SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--OpenStack™, the open source cloud project founded by Rackspace® Hosting and NASA, today announced the ‘Bexar’ code release of OpenStack Compute and Object Storage which includes a variety of new features, an official documentation site and key new participants to drive adoption of the emerging cloud standard by service providers and enterprise users. While OpenStack Object Storage has already been deployed at commercial scale, for the first time, the release of these new features and documentation makes OpenStack Compute ready to deploy as an open source alternative to proprietary, expensive virtualization solutions.
“We’ve heard CIOs hesitate to invest in proprietary cloud technology, because they don’t to want be locked in for the long haul. They want the freedom to switch cloud hosting or technology providers and gain more flexibility with their deployments,” said Jim Curry, GM of OpenStack at Rackspace. “OpenStack is rapidly moving to solve these problems, and it’s evident to us that we need an open cloud standard to best enable hybrid scenarios, federation and easy migration. We appreciate the hundreds of contributors who see the vision and have joined the cause.”
Bexar Release Features
The Bexar release of OpenStack Compute introduces new enterprise features that streamline the installation process, allow users to pre-install and create their own application environments and instantly spin up the same copy as they scale out. The full list of features in Compute includes internationalization, support for IPv6, Hyper-V, iSCSI with XenAPI, XenServer snapshots and raw disk images, as well as the addition of a sub-project code-named Glance, an image discovery and delivery service that enables portability of workloads between OpenStack clouds. Object Storage now supports storing of files up to unlimited sizes, and the two projects have become more tightly integrated.
The new release also includes the launch of an official documentation site with PDF and HTML manuals to guide users through installation and deployment. The new features and documentation were made possible by contributions from a long list of core contributors and participating companies, including Anso Labs, Citrix, Cloud.com, FathomDB, NTT Data and Rackspace.
The theme of the next OpenStack ‘Cactus’ release, expected in April, will be optimizing the project for service provider-scale deployments. Cactus is also expected to include additional highly requested features such as live migration of virtual machines. The next public Design Summit will take place April 26-29, 2011 in Santa Clara, CA, where community members will plan for the following two releases, including ‘Diablo’ to be released Summer 2011.
Participating Companies
New OpenStack community members Canonical, Cisco, Extreme Networks and Grid Dynamics have joined the 50-member-strong alliance to continue advancing the code base and drive adoption of the open cloud operating system. Canonical has committed to include OpenStack in the April release of Ubuntu Server 11.04, while Cisco has assembled a development team of engineers that will contribute design specifications and code to the OpenStack community.
"We are really delighted to bring the Bexar release to Ubuntu users in the next version of Ubuntu Server in April," said Neil Levine, VP of Corporate Services at Canonical. "Our goal in cloud computing is to deliver a platform for businesses and for cloud providers that integrates the best technology available on which to build open-source cloud environments. OpenStack is critical to that goal and I know that there is huge anticipation in our user base to start exploring the capabilities of OpenStack on the best OS for the cloud, which is Ubuntu."
“Open source plays an important role in cloud computing, and Cisco’s membership in the OpenStack community reflects our focus on helping to advance this technology,” said Lew Tucker, vice president and chief technology officer, Cloud Computing, Cisco. “Cisco takes a systems approach to cloud computing for its customers and holds a commitment to open standards and industry collaboration. For many of our customers and partners, open-source solutions such as OpenStack provide an alternative approach to architect and deploy cloud solutions.”
About OpenStack™
OpenStack is a large-scale open source cloud project and community established to drive industry standards, end cloud lock-in and speed the adoption of cloud technologies by service providers and enterprises. The project currently includes OpenStack Object Storage, a fully distributed object store, and OpenStack Compute, a scalable compute provisioning engine. OpenStack was founded by Rackspace® Hosting through its wholly owned subsidiary, OpenStack, LLC, and has the support of more than 50 participating companies and over 1,000 project participants. For more information and to join the community, visit OpenStack.org.
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If such risks or uncertainties materialize or such assumptions prove incorrect, the results of Rackspace Hosting could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including any statements concerning expected development of the OpenStack project; the acceptance of OpenStack technology as an industry standard; anticipated operational and financial benefits from any development of the OpenStack project; the participation of other companies or individuals in the OpenStack project; any statements of expectation or belief; and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include the possibility that expected benefits from the OpenStack project may not materialize because the underlying technology is not reliable or generally compatible with industry standards; there are changes in technology that adversely affect the adoption of the standards, and other risks that are described in Rackspace Hosting's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2010, filed with the SEC on November 9, 2010. Except as required by law, Rackspace Hosting assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.