The JBGeorge Tech Blog

Last July, when the world learned about OpenStack for the first time, it was clear that it needed a group of partners to share the vision for OpenStack’s potential – open, standards based, and a platform for cloud innovation.

And there were partners those who stepped up.

Dell (my employer), Citrix, and others joined Rackspace and NASA, and committed to what they foresaw as a force in cloud.  This was a critical juncture in OpenStack’s evolution – industry heavyweights had to be visionary at this stage, while OpenStack was still developing as a technology and as an initiative.

(I’m proud to say that Dell was the only hardware solutions vendor who committed to the OpenStack initiative right from the beginning.)

Fast forward to almost a year later, and OpenStack’s pioneer partners are once again stepping up to help drive OpenStack as a technology platform and further the OpenStack community.

Today, Citrix is announcing Project Olympus, a new cloud infrastructure product based on OpenStack, which will include a certified version of OpenStack as well as a cloud optimized version of XenServer.

And to help drive this, Citrix is announcing the launch of an Early Access Program, with support from Dell and Rackspace and a host of other partners in the OpenStack community, allowing customers to get – you guessed it – early access to Olympus.

(Read the entire announcement here – http://www.citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=2311980)

At Dell, “Open, Capable, Affordable” is our mantra, and we view certified distributions of open source code as an important part of adoption. It provides customers with peace of mind knowing that a company like Citrix is behind them as they themselves step up to OpenStack. And Citrix is a company we all know and respect, and one that many of us regularly depend on as a software provider – Xen, XenServer, XenDesktop, NetScaler, and on and on.

With this announcement, it’s important that we not gloss over what we’re seeing happening here in the OpenStack community.

It’s not that these key vendors are just supporting the OpenStack movement…

They’re participating in it.

And, yes – it’s a big deal.

This isn’t an announcement of some new consortium based on OpenStack – this is an announcement about key technology leaders doing what they do best to advance an initiative we believe in.  All of the companies mentioned have teams dedicated to developing OpenStack, contributing in technical conversations, learning about how customers can benefit from it, and driving the business of the open source cloud platform.

• Citrix is focusing its strengths and core competencies to help enable customers in the software stack via this new distribution and cloud optimized XenServer.
     
• Rackspace has launched an entire business unit to OpenStack installation, training, and support by way of Rackspace Cloud Builders.
     
• Dell’s OpenStack team (of which I’m a part) has been leading the way in bare metal deployment of multi-node OpenStack clouds with Crowbar, and an operational model to base full OpenStack solutions on. (You may have seen our live demos at Cloud Connect, SXSW, and the OpenStack Design Summit.)
      

And that’s the difference. No one is watching from the bench – these guys have been in since the beginning and are living it daily. 

We, as the Openstack community, believe we need an open alternative, believe in OpenStack, and believe it is going to change how we develop, build, and run the cloud. And each of us brings our core competencies to the table to help mature the technology, enabling this community to grow and thrive.

And this is a great time for YOU to get involved in OpenStack as well.  Check it out at www.openstack.org and get involved.

If you’re learning more about Project Olympus, check out the Olympus webpage at http://www.citrix.com/olympus.

If you’re interested in learning more about Dell and OpenStack visit www.Dell.com/OpenStack or email us at OpenStack@Dell.com.

Kudos to Citrix on Project Olympus, as well as to all of us in the OpenStack community, as we continue to drive this initiative forward.

I’m actually here in San Francisco at the Citrix Synergy conference this week, and I hope to be blogging on the happenings going on. If you’re here as well, I’d be interesting in hearing your thoughts on OpenStack, the announcement, and how you can participate as well.  Contact me via Twitter and let’s chat.  I’m @jbgeorge – try not to be distracted by the incredibly handsome profile picture.   🙂

Until next time,

JOSEPH
@jbgeorge

Learn more:

• Today’s Citrix announcement
• The Citrix Olympus website
• Barton George – Dell’s Cloud Evangelist on today’s news
• Rob Hirschfeld – Dell Cloud Architect on today’s news
• The OpenStack website
• Dell’s OpenStack website (with link’s to Dell’s OpenStack whitepaper – “Bootstrapping OpenStack Clouds”)