Huawei is latest company to embrace open source cloud platform
Chinese telecom giant Huawei today announced FusionCloud, an OpenStack-powered cloud aimed mostly at carrier providers.
Huawei joined OpenStack in October with subdued fanfare compared to other companies that have joined the open source cloud computing project. OpenStack was started by Rackspace and NASA in 2010 and has since grown to include dozens of major vendors, including IBM, Dell, HP, VMware and others, but Huawei is by far OpenStack’s largest teclo-focused company.
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Huawei’s FusionCloud, unveiled at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, has a variety of components including FusionSphere, an operating system for running cloud deployments, as well as FusionCable, a complementary converged infrastructure component that incorporates compute, storage and networking.
“Telecom services require low latency, high reliability, and high performance,” said Ren Zhipeng, general manager, Cloud Computing Product Line at Huawei. “We know that in addition to satisfying customer needs and service requirements based on speed, a reliable and unified management platform is required to ensure the efficient operation of core services. With complete OpenStack compatibility, we are confident that FusionCloud represents the optimal cloud computing solution for carrier organizations.” In addition to announcing the FusionCloud, Huawei says it has launched an internal cloud that serves its 70,000 active users.
A variety of other OpenStack-backed companies are in various stages of developing OpenStack-powered clouds, but Huawei today jumps to the forefront. Rackspace is the furthest along with its OpenStack powered cloud already in production. HP has its OpenStack powered public cloud in a preview version, while an official from Dell said that the company’s OpenStack-powered public cloud would be available late in 2013. Dell already has VMware-powered public cloud computing offerings.
The OpenStack community is gearing up for its next bi-annual summit in April, in which members of the open source project will meet in Portland, Ore., to discuss the newest release of OpenStack code – named Grizzly.
Network World staff writer Brandon Butler covers cloud computing and social collaboration. He can be reached at BButler@nww.com and found on Twitter at @BButlerNWW.
