xeround
{{Short description|Cloud database software}}
Xeround was a provider of cloud database software, launched in 2005,[https://web.archive.org/web/20091113030528/http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=21008964 "Xeround"], [https://www.bloomberg.com Bloomberg.com], Retrieved 25-8-2011. and was shut down in May 2013.{{Cite web|url=https://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/05/12/how-to-pivot-away-34m-israels-xeround-shuts-it-doors-with-a-lesson/|title = How to Pivot Away $34m: Israel's Xeround Shuts it Doors with a Lesson|date = 12 May 2013}} The company was founded by Sharon Barkai and Gilad Zlotkin. Zlotkin, a former research fellow at MIT Sloan School of Management,[http://dl.acm.org/author_page.cfm?id=81100061819&coll=DL&dl=ACM&trk=0&cfid=41956890&cftoken=15167202 Gilad Zlotkin's Scientific Publications], [http://dl.acm.org ACM Digital Library], Retrieved 12-9-2011. founded five other startups including Radview (NASDAQ:RDVW). Israeli financial newspaper Globes ranked the company as one of Israel's most promising start-ups in 2006.Batya Feldman, [http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000636459&fid=1725 Cloud database co Xeround raises $4m], [http://www.globes.co.il Globes], Retrieved 25-8-2011
Xeround's product was initially used by telecom providers, including T-Mobile; in 2009 the company added a MySQL front end to its product,Derrick Harris, [http://gigaom.com/cloud/for-xeround-mysql-in-the-cloud-knows-no-bounds/ "For Xeround, MySQL in the Cloud Knows No Bounds"], [http://gigaom.com/ GigaOM], Retrieved 25-8-2011. making it applicable to a mass market of 12 million MySQL applications.Victoria Barret, [https://archive.today/20130123095359/http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/20/mysql-marten-mickos-technology-enterprise-tech-mysql.html "Why Oracle Won't Kill MySQL"], [https://www.forbes.com Forbes.com], Retrieved 12-9-2011. The product allows MySQL users to scale their database and achieve high availability on cloud platforms like Amazon EC2.Timothy Prickett Morgan, [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/14/xeround_mysql_database_service/ "Xeround reinvents MySQL atop Amazon cloud"], [https://www.theregister.co.uk The Register], Retrieved 25-8-2011. The beta version of the service was reported to be used by 2000 organizations;James Niccolai, [http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/391370/four_companies_rethink_databases_cloud "Four companies rethink databases for the cloud"], [http://www.computerworld.com.au Computerworld.com.au], Retrieved 12-9-2011[https://www.devshed.org/xeround-announces-cloud-service-for-mysql/ "Xeround Announces Cloud Service for MySQL"], [https://www.devshed.org DevShed.org], Retrieved 25-8-2011.Derrick Harris, [http://gigaom.com/cloud/xeround-enters-ga-tests-the-sql-in-the-cloud-water/ "Xeround enters GA, tests the SQL-in-the-cloud water], [http://www.gigaom.com GigaOM], Retrieved 25-8-2011Maria Deutscher, [http://siliconangle.com/blog/2011/06/13/xeround-releases-cloud-service-for-mysql-applications/ "Xeround Releases Cloud Service for MySQL Applications"], [http://siliconangle.com Silicon Angle], Retrieved 15-9-2011. General availability was announced in June 2011.Sean Michael Kerner, [http://www.databasejournal.com/news/xeround-mysql-cloud-database-ga.html "Xeround MySQL Cloud Database Goes GA"], [http://www.databasejournal.com Database Journal], Retrieved 25-8-2011 According to CNET blogger Dave Rosenberg, Xeround's MySQL support makes it "well positioned to take a leadership position in the database market".Dave Rosenberg, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-20016428-62.html Xeround scales MySQL for the cloud], [http://news.cnet.com CNET], Retrieved 25-8-2011
On May 1, 2013, Xeround announced to its paid customers that they were shutting down the cloud database service and all data must be migrated before being dropped on May 15, 2013.{{cite web|url=http://xeround.com/blog/2013/05/discontinuing-of-xeround-cloud-database-public-service |title=Discontinuing of Xeround Cloud Database Public Service |access-date=May 2, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130502094408/http://xeround.com/blog/2013/05/discontinuing-of-xeround-cloud-database-public-service |archive-date=May 2, 2013 }}
Product
Xeround provides a cloud database service for applications based on the open source edition of the MySQL database (MySQL is currently owned by Oracle). The product addresses two related problems: it is complex to run databases on the cloud, especially if high availability is needed; and databases in general are difficult to scale, as data throughput and volumes grow.Dave Rosenberg, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-20022794-62.html, Are databases in the cloud really all that different?], [http://news.cnet.com CNET], Retrieved 8-9-2011 A cloud database service solves both problems, by managing the database on the cloud and taking care of scalability and high availability, in a way that is transparent to the application. Instead of connecting to a local instance of MySQL, applications can connect to Xeround's cloud database, and are then free to scale as needed. Because Xeround is an in-memory distributed database, it is currently limited up to 50 Gigabytes of data.Razi Sharir, [http://xeround.com/blog/2011/07/xeround-pay-per-use-pricing-explained "Xeround Pay-Per-Use Pricing Explained"], [http://xeround.com Xeround.com], Retrieved 18-9-2011. Xeround gives a no downtime SLA guarantee [http://xeround.com/mysql-cloud-db-overview/mysql-high-availability/]. The service offers pay-per-use pricing, calculated per Gigabyte per hour, with an additional charge for data transfer for large databases.[http://xeround.com/mysql-cloud-db-overview/pay-per-use-cloud-database/ "Xeround Pricing"], [http://xeround.com Xeround.com], Retrieved 15-9-2011
Xeround offers its service on several cloud platforms - as of September 2011, Xeround supported Amazon EC2, RackSpace,Angela Bartels, [http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/blog/2011/04/12/xeround-provides-auto-scaling-high-availability-for-your-mysql-database-in-the-cloud/ "Xeround Provides Auto-Scaling & High-Availability for your MySQL Database in the Cloud"], [http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/blog/ RackSpace Cloud Blog], Retrieved 25-8-2011 and Heroku,[http://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/xeround "Xeround Cloud Database for MySQL applications"], [http://devcenter.heroku.com Heroku Dev Center], Retrieved 25-8-2011 and is planning to support additional providers. As of March 2011, Xeround was the only commercially available product which supports more than one cloud provider, allowing users to move their databases freely between cloud platforms without being locked in.Dan Kusnetzky, [https://web.archive.org/web/20110404054452/http://www.zdnet.com/blog/virtualization/xeround-add-on-for-heroku-cloud-platform/2920 "Xeround Add-on for Heroku Cloud Platform"], [https://www.zdnet.com ZDNet], Retrieved 25-8-2011
While Xeround uses the open source version of MySQL, the cloud database software itself is not open source. Another distinction is that while Xeround offers MySQL as a front-end, on the back-end it is a NoSQL data storage system distributed on a large number of physical nodes - so it is not subject to the scalability limitations of regular MySQL databases.
On 1 May 2013 Xeround announced via an e-mail to customers that they would no longer be providing their service. The service is to end on 15 May 2013.
Company timeline
- 2005 - Xeround is founded by Sharon Barkai and Gilad Zlotkin, raises $6.5 million in Series A funding, focuses initially on distributed database software for Telecom providers.
- 2006 - Xeround ranked as one of Israel's most promising start-ups by Israeli financial newspaper Globes.
- 2008 - Xeround raises an additional $16 million in Series B funding.[http://vmblog.com/archive/2008/07/11/database-virtualization-company-xeround-secures-16-million-in-series-b-financing.aspx Database Virtualization Company Xeround Secures $16 Million in Series B Financing], [http://vmblog.com VMblog.com], Retrieved 15-9-2011.
- 2009 - Xeround recruits Razi Sharir as CEO and repositions its product as a cloud database service with a MySQL front-end.
- 2010 - Xeround launches beta version of its database service.[http://gigaom.com/cloud/out-of-stealth-xeround-launches-mysql-as-a-service/ "Out of Stealth, Xeround Launches MySQL as a Service"], [http://gigaom.com GigaOM], Retrieved 15-9-2011.
- 2011 - Xeround announces General Availability of its cloud database service, and raises an additional $4 million in its final financing round.
- 2011 - Xeround Raises $9.3M From Benchmark And Others.[https://techcrunch.com/2011/12/14/cloud-database-startup-xeround-raises-9-3m-from-benchmark-and-others/ "Cloud Database Startup Xeround Raises $9.3M From Benchmark And Others"], TechCrunch, Retrieved 12-18-2011.
- 2013 - Xeround announced its shutdown.
Competitors and alternatives
Xeround's primary competitors are database services offered by the large cloud vendors, Amazon Relational Database Service and Database.com by Salesforce. Other cloud database providers mentioned by industry sourcesKlint Finley, [http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/01/7-cloud-based-database-service.php "7 Cloud-Based Database Services"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111109084453/http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/01/7-cloud-based-database-service.php |date=2011-11-09 }}, [http://www.readwriteweb.com ReadWriteWeb], Retrieved 18-9-2011. are Microsoft Azure SQL Database, NimbusDB, ClearDB, ParAccel, as well as NoSQL key-value data stores such as Amazon SimpleDB, Google Cloud Datastore, Couchbase Server, and Cloudant.
Database users running their applications on the cloud also have the option of installing databases in a "do it yourself" manner instead of paying for a cloud database service. This involves purchasing a machine instance on a cloud computing platform like Amazon EC2, and manually installing a database.
References
{{reflist|30em}}
External links
- [http://xeround.com Xeround Official Website]
- [http://xeround.com/blog Xeround Blog]
Category:Cloud computing providers
Category:Companies based in Bellevue, Washington
Category:Relational database management systems