Cloud News: Citrix, CloudStack, Nimbula, Hexagrid

Here’s a roundup of some of this week’s headlines from the cloud computing sector:

Citrix launches XenServer 6.1. Citrix (CTXS) announced the latest version of XenServer, its complete server virtualization platform based on the open-source Xen hypervisor. New features in version 6.1 include direct integration with Apache CloudStack and Citrix CloudPlatform, a new Storage XenMotion technology to allow moving running virtual machines without the need or shared storage, and a XenServer Conversion Manager to automate batch conversions of VMware virtual machines to XenServer virtual machines. "Citrix has gained a significant foothold in the cloud computing space with XenServer and more recently Citrix CloudPlatform (powered by Apache CloudStack)," said Peder Ulander, Vice President of product marketing, Cloud Platforms Group at Citrix. "XenServer is already the most widely deployed virtualization platform in large public clouds today. The tight integration between XenServer and CloudPlatform demonstrated in XenServer 6.1 will provide a new level of manageability and security that will provide a strategic advantage for our cloud customers."

Nimbula selected by Yandex. Nimbula announced that Yandex is using Nimbula Director for its private cloud infrastructure. Russia-based Yandex is one of three companies worldwide that has an international web index database. Shortening its development cycle was a major driver for Yandex and using Nimbula Director helped to to improve their Infrastructure-as-a-Service private cloud, and leverage a developer-friendly hardware architecture. "Quality assurance is a big part of our improvements, that's why we need a reliable, flexible and easy to maintain solution to support our development process,” said Vlad Seliverstov, Chief of Advertising Services Operation at Yandex. "We have an in-house private cloud system and we have tried a few open source and proprietary solutions to improve our Infrastructure-as-aService environment. Nimbula Director meets all our requirements and lets us dramatically cut the time for testing and deployment."

Hexagrid launches Unovie cloud. IT infrastructure provider Hexagrid launched Unovie versions of its award-winning Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform, developed to simplify and streamline service provider deployment of private cloud solutions for small to medium (SMEs) and distributed enterprises. Unovie software, packaged with Hexagrid-certified hardware sets, streamlines private cloud delivery with highly-tuned modules to provide the IaaS capabilities that small and mid-sized businesses and distributed enterprises want in an on-premise or hosted-private cloud. “The Unovie platform delivers a bold value proposition for enterprise cloud deployments and I’m genuinely excited about the clarity that it brings to the cloud discussion,” says Suresh Mandava, CEO of Hexagrid. “As the market continues to evolve, Unovie fills a specific need for cost-effective, all-inclusive private clouds that create a simple and repeatable business-ready solution. With Unovie, our partners access new revenue streams with turnkey hosted or on-premise private clouds as well as new opportunities to deliver remotely managed and eventually cloud-bursting services.”