Around 2005, Amazon took the lead in the cloud computing industry with its S3 and EC2 services. Google (AppEngine) and Salesforce (Force.com) have also become prominent players in the sector. The ecosystem has segmented into Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS), Platform as a Service (PAAS) and Software as a Service (SAAS). Cloud computing is experiencing a growing popularity across all industry segments, with a lot of activity within the top layer. Incubaid has identified many opportunities for innovation in the IAAS layer.
In spite of all the innovation in the cloud over the past few years, the IAAS layer still faces a lot of issues especially around its Green credentials:
Power consumption is still at unacceptably high levels; in the space of 3 years, the cost of power has jumped to 50% of hardware costs.
There are still too many manual processes; we have still not reached the full automated solution as promised by the cloud paradigm.
Current storage technologies fail to offer low cost, always online, and unbreakable system and are not adequate for cloud storage requirements
The levels of complexity in the datacenter has not been reduced; most cloud platforms do nothing more than virtualise servers.
Incubaid is technology incubator that helps our members grow into successful companies and is also the developer of the first Green Cloud data center initiative to help companies to create technology for the cloud.
Incubaid is run by the data center experts that has helped build over a dozen large-scale data centers during the past two decades. The team has also developed cloud software companies, datacenter software as well as high-end and mid market hosting companies. From that experience, we learnt that significant improvements for a cloud solution can only be achieved when the entire cloud ecosystem is looked at including Datacenter, Power Management, Physical infrastructure, Management Platform, User Interfaces.
There are 2 main approaches followed by organisations building clouds.
Organisations following a best of breed approach try to mix and match numerous products to create a cloud. However, this can be a complex and expensive approach. These clouds tend to be poorly integrated and experience difficulty in scaling. Many big vendors try to use products built for the enterprise world in the cloud world which often results in failure.
The disruptive approach builds a cloud from the ground up. Only a few players like Google, Amazon and Facebook are focused in this area but these clouds are not generic and often used for specific use cases.
Over the years, we have proven that there is a way to build a cloud that is more reliable and cost effective. To achieve this aim, Incubaid created companies that focus in one specific domain of the cloud stack. Each company challenges the best of breed philosophy by creating new technology concepts that replace existing technologies and also solve many of the obstacles inherent in building infrastructure for the cloud. Our cloud concept is built from the ground up and during this process we have had to re-invent a lot. We started working on this process around 15 years ago at a time before the rise of cloud hype. The companies that work together within Incubaid on achieving the GUCI goals are:
Amplidata: Amplidata created a multi Petabyte scalable cloud storage system that is more reliable and energy efficient than legacy solutions. The TCO of Amplidata's storage system is at least 75% better than any of its nearest competitors.
Awingu: Awingu enables large scale datacenters & telco’s to build their own PAAS & IAAS offerings. The Awingu IAAS solution brings high performant, hypervisor neutral and ultra scalable infrastucture: virtual servers, virtual desktops, virtual networking. It is compatible with market leaders like Amazon, meaning that when an application or server is made compatible with Amazon AWS EC2 or S3, it can be used immediately in the Awingu IAAS product.
Dacentec: An expert in building the greenest and most effective cloud datacenters. Dacentec implements a combination of new datacenter construction techniques completes with Incubaid group innovations to deliver unseen efficiency and reliability to reduce the carbon footprint by 75% compared to legacy Datacenters designs. Dacentec datacenters are fully automated and the entire infrastructure can be controlled remotely, which makes it ideal for cloud computing and archive storage.
Mobicage: Offer a much cheaper way to enables a real time, bidrectional and interactive spam free relation channel between services of companies and their customers
[Platerack]: Production of fully new designed high density datacenter racks for cloud datacenters. Platerack sells cloud racks in large volumes to datacenters providers.
Racktivity: Racktivity is emPOWERing the Datacenter with Intelligent Power Distribution and environmental monitoring within the rack using innovative Power Quality capabilities. Racktivity makes datacenters more efficient and greener with a comprehensive EnergyCloud™ solution.
