SoftLayer chief strategy officer George Karidis responds to the Web Host Industry Review's questions about SoftLayer's new line of cloud services, CloudLayer.
In an email Q&A with the WHIR, SoftLayer chief strategy officer George Karidis discusses the company’s new line of cloud services which include cloud-based storage and content delivery, and how they stand out from competitors.
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — On-demand data center and hosting services provider SoftLayer Technologies (www.softlayer.com) has created CloudLayer, a new line of cloud services including CloudLayer Storage and CloudLayer CDN, providing powerful options for scaling IT resources.
Launched last week, CloudLayer offers customers seamless integration with SoftLayer’s dedicated servers and automated services, and can be controlled through the SoftLayer Customer Portal or an API, offering interoperability and efficiency.
It offers immediate scalability, with the ability to be added in real time to accommodate unexpected, temporary changes in demand. Additionally, it available on “pay as you go” or monthly packages with no long-term commitments.
SoftLayer chief executive officer Lance Crosby said CloudLayer naturally evolved from the company’s services. “It gives customers the IT they need, when they need it, with all of the flexibility and efficiency of on-demand IT resources without any compromise in performance, security, or control,” Crosby said in a statement.
By serving content from a node that is closest to the end user, CloudLayer CDN lets online service providers deliver content to their end users faster and more efficiently using a network of 21 cloud-connected nodes, running advanced software for organizing, storing, and streaming data, not minimizing the distance the data has to travel, but also mitigating network traffic jams and decreasing latency.
CloudLayer CDN is available with Origin Pull or POP Pull delivery strategies, letting customers optimize their costs and end user experience. Additionally, CloudLayer CDN includes: content management and monetization tools to protect copyrighted content; performance-neutral growth to minimize the impact of increased content demand; broader geographic reach to optimize the speed and reliability of content delivery regardless of destination; and support for high-quality content and rich-media.
In an email interview with the WHIR, SoftLayer chief strategy officer George Karidis explains how the CloudLayer family of services is different than so many competitors.
Web Host Industry Review: How much research and preparation has gone into CloudLayer?
George Karidis: SoftLayer’s entry into cloud services has been in planning and development since mid-2008. Our objective was not to simply offer a “me-too” service, but to deliver the same level of reliability, management tools, and flexibility that our customers have come to expect over the last several years. Many of the products that we launched during 2008 were building towards the launch of CloudLayer – projects like Global Load Balancing, StorageLayer and our initial CDN offering were all key parts of our overall cloud strategy. Even our regional expansion during 2008 played into the ability to deliver real-time computing services by bringing those services closer to our customers.
WHIR: How is a CloudLayer CDN different than a regular CDN?
GK: The largest change introduced with CloudLayer CDN is the ability to order the service directly from our website without the need to have other SoftLayer services in place (i.e. dedicated servers). Up until now, our CDN offering had been tied to dedicated services, meaning a customer could not simply order CDN from us while maintaining the web servers in a separate data center. All of our CloudLayer services can be ordered directly from our website as stand-alone offerings. The other significant change is the ability to order a “pay as you go” service – that means no commitment to a certain volume or monthly spend. Based on customer demand, we have also created to sub-products within CloudLayer CDN – Origin Pull and PoP Pull. After offering CDN for the past year, we noticed that the vast majority of customers were relying on Origin Pull and stored content on a server or other infrastructure – not in the CDN directly. So, we created two products – one that is bandwidth only (Origin Pull) and another that offers storage and bandwidth (PoP Pull).
WHIR: How does CloudLayer compare to similar services such as those from Amazon Web Services or Mosso’s Cloud Files?
GK: The greatest difference between our CloudLayer product line and the competition is the ability to fully integrate Computing, CDN, and Storage with all of the other capabilities that SoftLayer offers. All of the other cloud offerings in the market are separate and distinct services and in some cases, even separate companies or business units. CloudLayer is a fully integrated suite of services that can take advantage of products like Global Load Balancing and firewalls while still delivering the usage-based pricing that customers of cloud services demand.
WHIR: What are the differences between SoftLayer’s StorageLayer solution and CloudLayer Storage?
GK: We view CloudLayer Storage and StorageLayer as complimentary offerings or products. StorageLayer is a group of products that cover multiple storage types, including SAN, NAS, and back-up solutions. All of these services are directly related to server infrastructure hosted at SoftLayer. With CloudLayer Storage, a customer can simply buy storage from us without having any servers or additional services. The CloudLayer Storage offering also has a pay as you go model where the traditional set of StorageLayer offerings are all monthly services.
WHIR: Given the legal and technical requirements that have long stood in the way of enterprises’ use of cloud services, what CloudLayer features will appeal to enterprises?
GK: We believe that enterprises have struggled to adopt cloud services for a number of reasons, largely related to security and data privacy. The CloudLayer offering can easily be adapted to create a “private” cloud within our architecture that can be offered to large enterprises that want the flexibility and scalability that a cloud offers, but have regulatory or other concerns that need to be addressed. Examples would include financials and the medical industry. We have been working with customers in both sectors that have asked for a proof of concept related to leveraging all of the SoftLayer architecture to create a cloud environment that satisfies the internal and external policies that govern the companies.
WHIR: Does SoftLayer have any future additions to the CloudLayer family planned?
GK: We are always looking at new products and services that we can bring to market. We are already planning a series of enhancements to all of the CloudLayer offerings that will begin to roll out later in May and throughout the year. And we are starting to plan a for the next generation of SoftLayer products as well. The best answer to this question is… theWHIR will be one of the first to hear when we launch, so keep watching for SoftLayer updates!
