DreamHost Brings OpenStack to Startups with DreamCompute

DreamHost, a provider of Web hosting services, has launched a new offering to help small businesses leverage the latest innovations in open source cloud technologies to grow their businesses.

The company today unveiled DreamCompute, an OpenStack-powered infrastructure-as-a-service platform targeted at entrepreneurs and budding cloud developers. According to DreamHost, the new service was built to help small businesses and startups, particularly those that want to develop cloud apps, follow the same trajectory as the blazing hot OpenStack cloud computing platform.

OpenStack for Startups

DreamHost CEO Simon Anderson said in a company statement, “DreamCompute has been engineered from the operating system up to deliver the next-generation cloud compute service that developers are craving.”

He adds that the combination of his company’s own contributions to the effort represents a shift in how fledgling firms engage with cloud-based IT. They also help DreamHost expand beyond its Web hosting, domain registration and online storage roots, allowing the company to position itself as a full cloud-services provider.

“With OpenStack virtual machine management, reliable and resilient Ceph block storage, and software-defined networking that truly isolate each instance in the infrastructure, DreamCompute sets a new standard for compute-as-a-service,” says Anderson.

OpenStack began as a cloud computing project at NASA that quickly attracted Rackspace’s interest and involvement. Two years later, the open source cloud software platform has garnered the support of some of the biggest names in IT, including Intel, IBM, Cisco, VMware and HP. DreamHost worked on integrating Ceph — a free, distributed-file system created by DreamHost founder Sage Weil and current CEO of Inktank, a Ceph services startup — into OpenStack.

Today, OpenStack and Ceph have come to symbolize the rapid pace of innovation and competition in the field of cloud computing. Now, techie startups can get in on the action.

Big Workloads, Low Barriers to Entry

DreamCompute can handle compute instances from 1 GB of RAM to a whopping 64 GB of RAM, enabling big workloads that would otherwise be out of the reach of budget-minded entrepreneurs and developers. Prices details will be firmed up during the next few weeks, says DreamHost, but signs point to an affordable alternative to big name cloud providers.

Sage Weil commented, “DreamHost funded and supported the Ceph project for many years, so it is very exciting to see DreamHost offering this powerful, low-cost cloud computing platform with Ceph to their customers. Ceph levels the playing field for cloud providers, enabling them to quickly and cost-effectively create cloud offerings that compete with those of the largest vendors.”

DreamHost adds that DreamCompute can be billed to a credit card making expensing a breeze.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Internetnews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.