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OpenStack’s Bexar Release!
On Thursday, OpenStack announced the second drop in the OpenStack code – the Bexar release!
(And it’s pronounced “bear”.)
(The other acceptable pronunciation is “bare.”)
For those of you keeping track, the first release was Austin, the second release was Bexar, and the next release is codenamed Cactus.
(Can you see the pattern?)
(That’s right, every code name has an “a” in it.)
…
Dell's Rob Hirschfeld discussing cloud bootstrapping to packed house...
To celebrate this release, OpenStack sponsored an event in Santa Clara that I was able to attend. Great lightning talks (5 min max) by a number of individuals in the community, including my pal Rob Hirschfeld, who spoke about bootstrapping the OpenStack cloud in a hyperscale environment. (Check out his blog at RobHirschfeld.com, and follow @zehicle on Twitter.)
So let’s get back to the release here – it includes things like
- IPv6 support (which is just in time, since we’ve now RUN OUT of IPv4 addresses!)
- Support for the Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor (already supported KVM and XenServer)
- A new image discovery service called Glance
- much more documentation
Check out this eWeek article where Barton George and I gave our thoughts on this release: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Cloud-Computing/OpenStack-Cloud-OS-Project-Rolls-Out-Bexar-Edition-New-Partners-234666/
Here’s a quote from yours truly:
It’s time to take the “learning to the next level” by putting Dell servers with OpenStack in customer environments to “see real-life use cases,” Joseph George, senior cloud-solutions strategist at Dell Data Center Solutions, told eWEEK.
And I mean it – let’s start piloting this stuff!
Who’s with me?
I’ll put my Dell hat on and say that Dell is actively seeking customers interested in doing a proof of concept of OpenStack (aka POC) – we’ve been testing it, and understand how to get you going quick so you can prove it out.
Am I proud to be working for the only systems solution vendor that has been publicly participating in the OpenStack initiative since the beginning of OpenStack?
Heck yeah.
In fact, Dell DCS has a great cloud solutions portfolio – drop me a line / comment if you’re ready to get a POC going – we’ll get it rolling.
OK, back to our regularly scheduled programming…
Oh, wait. I guess I’m done.
Don’t forget Sunday is Superbowl Sunday – between the commercials, and the actual game, there’s something for everyone. Here’s to a high scoring, low injury game!
And thus begins the season of prayer in hopes the NFL and the Players Association work out a collective bargaining agreement, so we can have a 2011 season.
Amen.
Until next time,
JOSEPH
@jbgeorge
www.jbgeorge.net
Cloud Driving Change
Those of you that follow me here at the JBGeorge Tech blog or on Twitter or in other ways (stop stalking me!) know that one of my passions is how technology can make a difference in the world. It can be through technology leaders advocating philanthropy, tech innovation leading to medical advances, or a local IT person donating their tech talent to improve school safety.
To that end, I was thrilled to be invited to a meeting that took place in San Francisco yesterday.
On Monday, I, along with a few other select individuals involved in the OpenStack open source cloud initiative, had the distinct privelege of meeting with Aneesh Chopra, CTO of the White House, to discuss cloud computing, open source, and how open source cloud (specifically OpenStack) can help America grow and thrive.
A number of key representatives from various OpenStack participants were present from Dell, Rackspace NASA, Citrix, AMD, and others to contribute to the discussion. There was a lot of great conversation, which included an overview by the OpenStack team from Rackspace, and a myriad of perspectives from the various attendees. Specific problems were discussed such as security, standards, and impact on other areas like healthcare. Much was discussed about OpenStack in particular, and how its evolution can help spur on the American economy.
What are your thoughts on how cloud can better society? How does it impact education, healthcare, or small business? How can it make us healthier, economically more stable, and overall better citizens? Let’s think beyond operating systems and PaaS / SaaS – what can cloud do to help drive positive change?
Regardless of where you fall politcally, it’s a great time to be in technology. The current administration views tech and cloud computing as a key driver to advancing America and rightly so.
And they’re looking to us to help figure out ways to do that.
That’s a real cool thing. Let’s pitch in.
I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts. Feel free to drop me a comment or reply on Twitter @jbgeorge.
Until next time,
JBGeorge
www.jbgeorge.net
@jbgeorge
OpenStack Design Summit – Day 1 Review
Wanted to provide some visibility to the great stuff happening at the OpenStack Design Summit at the Weston Center in San Antonio.
- Intention is to draft requirements and specs for the January release of OpenStack
- ~300 attendees total – 90 companies and 12 countries represented
- Companies in attenance include Dell, Citrix, RightScale, Cloudkick, Canonical, NASA, and many others
- Technical and business tracks running touching on topics like evolution of the datacenter, Bexar release plans, and many others
- Lots of Twitter action via #openstack
- Discussion of cloud deployments from the hardware perspective, the software perspective, the services perspective
- Lots of hallway conversations between companies – networking-a-rama!
- Great party at Rackspace HQ last night
- Pictures Day 1 at from the event at http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinhole/tags/openstack/ and http://www.openstack.org/blog/2010/11/openstack-design-summit-day-1-pictures/
Will try to provide an update tonight after today’s festivities as well.
Some personal thoughts that have been ruminating lately, and are becoming confirmed in my mind this week.
- No matter what side of the fence you’re on, cloud will need to eventually settle at a model that allows users to evaluate needs, business strategy, etc, then decide HOW MUCH to put in the hosted / public cloud, HOW MUCH to put in the private cloud (whether on premise or of premise), and then implement a BURSTING capability.
- Services are going to be a key part of broader migration to the cloud, especially at the enterprise level
- We, as a group, are doing better on this, but we’re not spending enough time understanding and designing the networks that will drive our clouds. More thought, discussion, and debate need to be done on this topic asap.
For the latest happenings at the Design Summit, search Twitter for #openstack (direct link = http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23openstack). You can also learn more about OpenStack at www.openstack.org.
Also, if you’re at the event, and interested in seeing the Dell PowerEdge C servers that are running at the event, and will power the InstallFest later this week, find me, tweet me, etc, and I’ll get you into the server room.
Until next time,
JBGeorge
www.jbgeorge.net / @jbgeorge
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