CloudShare
Encyclopedia
CloudShare is a cloud computing
provider which enables users to create, replicate and share fully functional IT environments in the Cloud. The company (formerly IT Structures) was founded in January 2007 in Israel and is now headquartered in San Mateo, California
. In December 2009, CloudShare closed its Series B round of funding, receiving $10MM from Sequoia Capital
, Charles River Ventures
, and Gemini Capital, bringing total venture capital funding to $16MM.
, cloud computing
and web conferencing to offer a software as a service
(Saas) solution for delivering IT to colleagues, clients, customers and partners. Similar to virtual lab automation, CloudShare makes full-featured virtual enterprise environments available online and on-demand. This has a variety of applications including developing and testing, pre-sales demos, proofs-of-concept, evaluations, technical training, development and certification of hardware or software and channel enablement.
Customers can create multi-machine IT environments in the cloud or upload existing virtual machines. CloudShare supports leading hypervisors (VMWare, Xen) and operating systems (Windows 7, Ubuntu), and provides 18 templates for new machines with operating systems and even software (such as Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Microsoft Office 2010 or Ruby on Rails
) preinstalled.
Created environments can consist of a single virtual machine
or multiple networked machines and are able to operate seamlessly with the user’s physical PC or workstation. These environments can then be saved, replicated and shared with additional users who are free to interact with their own independent replica (or “snapshot”) as they would like – install software, access the Internet, save or download files etc.
There are two products currently offered by CloudShare:
Potential competitors:
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
provider which enables users to create, replicate and share fully functional IT environments in the Cloud. The company (formerly IT Structures) was founded in January 2007 in Israel and is now headquartered in San Mateo, California
San Mateo, California
San Mateo is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a population of approximately 100,000 , it is one of the larger suburbs on the San Francisco Peninsula, located between Burlingame to the north, Foster City to the east, Belmont to the south,...
. In December 2009, CloudShare closed its Series B round of funding, receiving $10MM from Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital is a Californian venture capital firm located on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California. The Wall Street Journal has called Sequoia Capital "one of the highest-caliber venture firms", and noted that it is "one of Silicon Valley's most influential venture-capital firms"...
, Charles River Ventures
Charles River Ventures
Charles River Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments in technology and new media companies.The firm, which is based in Waltham, Massachusetts and Menlo Park, California, was founded in 1970 to commercialise research that came out of MIT...
, and Gemini Capital, bringing total venture capital funding to $16MM.
Products and Offerings
CloudShare combines aspects of virtualizationHardware virtualization
Computer hardware virtualization is the virtualization of computers or operating systems. It hides the physical characteristics of a computing platform from users, instead showing another abstract computing platform...
, cloud computing
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
and web conferencing to offer a software as a service
Software as a Service
Software as a service , sometimes referred to as "on-demand software," is a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally and are typically accessed by users using a thin client, normally using a web browser over the Internet.SaaS has become a common...
(Saas) solution for delivering IT to colleagues, clients, customers and partners. Similar to virtual lab automation, CloudShare makes full-featured virtual enterprise environments available online and on-demand. This has a variety of applications including developing and testing, pre-sales demos, proofs-of-concept, evaluations, technical training, development and certification of hardware or software and channel enablement.
Customers can create multi-machine IT environments in the cloud or upload existing virtual machines. CloudShare supports leading hypervisors (VMWare, Xen) and operating systems (Windows 7, Ubuntu), and provides 18 templates for new machines with operating systems and even software (such as Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Microsoft Office 2010 or Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails, often shortened to Rails or RoR, is an open source web application framework for the Ruby programming language.-History:...
) preinstalled.
Created environments can consist of a single virtual machine
Virtual machine
A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". Modern virtual machines are implemented with either software emulation or hardware virtualization or both together.-VM Definitions:A virtual machine is a software...
or multiple networked machines and are able to operate seamlessly with the user’s physical PC or workstation. These environments can then be saved, replicated and shared with additional users who are free to interact with their own independent replica (or “snapshot”) as they would like – install software, access the Internet, save or download files etc.
There are two products currently offered by CloudShare:
- CloudShare ProPlus is the single user version of the CloudShare platform designed for individual users and small teams of developers, solution integrators and IT professionals to share simple, multi-VM environments for a variety of uses. It includes preinstalled templates (such as Windows and Linux operating systems, SharePoint 2010, Oracle 11g and others), but is limited to one environment (up to six virtual machines) and has restrictions on computing power. Storage, networking, bandwidth and CPU usage are included.
- CloudShare Enterprise is designed for enterprise-grade applications such as development and testing, virtual training, presales demos, proof of concepts, technical evaluations, and other IT functions. More robust and offering greater compute power and storage, as well as unlimited machines and sharing, CloudShare Enterprise also includes:
- a user management dashboard with analytics tools
- multiple user hierarchies, roles and privileges
- customer branding
- user-interface customization
- integration with Salesforce.com
History
CloudShare was founded in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2007 and originally named IT Structures. In 2009, CloudShare moved its headquarters to San Mateo, California.Customers and Competitors
Key CloudShare customers:- Cisco
- Websense
- SAP
- VMWare
- Alcatel-Lucent
- McAfee
Potential competitors:
- Surgient
- Amazon AWS
- Hatsize
- WebEx
- SoftwareDEMO
- Skytap