Archive
RoadStack RV: Dell, Rackspace, OpenStack and a Long Stretch of Road…
.
This past week marked the end of a nearly three week journey by a few brave souls from Rackspace and Dell, as the two companies sponsored the team to travel to and from the OpenStack Summit in San Fran last week, making Stacker Stops along the way.
A team that included folks like Dell’s Andi Abes and Rackspace’s Wayne Walls, Jordon Rinke, Scott Simpson, and Glen Campbell, finally ended their tour this past Friday, pulling into their San Antonio home base.
The team had quite a lofty mission – make the drive from San Antonio to San Fran, spend the week at the summit, and drive back hitting key cities like Los Angeles, Boulder, Dallas, and Austin. As they drove, they’d code and blog. When they stopped, they spread the good word around the OpenStack open cloud.
(And I hear there was a bit of hijinks thrown in as well.)
We had the pleasure of hosting the RoadStackers when they stopped by the Dell campus in Austin – I had a chance to chat with the guys, so take a look at a few of the 90 second videos we put together…
And yeah – we had a little fun with it – enjoy!
If you want to learn more about Dell is doing in the OpenStack space, including the Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution, check out www.Dell.com/OpenStack or drop me an email at OpenStack@Dell.com.
Until next time,
JBGeorge
@jbegeorge
Videos:
- Scott Simpson and I chat about OpenStack Swift – and an upcoming movie?
- Jordan Rinke and I chat about OpenStack and Hyper-V support – and REM cycles on the trip
- Glen Campbell and I chat about his Top 3 important topics at the OpenStack summit – and an unscheduled extension to the RoadStack tour
- Wayne Walls and I chat about what he’s going to do as soon as he gets off the RoadStack RV
More News on the OpenStack Foundation: Participating Members
.
At the Oct 2011 OpenStack conference in Boston, leaders in the community, namely Rackspace, made the announcement that steps were being taken to transition the open source cloud technology to a foundation format.
Today, more news has come out regarding details on this move, and some of the key players in the newly forming foundation.
The Platinum Members listed include
- AT&T
- Canonical
- HP
- IBM
- Nebula
- Rackspace
- Red Hat
- Suse
The Gold Members listed are made up of
- Dell (the company I work for)
- Cisco
- ClearPath Networks
- CloudScaling
- DreamHost
- ITRI
- Mirantis
- Morph Labs
- Netapp
- Piston Cloud Computing
- Yahoo!
In addition to these partners, there are a number of individual partner options available, allowing anyone interested in being a part of the foundation that option.
Dell has long been known for our approach to customer solutions: Open, Capable, and Affordable. So naturally, we are glad to see progress in this area of the community and initiative. In fact, here’s what our VP and GM of Server Development had to say on the topic:
“We believe the OpenStack Foundation is a significant step in the evolution of the OpenStack initiative and for open source cloud innovation”, said Forrest Norrod, VP & GM of Dell Server Platforms. “Dell has always been about open – open standards, systems and solutions promote innovation and give our customers choice. We look forward to participating in the OpenStack Foundation as part of our continued efforts to empower and grow the open source cloud ecosystem.”
This is only the first step, and the Foundation leads are looking to get to an agreed to set of bylaws and framework by the third quarter of 2012. If you’d like to learn more about the mission and framework of the foundation, check out the OpenStack Wiki here.
And if you’d like to learn more about Dell is doing in the OpenStack space, including details on our on-premise OpenStack offering, the Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution, feel free to visit us at www.Dell.com/OpenStack. You can also drop me a line at OpenStack@Dell.com.
This is certainly an exciting day for OpenStack, as the movement continues to mature and grow.
PS – for any of you that are in / near the Austin area, we’ll be having our April edition of the monthly OpenStack meetup TONIGHT hosted by Dell, and sponsored this month by Suse. Everyone’s welcome, so be sure to stop by the Tech Ranch tonight – more info at http://www.meetup.com/OpenStack-Austin.
Until next time.
JBGeorge
@jbgeorge
THIS JUST IN: The Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution Expands Globally
.
It’s hard to believe that it’s only been eight months since Dell, the company I work for, brought the Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution to market. 
It was a great day for Dell in that we were
- the first to bring an OpenStack based, on-premise cloud solution to market
- the first to make available a software framework like Crowbar (extending Opscode’s Chef tool)
- the first to provide a referencable Dell OpenStack customer in DreamHost
.
Being the agile team we are, we were very focused in our launch. We launched the solution in North America first, while 
we learned about the open source cloud needs of Europe and Asia and what our customers in those regions needed from an OpenStack solution.
We listened. We learned. We built. We tested. We took learnings back to our solution. And we retested. And got more customer input. And retested. And we built in our learnings.
(Should be a very familiar song and dance to the innovators out there.)
And that journey brings us to today.
With that exprience under our belt, I’m proud to say our team has reached our next milestone….
At World Hosting Days in Germany today, Dell will be announcing that our OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution will be launching in the UK, Germany, and China.
Our executive director, John Igoe, will be on stage at the event to talk through more details on the launch, supported by a great group of folks to help answer questions on the announcement and the solution.
As we take the Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution into these new regions, it continues to feature:
- A validated and OpenStack-optimized reference architecture based on Dell’s infrastructure portfolio, including Dell PowerEdge C series and new 12G servers
- Open source OpenStack cloud software
- Dell developed Crowbar software to enable quick and easy deployment + continous integration
- Deployment, support, and consulting services
We’re very excited by the news today, and anticipate this will help accelerate OpenStack as a movement and a community. 
We’ve seen the OpenStack community grow so quickly and our friends in Europe and Asia are a strong part of what makes the OpenStack open source movement so great. In fact, I am happy to report that we’ve already begun enablng some of our customers in those areas to start with our solution.
If you’re interested in learning more about what Dell is doing with OpenStack, and more on the Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution, you can visit www.Dell.com/OpenStack or drop us an email at OpenStack@Dell.com.
Until next time.
JOSEPH
@jbgeorge
More info:
- Dell.com/OpenStack
- Dell.com/Crowbar
- Crowbar’s public repository
- The Dell OpenStack case study featuring DreamHost
- RobHirschfeld.com – our lead architect’s blog
- BartonGeorge.net – our web / tech marketing director’s blog
Round Two: Austin OpenStack Meetup This Week!
.
OK, ladies and gents… the first OpenStack meetup was great – let’s do it again!
This Thursday, OpenStack fans around Austin (and San Antonio, and Dallas 🙂 ) will get together at the Tech Ranch to talk all things OpenStack.
This time around, we’ll focus on deployment as it was a hot topic at our last meetup – we’d like to ask all attendees to come prepared with their questions, experiences, stories, best practices, etc to share.
We’ll also open the floor to other OpenStack topics that would be discussed – technical and business discussions – no commercials please! 🙂
We’ll also talk about organizing future OpenStack meet ups.
Here’s all you need to know:
- WHEN: Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 6:30pm
- WHERE: The Austin Tech Ranch – 9111 Jollyville Rd #100, Austin, TX
- REGISTER HERE: http://www.meetup.com/OpenStack-Austin/
- TWITTER: Do you tweet? Then tweet before / at / during / about this week’s Austin meetup! Be sure to use #OSATX in your tweet.
This month, we’re fortunate to have Rackspace sponsor our refreshments at the meetup, so thanks to them!
(If your company is interested in helping sponsor a future meetup, find me at this week’s meetup, and we’ll talk about the details.)
.
- The Tech Ranch in Austin
THIS JUST IN: Dell Open Sources Hadoop Barclamps for Crowbar
Have you been plugged into what Dell is doing in the open source big data space, specifically around Hadoop?
A few months ago, Dell (the company I work for) announced the Dell | Cloudera Hadoop Solution to provide our customers with superfast data mining, processing and analysis, and featured the Dell-developed Crowbar software framework to deploy / manage it.
To make it even cooler, we went ahead and open sourced Crowbar (Apache 2).
And earlier this month, at Hadoop World, we announced our intent to open source a few Hadoop barclamps (Crowbar modules that perform a specific function like configure BIOS).
Well, that day has arrived – the Hadoop barclamps are now open sourced.
.
The details
Specifically, the newly open sourced barclamps help with the following Hadoop projects:
- Cloudera CDH / Enterprise enables Hadoop administrators to first deploy CDH then easily move to Cloudera Enterprise if/when the business needs warrant.
- Zookeeper allows Apache Hadoop administrators to track and coordinate distributed applications.
- Apache Pig provides a compiler that produces sequences of Map-Reduce programs.
- Flume provides an agent for collecting data and putting into the Hadoop environment.
- Sqoop allows rapid connection to external data sources including relational databases. E.g., data can be moved from Oracle to Hadoop and back again for different types of analysis.
Videos
Our team has put together a number of videos to help provide you more detail on what these new barclamps can do – check them out.
- Hadoop Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eilF16KqRmg
- Install Crowbar: http://youtu.be/WAUKMlawrPw
- Basic Build: http://youtu.be/FsOBaAiDgYs
- Advanced Build: http://youtu.be/qvsfXPH5k5Q
Get those barclamps!
Ready to get the barclamps? Head over to https://github.com/dellcloudedge/barclamp-hadoop to download them.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Dell innovation happening in the Hadoop space, visit us at www.Dell.com/Hadoop or email us at Hadoop@Dell.com
Until next time,
JBGeorge
@jbgeorge
OpenStack meetups in Austin and Boston!
.
Just a quick heads up on some OpenStack meet ups coming your way…
.
Boston
A shot from our FIRST OpenStack meetup in Austin last month...
This Tuesday, Nov 29, Dell (the company I work for), along with Fidelity, will be sponsoring an OpenStack meetup in BOSTON at 6pm at the Lexington Depot.
Hear from folks actively deploying (or getting close to) on OpenStack clouds.
Partly presentation and mostly discussion (and obviously pizza). 🙂
Sessions should cover the core new features in Diablo: Keystone and Dashboard, as well as deployment strategies (and will touch on Dell’s own Crowbar). Each topic will have a presentation followed by open Q & A.
Time is also reserved for an unconference so come armed with some topics
Meet and eat at 6, then get to cloud stuff at 6:30, and plan to end around 9pm.
Learn more / register at http://www.meetup.com/Openstack-Boston/ – if you attend, be sure to grab some pics and tweet w #OSBOS
.
Austin
Last month, my team at Dell hosted the first ever OpenStack meetup in Austin with a great showing of the cloud community in the city. We’re now at over 100 members on the MeetUp, and we want to keep the goodness going.
We’ll be back at the Tech Ranch on Thu, December 8 to have our second Austin OpenStack meetup where the topic (based on last time’s feedback) will be deployment, and a myriad of other topics.
This time around Rackspace will be joining us and sponsoring the food and refreshments for the night.
You can join the group and get details on the Austin meet up at http://www.meetup.com/Openstack-Austin/
Same deal – when you come, take a few pics and tweet with #OSATX.
.
What city’s next?
A number of the attendees of the last Austin meetup actually traveled in from a number of nearby cities, so if you’re so inclined, start an OpenStack meetup in your area!
Feel free to drop me a line or catch me at the next meet up if you’re interested in learning how we got started.
See you at the next meet up!
Until next time,
JBGeorge
@jbgeorge
More info on what Dell is doing with OpenStack at www.Dell.com/OpenStack or email me at OpenStack@Dell.com
.
TOP TEN: Why You Should Be At Tonight’s Austin OpenStack Meetup
.
OK, ladies and gentlemen – the top ten reasons for why you should head out to the Tech Ranch tonight for our first Austin OpenStack meetup.
OpenStack Meet Up Tonight (Thu, 10/27) 6:30pm at Tech Ranch Austin
10. There will be free food.
9. You’ll meet other Stackers and cloud fans in the Austin area.
8. You’ll get a first hand view of OpenStack, Diablo, and Crowbar
7. You’ll get to hobnob with OpenStack rockstars from Dell, Rackspace, Opscode, and other OpenStack supporters. (There are also rumors that Dell’s elusive and wildly handsome director of marketing will be in attendance.)
6. There will be free food.
5. You’ll learn about Crowbar from the people that actually wrote the software.
4. Remember the week-long OpenStack technical trainings that have been happening world-wide over the last month or so? This week, it’s in Austin, so we’ll have a number of out of town guests to meet up with.
3. JBG will provide timely World Series score updates.
2. Live demos. That’s always a crowd favorite.
1. OpenStack is one of the coolest new technology movements out there – this is a great way to dive into OpenStack!
(Oh, and there will be FREE FOOD.)
If you’re planning to head out, be sure to RSVP at http://www.meetup.com/OpenStack-Austin/events/37908242/
You can learn more about Dell’s doing with OpenStack by emailing me at OpenStack@Dell.com or visiting www.Dell.com/OpenStack
See you tonight!
JBGeorge
@jbgeorge
Attention All Austin Stackers: OpenStack Meet Up This Thursday, 10/27!
A quick heads up for all cloud pros, enthusiasts, and interested parties in the Austin area…
Or those visting Austin this week…
Or those willing to travel to the Austin area this week…
Or those with reliable molecular teleportation technology…
Dell is sponsoring an OpenStack meetup at Tech Ranch Austin this Thursday night at 6:30pm!
OpenStack Meetup - Thu, 10/27 6:30pm
It happens to coincide with the same week that Rackspace Cloud Builders is hosting their weeklong OpenStack training at Dell HQ, so we’ll hopefully get a number of our friends who are in town for that session.
I expect we’ll touch on OpenStack, Diablo, Crowbar, and a few demos, along w some ops and business discussions.
You’ll have a number of the Dell OpenStack experts out at the event as well – Rob Hirschfeld, Greg Althaus, and more.
Here’s the link with all the details – http://www.meetup.com/OpenStack-Austin/events/37908242/
(And for those on the fence, we’ll pick up the tab on pizza and cokes.)
Come on out! We’ll see you there!
Until next time,
JOSEPH
@jbgeorge
Learn more:
- Official Meet Up site – http://www.meetup.com/OpenStack-Austin/events/37908242/
- Rob Hirschfeld Blog – http://robhirschfeld.com/
Sneak Peek: Dell at the Fall 2011 OpenStack Design Summit and Conference
.
It’s that time of year again – leaves changing color, kids back in school, Halloween preparations…
…and time for the the Fall OpenStack Design Summit and Conference!
For Dell, the company I work for, this is our fourth time at bat with the OpenStack summit – and if you do the math, that means we’ve been at EVERY OpenStack Design Summit since the initiative was announced.
If you’ve never been, this is a great time to come out and check out what’s happening in this innovative open source community.
Since Dell is among a few vendors that have been a part of OpenStack since Day 1, I can truly say I’m amazed at how far we’ve come. From a fledgling group of partners with a vision for an open source project to a thriving community of over 100 partners and multiple projects in just over a year is an incredible feat.
And there’s no chance that this community is stopping any time soon.
With the release of Diablo, new work ALREADY starting on Essex, and a LOT of customer interest in the Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution, this is an amazing time to be a participant in the community!
So what’s Dell got in store for the Design Summit and Conference next week?
Glad you asked.
- Conference Sponsor – Dell’s been an active part of every Design Summit to date, including sponsorship, gear donation, speaking sessions, etc. And this time around, we’re continuing that tradition as a a top level sponsor of the event.
- Keynote – We’ll have one of our fearless leaders get up on stage and talk about what we’re seeing in the community and the market place, some insight into how OpenStack has positively impacted how we all do cloud, and where we see OpenStack going next.
- Speaking Sessions – A few of the OpenStack veteran celebrities at Dell – Rob Hirschfeld, Greg Althaus, and others – will be speaking at various times throughout the conference, leading sessions, participating in panels, etc. (Please no autographs or flash photography.)
- Live Demos – The Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution is the only HW + SW + Services OpenStack solution on the market, and we’ll be showcasing it LIVE at the conference. And we’ve got a few surprises up our sleeves – Crowbar barclamps anyone??? 🙂
Get a backstage pass! We’ve been working on some new tech to better enable our customers with OpenStack, but some of it’s not quite ready for prime time demos yet.
HOWEVER….
If you’re interested in getting a sneak peek at some of the innovation while you’re at the Conference, email us ASAP at OpenStack@Dell.com – we’ll schedule some time for you to meet with our engineers while they’re out in Boston next week, and you’ll get a front row seat to some of the coolness we’re working on.
I plan on blogging a bit next week while I’m at the summit, so be sure to stay tuned for the latest and greatest from Boston.
See you in the Cradle of Liberty!
More info:
- The Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution website – www.Dell.com/OpenStack
- Our first customer reference – DreamHost! http://i.dell.com/sites/content/shared-content/solutions/en/Documents/dreamhost-openstack-cloud-case-study.pdf
- Download Crowbar – Dell’s software framework that enables you to install and manage OpenStack – www.github.com/DellCloudEdge
Until next time,
JOSEPH
@jbgeorge
The Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution: An Update!
.
Hello fellow cloud fans!
The Cloud is Here (Note: I took this pic outside one day - no doctoring at all! Two jet trails created an arrow pointing at a cloud!)
There’s been a lot going on with the OpenStack team at Dell – and its been wreaking havoc with my blogging time!
It’s been about six weeks since we announced our Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution, the market’s first OpenStack cloud solution featuring hardware, software and services.
And the movement has been fast and furious!
Here’s a quick update…
The Real Deal
This is the most exciting development from our team.
Real customers solving real problems with a real OpenStack solution from Dell… TODAY.
Many of you have reached out, learned about the power and agility of the Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution, and have stepped up to working with Dell to get OpenStack going in their environments. It’s awesome that we’re able to partner with a number of you out there on some of the coolest, new technology out there.
With our long history with OpenStack (since Day 1), our cloud optimized PowerEdge C server line, and the power of the Dell Crowbar software enabling customers to get a multi-node OpenStack cloud on bare metal in less than two hours, this solution is just making a lot of sense for many of our customers.
In fact, looking for some “rubber meets the road” info?
Look no further than Dell OpenStack customer, DreamHost – they’re a great example of how partnering with Dell can get you REAL progress on OpenStack.
DreamHost working with Dell on OpenStack!
Check out the FULL CASE STUDY here – http://i.dell.com/sites/content/shared-content/solutions/en/Documents/dreamhost-openstack-cloud-case-study.pdf
Crowbar
Crowbar has really taken off since we announced it with the release of the Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution.
In case you don’t know what Crowbar is, it’s a Dell- developed software framework designed to enable customers to deploy OpenStack quickly, as well as be a continuous integration engine for your sustaining OpenStack cloud. It’s based on Opscode’s Chef tool, and is available as open source code for anyone to download (link to site at end of blog).
- I mentioned DreamHost as a Dell OpenStack customer – they are actually using Crowbar as a means to deploy their Ceph storage technology. They have taken Crowbar and developed their own “barclamp” to deploy their technology. (A barclamp is a Crowbar module that performs a function like BIOS update, network discovery, etc.)
- The Cloud Foundry team at VMware has done the same – taken the Crowbar software framework and written barclamps that will deploy the open source PaaS.
- Check out Rob Hirschfeld’s Blog to learn more about some of the tech details on what’s happening with Crowbar. Link at the end of this blog.
And a whole lot more – Diablo, the Essex Summit, OpenStack training at Dell
Our team’s are also feverishly working on Diablo support for our OpenStack offering. (FYI – the Diablo release of OpenStack is slated to go public next week on Sep 22.) We’ll actually be cooperating with a number of partners over the next week on enabling Diablo – keep an eye out – you may see some tech blogging going on about this soon.
And then there’s the upcoming OpenStack Conference and Design Summit, to be held in Boston the week of Oct 3. Dell has been a major part of EVERY OpenStack design summit, and this one is no different, as Dell is a conference sponsor of the event. All the usual Dell OpenStack celebrities will be there – along with a few new ones – participating in a variety of capacities at the event, so buckle up for some real insight based on real world OpenStack feedback.
Finally, if you haven’t heard, the OpenStack community announced a number of trainings to get users up to speed on the cloud technology. There are a number of trainings planned, including sessions in Boston, London, and Dell headquarters in Austin. If you’re interested in learning more about the training happening at Dell in Austin, check it out here http://www.cvent.com/events/rackspace-training-for-openstack-austin/event-summary-77838e10ba284088b4628026f2cd9158.aspx
More info
Being the marketing director, I want to be sure you have access to a number of the wicked cool stuff out there on our OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solutiona, Crowbar, and more.
- WHIR Webinar – Rob Hirchfeld (@zehicle) and I were on a recent Web Hoster Industry Review (WHIR) webinar, where we spent an hour going over our OpenStack solution, a lot of the technical details around Crowbar, and even took some questions from the audience. (This is where I invented the word “dynormous”.) Replay here: http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-webinar/082211_Prying_Open_the_Cloud_with_Dell_Crowbar_and_OpenStack
- CloudCast Podcast – Rob, AD (@ADatDell), and I were also featured on a recent podcast with the CloudCast team – this was a fun one – check it out here: http://www.thecloudcast.net/2011/08/episode-16-dell-dude-youre-getting-big.html
- Crowbar VIDEOs – Rob posted two great videos on Crowbar in action!
- More info on the Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution – www.Dell.com/OpenStack
- Get open source Crowbar – www.github.com/DellCloudEdge
- The FULL Case Study on web hoster DreamHost using Dell, Crowbar, and OpenStack – http://i.dell.com/sites/content/shared-content/solutions/en/Documents/dreamhost-openstack-cloud-case-study.pdf
- OpenStack Conference – Details on the upcoming OpenStack Design Summit and Conference where Dell is a conference level sponsor – http://www.openstack.org/community/events/openstack-conference-fall-2011/
- Details on the upcoming OpenStack training at Dell. http://www.cvent.com/events/rackspace-training-for-openstack-austin/event-summary-77838e10ba284088b4628026f2cd9158.aspx
- Blogs – http://www.robhirschfeld.com/, http://www.bartongeorge.net/
- Join the team! Like what you see here? Got some OpenStack technical, product management, or strategy chops? Come join our team! Check out a couple of the spots we’re hiring for – Product Management https://dell.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=792928 and Strategy http://jobs.dell.com/austin/marketing/senior-strategy-and-planning-manager-%E2%80%93-cloud-and-data-solutions-jobs.
Whew! Told ya it would be a lot…
OK, that should get you up to speed.
As always, feel free to contact us at OpenStack@Dell.com or leave a comment.
On my next blog, I’ll get you an update on where we are with our new Apache Hadoop solution!
Until next time,
JBG
@jbgeorge
The JBGeorge Tech Blog 