Category Archives: OVH

OVH claims integration of TimeSeries PaaS with Sigfox IoT cloud

France-based ISP turned cloud operator OVH has announced that its TimeSeries platform service is now integrated with the IoT simcloud service provided by IoT specialist Sigfox.

The fine tuning of the two services was announced at the CES 2016 show in Las Vegas, where the two service providers demonstrated showed how the OVH TimeSeries platform as a service (PaaS) can analyse and act on data being fed in from 7,000 sensors connected to the Sigfox IoT.

OVH claimed that machine-learning algorithms within the TimeSeries service can identify patterns and automatically trigger actions in response to the perceived situation. Having started as an ISP in Roubaix, France OVH has evolved to become a cloud service provider in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Finland.

In November BCN reported how it has launched a public cloud service in the UK with customisable security as protection against cyber attacks becomes a major selling point alongside open systems mobility. It recently expanded its offering into the US and Canada. It currently has 220,000 servers in 17 data centres but claims it will have opened 12 new data centres by 2018.

The new integration means that now companies can use OVH’s PaaS TimeSeries application programming interfaces to retrieve data. This frees companies from having to build and manage their own databases, it claims.

The integration and demo at CES will help companies to understand the entire value chain of the Internet of Things, according to OVH CEO Laurent Allard. “A turn-key system for storing and managing data and hosting business applications makes it much simpler, quicker and cheaper to get running with the IoT,” said Allard.

In other news, Sigfox has also announced a pilot programme with the French postal service company La Poste. The two companies are collaborating to invent a new of online postal.

The Domino programme aims to automate the ordering of parcel pickup and delivery via Sigfox’s IoT network. A regional rollout will start in the first half of 2016.

OVH promises undeniable public cloud service in the UK

cloud exchangeEuropean hosting giant OVH has launched a public cloud service in the UK with customisable security as protection against cyber attacks becomes a major selling point alongside open systems mobility.

The service is aimed at developers, system administrators and DevOps, and promises triple data replication, hosting in European data centres and a ‘five nines’ service level agreement (SLA). The OVH Public Cloud is based on OpenStack which, says OVH, will make integrating applications, migrating to the Cloud and moving between cloud providers easier for system builders who want to keep their options open. For this reason, it will also monthly and hourly payment mechanisms so clients aren’t forced to over commit resources. Those that can make monthly payments will get a 50% discount however.

The two main offerings will be Public Cloud Instances and Public Cloud Storage.

Public Cloud Instances provides a choice between two types of virtual machines. RAM instances (starting at £25 a month) are designed for memory-hungry apps such as software as a service (SaaS), multimedia creation and managing large databases. Cloud CPU instances, at £21/month, are designed for managing processing-heavy tasks such as data analytics, computer simulations and managing peak server loads.

The Public Cloud Storage service offers high-availability object storage, to save software developers from the complications involved in setting up network file system or file transfer protocols. Classic and high-speed storage options are also available.

All the Public Cloud packages have automatic, unlimited distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection against all types and lengths of attacks, with detection and auto-mitigation and a back up service of triple data replication. All services will have access to OVH’s global fibre optic network OVH Net.

“We want UK businesses to adopt the cloud with confidence,” said Hiren Parekh, director of sales and marketing at OVH UK. “Our aim is to give users the freedom and flexibility they need as their businesses evolve.”

OVH adds ARM to public cloud

OVH has launched an ARM-based public cloud service just 8 months after going to market with a Power8-based cloud platform

OVH has launched an ARM-based public cloud service just 8 months after going to market with a Power8-based cloud platform

French cloud and hosting provider OVH said this week it will add Cavium ARM-based processors to its public cloud platform by the end of next month. The move comes just 8 months after the company added the Power8 architecture to its cloud arsenal.

The company said it will add Cavium’s flagship 48 core 64-bit ARMv8-A ThunderX workload-optimized processor to its RunAbove public cloud service cloud service.

“This deployment is an example of OVH.Com’s leadership in delivering latest industry leading technologies to our customers,” said Miroslaw Klaba, vice president of research & development at OVH.

“With RunAbove ThunderX based instances, we can offer our users breakthrough performance at the lowest cost while optimizing the infrastructure for targeted compute and storage workloads delivering best in class TCO and user experience.”

OVH, which serves 700,000 customers from 17 datacentres globally, said it wanted to offer a more diversified technology stack and cater to growing demand for cloud-based high performance compute workloads, and drop the cost per VM.

“Cloud service operators are looking to gain the benefits and flexibility of end to end virtualization while managing dynamically changing workloads and massive data requirements,” said Rishi Chugh, director marketing at Cavium. “ ThunderX based RunAbove instances provide exceptional processing performance and flexibility by integrating a tremendous amount of  IO along with targeted workload accelerators for compute, security, networking and storage at the lowest cost per VM for RunAbove – into a power, space and cost-optimized form factor.”

OVH is among just a handful of cloud service providers offering a variety of cloud compute platforms beyond x86. Late last year the company launched a cloud service based on IBM’s Power8 processor architecture, an open source architecture tailored specifically for big data applications, and OpenStack.

But while cloud compute is becoming more heterogeneous there are still far fewer workloads being created natively for ARM and Power8, which are both quite young, than x86, so it will likely take some time for asset utilisation (and the TCO) rates to catch up with where x86 servers are today.