FastScale releases new version of its Composer Suite

FastScale Technology announced the newest release of its flagship product, FastScale Composer Suite. FastScale Composer Suite automates the process of building, managing and deploying server software environments for enterprise class data centers and Web farms, whether the infrastructure is physical, virtual or both.

The new release adds a much anticipated and welcomed feature with the support of Windows Server 2003 environments. It also adds new capabilities in lightweight application provisioning, and delivers a range of scalability and usability enhancements.

New features include:

• New platform support – including deployment of Windows Server 2003 and RHEL 5.2 environments.

• Lightweight application provisioning – for just-in-time, virtualized deployment of modular, enterprise class applications, enabling increased infrastructure performance and stateless server configurations.

• Increased scalability & usability – with streamlined configuration settings, enhanced Web and command line interfaces, and easier navigation for large enterprise deployments.

The company said that its Composer Suite was designed specifically to eliminate the labor-intensive process of building and managing server software environments throughout the lifecycle. They claim that with FastScale Composer Suite, software environments average 95% smaller than traditional golden images, and they are built on-demand and deployed to bare-metal or virtual servers as quickly as within seconds to minutes.

FastScale Composer works by a patent-pending process called “Application Blueprinting” which identifies the precise operating system components an application requires to be fully functional. Operating systems support hundreds of thousands of applications and any given application uses a small subset of the total. FastScale identifies these requirements automatically. Then, using the Application Blueprint, FastScale Composer builds a small, full-featured software environment with only the precise software components that are required — a Dynamic Application Bundle or DAB.

I contacted FastScale to find out more about how these Dynamic Application Bundles (DABs) work and to find out more about the Application Blue Print functionality. Shrinking things down by 95% seemed like a fascinating idea, and perhaps something out of the future. So how does it work? A FastScale representative explained it to me like so.

Core to the FastScale approach is the concept of a Dynamic Application Bundle (DAB). A DAB is a complete set of all the required configuration files, libraries, drivers and kernel necessary to run an application on a specific physical or virtual server. DABs are created automatically at provisioning time – in seconds.

Before a DAB can be created, the FastScale repository must be populated with the customer’s applications and operating systems. Any network booted servers on the network are automatically discovered by the FastScale software to determine their hardware profiles.

At the time a new server is to be provisioned, the FastScale Composer Suite software performs a process known as Application Blueprinting on the designated application. The Application Blueprint is created by a series of proprietary FastScale algorithms that determine all of the O/S file dependencies of the application. This is a static analysis and does not require application execution. Based on prior indication by the system administrator, all proper patches and site specific configuration settings are also identified. Finally, based on the target machine, the appropriate hardware drivers are determined. All of these components and the application files are combined in the DAB and provisioned into the memory of the target machine. With only the required components in the DAB, it averages 95% smaller than a traditional golden image.

Note that FastScale Composer Suite virtualizes the full software stack without modification to either applications or operating systems. FastScale Application Blueprinting identifies what files to initially provision, but the FastScale Automatic Runtime Extension feature retrieves any subsequent files that are required by the running application (such as a dynamically loaded library) from the FastScale Repository. The combination of FastScale Application Blueprinting and FastScale Automatic Runtime Extension enables lightweight provisioning without modifying either applications or operating systems.

So my next question after hearing all of this and getting a better handle on how things work – how does Microsoft feel about this new product? Are they onboard with delivering Windows images this way? And what about Microsoft ISVs? Are they supporting this as well?

Microsoft is a technology partner of FastScale, and the companies have been collaborating throughout the development of this product, both on the technology and business sides. Microsoft has consistently been very supportive of our efforts.

Unlike an appliance model where O/S components or other files are “stripped away”, FastScale Composer Suite virtualizes the full software stack rather than modifying it. FastScale Application Blueprinting provides the intelligence of what files to initially provision, but FastScale Automatic Runtime Extension feature retrieves any subsequent files that are required by the running application from the FastScale Repository. Application file requests are agnostic to the physical location of these components. In this way, FastScale Composer Suite enables lightweight provisioning without altering applications or operating systems.

For troubleshooting or ISV support escalation, the application “sees” the entire operating system. The test suite used to test the full stack will also be used to test the FastScale lightweight DAB (Dynamic Application Bundle). The difference is that when DABs are deployed, only the required components are provisioned to the target server, and the rest of the components are in the repository – accessible to the running application, if needed. In the most conservative case, customers have the option to provision the entire O/S, either in test-mode or production. This allows customers to conduct troubleshooting in an incremental fashion, eliminating any need to individually qualify or certify ISV applications.

And so this begs the question, what happens with licensing? A common question asked by every IT shop.

Regarding licensing, FastScale Composer Suite interoperates with customers’ existing asset management and licensing infrastructure. Detailed data is maintained in the FastScale Repository for export into custom reporting vehicles and available for license compliance management. Customers are responsible for tracking payment of, and compliance with, the terms and conditions of their software licenses. However, FastScale provides very granular data on license usage to support customer compliance.

A key benefit of FastScale Composer Suite is the ability to dynamically provision bare-metal or virtual servers in seconds, enabling customers to reduce physical servers by increasing utilization. However, in no way does FastScale attempt an end run around licensing. FastScale also helps ISVs by enabling customers to deploy lightweight software stacks with reduced memory requirements, improving scalability and performance for virtual server deployment.

I’m not the only one who finds this opportunity interesting. Over the last few months, rumors have been circulating that Sun Microsystems could be interested in purchasing FastScale for its “thinning” technology. Stay tuned.