Sensible Cloud launches cloud-efficient software using Java

UK company Sensible Cloud on Tuesday began offering software designed to help companies take greater advantage of the benefits of cloud computing.

Sensible Cloud's Sense is Java-based software that enterprises deploy in their data centers. It lets administrators and business managers set parameters that spur automatic changes in their data centers, resulting in more efficient use of the infrastructure, according to Cloud Sense. The software can be used to manage both private and public clouds.

Caps on public clouds and ability to shift workloads

For instance, a manager can set a daily, monthly or project cap on the cost of using compute power or the number of machines used on a public cloud. Users can determine what happens when a cap is reached. They can shift an internal workload to a public cloud, for instance, or deprovision resources from another application in order to access additional capacity.

The software is designed to help users take advantage of one of the main benefits of cloud computing. "These environments are elastic, but what we're finding is that people are not actually using them particularly elastically," said Eddie Budgen, vice president of product strategy and marketing for Sensible Cloud.

In addition to the Sense software for enterprises, Sensible Cloud plans to offer a hosted version aimed at smaller businesses. The beta offering of the controlmycloud.com service is available Tuesday, with commercial availability scheduled for the end of October.

Infrastructure optimisation

While the Sense software is highly customisable, the service features a few templates that smaller businesses are most likely to appreciate. The templates include bill control and infrastructure optimisation so users can set thresholds and choose from a set of actions when those thresholds are met.

Once a user has set the parameters and desired actions in Sense or the controlmycloud.com service, the adjustments happen automatically, without the user having to monitor the services and make manual changes, Sensible Cloud said.

The products can be used to manage services on Amazon and in the future will work with Microsoft's Azure service as well as OpenStack implementations. Internally, companies can use the products to manage clouds built using VMware, Xen and some older Unix implementations.