Mesosphere Raises $10.5 Million to Create Massive Linux Clusters

Debunking the Top Data Center Myths

Thanks to the advent of multicore processors, the average data center these days has access to a massive amount of compute capacity. Tapping into it efficiently, though, is another thing altogether.

Fresh off of raising over $10 million in additional funding this week, Mesosphere has developed data center management software that makes all that compute capacity look like one massive server to the applications running in that environment.

Mesophere CEO Florian Leibert says that instead of relying on virtual machine software to increase utilization rates, Mesophere technologies are based on open source Mesos cluster management software, which automates IT operations. Via either a command-line interface or an application programming interface (API), IT organizations can turn multiple servers into a cluster of systems that look like a single massive machine to any application.

Developed by engineers that formerly worked at Twitter and Airbnb, Apache Mesos software is currently being used at eBay, Netflix, OpenTable, PayPal and Shopify. Leibert says Mesosphere is extending that core platform in a way that automates the management of data center by leveraging Linux functionality, such as cgroups, to enable more efficient management of system resources.

Leibert says that Mesos is essentially the inverse of virtualization. Rather than trying to carve up a server into virtual systems that multiple applications can share, Mesos essentially turns all the servers in the data environment into a cluster that functions like one big computer system, says Leibert.

IT folks at more traditional companies have wondered whether companies operating at Web scale had access to data center management technologies that required fewer people to manage their systems. It turns out that the answer to that question is now “yes.”