Exclusive: Vigabyte launches a virtual revolution in data hosting

by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Tuesday, 27 March 2007

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Manzoori said that “By purchasing Vigabyte Servers, enterprises are able to deploy new servers faster and cost-effectively, and the virtual environment is easier to manage, while also eliminating the associated hardware costs from running physical IT networks”. The pricing packages allow customers to purchase 256MB of RAM at A$49 per month, 512MB RAM at A$80 per month, and 1GB RAM at A$99 per month. All of the Vigabyte server offerings come with a standard 40GB of high-end fibre-channel storage – and with no lock-in contracts and instant deployment. If a customer only needs a development platform for a few weeks, they can access that without needing to be locked in for a fixed period of time.

Manzoori also said his “new model of virtualised hosting brings productivity to the data center by enabling IT managers to purchase and connect Vigabyte servers to their enterprise IT networks by offering unlimited RAM, storage and overall value to companies seeking to maximise their investment in core IT systems. Without the restrictions and time delays associated with deploying physical servers, businesses benefit from the speed of immediate deployment”. He also explains there is no ‘single point of failure’ in the system, as it is designed with VMWare and other technologies to instantly recover from any failures, with absolutely minimal downtime for customers.

When we asked about competitors, Manzoori explained that it could take years for the competition to come up with a similar system, which would also eat into their shared hosting customers. Manzoori also explained that there is also an API for resellers who can offer it via a white label solution to their own clients, and that it is built on an open platform, with PHP, MySQL, Pearl and more all supported. He also told us that the word has been spreading despite being in a trial up until now, with calls coming from overseas from interested customers wanting to sign up.

Manzoori said the company plans to invest millions of dollars into a super computer in over the next 12-18 months, which will have the equivalent memory and storage of 10,000 desktop PC’s. “We are also taking on new staff and will have a virtual IT team of 20 people to sell and support the solution,” said Manzoori.

Vigabyte say that the commercial launch of the Australian business will be shortly followed by expansion into the US market. Vigabyte already leases hosting capacity in the United States, allowing it to easily turn on the service in that market. Vigabyte’s parent company is Smartyhost, the number two web hosting player in Australia, with 30,000 customers. Smartyhost is also one of the leading domain name registrar in Australia.

Vigabyte is built on high capacity infrastructure, deploying a mix of Sun Microsystems storage area network hardware and servers and VMware virtualisation software. The Vigabyte server network is housed at the Optus data centre in Melbourne. The virtualisation software offering includes services such as business continuity, high availability, distributed resource scheduling, and VMotion. Vigabyte customers can use any operating system, including Linux, Solaris and Windows.
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