2010, ElasticStack has enabled businesses and service providers to build public and private clouds within weeks, running both the compute and storage infrastructure on a single set of commodity hardware.

By adding distributed block storage technology, users will have the added resilience that if any node goes down, then all the storage is already replicated elsewhere and the cloud will continue running, said Davies.

ElasticStack has also enabled a bigger range of payment, CRM and SMS options and developed a new control panel aimed at making deploying and managing cloud servers easier and faster.

"These new features are designed to help businesses become more economically and operationally efficient," said Davies.

The ElasticStack cloud platform supports sister company ElasticHosts' cloud servers in the UK and US, Manchester hosting company Serverlove and four other public clouds in the North America, Europe, Malaysia and South Africa.