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in the same conditions the software will
run when deployed in public clouds.” Cisco
HyperFlex System appeals to companies that
want to store and process data on premises.
It’s compact and they can manage compute,
storage and networking in one place.
ForePaaS began with three Cisco HyperFlex
nodes providing more than 1.3 TB of
memory and nearly 8 TB of storage, all in two
rack units. Deployment took just one hour.
More data? More sources?
No problem
Easy scaling gives developers more freedom
to innovate and also gives them an
experience similar to a public cloud. Say a
developer team is building a new analytics
app that requires 10 large virtual machines.
Adding storage, compute, or both is as
simple as connecting a new node. It’s ready
to use in minutes. “We’re innovating faster
since we switched to Cisco HyperFlex,” said
Sinaï. “Developers can try something new,
test it and quickly roll back to try something
else. They no longer have to worry whether
they have enough infrastructure.”
Faster performance and real-
world testing
more than a dozen developers busy. To
introduce new analytics applications for
more industries, the company needed a
more versatile development platform. “One
customer displays millions of social media
likes and tweets as they happen, while
another has to analyse one terabyte in a few
seconds,” said Michel.
The platform had to be fast because
ForePaaS uses microservices, highly
specialised modules that communicate with
each other to carry out a larger task. “Good
performance with microservices requires a
very fast platform,” said Sinaï.
Besides a new development platform,
ForePaaS also needed an appliance for
customers who preferred to store and
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process data in their own data centres
instead of a public cloud.
The hybrid cloud option would appeal to
banks, insurers and other businesses subject
to data privacy regulations.
Solution: one platform for
development and production
Then ForePaaS discovered Cisco HyperFlex
hyperconverged infrastructure, which
combines compute, storage and networking
in the same appliance. “In Cisco HyperFlex,
we saw an extraordinary opportunity
to standardise on one platform for
development, test and production,” said
Sinaï. “It simplifies development because
it’s so easy to scale and deploy. We can test
When the company developed and tested its
analytics software on traditional servers with
network-attached storage, test results didn’t
necessarily reflect real-world performance
in the cloud. “Now our test environment
is similar or identical to the production
environment, so we can make sure we meet
our customers’ performance requirements,”
Sinaï said. “Plus, Big Data analytics are faster
on HyperFlex because data is stored very
close to where it’s processed.”
Simple appliance for hybrid cloud
When customers prefer to keep their data
behind their own firewalls, ForePaaS ships them
a preconfigured Cisco HyperFlex System. They
just plug it in and connect to the ForePaaS
cloud and they’re ready to go. Growth is
painless because only the first node needs
a network connection. “With HyperFlex, our
developers are freer to innovate because we
can add more storage or compute in minutes,”
said Michel. “And using the same infrastructure
for development, test and our hybrid cloud
appliance keeps the business simple.” n
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