After volatile week for open source clouds, two major companies could join OpenStack
IBM and Red Hat could soon be joining the ranks of OpenStack supporters, giving the open source cloud project a big boost.
The addition of Red Hat and IBM, first reported by GigaOm, has not been confirmed by either company or OpenStack. OpenStack started two years ago as a partnership between Rackspace and NASA, but has since grown to include more than 150 companies and more than 2,000 developers.
It’s been a busy week for open source cloud projects, which are non-proprietary platforms for building cloud deployments. Citrix this week announced it would create a competitor to OpenStack by giving its CloudStack platform a license from the Apache Software Foundation. Meanwhile, OpenStack celebrated a milestone on Thursday related to the fifth release of its software, code named Essex.
Other big-name backers of the OpenStack project include HP, Dell and Internap. CloudStack, meanwhile, has a plethora of partners as well, including Juniper Networks, Engine Yard, NetApp, Intel, Equinix and Brocade.
OpenStack is holding a Design Summit in San Francisco the week of April 16-18, where backers will plan the future of the project. That could be a time for official announcements regarding new partners.
Network World staff writer Brandon Butler covers cloud computing and social media. He can be reached at BButler@nww.com and found on Twitter at @BButlerNWW.
