The Companies That Support Linux: Planisys

As cloud computing expands beyond the data center to include all connected devices, technologies are rapidly changing to meet the need. Cloud services provider Planisys recognizes this trend and has built its business on Linux in order to stay adaptable, says Carlos Horowicz, CEO and co-founder of Planisys.

By using Linux containers and Linux-based orchestration tools, Planisys is able to stay flexible amid changing hardware and networks, which in turn has helped the company to scale and stay competitive, he says. Planisys recently joined the Linux Foundation as a corporate member in order to better support the community that supports their business.

“We are fully aware, that our business model is completely based on Linux and this would not be possible without the strong Linux community behind the scenes,” Horowicz said.

Here he tells us more about Planisys, how they use Linux, why they joined the foundation, and the role of Linux and containers in current cloud computing trends.

Linux.com: What is Planisys?

Carlos Horowicz: Planisys is a Cloud Services Provider headquartered in Argentina with its hardware and connectivity infrastructure mainly in U.S. data centers.

Planisys provides businesses with CDN, DNS, and transactional e-mail services focusing on clients with high-traffic requirements like latin american online newspapers.

How and why do you use Linux?

Horowicz: We run almost every piece of software within a Linux Container, either as our management software or as part of a service. This way we have the flexibility to maintain, update and adopt new software in a consistent platform that always provides paths for upgrades and evolution to ensure business continuity.

The Linux-based orchestration tools, used in conjunction with containers, have made it possible for our company to grow in scale and be more competitive.

We are fully aware, that our business model is completely based on Linux and this would not be possible without the strong Linux community behind the scenes.

Why did you join the Linux Foundation?

Horowicz: We joined the LF as a strategy to help support the Linux community in its many different ways of contributing to different projects we rely on for our business. We emphasize our commitment to Linux, and desire to be known as a Linux and open source based company for talent recruitment.

Linux continuity is key to our business.

What interesting or innovative trends are you witnessing in cloud computing and what role does Linux play in them?

Horowicz: In the Latin American market, we are seeing that users are eager to adopt cloud-based standard technologies and are increasingly interested in the transparency and usefulness of cloud services, represented by its ease of use, understandable metrics and more intelligent monitoring alerts and logs.

This is being made possible by Linux as a consistent platform underneath.

How is Planisys participating in that innovation?

Horowicz: Planisys is striving to accomplish the transparency and usability trend by developing new user interfaces for its services that are more flexible and understandable to more people. This means also developing new abstractions related to the already successful Linux container model that reflect increasingly complex connectivity scenarios and container dynamics.

What other future technologies or industries do you think Linux and open source will increasingly become important in and why?

Horowicz: There seems to be a trend in deploying Linux and thus containers on different hardware platforms, cell phones are just one example, as the world becomes increasingly “software defined.” We will have to adapt to new and more diverse hardware and connectivity scenarios.

We expect also that the concept of cloud will not be limited to well-connected data centers, but rather extended to any area where there is an intelligent device and protocols for transmitting and sharing information.

Planisys sees a role in this future as a company that can manage, deploy, maintain, and update applications on containers, and provide new cloud services based on different hardware platforms and diverse connectivities.

What else is new or upcoming at Planisys that you’d like to share?

Horowicz: Throughout 2015, Planisys will be expanding its connectivity to U.S. and Europe peering points with strong commitment to IPv6, Anycast and Geo-based DNS, and implementing new user interfaces to its

CDN, DNS and Transactional e-Mail services to provide automated provisioning, better metrics and assertion-based alerts.

Interested in becoming a member of the Linux Foundation? Join now!