CLOUD

Revolutionary new software which harnesses the power of networked computers to analyse data at high speeds is being developed by new start-up company Manjrasoft Pty Ltd and researchers within the University of Melbourne, Australia. The technology enables Cloud computing, the next generation of utility computing, supporting high speed application processing across Windows desktops and servers "Whether it be complex drug development problems, investment risk or conveyor belt logistics, the software "Aneka" offers versatility and cost savings to businesses by extracting greater productivity from existing infrastructure and data intensive applications," said Associate Professor Raj Buyya of the University of Melbourne's Computer Science & Software Engineering Department who has led the research. The uniqueness of the software "Aneka" (Sanskrit for 'many in one') offers the choice of multiple processing models to analyse large scale tasks, whilst offering customers more versatility with the ability to negotiate timeframes and pricing of tasks. "Our point of difference is that Aneka supports multiple application programming models unlike others in the marketplace," said A/Prof Buyya. "This is changing the face of computing - making computing work the way we want." "This is about being able to readily distribute, scale, manage and quickly reconfigure computing tasks across discrete pieces of infrastructure," he said. Buyya says Cloud computing has been widely adopted by major software vendors, outsourcers and a number of major alliance initiatives. The leading market segments driving wider adoption of these technologies include life sciences, manufacturing and financial sectors with intense information processing needs. "You no longer need to invest in or maintain expensive infrastructure. Manjrasoft's Aneka software can utilise desktop computers to drive its processing power – hence replacing expensive supercomputers and data centres," he said. Extensive prototyping has been completed and the software is approaching a ready state for beta deployment. "It is exciting to reach this point and to have already identified a number of interested trial customers" "The opportunity is now open for Manjrasoft's technology to quickly establish itself as a central building block within Cloud computing market, " A/Prof Buyya said. Ivan Mellado of the commercialisation arm of the University, Melbourne Ventures, has worked closely with A/Prof Buyya to define the commercial opportunity, develop the initial strategic plan and establish the new company. A/Prof Buyya is leading the venture as the foundation CEO and CTO. Manjrasoft is in early discussion with prospective investors. Ivan Mellado says "Manjrasoft's technology could provide a powerful way for enterprise developers and ISVs to deploy computationally and data intensive applications within the pervasive Microsoft Windows environment."