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Daily Maverick
19-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Maverick
Warp brings SA's AI industry up to speed with Xibon AI acquisition
It takes guts to pivot. But in a rapidly shifting tech landscape, that's exactly what one South African-founded tech company is doing — snapping up machine learning expertise and building its own private cloud infrastructure from the ground up. The SA-founded tech company Warp Development has made a strategic pivot to embrace the private cloud trend, and its acquisition of the machine learning startup Xibon AI and new infrastructure will fuel its global expansion. Warp's first big move was acquiring Xibon AI. For co-founder Adriën Erasmus, this wasn't just about staying current and on trend. It was essential. 'Everybody needs to implement AI into their businesses,' said Erasmus. Rather than building from scratch, he opted for 'a bit of a hack … to get to market quickly and gain a customer base immediately'. The scent of opportunity The deal came together after a collaboration with Mike Scott — the former CEO of Cape Town-based Nona Digital — who now heads up operations in Australia. Through that relationship, the company acquired Xibon and its co-founder Gaurav Devsarmah, who now leads AI strategy and solutions. 'It was a no-brainer,' said Erasmus. 'Finding that kind of talent would've been a stretch. AI is still new, and people with real depth of experience are rare. Gaurav's knowledge of the frameworks is next level.' Claiming the SuperBrain Xibon's crown jewel is SuperBrain, a platform that stitches together multiple layers of data to build highly contextual, personalised AI solutions. It doesn't just process info — it learns how different pieces connect to give users intelligent, tailored outcomes. Devsarmah describes it simply: 'The more info I record, the more context the SuperBrain starts to form.' That tech has now become a core part of the company's plan to embed machine learning into every unit of the business. More humans, not fewer The team sees AI not as a replacement for people, but as a tool to remove monotony and unleash more creative thinking. AI might reduce the need for manual effort, Erasmus admits, but 'there will always be a need for humans'. The focus is on efficiency, freeing up time for strategic work and modernising legacy systems. Backed by a team of more than 100 in South Africa, the strategy combines acquisitions, traditional hiring and upskilling, including support for master's degrees in AI. Rewriting the cloud playbook Equally ambitious is the company's pivot away from public cloud giants like AWS and Azure. Three years ago, it committed to building its own private cloud, cutting infrastructure costs by up to 60% along the way. Warp's chief technology officer and co-founder, Rudi Mostert, said the goal was to match the scalability and resilience of the public cloud while ditching the unpredictable billing and restrictive architecture. They went with OpenStack — open source, well-documented and already in use at major enterprises like Walmart and Deutsche Telekom — and partnered with OpenMetal to make it happen. So why private cloud? It's a trend gaining traction, especially among companies looking for more control and less vendor lock-in. Private cloud lets you build only what you need, customise everything and avoid the ever-rising costs of public platforms. OpenMetal made it easy to spin up that infrastructure quickly and securely. And because the company owns all of it, there's no need to pay for bloated extras or worry about usage surprises. Plus, the tech teams now have more room to innovate. 'It's created massive growth opportunities,' said Mostert. 'We've got incredibly talented people here who are hungry to learn.' And why Amsterdam? That first private cloud deployment now lives in a data centre near Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. The location wasn't just convenient — it was strategic. Amsterdam offers top-tier connectivity (more than 210 network providers), renewable energy and strong data protection laws. It's also a base for other South African-rooted players like Prosus (via Naspers) and BCX. The AMS3 facility also provides redundancy and availability guarantees, giving the setup the kind of reliability needed for global operations. While the Netherlands has placed restrictions on new data centre builds, this deployment focused on leveraging existing infrastructure — no permits or delays required. Eyes on the world With infrastructure in place, the company is expanding fast — it's now registered in Australia and has a satellite office in Atlanta, Georgia. Erasmus says the US market moves faster and more decisively than Europe. 'Build trust there and you'll have loyal customers,' he said. But speed isn't everything. 'We're not competing on being cheap or fast. We're positioning as expert services.' Operations now stretch across three time zones — Asia-Pacific, South Africa and the US — allowing for round-the-clock delivery. What this means for you Private cloud is no longer just for tech giants. More companies are moving away from public cloud providers like AWS and Azure. Why? Cost control, data ownership, and the freedom to build exactly what they need, without surprise billing or vendor why Warp built its own private cloud infrastructure with OpenMetal, cutting costs by up to 60% while unlocking greater flexibility and security. Amsterdam isn't just windmills and tulips, it's a digital gateway to Europe. With its unmatched connectivity, data protection laws, and sustainable infrastructure, it's the ideal base for companies going global. It's no coincidence that other SA-rooted firms like Prosus and BCX have a presence there too. The big win? Warp's not keeping this just for international clients. They're now bringing the same world-class cloud tech to South Africa, meaning local startups and SMEs could soon get access to enterprise-grade infrastructure without paying enterprise prices. In short: better tech, more control and lower costs might soon be coming to a data centre near you. SA still at the core Despite going global, the business still runs deep in South Africa. With two SA offices and a growing team, Erasmus speaks passionately about the entrepreneurial grit of South Africans. 'People here have grit and willpower — they're like Jack Russells,' he said. 'There's a great work ethic, strong skills and a dedication that gives us an edge.' At a recent global leadership event in Hawaii, South Africa received accolades across leadership categories. And Cape Town's chapter of the Entrepreneurs' Organization is among the fastest-growing worldwide. Plans are already in motion to replicate the Amsterdam cloud infrastructure locally, bringing world-class cloud tech into South Africa. Big opportunity for SMEs There's also hope that smaller South African businesses can benefit too. As public cloud costs grow more unsustainable for scaling companies, Erasmus sees a 'massive opportunity' for local SMEs to explore virtual private cloud alternatives — lower cost, more predictable and tailored to their needs. Yes, the country's tax burden is high. 'We pay an awful lot of tax,' he said. But the talent, resilience, and potential in South Africa make it a great place in which to build. DM
Business Standard
29-04-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Hostzop Launches Next-Generation Cloud Platform to Empower Indian Businesses
PRNewswire Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], April 29: Hostzop, a leading provider of cloud hosting and data center services, today announced the launch of Hostzop Cloud, a next-generation cloud platform engineered to deliver enterprise-grade performance, scalability, and security--tailored for the evolving needs of Indian businesses. Built on 15+ Years of IT Expertise, Designed for a Future-Ready Digital India. Backed by over 15 years of industry experience and built on the trusted legacy of Progression, Hostzop Cloud is designed to combine startup agility with robust infrastructure. Operating from a TIA-942B Certified Tier 3 Data Center in Chennai, one of the country's most advanced facilities, the platform ensures low latency, high availability, and stringent data security. "Our focus with Hostzop Cloud is to offer a powerful, flexible, and cost-effective cloud solution that supports businesses at every stage of growth," said Rajesh Siroya, CEO of Hostzop. "We've built this platform with a support-first mindset to simplify cloud adoption. Businesses should not have to navigate complex infrastructure challenges alone--we're here to empower their journey." Cloud Solutions Tailored for Indian Enterprises Hostzop Cloud leverages cutting-edge technologies including OpenStack, AMD EPYC processors, NVMe storage, and Tungsten Fabric SDN to deliver a seamless, high-performance experience. Key offerings include: * High-performance virtual machines with dynamic scaling * Block and object storage, secure backups, and cloud firewall * Virtual Private Cloud and load balancing capabilities * Ceph-based distributed storage, zero-downtime live migration, automated backups, and snapshots The platform also provides dedicated servers powered by Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC, and SSD-based VPS hosting, catering to businesses of all sizes--from startups to large enterprises. Security and Support Businesses Can Rely On With built-in DDoS protection, multi-layered firewalls, and compliance with ISO 27001, ISO 20000, and PCI DSS, Hostzop Cloud offers peace of mind for businesses handling critical workloads. A 24/7 Network Operations Center (NOC) and Security Operations Center (SOC) ensure continuous uptime and monitoring. Hostzop also offers multi-lingual customer support to enhance accessibility and streamline onboarding for businesses across India. With over 5,000 support tickets resolved and a proven commitment to customer success, Hostzop Cloud emerges as a powerful alternative to inflexible hyperscale providers--offering transparent pricing, personalized service, and reliable infrastructure. The company also announced the launch of its upgraded data center facility in Chennai, further enhancing service delivery and infrastructure capability. About Hostzop Founded in 2016 as a division of CHL Technology (established in 2010), is a Chennai-based web hosting and cloud services provider with a global footprint. With over a decade of technical expertise and 15,000+ support tickets resolved, Hostzop is dedicated to enabling businesses to build and scale their digital presence with confidence. For more information visit For media queries, call on 1800 572 8782 or email @ marketing@
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Lightbits Labs Closes Q1-2025 with Record-Breaking Growth
Accelerated demand for infrastructure modernization modeling hyperscale architecture and AI-ready storage playing a pivotal role SAN JOSE, Calif., April 15, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lightbits Labs (Lightbits®), the inventor of the NVMe® over TCP protocol offering next-gen software-defined storage for modern workloads, today announced record-breaking growth for Q1'25. This milestone reflects strong global demand for infrastructure modernization that models Cloud Operations enabled by high-performance block storage offering flexibility, reliability, and cost-efficiency at scale. The breakout quarter for Lightbits, marked by a 4.8X increase in software sales and a 2.9X increase in average deal size, is fueled by a surge in new customers and strong customer loyalty, as evidenced by an impressive 2X YoY license increase. New account growth was particularly strong among financial services, service providers, and e-commerce organizations who require high-performance, low-latency at massive scale. A strong standout use case for Lightbits was among AI Cloud service providers. Crusoe expanded its use of Lightbits to power high-performance, multi-petabyte-scale AI cloud services. Elastx implemented Lightbits to support secure, scalable, and sustainable OpenStack, Kubernetes, and AI cloud services. And cloud company Nebul uses Lightbits to underpin its high-performance, cost-efficient data platform for enterprise AI deployments. "The quarter close marked significant progress financially and strategically," said Eran Kirzner, CEO and co-founder of Lightbits Labs. "Our growth is a direct result of the trust and value customers place in Lightbits' solutions, delivering unmatched performance and efficiency for modern applications in containerized and virtualized environments at scale. We now service Fortune 500 financial institutions, as well as some of the world's largest e-Commerce platforms and AI cloud companies." Lightbits offers best-in-class software-defined storage that redefines performance and efficiency for open source environments like Kubernetes, KVM, OpenShift, and OpenStack, delivering the industry's best price/performance for AI/ML, analytics, and transactional workloads at scale. The storage software scales to hundreds of petabytes and delivers performance of up to 75 million IOPS and consistent sub-millisecond tail latency under a heavy load. The unique NVMe over TCP architecture utilizes resources more efficiently with less proprietary hardware, simplifying storage management and requiring 5X less hardware compared to Ceph Storage, which reduces energy consumption and satisfies sustainability strategies. To support mixed workload environments, a single Lightbits cluster provides multi-tenancy with Quality of Service capabilities to prevent resource hogging. "Legacy storage infrastructure can and will impact application performance of data-driven environments. Thus, storage is fundamental and must be the first consideration of any modernization effort," said Matt Kimball, Vice President & Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. "As more organizations shift to AI and real-time data workloads, the importance of flexible, disaggregated storage solutions becomes critical. Scale matters, and performant scale is even more important. Companies like Lightbits Labs deliver performance, scale, and cost savings realized by some of the largest organizations." Lightbits Labs' success is further amplified by its growing global partner network, highlighted by several announcements last year: Lightbits Labs joined the Mirantis Partner Program, providing scalable and resilient high-performance storage for Kubernetes Lightbits Certified on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure "We're seeing a consistent pattern of engagement with customers finding that other software-defined storage can only accommodate low and middle-tier workloads. They adopt Lightbits for tier 1 workloads, and then we move downstream to their utility tier, as well. And customers seeking VMware alternatives like Lightbits for its seamless integrations with OpenShift and Kubernetes to enable their infrastructure modernization," added Rex Manseau, Chief Revenue Officer of Lightbits Labs. "The unmatched capabilities of Lightbits, combined with the compatibility with common orchestration environments, make it an ideal choice for organizations and service providers who are supporting diverse performance-sensitive workloads at scale to capitalize on rapidly expanding business opportunities." Recently, the company's solutions and commitment to excellence were given industry recognition through many prestigious awards, including: CRN's Storage 100 CRN's 50 Coolest Software-Defined Storage Vendors Data Breakthrough Award SDC and Cloud Award Lightbits also received analyst recognition from GigaOM, positioned as a Fast-Moving Leader for Primary Storage in their 2024 Primary Storage Report, further cementing its reputation in the market. Looking ahead, Lightbits Labs is poised to expand its global install base, prioritizing key markets across the Americas and Europe, and other high-growth regions. With more new products and partnership announcements in the pipeline for later this year, the company continues to innovate and expand its footprint in the storage market and intensify its focus on delivering cutting-edge solutions for broader workload coverage. In 2025, you can connect with Lightbits software-defined storage experts at these industry events: The Red Hat Summit, StackConf, and KubeCon. Visit our website to learn more about why leading organizations choose Lightbits software-defined storage or book a product demonstration today. About Lightbits Labs Lightbits Labs® (Lightbits) invented the NVMe over TCP protocol and offers best-in-class software-defined block storage that enables data center infrastructure modernization for organizations building a private or public cloud. Built from the ground up for low consistent latency, scalability, resiliency, and cost-efficiency, Lightbits software delivers the best price/performance for real-time analytics, transactional, and AI/ML workloads. Lightbits Labs is backed by enterprise technology leaders [Cisco Investments, Dell Technologies Capital, Intel Capital, Lenovo, and Micron] and is on a mission to deliver the fastest and most cost-efficient data storage for performance-sensitive workloads at scale. To learn more about Lightbits Labs, visit and follow Lightbits Labs on Linkedin, X, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Lightbits and Lightbits Labs are registered trademarks of Lightbits Labs, Ltd. All trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. View source version on Contacts Lightbits PR Contact: Carol Platzpr@ Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Open Source k0rdent Announces 19 Validated Infrastructure and Software Integrations into the Project's Ecosystem
Packaged in the k0rdent Application Catalog, the integrations speed implementations and simplify operations of cloud-native and AI workloads LONDON, March 26, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--KUBECON--Mirantis, a leader in open-source cloud infrastructure and platform engineering, today announced the k0rdent Application Catalog – with 19 validated infrastructure and software integrations that empower platform engineers to accelerate the delivery of cloud-native and AI workloads wherever they need to be deployed. The integrations are used for deploying Kubernetes clusters with open source k0rdent in data centers and on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, OpenStack, VMware vSphere, as well as other popular software programs used in Kubernetes deployments for cloud-native AI workloads. Launched last month, k0rdent has already gained traction in building an ecosystem of partners that include cloud and service providers, as well as popular open source software. k0rdent helps platform engineers manage infrastructure sprawl and operational complexity across infrastructure. It simplifies maintenance across cloud service providers and on-premises infrastructure with declarative automation, centralized policy enforcement, and production-ready templates optimized for modern workloads. k0rdent leverages the open source Cluster API so that Kubernetes clusters can be created – and existing clusters can be managed – anywhere. "By providing a central control point across infrastructure, k0rdent has attracted a growing ecosystem, facilitating deployment of cloud-native and AI workloads with greater agility, efficiency, and control," said Randy Bias, vice president of open source strategy and technology at Mirantis. "k0rdent streamlines platform engineering for AI workloads at scale, using Kubernetes to enable extensibility, customizability, and scalability of AI infrastructure. Plus, it helps optimize inference workloads by dynamically allocating compute resources where they are needed most, from centralized data centers to the far edge." The growing catalog of integrations and templates is now available and continuously updated to ensure platform teams have access to the latest tools and technologies for managing cloud-native AI workloads. The catalog includes validated services, and templates to facilitate deployment, and make it easy to integrate complementary technologies into Kubernetes clusters. The catalog includes networking and security solutions such as Ingress-NGINX for load balancing, Calico for networking and security, and Istio for service mesh capabilities. Plus, integrations with storage technologies like NetApp's Trident CSI help optimize data management, while policy enforcement tools such as Kyverno enable Kubernetes-native governance and compliance. Additionally, the catalog offers continuous delivery and monitoring tools, including ArgoCD for declarative, GitOps-driven application deployment and OpenCost for cloud cost monitoring, ensuring efficient resource utilization. For more information, view the k0rdent Getting Started Docs and software downloads that are available on GitHub. To get added to the catalog, submit the request to GitHub. To see what the partners are saying, go here. About Mirantis Mirantis helps organizations simplify operations, reduce complexity, and accelerate innovation by providing open-source solutions for delivering and managing modern distributed applications at scale. The company enables platform engineering teams to build and operate secure, scalable, and customizable developer platforms across any environment—on-premises, public cloud, hybrid, or edge. As AI-driven workloads become a core component of modern architectures, Mirantis provides the automation, multi-cloud orchestration, and infrastructure flexibility required to support high-performance AI, machine learning, and data-intensive applications. Committed to open standards and avoiding vendor lock-in, Mirantis empowers organizations to deploy and operate infrastructure and services on their terms. Mirantis serves many of the world's leading enterprises, including Adobe, Ericsson, Inmarsat, PayPal, and Societe Generale. Learn more at View source version on Contacts Joseph Eckert for Mirantisjeckert@
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
StorPool: First Software-Defined Primary Storage Vendor to Offer Disaster Recovery Engine for KVM-based Clouds
NEW CASTLE, Del., Feb. 11, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- StorPool Storage, leaders in next-generation primary data storage software solutions, today introduced the first-ever Disaster Recovery Engine for KVM-based cloud infrastructure that empowers IT service providers and enterprises to recover virtual machines in minutes whenever disaster strikes. A first-of-its-kind solution, the StorPool Disaster Recovery Engine (DRE) simplifies the configuration and execution of disaster recovery (DR) services for virtual machines (VM) in cloud infrastructure built using the Linux KVM hypervisor and the StorPool Storage platform. The StorPool DRE can protect environments with tens to thousands of VMs. It simplifies disaster recovery scenarios like 1:1, many to 1, many to many, and delivers industry-leading recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO) of virtual machines in disaster scenarios, to ensure uninterrupted business operations. This new capability makes StorPool Storage the first-ever software-defined primary data storage platform with built-in DR capabilities for KVM-based clouds. StorPool's Disaster Recovery Engine helps companies minimize data-at-risk and downtime, while automating VM failover and failback in disaster scenarios. This eliminates the need for customers to use a myriad of products from different vendors to perform backup and DR for business continuity purposes. Until now, functionality like this has been available in other ecosystems (e.g. VMware by Broadcom), but implementing it for KVM-based clouds has been too complicated and costly, limiting the adoption of the KVM hypervisor. StorPool Storage is fully integrated with the most widely used KVM Cloud Management Platforms - CloudStack, OpenNebula, OpenStack, and Proxmox. "StorPool's Disaster Recovery (DR) Engine has become a pivotal component of RapidCompute's offerings, enabling us to integrate advanced DRaaS capabilities into our KVM-based OpenStack cloud platform. StorPool's ability to consistently meet stringent RPO and RTO objectives ensures the protection and rapid recovery of customer workloads during outages," said Imtiaz Khan, Chief Technology Officer, RapidCompute. "We have trusted StorPool for over a decade to provide key storage components of our clouds worldwide. StorPool fuses operational expertise with a market leading product for price-performance," stated Robert Jenkin, CEO with CloudSigma. "With the new Disaster Recovery Engine, StorPool is helping us to better meet the needs of our customers with improved consistency of service." "We continue to add innovation and cutting-edge capabilities to our industry-leading fully managed storage service offerings so that MSPs and enterprises meet and exceed their business continuity requirements," said Boyan Ivanov, CEO at StorPool Storage. "These capabilities are an exciting addition to an already robust cloud infrastructure environment fully supported by StorPool's Fully Managed Storage Services." StorPool Storage is designed for workloads that demand utmost reliability, high performance, and low latency. StorPool comes as a Fully Managed Service / Storage as a Service (STaaS) offering: our teams design, deploy, tune, monitor, and maintain the storage system so that end-users experience fast and reliable services while our customers' tech teams focus on more strategic aspects of their business. The StorPool Disaster Recovery Engine is fully integrated with StorPool's existing licensing. To learn more about the StorPool Storage Platform and its new DR capabilities, visit the company's website at The StorPool Disaster Recovery Engine is now in public beta and GA is scheduled for Q2 2025. If you'd like to run DRE - contact StorPool at the details listed below. About StorPool StorageStorPool Storage is a primary data storage platform designed for modern, large-scale cloud infrastructure. The platform delivers the speed, agility, scalability, and price/performance required by modern applications and business demands. StorPool customers are IT service providers building public, private and hybrid clouds - Managed Service Providers, Hosting Service Providers, Cloud Service Providers, Enterprises and SaaS vendors. The StorPool Storage platform is a Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) offering, with a bring your own server model. It combines software, plus a fully managed data storage service that transforms standard hardware into fast, highly available and scalable storage systems. Learn more about StorPool Storage and how we accelerate the world by storing data more productively! For more information contact:Beth Caltagirone, Head of Marketinginfo@ Logo - View original content: SOURCE StorPool Storage
