Elastra Cloud Server Extends SaaS

San Francisco startup Elastra seeks to "unlock the value of the cloud" with a new service that lets companies quickly create database applications on utility computing platforms like Amazon Web Services (AMZN). The company says its Elastra Cloud Server offers a simpler way to deploy applications on Amazon's infrastructure, providing customers with two markup languages that can be used to create database-driven services. The Cloud Server uses a metered, pay-per-use software pricing model, and will be available in April.

Elastra is designed to make could cloud computing more accessible for small to medium-sized businesses that want to leverage Amazon's platform but lack the in-house expertise to easily build database applications atop EC2 and S3. The company says the Cloud Server can provide "infinitely scalable, on-demand RDBMS (relational database management software) technology." Dana Gardner at ZDNet said Elastra can provide onramps to cloud computing capabilities:

"We wanted to pick up where utility computing left off