Cloud technology firm UKFast is launching a new service within its eCloud range, enabling customers to instantaneously scale into a pool of unlimited cloud resources in response to increased demand.
Nowadays it's not uncommon for opportunities to present themselves at a moment's notice. eCloud Burst allows businesses to access extra resources to significantly scale their website in an instant to capitalise on an event. "Flash marketing" is becoming more common, with new themed occasions popping up every week. It's not just Mother's Day and Valentine's Day that see spikes in traffic these days. Viral content, influencer marketing and social media events all contribute to make traffic spikes less predictable for many businesses.
With Black Friday, Cyber Monday and other seasonal sales looming, online retailers and booking platforms need to ensure their websites and applications are prepared to meet the increased demand. eCloud Burst means that businesses now have a British alternative to the US hyperscalers.
UKFast CTO Neil Lathwood said: "eCloud is growing at more than 30% a year and Burst is the first of a number of additions we are adding to the platform to deliver a new level of flexibility. It's designed for spinning up virtual machines in an instant and removes the lead time associated with adding significant additional storage to hybrid and private cloud solutions.
"This platform allows clients to burst, scale and flex into a secure, dedicated network during peak periods or to create space for development work. The existing private network securely extends into the burst environment, enabling customers to seamlessly connect into their new virtual machines."
UKFast's eCloud portfolio includes public, hybrid and private cloud options as well as 'drag and drop' cloud storage solution, eCloud Vault, and open source development platform, eCloud Flex.
Burst is managed via the MyUKFast client portal or through an API, and employs a pay-as-you-use pricing model that ensures cost-effective usage.
UKFast CEO Lawrence Jones added: "Online retailers can't afford to miss opportunities during potentially lucrative peak periods because their infrastructure isn't equipped to deal with increased traffic. Burst solves this at the click of a button.
"We're giving our clients a scalable cloud with controllable costs, along with certainty around where their data is held. The only options they currently have are with the likes of AWS and Azure, where you're not sure what it's ultimately going to cost and the SLAs and support are simply not there.
"This is the first in a number of new technologies that we're releasing over the coming months. We've spent three or four years expanding our R&D department and we've been listening to the market and developing new products. We're extremely excited about what's ahead."
