ClearCenter today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Witsbits Inc., a venture backed startup based in San Francisco, built on KVM, started in 2011 and funded by Bootstrap Labs, Redhawk Invest and Chalmers Innovation Seed Fund.
The Witsbits patent pending virtual infrastructure makes bare-metal servers 100% cloud managed and virtualization-ready. Customers simply boot their servers after downloading a unique file. That’s it, no configuration or installation process. Servers are then cloud managed, automatically upgraded, and virtualization-ready, saving significant time, headaches and money.
Witsbits currently supports Operating Systems such as CentOS, Debian, pfSense, Ubuntu®, Microsoft® Windows Server®, Fedora®, TurnKey Linux, MineOS, Linux Mint and soon will tightly integrate with both Red Hat® and ClearOS®.
"Witsbits virtual infrastructure technology is at the cutting edge of the next generation of simplified, scalable and centralized virtualization management," said Michael Proper, ClearCenter’s CEO, while announcing the acquisition.
"ClearCenter has a great team with lot's of IT and business successes behind them and has collaborated enthusiastically with us since 2012," said Mikael Lirbank , Witsbits’ founder and former CEO. "I, along with the entire Witsbits team, am pleased to be joining ClearCenter to help change the way IT get’s done. Together we will enable Centralized Management of both On Premise and Off Premise VM’s and Applications while reducing time to deployment and maintenance of virtualization and app management to zero", he said.
ClearCenter will continue the operation of Witsbits product under the new product named, ClearVM, and plan to intensify the development of of the product. Existing customers will continue to access their Witsbits-managed systems as before.
“ClearCenter is planning to combine it’s ClearOS Operating System with the Witsbits Virtualization Management Platform, and intelligently compete in the centralized virtualization market through the acquisition”, Proper said.
“I am very excited about ClearCenter’s plans for Witsbits and what it will mean in additional value for our existing and future customers. Witsbits’ customers will continue to enjoy the product without interruption.”, said Lirbank.
About Witsbits
Witsbits removes the complexity of deploying and managing virtualization and IT infrastructure. Witsbits provides a next generation Virtual Machine (VM) platform built on Red Hat’s® KVMwhich directly competes with products from companies like VMware®, Citrix® XenServer®, Oracle's® VirtualBox® and Microsoft® Hyper-V®. Witsbits currently has customers in more than 1,400+ cities around the world.
About ClearCenter
ClearCenter is redefining the way IT is delivered by helping to intelligently integrate open and closed technologies for small or distributed IT environments. ClearCenter provides award-winning products and solutions built for ClearOS consisting of applications, services, support, hardware, subscriptions, and now virtualization, many delivered by a next generation marketplace built for ClearOS. ClearOS is deployed in 300,000+ locations around the globe in 150+ Countries. ClearCenter has offices in New Zealand, Canada, India and the United States of America. Learn more about ClearCenter at www.clearcenter.com or more about ClearOS at www.clearos.com.
* ® Marks and/or products belong to their respectful owners.
The Witsbits patent pending virtual infrastructure makes bare-metal servers 100% cloud managed and virtualization-ready. Customers simply boot their servers after downloading a unique file. That’s it, no configuration or installation process. Servers are then cloud managed, automatically upgraded, and virtualization-ready, saving significant time, headaches and money.
Witsbits currently supports Operating Systems such as CentOS, Debian, pfSense, Ubuntu®, Microsoft® Windows Server®, Fedora®, TurnKey Linux, MineOS, Linux Mint and soon will tightly integrate with both Red Hat® and ClearOS®.
"Witsbits virtual infrastructure technology is at the cutting edge of the next generation of simplified, scalable and centralized virtualization management," said Michael Proper, ClearCenter’s CEO, while announcing the acquisition.
"ClearCenter has a great team with lot's of IT and business successes behind them and has collaborated enthusiastically with us since 2012," said Mikael Lirbank , Witsbits’ founder and former CEO. "I, along with the entire Witsbits team, am pleased to be joining ClearCenter to help change the way IT get’s done. Together we will enable Centralized Management of both On Premise and Off Premise VM’s and Applications while reducing time to deployment and maintenance of virtualization and app management to zero", he said.
ClearCenter will continue the operation of Witsbits product under the new product named, ClearVM, and plan to intensify the development of of the product. Existing customers will continue to access their Witsbits-managed systems as before.
“ClearCenter is planning to combine it’s ClearOS Operating System with the Witsbits Virtualization Management Platform, and intelligently compete in the centralized virtualization market through the acquisition”, Proper said.
“I am very excited about ClearCenter’s plans for Witsbits and what it will mean in additional value for our existing and future customers. Witsbits’ customers will continue to enjoy the product without interruption.”, said Lirbank.
About Witsbits
Witsbits removes the complexity of deploying and managing virtualization and IT infrastructure. Witsbits provides a next generation Virtual Machine (VM) platform built on Red Hat’s® KVMwhich directly competes with products from companies like VMware®, Citrix® XenServer®, Oracle's® VirtualBox® and Microsoft® Hyper-V®. Witsbits currently has customers in more than 1,400+ cities around the world.
About ClearCenter
ClearCenter is redefining the way IT is delivered by helping to intelligently integrate open and closed technologies for small or distributed IT environments. ClearCenter provides award-winning products and solutions built for ClearOS consisting of applications, services, support, hardware, subscriptions, and now virtualization, many delivered by a next generation marketplace built for ClearOS. ClearOS is deployed in 300,000+ locations around the globe in 150+ Countries. ClearCenter has offices in New Zealand, Canada, India and the United States of America. Learn more about ClearCenter at www.clearcenter.com or more about ClearOS at www.clearos.com.
* ® Marks and/or products belong to their respectful owners.
In ClearVM
Share this post:
Responses (14)
-
Accepted Answer
First congratulations with acquiring Witsbits Inc.!
So I my conclusion was right.
I've checked the ClearVM site and it looks as really cool technology. I read that ClearVM uses KVM for virtualisation. Also the roadmap is interesting then i mean the part with integrating Docker. Docker is also really cool technology. Even Microsoft is integrated it in future products. I already tested a bit with Docker containers and I can say really cool stuff.
One thing is not totally clear for me. Is ClearVM a separate server OS? You install ClearVM and on top of that you deploy for example ClearOS or Windows Server? You can install ClearVM in the cloud at a provider or in your own datacenter?
The availability of a community edition is a good decision. Thumbs up! Exiting times!-
Michael Propermore than a month ago@Marcel
1) Docker will be a future topic, currently exploring "Docker" type technologies, but not a solid priority just yet. Nothing has been locked on the Roadmap as it relates to containers, etc. Feel free to provide color / feedback regarding individual perspectives between Docker vs. CoreOS (NOT ClearOS) :).
2) Regarding your ClearVM question - Yes ClearVM is a totally different way to deploy ClearOS ( and almost any other Server, Network, Gateway type OS as seen here http://clearvm.com/#clearcenter-pricing ). You can review technical details of how it works here: https://www.google.com/patents/US20120297179 (NOTE: This Patent will be donated to the Open Invention Network in the coming years.)
3) The simple STEPS to get started with Witsbits/ClearVM are:
STEP 1 - Sign up for ClearVM/Witsbits
STEP 2 - Download the ClearVM Livevisor and burn a CD/USB
STEP 3 - Boot the ClearVM Liveisor on your server (NOTE: Needs Intel VT 2006 and later Intel Mother Boards)
STEP 4 - Deploy the VM image you desire (ClearOS is just one of many on a growing list)
4) As you have provided huge value in the forums over the years, feel free to ping me if you desire a Standard or Premium Subscription for ClearVM. Happy to hook you up with either, depending upon your needs! :) -
Marcelmore than a month agoThank you for the offer! I'll keep that in mind.
I'm enjoying using ClearOS and help you guys. I really do...
-
-
Accepted Answer
The simple STEPS to get started with Witsbits/ClearVM are:
STEP 1 - Sign up for ClearVM/Witsbits - http://clearvm.com/#clearcenter-overview
STEP 2 - Download the ClearVM Livevisor and burn a CD/USB
STEP 3 - Boot the ClearVM Liveisor on your server (NOTE: Needs Intel VT 2006 and later Intel Mother Boards)
STEP 4 - Deploy the VM image you desire (ClearOS is just one of many on a growing list)
NOTE: In time you will see what's imaged below, however currently you will see the Witsbits branding.
References:
-
Accepted Answer
Hi,,
Great Thing. I would directly have two questions.
Is it possible to deploy custom VM images?
Is it possible to remote connect to the VMs by rdesktop/VNC ...?
Thanks.
Really cool stuff.
Best
Robert
Edit: I have another question. What is the differenz between ClearOS business and hosted? Currently I have a Professional subscription and do not know what would be the equivalent.-
Michael Propermore than a month agoQ: Is it possible to deploy custom VM images?
A: Yes. You can deploy custom VM images.
Q: Is it possible to remote connect to the VMs by rdesktop/VNC ...?
A: Yes. it is possible to connect to the VM's with VNC. It's built in.
Hold on your "Edit" / last question for another day. :) Much more to come around that topic.
-
-
Accepted Answer
If I setup a beefy machine for virtualisation how is storage managed for the VM's? Is this via a separate storage server/nas?-
Michael Propermore than a month agoYou would be prompted to initialise (formate) the disks in your server and then allocate as desired. Example here:
Example:
https://docs.google.com/a/clearcenter.com/file/d/0BwsFntN_uYq5UW5OVk43N0lGZzQ/edit?usp=drivesdk
-
-
Accepted Answer
Marcel van Leeuwen wrote:
If I setup a beefy machine for virtualisation how is storage managed for the VM's? Is this via a separate storage server/nas?
You would be prompted to initialise (formate) the disks in your server and then allocate as desired. Example here:
Example:
https://docs.google.com/a/clearcenter.com/file/d/0BwsFntN_uYq5UW5OVk43N0lGZzQ -
Accepted Answer
Okay the virtual machines are hosted on the virtualisation server but when I have for example a large media library. I can imagine that this is stored on a NAS. How is this accessed? I suppose you can mount CIFS, NFS, ISCSI shares? If so can this be done via the ClearVM interface or have we to do it via the CLI?
Edit: I see you can add NFS. I assume that is a remote NFS share. There is also a option to add a storage NIC. This is a separate NIC for storage?
Sure exciting times
-
Michael Propermore than a month agoCurrently NFS is the ideal option (not sure on local or remote). Planning to add ZFS in time. I have not personally tested the Storage NIC (yet).
-
Marcelmore than a month agoYou can connect to remote storage via NFS.
http://help.witsbits.com/2013/06/05/host-nas/
Okay, ZFS is planned. Cool! Thus a ClearVM server with lots of local storage is also a option? I have Intel Xeon E3-1275v3 on a Intel motherboard S1200v3RPL in a 16bay case. I use 2 AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 hba cards to connect the drives. I don't know if the AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 is supported... Is it? -
Marcelmore than a month agoMichael, is BTRFS a consideration? One benefit of BTRFS is you can grow your BTRFS volume with one drive at a time. This is not possible with ZFS.
-
-
Accepted Answer
I registered on the Witsbits site but i can't login. Message "Wrong email or password." I did confirm my account. I tried with different email addresses (Gmail and iCloud).-
Michael Propermore than a month agoHave seen a similar issue if the same email address is used when adding an admin (before you created an account). Might not be related... Please email the email address you used to create the account and issue description to witsbits@clearcenter.com . Will see what has occurred on the back-end for you.
-
Marcelmore than a month agoOkay, done. Thanks!
-
Marcelmore than a month agoMikael, Thank you for helping me. I did send you a email.
-
-
Accepted Answer
Marcel van Leeuwen wrote:
Okay, I found this help topic on the Witsbits site.
This help topic should be made a bit more forefront available, because it make a lot of things clear and avoids questions of specific kind.
One question I have now after reading the help is: How is graphic handled? If VNC is available I guess the VMs have some kind of access to the host graphic card or is it simulated?
Can I deploy the ClearVM image to servers from web hosters (root servers of course)? Therewith I could mirrow my local server environment in case of break downs.
I really like this development.
Thanks.
Best
Robert -
Accepted Answer
I think at some point the Witsbits website disappears if Witsbits has the ClearVM branding. I'll hope we get ClearVM documentation on the site. Of course we have the ClearVM forum.-
Michael Propermore than a month ago@Marcel - As messaged to Robert. "ClearCenter is currently integrating the documentation in to this clearos.com site. :)"
-
Marcelmore than a month agoNice!
-
-
Accepted Answer
Hi Marcel,
You are right, integrating the documentation on this site would be best.
By the way, I vote for keeping the mothly paying model from Witsbits compared to the yearly model on Clearcenter. At least for me it is easier to handle monthly payments than a big one every year (where I regularly forget when this will be).
Best
Robert-
Michael Propermore than a month ago@Robert -
1) ClearCenter is currently integrating the documentation in to this clearos.com site. :)
2) ClearCenter will be offering a monthly payment model with ClearOS 7. :)
-
-
Accepted Answer
I have a couple of questions regarding ClearVM. Is it possible to run ClearOS in gateway mode on ClearVM? I'm asking this because i see that ClearVM needs a running DHCP server to connect to the Witsbits/ClearVM site to run the web interface. As long as ClearOS VM is not running there is no of course no DHCP server. -
Accepted Answer
On the DHCP question. There are two ways to deploy your ClearVM server. You can grab the ISO that makes the ClearVM server use a DHCP address, or you can log into your account and tell us what the static network settings are going to be and we automatically customize the USB download that you will use on your server.
So yes, you can use ClearVM to run ClearOS in gateway mode! -
Accepted Answer
So I need to use option 2? I indeed saw a option to edit your network settings. See the screenshot:
I have to give the ClearVM sever a static network setting so it does not need the DHCP server? Correct?
[Edit]
Yes, I think this is the right way to do it.
Awesome that this can be done this way. I think i have to test something this weekend.
[/edit]
Please login to post a reply
You will need to be logged in to be able to post a reply. Login using the form on the right or register an account if you are new here.
Register Here »