Archive: posts from November 2010

Libcloud Python driver for Brightbox Cloud API 30 Nov 10

Hot on the heel of last weeks announcement of support for our new cloud API in the Fog Ruby cloud library – some news for Pythonistas! We now also have a Brightbox driver for Libcloud – the Python (and now Java) client library for interacting with multiple cloud computing APIs.

The driver is available right now via our fork of libcloud on Github and will hopefully be merged into the official codebase soon.

Here’s a quick example using the Python shell…

libcloud-brightbox:trunk$ python
Python 2.6.5 (r265:79359, Mar 24 2010, 01:32:55)
[GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5493)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from libcloud.drivers.brightbox import BrightboxNodeDriver
>>> from libcloud.types import NodeState
>>> driver = BrightboxNodeDriver('my_client_id', 'my_client_secret')
>>> len(driver.list_nodes())
3
>>> size = driver.list_sizes()[0]
>>> image = driver.list_images()[0]
>>> node = driver.create_node(name='Libcloud test server', size=size, image=image)
>>> node.id
'srv-0dj5y'
>>> len(driver.list_nodes())
4

If you’ve not already done so, request a free cloud beta account and have a go yourself :)

CloudCamp London – Tues 30 November 24 Nov 10

Next Tuesday, 30 November, John and I are heading down to the 10th CloudCamp London “unconference”, which is being held at the Novotel Hammersmith Hotel (6:30 PM to 9:30 PM).

We’ll also be around the “big smoke” earlier in the afternoon, so if you’d like to meet up for a drink and a chat drop us a line – we might even treat you to a live beta demo ;)

If you want to attend CloudCamp London too, register here and come say “hello”!

FreeBSD in the Brightbox Cloud 23 Nov 10

Last week we added a “compatibility” mode to our new cloud platform, which allows running operating systems without virtio support.  This opens up our platform beyond Linux, and for starters we’ve added FreeBSD 8.1 images:

$ brightbox-images list img-1okdf img-aoubd

id         owner      type      created_on  status  size   name
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
img-1okdf  brightbox  official  2010-11-19  public  20480  FreeBSD 8.1 minimal (i686)
img-aoubd  brightbox  official  2010-11-19  public  20480  FreeBSD 8.1 minimal (x86_64)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you’d expect, you can control FreeBSD servers via the API, just like any other Brightbox cloud server – and that includes snapshotting the disk. If you’re a FreeBSD nerd and want to have a play, then sign up to our beta.

Now I’m off to learn how to use FreeBSD to see what all the fuss is about :)

Support for new Brightbox Cloud API in Fog 17 Nov 10

The latest release of Fog (0.3.19) includes support for the new Brightbox Cloud API. Fog is a Ruby library which provides an “abstraction layer” for interacting with multiple cloud computing APIs.

Created by Wesley Beary and recently adopted into Engine Yard’s open source programme, Fog has a lot of momentum and is a great way to get started with provisioning resources across multiple cloud providers.

If you’ve not yet done so, request a Brightbox Cloud beta account to get started.

Passenger 3.0.0 packages for Ubuntu Hardy and Lucid 15 Nov 10

Phusion Passenger 3.0.0 was released back in October. It’s up to 55% faster and sports new stability features, which should keep your site up even if a faulty app instance causes problems (such as “out of memory” errors).

We’ve now got Ubuntu Hardy and Lucid packages available on our apt repository and we consider it ready for production use. Brightbox customers can upgrade from Passengr 2.x simply by running these commands on their Brightboxes:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -qy libapache2-mod-passenger

If you’ve not got a Brightbox, you’ll need to add our apt repository key and config first. You can read more about it on our wiki.

Announcing Brightbox Cloud – the UK’s first true IaaS platform! 9 Nov 10

Today, we’re announcing the private beta launch of Brightbox Cloud – our new IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) platform!

We’ve dedicated several months to developing and engineering our new cloud platform from the ground up (almost literally). We’ve kitted out two new datacentre “Zones”, set up a new resilient network across them and built-out a distributed cloud system which enables some very exciting features such as re-mappable cloud IP addresses, easy import/export of your cloud server images and much, much more.

We’re launching the private beta phase with our simple command-line client (a full control panel GUI will be available soon). Check out the screencast below to see how easy it is to get started.

If you’d like to get [free] access to our private beta programme, simply submit a request via the beta site and we’ll be in touch shortly!

I’m extremely proud of our achievement, Brightbox is the first company in the UK to offer a “true” distributed IaaS cloud – quite a shake-up for the European cloud market. Stay tuned – there’s a lot more in store!