GigaSpaces Ships Update For Cloud Applications

GigaSpaces Technologies launched on 31 January its eXtreme Application Platform 8.0, a virtual application platform that can transition existing infrastructure into the cloud, the company said.

The XAP 8.0 platform modernises older infrastructure into distributed architectures, virtualised environments and the cloud, Uri Cohen, product manager at GigaSpaces, told eWEEK. The application platform is suitable for the traditional data centre or a private, public or hybrid cloud, he said.

Efficiency

GigaSpaces platform simplifies and makes more efficient the process of development, deployment and management of demanding applications, the company said. With XAP 8.0, IT managers can design, modify and implement distributed, scalable and highly performing applications quickly while leveraging existing knowledge and technology resources.

The company focused on openness with the 8.0 release, according to Cohen. The “Same Data, Any API” means regardless of what API the developer chooses, the data is easily accessible and manageable on the platform, he said. Supported APIs include .NET, C++, JDBC, Document and POJO, according to Cohen. The learning curve for XAP is fairly low because organisations can use their existing knowledgebase, according to GigaSpaces.

“Enterprises face the challenge of having to combine legacy systems with newer technologies to meet their ever-increasing user demands and simultaneous data growth,” said Nati Shalom, GigaSpaces CTO.

JPA support is built-in, as is support for third-party monitoring tools and multi-site deployment. Developers can use XAP’s schema-free API and the complex object handling capabilities have been improved, according to Cohen.

Scaling was the second theme for XAP 8.0, Cohen said. GigaSpaces added support for continuous scaling into this release. Mission-critical applications and web applications often require continuous changes to the application but it is not feasible for the organisation to take the system down for the required maintenance. Continuous scaling allows for rolling upgrades and deployment, real-time changes to the application data model and business logic, and new features, with zero downtime, he said.

Simplification

XAP operation and administration was simplified in 8.0. IT managers can pre-define rules on what to do if the clusters fail and what to recover, according to the company. The simplified Alerting API identifies problematic or erroneous situations, isolates the problem, and reports them as alerts, he said. The new multi-site deployment support makes setting up and managing geographically distributed applications easier than ever, Cohen said.

“Both traditional and web-focused enterprises are demanding solutions that enable them to leverage their existing assets, work with familiar technology and speed time-to-value without increasing migration costs,” says Massimo Pezzini, a Gartner vice-president.

XAP is available in two “flavours”, the XAP Premium and XAP Elastic Caching Edition. The premium version is the end-to-end product and intended for enterprises, while the other edition is most suitable for Internet service providers, Cohen said. Pricing is flexible and depends on exact edition and the options desired, but is generally based on the CPI and number of cores, Cohen said. The pricing would range from $5,000 (£3,000) to $10,000 per core, he said. GigaSpaces will “make sure our pricing model fits your pricing model”, he said.