ElasticHosts launches UK cloud service

Cloud computing

ElasticHosts has launched a new cloud service that plans to make Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) simple and scalable.

Targeted at SMBs, the service allows companies to pay by the hour for server capacity and instantly scale it for their needs via an easy to use website.

Richard Davies, chief executive and co-founder of the company, said: "From a small company who wants to use one server for a single website to companies with up to 1,500, we offer a reliable service where you can come to the website, sign up and scale up yourself."

The company is run by two Cambridge graduates who started in webhosting whilst at university. They started a beta of the service in November of last year, with roughly 500 people having used it since, and have this week brought it to market.

The company has two data centres both based in the UK. It's first, in Maidenhead, the pair built themselves but they have expanded to run off of a Peer 1 data centre in Fleet as well.

Davies said: "There is a strong agreement for staying in Europe. Most data centres are in the US so information has to travel over the Atlantic. This means worse performance but also the possibility of violating EU protection laws."

"There are not so many over here but as a European company we feel we are a good choice for speed and legality."

You can choose from a range of operating systems such as Linux or Windows and the base price by the hour is only 4p which will increase depending on choice of capacity.

Free trials to test out the service are available from the website.

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Jennifer Scott

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.