OnApp Updates IaaS Platform With Incremental Backup for Virtual Servers

OnApp Ltd. has announced the last version of its IaaS cloud platform for hosts, telcos and other service providers.

This version introduces an incremental backup system for virtual servers, used in public and private cloud services, and the servers launched by the company at the end of 2013. With incremental backup, service providers can let their customers choose to backup only files that change, which reduces the time, disk space and cost of backup for their customers, while reducing the network bandwidth and storage capacity required for backups in their cloud.

It also features enhancements to location groups, virtual server troubleshooting, and diagnostics for OnApp Storage, the platform’s integrated SAN.

The company has also announced rebranding capabilities for its Android app and an update to its cloud management app for iPhone and iPad.

“Like many new OnApp features the incremental backup system was developed at the request of our customers,” said Carsten Sjørup, OnApp’s CTO “Backup is a vital part of any cloud service, and to date we’ve supported snapshot backups of entire servers. Adding incremental backup gives our customers another way to improve efficiency and resilience in the back end, and offer more backup options to their users at the same time. We’re looking forward to seeing how our customers use the new backup scheme as part of their services.“

Incremental backup joins the company’s existing snapshot capabilities for virtual servers and smart servers. Each type of backup can be taken on an ad-hoc basis or automated via a backup schedule, and service providers can control the number of free backups, and backup limits and prices, in their billing plans for different tiers of customer.

The system supports Linux virtual servers running on Xen and KVM hypervisors, and smart servers running on KVM. Incremental backup for Windows and other OSs is available through the company’s partnership with Bacula4Hosts. The company will continue to enhance its backup capabilities in future releases.

This version includes other improvements for CSPs:
Location groups can contain cloud as well as CDN resources. Location groups enable service providers to group server, storage and network resources and assign them to a specific location, such as ‘AsiaPac’ or ‘New York datacenter’. This is useful for providers running multiple datacenters: it simplifies management of distributed cloud infrastructure, helps ensure that (for example) storage resources in the US aren’t assigned to customers running servers in Asia, and enables them to bill for each location independently, to reflect differences in local infrastructure costs.

Recovery mode for virtual servers has been enhanced with the ability to add custom applications to a virtual server’s recovery image. Service providers can add disk tools, registry editors and other applications to help their administrators and customers with troubleshooting.

OnApp Storage diagnostics have been improved with a healthcheck screen. More than half of all clouds are deployed using the integrated SAN: the diagnostic tools simplify management of the storage system and help service providers identify and resolve issues such as zombie disks, and rebalancing storage nodes to maintain performance and redundancy.

The company has also released branding packages for its iPhone/iPad and Android apps, which offer a range of mobile cloud management capabilities for service providers and their users. The packages enable customers to customize the apps with their own look, feel and brand identity. The iOS package adds support for iOS 7, while the Android package introduces branding capabilities to the app for the first time. Both packages are available free of charge to customers running the full version of OnApp.

It is available as a free upgrade to existing customers.