This past week, enStratus was invited to participate in the inaugural design summit for a new and exciting open source cloud computing platform called OpenStack. I was fortunate enough to attend and thought I would share my observations.
What is OpenStack?
OpenStack, in its current form, is the result of a shared vision between Rackspace (the main corporate sponsor of the effort so far) and several NASA engineers. Right out of the gate it offers a comprehensive cloud object storage technology based on Rackspace’s CloudFiles product, which will now be open-source under the name “swift” as part of the OpenStack effort. Couple that with key technology developed internally at NASA as part of their Nebula project and you can see that there’s already a comprehensive base of tech represented.
Further, the point of the design summit was to get major industry participants on board early, set the basic direction of the project, and kick development off with a concerted few days of collaborative coding effort. So this is just the beginning. Over 25 companies were represented with approximately 100 individuals participating, and I’ve heard that the code base already evolved over the course of the last week beyond what the sponsors were expecting.
Where is OpenStack going?
This, to me, is the really exciting part. Nobody can ever fully predict where open source movements will take a project, and there is certainly momentum behind this one, but where will it lead? Are we building just another cloud stack to “compete” with several others already in existence?I would argue we can hope for something better here... I think this is the opportunity (and has the combined cerebral weight) to offer a fundamentally more sound and well-thought-out approach to dozens of individually daunting technical issues. The goal is audacious enough... to provide a best-of-breed solution for the entire cloud computing stack from consumer API all the way down to hypervisor management. Rackspace has started well in throwing the doors open to experts from all over the cloud computing world, and the targeted September initial release will tell us much about how this will ultimately play out.
enStratus support for OpenStack
Because the initial reference API for OpenStack is essentially the Rackspace API, enStratus supports OpenStack from day one. You can download the early code today and use enStratus to provide a mature, proven, full-featured layer of automation and governance on top. Obviously we’ll give you the web-based management UI you’d expect, but do you want to do OpenStack auto-scaling with auto-recovery? Want full user management or comprehensive financial management and tracking? enStratus on top of OpenStack offers some intriguing options. Best of all, thanks to easy multiple-account management, you can use enStratus to integrate OpenStack testing with your existing infrastructure on Rackspace, Amazon, and many other supported environments.
Of course, as the OpenStack project progresses and new features are implemented, enStratus’ support will adapt and grow. For more information on what enStratus already provides, check out our website. Follow OpenStack on twitter at @openstack. Follow enStratus at @enstratus.
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