OrionVM Cloud Computing Platform (SMART 100)

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The following SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during the entry process. As a function of entry, applicants were required to declare that all details are factually correct, do not infringe on another’s intellectual property and are not unlawful, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, obscene, or otherwise objectionable. Some profiles have been edited for reasons of space and clarity. More about the SMART 100.

OrionVM Cloud Computing Platform

This innovation initially came to life when…

Some members of this team were trying to build an Artificial Intelligence ‘Learning’ search engine that required plenty of computing power. After seeing what was out in the market, the idea to build a High Performance Cloud computing company was born.

The company was started from a UTS dorm room in Sydney, where we worked nights on the project while studying and working other jobs. After a year of solid development, we have managed to build a completely custom cloud computing platform, that has been benchmarked as the fastest in Australia (as well as one of the cheapest to build).

WHAT & HOW

The purpose of this innovation is to…

Allow all companies (small and large) to access the same level of on-demand, high-speed and scalable IT infrastructure traditionally only available to large enterprises. We remove the need for large amounts of capital expenditure to start a web company.

It does this by…

Utilising a completely custom designed and developed architecture that leverages designs commonly used in super computers and adding the high availability features required to host mission critical applications. We use commodity hardware, super high-speed interconnects and great architecture design to deliver ten times the performance of our competitors (Amazon EC2 included) for a far lower cost to us.

PURPOSE & BENEFITS

This innovation improves on what came before because…

instead of using traditional enterprise SAN storage arrays (which are both costly, limited in speed and a single point of failure) we have built a custom storage sub-system that utilises parallel access to plenty of hard disks to deliver more reliability, complete scalability and speed. This design utilises parallel access to many servers to deliver far high performance for less.

Its various benefits to the customer/end-user include…

The ability to pay for less compute instances to achieve the same job, making it cheaper, and their applications faster. We are also more reliable and have innovative features that an application can leverage, such as live scalability of resources.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

In the past, this problem was solved by…

Small/medium companies buying as much hardware as required to deal with peak resource utilisation. Using cloud computing, they are now able to start with a small instance (with a low cost, and no CAPEX) and scale up as they gain traction. This makes it great for start-ups. We build upon this by delivering performance previously not available, at similar prices.

Its predecessors/competitors include…

spending large amounts of money on a high-speed storage array, and large amounts of hardware, or dealing with the slow performance of our competitors. Our competitors in the US include Amazon EC2 and RackSpace, Australia Ninefold and Cloud Central.

TARGET MARKET

It is made for…

Everyone with a need for high-speed, scalable and reliable compute infrastructure. We have two products, one targetted at developers, hosted web applications and start-ups which is fast and reliable, but doesn’t cost large amounts of money. We also have a second product line for enterprise customers, with greater amounts of support/management, uptime guarantees and access to higher levels of performance.

For example, we allow companies who deliver a software application over the Internet (such as a social media site, accounting platform, etc.) to deal with the varying load of their application. They only pay for peak resources when required.

DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY

It is available for sale through…

…a self-service website, that is paid for by credit card. You are able to visit our website at www.orionvm.com.au and sign up to our service. You will be able to have access to compute resources within less than one minute.

Our marketing strategy is to…

Deliver great service to achieve referrals, attend as many relevant events as possible and achieve press coverage. We are also exhibiting at CeBIT, a very large IT trade fair. Through associations with other companies, we also organise and run a monthly cloud computing conference, to further develop the industry within Australia and gain visibility.

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