UK company joins H2020 cloud computing project

A €3.6m project aimed at improving cloud networking and application deployment has accepted a new member to its research consortium.

Cloud management and software company Flexiant announced that it had joined the BEACON Horizon 2020 project consortium, and the London-based firm will focus its efforts on developing innovative techniques for cloud networking. Flexiant will also help create an integrated management cloud layer that enables an efficient and secure deployment of cloud applications.

The project is funded under the ICT theme of the EU’s latest research and innovation framework programme. The BEACON project aims to deliver a homogeneous virtualisation layer, on top of heterogeneous underlying physical networks, computing and storage infrastructures, providing ease of application deployment across different clouds and datacentres.

Speaking about joining the consortium, Flexiant’s head of research, Craig Sheridan, said: “The opportunity offered by Horizon 2020 is energising to ambitious companies like Flexiant. The job creation and growth opportunity allows Flexiant to increase our capacity to innovate and take bold ideas to market profitably. BEACON will enable us to develop our industry leading cloud software in line with leading research in future cloud technology.”

The collaborative research project includes the participation of Lufthansa Systems, IBM Israel, Belgian firm CETIC, Complutense University of Madrid, OpenNebula Systems of Spain and Universita di Messina, Italy.