(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Stemming from the need for objective information on competing cloud services, Web Host The Planet (www.theplanet.com) and Web hosting community site Web Hosting Talk (www.webhostingtalk.com) have announced the beta development of a free, online cloud benchmarking tool to help businesses more easily select a cloud provider.
According to The Planet’s announcement late last week, “Bench the Cloud” (www.benchthecloud.com) provides visibility into the performance of cloud or virtualized server platforms, and provides standardized performance feedback and comparisons. The site was co-developed by Web Hosting Talk and The Planet. Web Hosting Talk will own and manage the site, and The Planet will become a charter member of Bench the Cloud’s advisory board.
“One of the many popular discussion topics on Web Hosting Talk is how to accurately compare cloud providers based on a standard set of measurements,” said Kevin Gold, marketing director of Web Hosting Talk’s parent company, iNET Interactive (www.inetinteractive.com). “We hear from our community members that it’s difficult to make informed cloud buying decisions. As active members of Web Hosting Talk and an industry leader, The Planet approached us about co-developing a community-driven benchmarking tool that would bring the transparency the global community is seeking.”
Built on a suite of open-source benchmarking tools, Bench the Cloud measures three key criteria essential to running cloud applications: CPU performance, disk read and disk write speed. Further information about these three performance indices is detailed in an individualized dashboard. Users can sort and filter the public benchmarks according to provider, virtualization status, total RAM and CPU cores. The application can also be used to test non-virtualized machines, and can be downloaded onto any Linux-based machine.
“We contributed real-world feedback into building this industry-first tool with Web Hosting Talk,” The Planet cloud solutions senior product manager Carl Meadows said in a statement. “We’ve seen first-hand from our customers the time spent researching various cloud providers, and the amount of confusion and misinformation that exists in the marketplace. Our goal in participating is to provide additional value to customers by offering a quick, transparent view of the strengths, weaknesses and performance of solutions – a virtual ‘Consumer Reports’ for the cloud. Customers can now objectively compare solutions before purchase, and make their first pick the right one.”
Given that The Planet is active in the cloud space with its Server Cloud and Storage Cloud services, some may be concerned that the results will be skewed toward The Planet. A company representative, however, told the WHIR that iNET Interactive will be doing the site development and management, and that The Planet is completely removed from the benchmarking process.
Web Hosting Talk handed out invitations to participate in a limited closed beta for Bench the Cloud at its booth at HostingCon 2010 last week in Austin, Texas. Those interested can also request an invitation code at www.benchthecloud.com.
