Dell releases UEC-powered cloud servers
Dell has started offering servers with an integrated cloud-building package from Canonical.
The Dell PowerEdge C2100 and C6100 servers will ship with integrated Canonical Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC), allowing customers to build private clouds based on Ubuntu Linux with the Eucalyptus cloud package, Canonical said on Wednesday.
"We think that at the moment people who are likely to deploy a private cloud are likely to be scared of how to assemble various technologies," Nick Barcet, Ubuntu Server project manager at Canonical, told ZDNet UK on Friday. "Building a private cloud is complex in nature, you've got multiple layers of network to deal with and multiple machines. Generally, deployment is not that easy.
"This offer aims to simplify that, we want to provide the end user with a cloud in a box."
UEC uses the same management APIs as Amazon Web Services' (AWS) EC2 cloud, allowing workloads built on UEC to be shared into AWS if needed, Canonical said in a statement announcing the release.
Barcet said Canonical would consider shifting the cloud foundation from Eucalyptus to OpenStack, which is now in its second major release.
"There are talks [about OpenStack] but this all depends on what's going to happen on the progress made by it. Multiple scenarios can be seen at the moment. I don't know which one is going to happen," he said.
The servers are available to Dell customers in the US. There are no firm dates for UK availability, according to a Canonical spokeswoman.